11 Poison Promise (12 page)

But Catalina had made her choice to testify, and there was nothing I could do to stop her, even if doing the right thing would probably end up getting her killed. I sighed again, a little louder and deeper this time, stuck my hands into my jeans pockets, and ambled down the street.

I’d only gone half a block when a pair of headlights popped on behind me.

I palmed a knife and whirled around, thinking that
maybe Benson had already heard something on the police scanner and had come back with his vamps to investigate.

But the lights weren’t from a car cruising down the street. They were on one already parked at the curb close to the garage entrance—a black Audi with tinted windows.

The Audi’s engine churned steadily, sounding as smooth and silky as a cat’s satisfied purr. I squinted against the glare of the headlights, but I couldn’t make out who was sitting inside through the tinted windows. I doubted it was just a wayward commuter, though, hiding in his car until the scary woman with the knife decided to leave. Oh, no. If whoever was inside was an innocent bystander, he would be calling the cops and racing down the street as fast as he could, instead of sitting there playing a game of chicken with me. Maybe Benson had left some vamps behind to watch the garage for whatever reason. Either way, I wanted to know who was in that car and why.

So I sprinted toward the Audi, coming at the car from an angle, in case the driver decided to floor it, zoom up onto the sidewalk, and try to turn me into a bloody pancake against the side of the garage. I was a hundred feet away from the car and closing fast. Seventy-five . . . sixty . . . fifty . . . thirty . . .

The driver finally did floor it, and I tensed, ready to throw myself out of the way of the sleek hood and churning wheels. But I didn’t have to. The driver turned the wheel sharply to the left . . . and zoomed away from the curb and down the street.

I cursed, whipped around, and ran after the car, even though there was no way I could possibly catch up with
it. The Audi rounded the corner. A few seconds later, so did I, but the car was already two blocks away and picking up speed. I cursed even louder as I finally stopped. I hadn’t even gotten the license plate to give to Finn.

It wasn’t until the car had zipped around another corner, completely disappearing from sight, that I realized that the black Audi was an exact match to the vehicle the two mystery women had gotten into when they’d left the Pork Pit earlier this evening.

9

I frowned into the darkness, my mind racing through all the implications.

There was no way that the auburn-haired woman and her giant bodyguard could have followed me here from the Pork Pit. They’d left the restaurant before I did, and I’d cut through too many alleys for them to track me easily. But here they’d been all the same. Why had they been parked outside the garage? How long had they been there? And what had they been waiting for?

If they’d wanted to assassinate me, then one of the women should have rolled down her window, stuck a gun through the opening, and sprayed the sidewalk with bullets—at the very
least
. Tossed some grenades at me, run me over, pinned me against the garage wall and put a clip full of bullets in my chest. Oh, yes. They could have done any one of those things.

In addition to looking out for would-be assailants, I
also spent a fair amount of time imagining exactly how they might murder me. I supposed that it was my professional mind at work, so to speak, since I’d dispatched so many folks myself in such varying ways. I’d pictured all those scenarios before, along with dozens more. But instead of attacking me, the people in the car had just driven off, and I didn’t think it was because I’d spooked them with my killer smile and my gleaming knife.

More theories swirled through my mind, each one darker and more violent than the last, but none of them answered my questions. I had a sinking feeling that there were some new players in Ashland—ones who seemed to know a lot more about me than I did about them.

But there was nothing I could do to confirm my suspicions about the women who may or may not have been in the Audi. Besides, Bria was right. The cops would be here any minute, and it would be better if I was gone.

So I slid my knife back up my sleeve, stepped into the shadows, and disappeared into the darkness.

•  •  •

Still keeping an eye out for the mystery car, I headed back to the Pork Pit. I took a few minutes to check the restaurant, but the lights were off, the doors were locked, and no one was hanging out in the alley, waiting to murder me. Everything was quiet, so I walked three blocks east to the side street where I’d parked my own car.

After I’d checked my vehicle for bombs and rune traps, I got inside and circled the downtown loop a few times, looking for the black Audi, but I didn’t spot it. Whoever was inside had probably hightailed it up into Northtown
by now. Still, I had a feeling that I’d see the Audi—and the two women—again.

When I was certain that no one was following me, I left downtown behind and headed out into the suburbs that flanked Ashland. Twenty minutes later, I steered my car up a steep driveway, gravel spewing out in every direction, before the vehicle crested the top of the hill.

Fletcher’s house—my house now—came into view. Shadows cloaked the ramshackle structure, softening the harsh edges, odd angles, and obvious seams between the mismatched sections of white clapboard, brown brick, and gray stone.

Engine running, I sat in my car, scanning the entire area from the woods to the left, across the yard, and over to the steep, rocky ridge that dropped away from the front of the house. Just in case whoever had been in the Audi knew where I lived, in addition to where I worked.

But no one was hiding inside the tree line or crouched down beside the house, and the only movements were the breeze gusting through the trees and a few fireflies flitting across the yard, desperately flashing their fluorescent lights before the growing cold killed them. Satisfied that I was alone, I killed the engine, got out, and went inside.

If the outside of the house was a sprawling beast, then the inside was the creature’s clogged heart, only with rooms, hallways, and staircases that curled, snaked, and zigzagged every which way, instead of veins, valves, and arteries. I headed upstairs, took a shower, and threw on some pajamas before padding back downstairs to the kitchen.

I poured myself some milk to wash the bitter taste
of car exhaust and questions out of my mouth, then wrapped my hand around the glass and reached for my magic—my Ice magic this time. I was the rare elemental who was gifted in not one but two areas—Ice and Stone, in my case. A silver light flared to life in my hand, centered on my spider rune scar, and cold Ice crystals quickly spread over the entire glass, frosting it and further chilling the milk inside.

When that was done, I grabbed a piece of pumpkin cheesecake studded with chunks of golden apples out of the fridge, topped it with some fresh whipped cream, and sprinkled everything with a bit of cinnamon. I opened a kitchen drawer and started to reach for a fork, but the memory of the burning silverware at the Pork Pit made me hesitate. I didn’t even know the mystery woman’s name, but she was already getting inside my head.

I grumbled at myself for my own paranoid foolishness, then grabbed a fork, some napkins, my plate, and my milk and headed into the den to relax on the blue plaid sofa. I forced all thoughts of the mystery women, Benson, Bria, and Catalina out of my mind as I concentrated on my snack. The rich, thick pumpkin filling, the faint crunch of the apples, the warmth of the cinnamon, and the light, airy cream made for a delectable dessert—so delectable that I went back for another piece. I deserved it after everything that had happened tonight.

While I ate my second piece of cheesecake, I called Finn and told him what had gone down at the garage. Finn was, well,
Finn
, especially when I told him what I wanted him to do.

“Do you know how many Richie Rich types in Ashland
have black Audis?” he whined in my ear. “I have two myself. It’ll take
forever
to find the one you’re looking for.”

“Just track down the car. Please? It’s important. I know it is.”

“Fine, fine,” he grumbled. “I’m on it. Sophia sent me the pictures of the two women you saw at the Pork Pit too.”

“Yeah, she copied me on that.” I scrolled through the photos on my phone as I took another bite of cheesecake. “You ever seen them before?”

“Nope, but the brunette is something else. Yowza. Trust me. I
definitely
would have remembered her.”

Even though he couldn’t see me, I still rolled my eyes. “You mean you would have
definitely
remembered hitting on someone like her.”

Finn might be involved with Bria, but that didn’t keep him from being an incorrigible flirt. If someone was female, then Finn felt it was his duty to charm the socks off her, no matter her age, attractiveness, or availability. And he was amazingly good at it too. Finn could flirt his way into or out of almost any sticky situation, including those involving irate husbands and jealous boyfriends.

“I might not know who they are, but I can find out easily enough,” he murmured. “At least when it comes to the giant.”

“Really? How?”

“See that watch on her wrist? It’s an expensive bauble. Shouldn’t be too hard to track down who it belongs to, especially since there’s only one store in Ashland that sells that particular brand of bling—and the Posh manager happens to owe me a favor.”

I squinted at the screen, but it just looked like a watch to me. “Everyone in this town owes you some sort of favor.”

“It does help to be popular.” Finn’s voice was smug in my ear. “Although technically, I suppose that it’s
your
favor, since you were the one who actually saved her and her assistant from that dwarven robber.”

“Nice to know how you’re cashing in
my
favors.”

“Always,” he chirped, not the least bit ashamed.

We hung up, with Finn promising to roust some unsuspecting manager on my behalf. I dialed Owen next. He was understanding and sympathetic as always, the calm sounding board I needed him to be, especially when it came to the sudden tension between Bria and me.

“Siblings fight,” Owen said. “You know that. Eva and I have had some doozies over the years. We always manage to find a way to get past it. You and Bria will too.”

I sighed and snuggled down deeper into the couch cushions. “I do know that, all of that. But you should have seen Bria tonight. She was practically foaming at the mouth at the thought of using Catalina’s testimony against Benson. It reminded me of . . .”

“Yourself?”

Owen’s voice was gentle, but I still winced all the same.

“Yeah.”

“Bria’s a cop,” he said. “She’s just as tough and strong as you are, and when she has a job to do, she doesn’t let anything get in her way. The two of you are eerily similar that way. Must be a Snow family trait.”

His teasing tone brought a ghost of a smile to my face, but it fled all too quickly, and my gray gaze drifted up to
the fireplace mantel, where a series of framed drawings perched.

The runes of my family, dead and otherwise.

My mother Eira Snow’s snowflake, for icy calm. My older sister Annabella’s ivy vine, representing elegance. Their matching silverstone pendants draped over their respective drawings. The neon pig sign outside the Pork Pit that I’d drawn in honor of Fletcher. Owen’s hammer for strength, perseverance, and hard work. And finally, Bria’s primrose, symbolizing beauty.

“She’s always going to be my baby sister,” I replied, staring at the primrose drawing. “The one whose hair I used to brush while she drank invisible tea and chattered nonsense to her dolls.”

“I know,” Owen said. “But you can’t protect her forever, Gin. At some point, you have to let go.”

I didn’t
want
to let go. Because every time I did, I lost someone else I cared about. I’d watched my mom disappear in a ball of Mab’s elemental Fire. I’d let Annabella pound down the stairs at our house, and she’d been burned to ash by Mab too. I’d left Fletcher to go do a job as the Spider, which turned out to be a trap, and he’d been tortured to death in his own restaurant. So no, I wasn’t letting go. I wasn’t losing Bria too because I’d stood by and failed to act. Even if I was still angry and hurt by all of her harsh words and actions tonight.