Donovan frowned. For a moment, a spark of concern shimmered in his golden eyes, but it was gone so quickly that I thought I'd only imagined it.
"You mean those four bodies found at the Blue Sands hotel? I got called out there bright and early this morning to work the case. Imagine my surprise when the coroner told me how they'd all been stabbed to death." The sarcasm in his voice was thicker than a steak. Now, the only thing I saw in his gaze was anger.
Finn held up his hand like a student patiently waiting for the teacher to call on him. Donovan looked at him, and my foster brother smiled.
"Let's go into the back of the restaurant," Finn suggested in a cheery voice. "Too many eyes and ears out here for this kind of discussion."
He was right. The brunch crowd had thinned out considerably, but more than a few folks stared in our direction, wondering who we were and why there was so much tension among the five of us.
"Fine," Donovan muttered. "Follow me."
We slid out of the booth. Brunch was my treat, so I left more than enough money on the table to cover our food and give the waitresses a generous tip. Then the four of us followed Donovan into the back of the restaurant. I didn't look at Owen as we wound our way through the tables, but I could feel my lover's eyes on me. He might have seemed nonchalant with Donovan, but I knew that Owen was pissed and probably a little hurt that I hadn't mentioned the detective to him last night when I'd called.
I sighed. I'd never claimed to be good at this relationship stuff, and once again, it seemed I'd made a mess of things without even trying.
The doors next to the bar led into the restaurant's kitchen. My eyes scanned the stainless-steel appliances, the pots of coffee brewing on their burners, the white order tickets tacked up over a series of stoves that lined the back wall. Even though it was a relatively small space, everything was neat and clean just like it was at the Pork Pit. I approved.
Callie stood in the middle of the kitchen, pouring thick, creamy batter into a series of waffle makers, calling out orders and instructions to the other cooks, and handing finished plates of food to the waitresses standing by. She had a smile on her face as she talked and laughed with her staff, and it was easy to tell that she was the heart and soul of the kitchen. That the food she served up at the Sea Breeze had a little bit of her love and joy in every single bite.
Callie looked over her shoulder at the sound of the doors swinging open, probably expecting another waitress to come hurrying through with a new order, and her eyes lit up when she realized that it was Donovan instead. She finished the latest waffle she was making, slid it on a plate, and passed it off to another chef to be topped with fresh peaches, honey, and whipped cream. Then she hurried over to Donovan, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed the detective's stubbled cheek. The food wasn't the only thing that Callie loved - she cared about Donovan too.
My heart twinged again, and a sort of wistful sadness filled me. I didn't want the detective for myself, but I didn't know that I wanted to see his obvious happiness either, especially when I'd been the cause of so much unhappiness in his life.
Donovan smiled down at his fiancee. Then his gaze cut to me, and his face iced over once again. He took a step back from Callie.
"Can you take a break and go into your office for a few minutes?" Donovan asked in a low voice. "Gin and her friends have some things that they'd like to talk to you about. Things that we all need to talk about."
Callie stared at me, then back at her fiance, clearly wondering what was going on between us. Damned if I knew.
"Sure. This way."
We left the kitchen and stepped through another door into a small office in the very back of the restaurant. A desk, a computer, a phone, a couple of printers, piles of paper and invoices everywhere. It was your typical small-business office with a typical jumbled mess. Callie took the seat behind the desk, Donovan perched on the edge of it, and the rest of us crowded inside the cramped space. Finn closed the door behind him so we wouldn't be overheard.
"What's going on?" Callie asked, looking at Bria. "You said earlier you wanted to talk."
Bria nodded and drew in a breath. "We need to discuss what we're going to do about Randall Dekes and the threats he's made against you."
Callie shook her head, causing her dark ponytail to swish against her shoulders. "I've told you before, Bria, that there's nothing for you to do. Dekes is my problem, not yours. Sooner or later, Donovan will find something to connect him to Stu's death, and the vampire will be put in jail where he belongs."
"Maybe, but it won't stick. Not for long. And he won't find it before Dekes kills you," I said in a soft voice. "The vamp's already made the decision to do that."
Callie flinched, like I'd hauled off and slapped her. After a moment, she forced out a weak laugh. "What? That's crazy."
She tried to make her voice sound strong, confident, sure, but I could hear the doubt in her tone. She'd heard the shocked, horrified whispers of how Dekes had gotten the other people on the island to sell out to him already, and she'd been threatened by his goons herself. Not to mention what the vamp and his men had done to the old man at the ice-cream shop a few days ago. Callie sat there, chewing on her lip and tapping her fingers on top of the papers scattered across her desk.
"How do you know that Dekes plans to murder me?" she finally asked.
"Because Gin's an assassin," Donovan said in a cold, flat voice. "She kills people."
My hands curled into fists at his sneering, superior tone, and for a moment, I thought about punching him in the face. I'd hoped to avoid telling Callie exactly who I was and what I did, if only for Bria's sake. Not many people could be friends with an assassin - or friends with the sister of one. I might be jealous of Callie, but I didn't want to come between the two women. I loved Bria too much to be that petty. But I should have known that Donovan would tell his fiancee all about me and what I did late at night - and pass the same old judgments on me here that he had back in Ashland.
Callie's face paled, and she looked at me with wide, fearful eyes. She might have guessed that I had something to do with the dead men in the pool, but it was another thing to have her worst suspicions confirmed.
She turned to Bria. "An assassin? Your sister's an assassin?" her voice dropped to a whisper.
My sister shifted on her feet, not quite meeting Callie's shocked stare. "Yes, Gin's an assassin."
"I go by the name the Spider," I said, trying to spare Bria from having to explain anything else about me and further alienate her friend. "Perhaps you've heard of me."
I'd meant the words as a joke, but Callie's face paled a little more, the golden glow completely washing out of her skin.
"The Spider? The assassin who killed that Fire elemental up in Ashland?" Callie looked at Donovan. "The assassin that you couldn't stop obsessing about a few weeks ago? The one that you tried so hard to find out if she was dead or alive?"
My breath caught in my throat, but I kept my features blank. Donovan had actually been concerned about me? Now? After all this time? I didn't know what to make of that - or that news of my taking down Mab had made its way this far south. That last point was particularly troublesome, to say the least.
Callie gazed at me, then at Donovan, who was doing his very best not to look at me. I could almost see the proverbial lightbulb snap on over her head.
"It's her, isn't it?" Callie said, a note of accusation and worry creeping into her voice. "Gin's the reason you left Ashland. The woman that you were . . . involved with. The one who made you doubt yourself and what you were doing by being a good cop in such a corrupt city."
I glanced at Donovan, who still wouldn't look at me. I hadn't thought that I'd made any kind of dent in his moral righteousness, but apparently I had, if the detective had brought his emotional baggage into his relationship with Callie.
"Awkward," Finn said in a singsong voice.
This time, Bria kicked him in the shin. Finn winced and bent down to rub his leg.
I cleared my throat. "Anyway, Donovan is right. I'm an assassin. I used to kill people for money - "
"A lot of money," Finn interrupted in a dreamy voice. "Stacks of it, actually. Do the job, get paid, walk away. Those were the good ole days, if you ask me. These freebie jobs have zero profit margin."
Bria drew her leg back for another kick, but Finn held up his hands and backed away from her as far as he could in the tiny office.
"Like I said, I used to kill people for money, but these days I run more of a pro bono business," I said. "I help folks with certain . . . problems that they and the law can't or don't know how to handle."
"Problems like Randall Dekes," Callie said.
"Problems exactly like Randall Dekes."
She stared at me, her gray-green eyes dark with suspicion, hurt, and a touch of fear. I wondered if the last emotion was because I was the Spider or the fact that she knew that I used to fuck her fiance. "And why in the world would you want to help me? I certainly can't pay you much. I can't pay you anything, really. The wedding - "
She stopped, realizing how ironic it was to mention her impending wedding to her fiance's ex-lover. But I'd give Callie her props because she sucked in another breath and finished her thought. "The wedding has taken up most of my savings, along with some repairs and renovations that I've recently made to the restaurant. So I ask again - why would you want to help me?"
"Because you're Bria's best friend. She loves you, and I'd do anything for my sister," I answered honestly. "And because you don't deserve what Dekes has in store for you. You just want to run your restaurant, cook your food, and see to your customers. Nothing else. You never wanted any trouble, but it has come looking for you these past few months. Believe me, I can relate to that - more than you know. That's why I'd help you. That's enough for me. Let it be enough for you too."
Callie shook her head. "But you're still talking about killing someone, just because I asked you to."
I grinned at her. "Sweetheart, you don't even have to ask. Not after last night."
"That's the second time someone's said something about last night," Donovan said. "What the hell happened? And how did it end with me fishing four bodies out of the pool at the Blue Sands?"
"Dekes sent some of his men to the hotel suite where Bria and I were staying," I said. "They were planning to rape and murder us. That's when I heard them talking about Callie as well - about how they were planning to do the same thing to her after they got done with me and Bria."
Finn pointedly cleared his throat.
"And they also busted up Finn's car along the way," I added.
"Bastards," my foster brother muttered. "You never, ever key an Aston Martin, much less crack the windshield or rip up the seats. They deserved to be gutted like fish for that alone."
Callie's eyes widened at the venom in his voice, and she stared at him like he'd just grown another head. Finn smiled at her, following it up with a sexy wink. Bria kicked him again just for that.
Donovan's eyes narrowed to slits. "I thought as much. I knew it was you as soon as I heard that they'd been stabbed to death."
I could have pointed out that Bria had actually killed Pete Procter with her Ice magic, but I knew it wouldn't make a difference to Donovan.
"Guilty as charged," I quipped. "Just like old times, right?"
Donovan gave me a disgusted look then - the same disappointed, disheartened, utterly disgusted look that he had dozens of times before. The look that said that he couldn't believe he hadn't shot me when he'd had the chance, the first night we'd met at the Ashland Opera House. The look that said he couldn't believe he'd ever let himself get close to me. The look that said I wasn't worth one single shred of his time, attention, consideration, or sympathy.
My heart twinged again, but this time it was more from anger than some deep, dark, hidden longing.
"Look," I snapped. "I didn't come down here looking for trouble, but whether you like it or not, Bria and I are in this thing with Callie now. We've embarrassed the vampire twice and killed four of his men. From what little I know about him, Dekes doesn't seem like the kind of guy to let things like that slide. He can't - not and be the badass everyone claims he is. And he still needs the land that the Sea Breeze sits on to build his casino. He's not just going to forget about that either, no matter how much you might want him to."
Donovan couldn't argue with my logic, but he couldn't bring himself to agree with me either. I knew that Donovan's morals meant more to him than I ever had, but I wondered how he felt now that Callie's life was the one in danger. Because Callie was everything I was not - good, sweet, innocent. Would Donovan bend his morals to let me save her? Or would he refuse, foolishly try to go after Dekes through legal methods, and get them both killed in the process?
"Why don't we let Callie decide?" I asked. "Since it's her life on the line."
We all looked at Callie. Some of the color had returned to her face, but confusion, surprise, and hurt still filled her eyes. She kept staring at Donovan like she'd never seen him before. I wondered if it was because she'd just found out that he'd slept with an assassin or because he hadn't told her who I really was last night. Looked like Donovan wasn't any better at this relationship stuff than I was.
"I'm not sure," Callie finally said in a hesitant tone. "I know that Dekes is a horrible person, that he's hurt people, that he killed Stu Alexander or had it done, but we're sitting here talking about murdering him. As much as I love the Sea Breeze, it's not worth his life."
