Jo-Jo tilted her head. "I have some ideas. "
"Care to share?" I asked in a sarcastic tone.
The dwarf shook her head. "It's not my place. This is between you and Fletcher. "
"He's dead. "
"Doesn't mean he still can't speak to you," Jo-Jo said.
"All you have to do is be willing to listen. "
I opened my mouth to tell her to cut out the cryptic talk, that it was a little hard to have a conversation with someone who was buried six feet under. But Finn chose that moment to stroll into the salon. He jangled his car keys in his hand.
"You ready?" Finn asked.
I glanced at him. "Sophia cleaned the blood out of the back of the Aston already? How the hell did she do that?"
"Soap, water, and some dwarven elbow grease," Finn replied. "That woman's a genius. Smells and looks just like it did the day I got it. "
There were only so many things you could do with soap and water. I didn't think getting blood out of leather was one of them. I looked at Jo-Jo, who gave me a guileless grin I didn't buy for a minute. I loved the two dwarven sister, but the longer I was around Jo-Jo and Sophia Deveraux, the more I realized I didn't know anything about them. Not really. Not anything that seemed to matter, like the truth. Just as I hadn't seemed to know the real Fletcher Lane, either.
You ready?" Finn asked again.
I stared at Jo-Jo a moment longer, then turned to him.
"Yeah. Let's get out of here. "
Finn dropped me off at Fletcher's house, agreed to meet me at the Pork Pit tomorrow, then headed back to his apartment in the city. I checked the gravel in the driveway and the granite around the front door, using my Stone magic to listen for disturbances. But all the stones gave off their usual low, quiet vibrations. No visitors today.
But I always checked. Even in my retireme
nt, I couldn't afford to lower my guard, especially not now with this mess with Jake McAllister going on. Because Jake had been royally pissed when the cops had dragged him away the other night. I had no doubt he was thinking about what he could do to hurt me, to get me to drop the charges against him. After all, he'd been ready to fry me with his Fire elemental magic just for what was in the cash register. Torture and murder wasn't a big leap to make from there. Whether Jake actually made a run at me or not was still up in the air. But I'd be ready either way.
It wasn't that late, but it had been a hell of a day. So I took a shower, threw on a pair of pajamas, and went to bed. I fell asleep almost immediately, and sometime later, the dream began. . .
I stood in the Pork Pit, chopping onions to add to tomorrow's baked beans. Despite the harsh, stinging aroma, my eyes didn't water. I never cried. Not anymore. Not since my family had been murdered. But that didn't mean I couldn't worry. My eyes flicked up to the clock on the wall: 10:05. A minute later than the last time I'd looked. Fear tightened my stomach until it felt as hard as the brick of the restaurant around me.
"He's late," I said in a soft voice.
"Don't be a worrywart, Gin," a teenage voice sneered behind me. "He always comes back. "
I stopped my chopping and turned to look at Finnegan Lane. At fifteen, Finn was two years older than me, with a mop of dark brown hair and eyes that reminded me of wet grass. He was tall, with a solid chest that was already filling out. Nothing like my long, gangly, spider-thin arms and legs.
Finn perched on a stool in front of the cash register and sucked up the last dregs of the triple chocolate milkshake I'd made him. Finn didn't like me much, seeing me as competition for his widowed father's time, attention, and affection.
I'd hoped my small bribe would at least make him tolerable while we waited for Fletcher. It had worked. Finn had been too busy gulping down the rich, sweet concoction to mock me.
For a change.
It had been three months since Fletcher Lane had taken me in, and my life had become as normal as it was ever going to get. During the day, I attended school under the name Gin Blanco, catching up on what I'd missed while I'd been living on the streets and hiding from the Fire elemental who'd murdered my family. After school, I came straight to the Pork Pit to help Fletcher cook and clean and earn my keep. He might be putting a roof over my head, but I was determined to work for it as much as I could. Not a glamorous life by any means, and nothing like the soft, warm comfort I'd had before, but it had a thin illusion of safety. Something I appreciated now more than ever.
Only one thing bothered me - Fletcher's late-night jaunts. About once a month, he'd disappear. Sometimes for a few hours, other times for a few days. He never said where he went or what he did, and I didn't ask. But I knew blood when I saw it, and Fletcher was often covered with it. Fresh, sticky, wet blood. Spattered all over his clothes, as though he'd just killed someone. Something else I knew about, even at thirteen.
My eyes drifted back to the clock: 10:07. Fletcher had vanished as soon as I'd come in this afternoon, saying he'd be back by seven, more than three hours ago. He'd never been this late before. What would I do if he didn't come back?
Where would I go? Back on the streets most likely, begging for food, clothes, and shelter once more. My stomach twisted a little tighter -
The front door of the restaurant jerked open, making the bell chime. My heart lifted. A moment later, a pair of long arms tossed Fletcher Lane inside. He flew through the air, hit a table, flopped off it, and landed hard. Fletcher groaned and coughed. His blood flecked all over the clean floor I'd spent the afternoon mopping.