Eva looked at me, but I still didn't answer her.
"Fine," she snapped. "If you won't help me, then I'll do it myself - I'll kill Salina myself."
"And how will you do that?"
A stubborn look filled her face, and her hands clenched into fists. "I don't know, but I'll find a way. Just like you always do. I'll buy a gun or something. Shouldn't be too hard to find one over in Southtown. I'll just walk over there after classes one day."
It was bad enough Eva wanted to hire me to off Salina. Her planning a trek into Southtown and trying to take out the water elemental herself would be disastrous all the way around. Eva would be dead on those mean streets long before she ever had a chance to get close to Salina. Owen would never forgive me if I let her do something so dangerous - and I wouldn't be able to forgive myself either.
Between a rock and a hard place. A spot I always seemed to find myself in.
I sighed. "All right, all right. You win. Leave Salina to me."
"So you'll kill her then?"
"I don't know," I said. "It depends on what she's really doing in Ashland besides murdering people with her water magic. But I promise you this: if she lifts so much as a finger in your or Owen's direction, I will take her out."
"No matter what Owen thinks?"
I paused. Once again, I wondered if she realized what she was asking of me, the position she was putting me in - and if I'd be able to go through with it in the end.
"Gin?"
But try as I might, I couldn't say no to the soft plea in her voice. I couldn't say no to the tremulous hope shining in her eyes. I couldn't say no to the chance to quiet her nightmares.
"No matter what Owen thinks," I agreed in a grim tone.
"And Philly?" Eva pressed her advantage. "Will you protect him from Salina too?"
"Phillip Kincaid is more than capable of protecting himself," I said. "Or at least putting enough of his giants in between him and Salina to make things interesting."
"Please, Gin," she said, a pleading note creeping into her voice. "I care about Philly too. He's my friend."
I thought he was a little more than a friend, given the adoring way Eva had been looking at him earlier on the Delta Queen, but I didn't mention that. I couldn't do anything about Eva's crush on Kincaid. No matter what I thought of the casino boss, he had tried to protect her tonight, by hiring me to cater the fund-raiser. In his own way, Kincaid cared about Eva just as much as she did about him. It was a big point in his favor.
"We don't have a deal if Philly isn't a part of it," she said.
Despite the situation, I smiled. When she put her mind to it, Eva Grayson was just as tough a negotiator as her big brother was.
"I'll do what I can for Kincaid, providing he decides to play nice with me, but you and Owen come first, agreed?"
"Agreed," Eva said, somewhat mollified. "Thank you, Gin."
"Now go back to bed," I said, sidestepping her thanks. "Try to get some sleep."
Eva nodded, slipped out of my bedroom, and closed the door behind her. Through the walls, I heard the floor creak and the bed frame squeak as she walked down the hall and crawled back under the covers in the bed in the guest room.
I let out a breath and lay down. As much as I would have liked to, I couldn't fall asleep. Too much had happened, and I'd learned too many things for my thoughts to quiet down. So instead, I stared at the ceiling, wondering just how much the devil's bargain I'd made with Eva was going to cost me in the end.
Chapter 17
Breakfast the next morning was a tense, quiet affair.
I made chocolate chip pancakes, smoked maple bacon, cheesy scrambled eggs, whole wheat toast with homemade apple butter, and a sparkling grapefruit punch for Eva and Owen. We gathered around the wooden table in the nook that branched off the kitchen.
The three of us ate in silence, except for the rattle of our dishes and polite mutters to ask someone to please pass the bacon. For the most part, Eva ignored Owen's attempts to talk to her. I kept my thoughts to myself, not wanting to sink any deeper into the sibling quicksand. I was already up to my neck in it.
We finished breakfast and split up. Owen had to get to his office, Eva had to get to class, and I had to get to the Pork Pit.
"I'll come by for a late lunch today, and we can talk some more. Okay?" Owen asked as we stood on the front porch. The morning sunlight highlighted the faint bruise around his eye from his fight with Kincaid.
I nodded, not sure what to say to him, not sure what I could say without making things worse. We kissed goodbye; then he got into his car, with Eva already sulking in the passenger seat. She gave me a pointed look through the window, and I knew she was thinking about the promise I'd made to her last night. That look did not make me feel better about anything.
I waved at Owen as he put the car in gear and steered it down the driveway, but my hand dropped to my side the second the vehicle was out of sight, and I started brooding once more. I was just about to go back inside and finish getting ready for work when I heard a car churning through the gravel at the bottom of the ridge.
I paused, wondering if Owen had forgotten something and returned, but instead, a familiar sedan appeared at the top of the driveway. The car stopped, and Bria slid out of the driver's seat. She was wearing sensible black boots and a pair of dark jeans topped by a white, button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Her gun was clipped to her belt, along with her gold detective's badge. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and the silverstone primrose rune around her throat glinted in the sun as she walked across the yard.
"Hey, there, baby sister," I said, leaning against the porch railing. "What brings you up here so early?"
Bria smiled at my warm, easy greeting, but her blue eyes were serious. "I thought you'd want to know about the chat I had with Salina Dubois this morning."
I nodded. "Well, come on in then. No use delving into the unpleasant on an empty stomach."
I led Bria back into the kitchen and warmed a plate of food for her. In between bites, she told me how she and Xavier had spent the night tracking down Salina. It hadn't been hard, since Salina hadn't made any attempt to hide. Instead, the water elemental had been ensconced in bed at her family's mansion when Bria had come knocking on her door in the wee hours of the morning.
"You should have seen her, Gin," Bria said. "She floated down the stairs like she was Scarlet O'Hara on her way to a debutante dance - despite the fact she was wearing a blue silk negligee instead of a ball gown."
I thought of the way Salina had strolled into Underwood's and caught the attention of everyone there. "That sounds like her. What did she say?"
"Well, first of all, she just had to offer us some hot tea and coffee," Bria said. "She even woke up her personal chef and had the poor man fix us strawberry scones and cucumber sandwiches."
I raised an eyebrow.
"I'm not kidding you. Strawberry scones and cucumber sandwiches at three in the morning, as if we were having a nice little garden luncheon instead of talking about a murder." Bria snorted. "And when we did finally get around to discussing Antonio, she was nothing but sympathy and alibis."
"What alibis?"
Bria shrugged. "That she'd been home all evening, that her giant bodyguards would vouch for her, all the usual. She also went on and on about what a horrible thing it must have been, a man being murdered in such a brutal fashion. She shuddered and everything. It was all very ladylike."
"Sounds like you weren't impressed."
Bria shook her head. "On the contrary, I was extremely impressed by her. She was just as calm and cool as could be, no matter what I asked her. And believe me, I asked her everything, trying to rattle her. The only time she showed any emotion besides polite grace was when I mentioned that Kincaid wasn't dead. Even then, she wasn't scared of me and Xavier realizing she was behind the attack on him. More like pissed off - seriously pissed off. As if Kincaid surviving her attack was some sort of personal affront to her. But even that tiny bit of rage was there for just a split second before she smiled at us again and asked if we wanted another scone."
While Bria finished her breakfast, I showed her the file of information on Salina that Finn had given to me and the one I'd found on her father's murder in Fletcher's office. I washed the dishes while she read through the information, including the guest list of everyone who'd been there that night.
"Creepy how much all her dead husbands look like Owen," my sister said.
"You're telling me. And that's not even the worst of it."
I sat down at the table across from Bria, finally getting to the thing that was troubling me the most. I told my sister what both Owen and Eva had told me about their history with Kincaid and Salina, and how Eva had slipped into my bedroom and begged me to kill the water elemental for her.
Bria was quiet for a few minutes, thinking, before she raised her eyes to mine. "So what are you going to do?"
I shrugged. "I have no idea. By all accounts, Salina is a dangerous elemental who has no qualms about using her magic to hurt and kill people. Then again, so am I. But she's back in Ashland for a reason, at least according to Kincaid, and I'm going to find out what it is."
"And then . . ."
I shrugged again. "And then I still don't know."
Bria hesitated. "I know we don't always see eye to eye, especially when it comes to things like this and what to do about the bad guys, but if you need me for anything, you let me know. Even if it's just to talk. And if you feel like you have to take Salina out to protect Eva and Owen, then go ahead and do it, and I'll help you clean up the mess."
I reached over and squeezed her hand, grateful that she was willing to work with me on this. Not too long ago, I'd thought I was losing Bria for good because of my activities as the Spider, and it was nice that we seemed to be on the same wavelength - for once.
"I appreciate that. Really, I do, but I have to ask why you're being so accommodating on this. Usually you're the one who tells me to hold back and let the law take its course."
Bria stared at me, her face serious once more. "I've met a lot of bad guys over the years, seen a lot of bad things. Usually I can peg people pretty quickly. How dangerous they are, the things they're capable of, what they'll do if you back them into a corner. But Salina . . . she's different."
"Different how?"
"It's hard to explain," Bria said. "On the surface, she seems to be the very epitome of a sweet Southern belle with her tea and scones, even at three in the morning."
"And under the surface?"
Bria's eyes locked with mine. "Unless I'm mistaken, Salina Dubois is one of the most dangerous people I've met in a long, long time."
Bria promised to check in with me if she found out anything else. I did the same, and my sister got in her sedan and headed back to the police station, taking with her the guest list and Fletcher's folder of information to pass along to Finn, since the two of them were supposed to meet for lunch.
Thirty minutes later, I was in the storefront of the Pork Pit, doing my usual check of the restaurant. Tables, chairs, doors, windows. Thankfully, no one had broken in overnight, and nothing was out of place. I didn't need any more problems to deal with today than the ones I already had - especially since I couldn't stop thinking about Owen and Salina.
I loved Owen, but hearing him talk about Salina last night, hearing him tell me that he'd once been in love enough with her to actually want to marry and spend the rest of his life with her, well, it had jarred me a little more than I'd let on - and a whole hell of a lot more than I'd wanted it to.
I didn't begrudge Owen his past relationships, his past lovers, his past emotions, but I got the impression there was something different about Salina - something he couldn't admit to himself even now. I didn't think he had really let go. Salina had left town so abruptly, so mysteriously, that Owen hadn't gotten any more closure than I had when Donovan had hightailed it out of Ashland. Sometimes Owen and I were far too alike for the other's good.
But the hours ticked by, and customers came and went with no signs of trouble, and I was slowly able to lose myself in the rhythms of the restaurant, in the mixing, stirring, and baking that helped soothe me when I needed it the most. And I definitely needed some soothing today.
I might be a woman worried about her lover's ex, but most of all, I was still the Spider. So I did my due diligence and checked in with Finn. He'd gotten Fletcher's folder of information from Bria and was now hot on the trail of some rumor about the water elemental poaching giants from the other crime bosses to build up the ranks of her own fledgling criminal enterprise. He hadn't been able to verify anything yet, but if Salina was doing that, it confirmed my theory that she was back in town for more than just revenge on Kincaid. It would also indicate that she'd been planning her return to Ashland for a while now, that maybe she'd been back in town even before she'd killed Katarina Arkadi a few days ago. Whatever Salina was up to, Finn would figure out what it was, and then I could decide how to act on the information - and whether or not she needed to get dead.
Part of me wanted to just go ahead and kill her for the horrible way she'd tortured Eva all those years ago. She certainly deserved it; if it had been anyone else I would have already been happily plotting her demise. But two things were stopping me. One was how Owen's face had softened when he'd talked about her last night. The other was my own memory of her frantic screams as she'd watched her father being burned to death.
