22.

We all spent the night at Jo-Jo's house, and the next day, we put our plan into action. That is to say, everyone did what they would normally do in the morning.

Sophia got up early and drove to the Pork Pit to bake the bread for the day's sandwiches. Finn donned one of his many suits and went to work for the money men at his bank. Xavier headed home to rest so he'd be ready to open Northern Aggression later on tonight. Jo-Jo fired up her hair dryers, tanning booths, and curling irons for her salon clients. I planned to go to the Pork Pit and work a full shift as usual.

Before I drove home to shower and change, I looked in on Roslyn Phillips. The vamp sat cross-legged on the bed in one of Jo-Jo's guest bedrooms staring out the window at the skeletal branches of the trees that surrounded the antebellum house. Roslyn wore a pair of Sophia's black sweats, somehow making the fabric seem rich and expensive instead of the st.u.r.dy, sensible cotton that it was. She wore no makeup, her beautiful face smooth and dull, like a stone that had been worn down by the steady rush of water over time.

I sat down on the end of the bed. Roslyn didn't turn in my direction, but she knew I was there. If nothing else, she'd felt the mattress dip under my weight.

"Feeling better?" I asked in a soft voice.

She shrugged.

A soft thump-thump-thump sound caught my ear. Roslyn's cell phone lay on top of the nightstand next to the bed, moving ever so slightly.

"I got tired of the constant ringing, so I put it on vibrate," she said in a flat voice. "He must have called me a hundred times since last night. And no, I haven't answered it."

"You should turn it off."

She bit her lip. "I can't do that, Gin."

I knew she couldn't. Roslyn realized that Elliot Slater was out there searching for her, using all the resources he had to find her. As long as the phone kept ringing, she could tell herself that he hadn't found her yet. That she was safe for a little while longer. In a twisted way, that phone was Roslyn's lifeline-the only thing keeping her from going completely crazy.

I'd never been good at helping people, comforting them. That was more Jo-Jo's line of work. There was only one thing I could say to comfort Roslyn, only one promise I could make to her that would mean a f.u.c.king thing.

"Leave it on then," I said in a quiet tone. "Listen to it. Make sure your battery doesn't die."

After a moment, Roslyn turned to stare at me. "Why?"

I let her see the cold, violent resolve in my gray eyes. "Because when your phone quits ringing, you'll know the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's finally dead."

That afternoon, I sat on my stool behind the cash register at the Pork Pit and reviewed all the information that I had on Elliot Slater. Mostly, though, I thought about my previous encounters with the giant, visualizing the way he'd hit me that night at the community college, the way he threw his punches, how he placed his feet, how he distributed his weight. a.n.a.lyzing his style, his technique, looking for any weakness that I could exploit, looking for any way that I could kill him without letting him put his hands on me first. The giant had beaten me twice now. He wasn't going to do it again.

"Anything?" Sophia rasped.

I closed the folder and shook my head. "It says the same thing that it's always said-that Slater is one tough customer."

"Hmph." Sophia grunted and went back to wiping down the back counter.

It was after six. Darkness had already spread its black blanket over Ashland, and most folks were heading home from work, eager to get in from the cold. It had been slow all day, so I'd sent the waitresses home early with pay. My last customer had left ten minutes ago. Those who pa.s.sed by the storefront windows invariably had their heads down, chins tucked into the tops of their jackets, with no time or inclination to stop for hot barbecue tonight. Outside, the street lamps had already flickered on, illuminating the gray sidewalks and bits of snow that floated in the frosty air. Time to leave the restaurant and get on with my mission for the evening-killing Elliot Slater.

I turned to Sophia to tell her to close up shop when the front door opened, making the bell chime-and Detective Bria Coolidge stepped into the restaurant.

Bria shut the door behind her and headed in my direction. She looked beautiful as always. s.h.a.ggy blond hair, ice blue eyes, cheeks flushed from the cold air. Once again, she wore her long navy coat over jeans, a sweater, and black boots. Her primrose rune flashed like a ball of silver fire in the hollow of her throat. It matched the glint from the rings on her index finger.

"h.e.l.lo, detective," I said in a calm voice. "Good thing you got here when you did. Sophia and I were just about to close down for the evening."

Bria's gaze flicked to the Goth dwarf, who was still wiping down the long countertop. "Kind of early for that, don't you think?"

I held out my hands and gestured at the empty storefront. "Not tonight. The cold tends to make people want to head home to their loved ones instead of stopping off for something to eat."

"Point taken. But I'm not here for the food."

"More's the pity," I murmured. "The strawberry pie is excellent today."

Bria looked at the gla.s.s cake stand where I always put the dessert of the day. But even the lush strawberries glinting from their golden crust weren't enough to make her stray from her appointed mission.

"I want to talk to you about Roslyn Phillips," Bria said.

Not surprising, given the fact that Bria had been chasing after the vamp last night after Roslyn told everyone on the riverboat what Elliot Slater had been doing to her. I'd been half-expecting Bria to come barging into my gin joint all day, demanding to know where the vampire was. And she had finally shown up.

I had no doubt that Bria wanted to help Roslyn. Given what I'd seen so far, she would have done the same for any woman that she thought had been stalked and victimized the way Roslyn had. I admired her for that.

But the cold, cynical part of me wondered how much of Bria's determination to help was personal. Because Bria didn't have any witnesses to the fact that Slater had tried to kill her, and Sophia had made sure that no evidence of any kind had been left behind at the scene. If Bria wanted to lock up Slater-and she surely had to, given the fact that the giant had tried to kill her-then Roslyn was her best shot at making that happen. And somehow, I didn't think she was going to give up on the vamp without a fight.

"What about Roslyn?" I asked.

"Have you seen or talked to her today?" Bria asked.

"No."

An easy lie. And I didn't volunteer any more information or even ask why Bria was so interested in finding Roslyn in the first place. When dealing with the po-po, it was best to follow the example of Sophia Deveraux and speak only in short bursts-if at all.

Bria studied me, her blue eyes cold and icy. "I think you're lying. You and Roslyn looked particularly friendly when she was in here yesterday."

"That was yesterday," I replied. "Roslyn was here for the food. Nothing more, detective."

"That's funny because no one seems to know where Ms. Phillips is," Bria replied. "She's not at home, and no one's seen her at that nightclub she owns, Northern Aggression."

"Perhaps you should ask your partner if he's seen her," I said in a snippy tone. "Since Xavier actually works for Roslyn."

Normally, I wouldn't have sicced Bria on Xavier. But better for her to be at the nightclub questioning him than standing here accusing me. I had work to do tonight. And the sooner I killed Elliot Slater, the sooner Roslyn could sleep easier and return to her regularly scheduled life, instead of being holed up in Jo-Jo Deveraux's house.

"I've already been to the club," Bria replied. "And Xavier claims he hasn't seen her either."

I c.o.c.ked my head to one side. "You sound like you don't believe him."

Her face hardened. "What I do or don't believe is none of your business. Now, why don't you tell me where you were last night?"

"You think I did something to Roslyn Phillips?" I laughed. "Oh, please."

Bria's eyes iced over, even more. "You know, we could have this conversation down at the police station."

I crossed my arms over my chest. "Really? On what grounds? That I was at the same party as Roslyn last night? That she came into my restaurant and had a meal? I see you've already taken up the bad habits of the rest of the Ashland Police Department, detective."

"And what would those be?"

I stared at her. "Interrogating people for no reason."

Bria had the good grace to flinch at my insult.

As much as I would have loved to continue this verbal smackdown with my long-lost sister, I needed to get on with things. Finn was due to pick me up at seven so we could start tailing Elliot Slater and look for a place to kill the giant. Which meant that I needed to get rid of Bria. So I decided to give her what she wanted-some answers.

"Yes, Roslyn came in here yesterday, but only to get some food. Yes, I saw her last night on the riverboat, including that awful scene with Elliot Slater. No, I haven't seen the vamp since then, and I don't expect to," I said. "Whatever you think you saw here yesterday, Roslyn and I are not best friends, merely casual acquaintances. I go to her club on occasion, she gets barbecue here sometimes. That's the extent of our relationship, detective. As for where I was last night, I went home with Owen Grayson. We had a very stimulating evening in his office, if you absolutely have to know."

Bria studied me for several seconds. "You don't like me much, do you, Ms. Blanco?"

It wasn't that. It wasn't that at all. If anything, I was proud of how well Bria seemed to have turned out, despite everything that had happened to her. She just didn't realize that I had to keep her at arm's length. That my jumbled feelings for her were still too fresh and raw for me to do anything but antagonize her. That sarcasm was the gentlest and least deadly of my many defense mechanisms. That I had a cold, hard, b.l.o.o.d.y job to do tonight, something that she could never know about or be a part of.

I shrugged. "I don't know enough about you to like or dislike you, detective. What I hate is when someone comes into my gin joint and starts threatening me. I don't respond well to threats, from the police or anyone else."

She sighed. "I'm not threatening you. All I'm trying to do is help Ms. Phillips. You heard what she said about Elliot Slater, what she accused him of. I've spent the whole day trying to track her down. Surely you know about Slater's reputation, who he works for. I want to find Ms. Phillips before he does. That's all I want to do."

Bria had that same tired note in her voice that I'd always heard in Donovan Caine's. That same tone that told me how many brick walls and dead ends she'd run up against today-many of them in her own police department. Like she said, she was just trying to do the right thing, just trying to help a woman who so obviously needed it. Bria was trying to do things the legal way. In Ashland, all it would get her was dead. And I just couldn't allow that to happen. Not to my baby sister. Better I deal with Slater than Bria. Better for Roslyn, and better for Bria, whether she knew it or not.

"That's very n.o.ble of you," I said in a kinder voice. "It really is. But I can't help you. I don't know where Roslyn is, and I didn't know anything about her problems with Slater until I heard about them last night on the riverboat, like everyone else. Even if I had known before, there's nothing I could do to help her. Not against someone like Slater. You said it yourself. You know who he works for. But I truly am sorry for Roslyn, detective. I truly am. More than you will ever know."

Bria opened her mouth to say something, when a sharp ring cut her off. But it wasn't the telephone next to the register that had sounded. It was my disposable cell phone. Which could mean only one thing-trouble.

"Excuse me." I dug my cell phone out of my jeans pocket and answered it. "What?"

"Gin?" Jo-Jo's voice flooded the line. "We've got a problem."

The tight, worried note in the dwarf's tone told me exactly what she was going to say.

"Roslyn's gone," Jo-Jo said.

23.

Roslyn Phillips gone? f.u.c.k.

Bria saw my face tighten. Her blue eyes sharpened with interest.

"Gin?" Jo-Jo asked. "Are you still there?"

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said in a calm voice. "Tell me what happened."

"I was busy with clients most of the day. I checked in on her at lunchtime, and Roslyn was fine. Well, as fine as she could be, given the circ.u.mstances. Quiet, but fine," Jo-Jo said. "I went upstairs to ask her what she wanted me to make for supper, if she needed some blood, if she wanted to talk about anything, and she was gone. She must have slipped out while I was doing my last perm of the day."

"Do you have any idea why she decided that she didn't like her perm?" I asked.

Jo-Jo knew enough to realize that I didn't want to speak openly in front of whoever might be standing nearby. "She left her cell phone behind. There was a text message on the screen from Elliot Slater. He said for Roslyn to meet him on the street outside Underwood's restaurant in half an hour or he would start killing the people close to her-starting with Xavier. He also threatened to kill her sister and niece whenever they came back to Ashland."

So the giant had decided to play hardball. And instead of coming to me, instead of trusting me to handle things, Roslyn had gone straight to him. She might even be dead already.

"When did she leave?" I asked. "Right after you gave her the perm?"

"I finished up at six. I heard her moving around upstairs as late as five thirty. She can't have been gone more than thirty minutes, forty tops."

I glanced at the clock on the wall. Creeping up on six fifteen now. Which meant that Roslyn had been gone almost an hour. The restaurant was only about a twenty-minute cab ride from Jo-Jo's house, which meant Roslyn had to have reached Slater by now.

"I'm so sorry, Gin," Jo-Jo said, shame and worry in her voice. "I thought that she'd let you handle things. I had no idea that she'd take off."

I sighed. "It's not your fault that she didn't like her perm. Some people just don't know good work when they see it. We'll talk about it later. I have a customer waiting right now. But keep your door open, okay? I'll probably stop by later."

"Sure," Jo-Jo replied. "I'll have everything ready, including myself. Whatever you need, Gin."

What Jo-Jo really meant was that she'd be on standby, ready to heal Roslyn Phillips when I got the vamp away from Elliot Slater. If I got the vamp away from the giant before he killed her.

"Great. See you then."

I hung up and looked at Bria.

"Something wrong?" Bria asked.

I smiled at her. "Nothing serious. A friend of mine runs a beauty salon. Seems like one of her clients didn't like the curl in her hair today."

Bria didn't look like she believed me for a second, but there wasn't much she could do about it. She'd already called me a liar to my face and threatened to take me to the police station. I hadn't blinked at either one of those threats, and she was smart enough to realize that it would take a lot to rattle me. So she drew a card out from her coat pocket and put it on the counter between us. I didn't pick it up. I didn't want to risk brushing my fingers against hers and feeling her Ice magic again. I didn't need the distraction of that and all the emotions that came with it right now.

"Another one of my cards," Bria said. "Please call me if you hear anything about Ms. Phillips. I'd consider it a personal favor."

"Of course," I lied. "You have a good evening, detective."

"You too, Ms. Blanco."

I thought Bria would turn around and leave, but instead, she just kept staring at me with her cold, icy eyes.

"Is there something else, detective?" I finally asked.

"It's funny," she murmured. "But ever since I came here a few days ago, I've had the strangest feeling of deja vu about you. Almost like I... know you from somewhere."

Years of training kept any emotion from showing on my face. The first time Bria had come to the Pork Pit, when our fingers had touched and I'd felt her magic, I'd wondered if she'd sensed anything about me. If she'd felt my Ice power that was so similar to hers. Whether she had or not, something about me had tickled her memory.

Bria and I had been exceptionally close when we were kids, but I wasn't particularly worried about her recognizing me as her big sister Genevieve Snow. With my dark, chocolate brown hair and gray eyes, I looked like our father, Tristan. He'd died when Bria was a baby, and she'd never known him. Bria was the one who'd looked the most like our mother, Eira. And I'd changed a lot from when I was thirteen. I'd lost all the baby fat that had softened my features. The planes of my face were much sharper, harder, and more angular than they'd been when I was a kid. Then again, so were Bria's.

But more than that was the fact that Bria had already looked into my background, already dug into my rock-solid cover ident.i.ty as Gin Blanco. There was just no reason for her to think that I was her long-lost sister Genevieve. Especially since I hadn't acted anything like she probably thought Genevieve would. I hadn't exactly been welcoming toward Bria, even though I longed to just wrap my arms around her and hug her tight, just to make sure she was real. But too many things, too many secrets, lay between us right now for all that.

Bria shrugged. "I suppose it's nothing. Just like the help that you've given me today, Ms. Blanco."