I returned to bed, although every faint creak of the mansion settling and every soft crack of an icicle plunging off the roof made me get up and peek out the windows again, wondering if more guys with guns were creeping around my backyard. But nothing happened, and I finally managed to get a few hours of fitful sleep. By the time I got up, took a shower, and dressed, it was almost ten o’clock in the morning.
I should have grabbed a blueberry granola bar and gone straight to work, but I kept wondering if the dead guy might have dropped something or left some other clue behind that I’d missed in the dark. So I donned a royal-blue fleece jacket, along with matching gloves, and a toboggan topped with a poofy, jaunty ball, grabbed an Ice gun, and tromped back out into the woods. I rounded the fallen log, my gaze zooming over to where I’d found the body—
The dead guy was gone.
I frowned, wondering if I was in the right spot, but bloodstains dotted the snow in front of the fallen log, looking like scarlet berries encased in the ice. The mystery man had definitely been here last night, and he had most definitely been dead, which meant one troubling thing.
Someone had moved him.
But who? And why? And when?
I scanned the ground, and I finally noticed something new: drag marks. Deep grooves cut through the snow and underlying leaves, as though someone had grabbed the dead guy by his arms and hauled him away. Curious, and more than a little wary, I followed the marks, which led even deeper into the woods.
The grooves churned through the snow and leaves for several hundred feet before the trees gave way to a grassy shoulder and then a two-lane road. The drag marks stopped at the edge of the pavement, indicating that someone had put the dead guy into a vehicle and driven away with him.
My questions remained the same: who, why, and when?
But standing by the side of the road wasn’t doing me any good, so I decided to go someplace where I might get some answers.
I returned to the mansion, grabbed my purse and gear for the day, and left. Thirty minutes later, I parked my car on one of the downtown side streets and walked around the block to my destination. An enormous sign of a pig holding a platter of food hovered over a brick storefront, inviting folks to come on inside and get something to eat. Even out here on the sidewalk, a mouthwatering mix of cumin, black pepper, and other spices seasoned the air, making my stomach rumble in anticipation.
I pulled the door open, and a silver bell merrily chimed out my arrival. Heat blasted over my body, but I welcomed the cozy warmth, given the chilly air outside. Blue and pink vinyl booths lined the storefront windows, while matching blue and pink pig tracks snaked across the floor. Tables and chairs squatted in the middle of the open space, and a long counter lined with stools ran along the back wall. Everything looked the same as always, and the familiar furnishings comforted me, especially given the dead guy’s disappearing act earlier this morning.
The Pork Pit was one of the most popular restaurants in Ashland, due to its great food, its reasonable prices, and the notoriety of its owner, Gin Blanco. Since Gin was on vacation, the crowd was quite a bit smaller than usual, and I didn’t see any underworld bosses chowing down on a barbecue pork sandwich or sipping a sweet iced tea at one of the booths or tables. Good. I didn’t want an audience for this visit.
I strode over to the counter and sat down on a stool next to a fifty-something man with gray hair and eyes and bronze skin. He was wearing a tailored gray suit with a matching shirt and striped tie, and his black wing tips gleamed as though he’d just polished them this morning. A mug of hot chocolate wisped up steam by his right elbow, and the rich, dark scent made my stomach rumble again.
“Hey, Lorelei.” Silvio Sanchez nodded at me, then went right back to looking at his tablet.
Silvio was Gin’s personal assistant, and I’d never seen him without some sort of electronic device in his hand. The vampire buried his nose in his phone and his tablet the way I did in a new auction catalog or a really good book.
A hand slapped a white paper napkin down onto the counter, and I glanced up to find a dwarf staring at me. She was a little over five feet tall, with a thick, muscled body. She looked to be around my age, early thirties, although I knew she was more than a hundred years old. Neon-blue streaks shimmered in her short black hair. The same neon-blue shadow and liner rimmed her black eyes, while dark blue gloss made her lips pop in her pale face. She was wearing a blue work apron patterned with tiny black skulls over a black T-shirt and matching jeans and boots.
“Hey, Lorelei. What can I get you?” Sophia Deveraux rasped in her low, cracked voice.
Sophia was the head cook and ran the Pork Pit whenever Gin was out doing dangerous, Spider-related things. Or on vacation, like she supposedly was right now. I had my doubts about that, though. Gin Blanco wasn’t the kind of person who could go somewhere and just relax. Not with everything she’d been through over the years. Then again, I had the same problem relaxing myself.
“I’ll take a blackberry lemonade for starters,” I replied. “And perhaps a side of information.”
Instead of laughing at my bad joke, Silvio swiveled around on his stool toward me, his gray eyes gleaming as brightly as the tablet still clutched in his hands. “Do you need something? Please, please tell me you need something. Hopefully to do with someone nefarious?”
“Why so eager to serve?” I asked.
He swept his hand out, gesturing at the mostly empty restaurant. “In case you missed it, things have been slow around here lately. And I’m not just talking about the lack of customers. Why, I don’t think a single bad guy has strolled through the front door so far this week. Not so much as the lowliest underworld minion.”
Sophia set my lemonade on the counter. I flashed her a grateful smile and took a sip. Crisp, tart, and refreshing, with just a hint of sweetness. Yum.
I took another sip of lemonade. “Things being slow is a problem?”
Silvio smoothed a hand down his tie. “Well, it’s not a problem, per se. It’s just a little…”
“Boring,” Sophia rasped. “We’re not used to people not threatening us. Silvio doesn’t know what to do with himself.”
The vampire sniffed and straightened up on his stool. “That’s not entirely true. I have gotten quite a bit of work done since Gin’s been gone. It’s just that…”
“You’ve already run out of legitimate things to do?” I asked, teasing him.
“Well, there are only so many times I can do inventory and rearrange the storage shelves in the back,” he lamented. “Especially since some people around here are so set in their ways.”
Sophia huffed and stabbed a finger at him. “Don’t you dare go back there and mess up my system again.”
Silvio’s lips puckered, but he didn’t argue with her. Smart man. Sophia was incredibly tough and strong, even for a dwarf, and she could probably snap the vampire into itty-bitty pieces with minimal effort. Sophia also happened to be an excellent body disposer, so if she ever did decide to take her inventory wrath out on Silvio, no one would ever find whatever was left of him.
Sophia looked at me again. “What can I get you?”
I ordered a barbecue chicken platter with baked beans, coleslaw, mac and cheese, and several of Sophia’s delicious homemade sourdough rolls. She fixed my food and slid it across the counter to me.
Chicken slathered with the Pork Pit’s secret barbecue sauce, baked beans swimming in the same brew, crunchy coleslaw with a tangy, vinegary bite, and ooey, gooey mac and cheese. I wolfed down every delectable bite, then used the soft, warm rolls to sop up the final bits of sauce and cheese on my plate. Mmm-mmm-mmm. As much as I enjoyed Underwood’s fancy cuisine, the Pork Pit’s down-home comfort food was a welcome treat, especially on such a chilly day.
I pushed my empty plates aside and got a refill on my blackberry lemonade. Sophia fixed Silvio another hot chocolate, and the three of us chatted back and forth, catching up on all our mutual friends, including Jo-Jo Deveraux, Sophia’s sister, and Liam Carter, Silvio’s significant other.
“Please tell Mallory that we’re looking forward to her party on Sunday night,” Silvio said after we had exhausted all the day’s news and gossip.
“Of course. She’ll be happy y’all are coming.”
Mallory had emailed me the guest list this morning, so I’d known that Silvio and Sophia were invited, along with the rest of our mutual friends. The only folks who weren’t coming to the party were Gin, Owen, Finn, and Bria. According to Silvio, they wouldn’t be back from their vacation for several more days.
“So,” Silvio said. “What kind of information do you need?”
Despite the fact that I’d come here in hopes that Silvio might help me, the vampire was on vacation too, and I didn’t want to ruin his downtime with a problem that had nothing to do with him or Gin.
“C’mon, Lorelei,” Silvio said in a wheedling tone, nudging me with his elbow. “Give me something to do, or I’ll have to rearrange the ketchup bottles for the third time this week.”
Sophia stabbed her finger at him again. “If you so much as touch another ketchup bottle, I will shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.”
Silvio blanched a little, but he respectfully tipped his head to her. “Point taken.”
Sophia turned back to the stoves to fix another order, but Silvio focused on me again.
“So, Lorelei, what do you need?”
I told him about hearing a noise, finding that pool of blood, and tracking the trail into the woods. I also pulled out my phone and showed Silvio the photos of the dead guy that I’d taken. My story ended with the body vanishing from the woods and someone seemingly driving away with it.
“Well, I don’t recognize him right off the bat, but it’s hard to keep track of all the criminals in Ashland,” Silvio said. “Text me the photos, and I’ll pass them along to my contacts. I’ll also send the photos to Xavier so he can run them through the police databases.”
I sent him the pictures, then slid my phone back into my pocket. “Thanks. Whatever you and Xavier can dig up on the mystery man will be helpful.”
Silvio gave me a speculative look. “Do you think this has anything to do with Clyde O’Neal wanting to get his hands on your shipping yard?”
I frowned. “How do you know about that?”
A sly smile spread across his face. “Well, it is my job to track rumors about all the shenanigans going on in the underworld. And Clyde hasn’t exactly been shy about his desire to get your shipping yard, one way or another.”
“No, he hasn’t,” I muttered. “Although I still don’t know why he wants it so badly. His own shipping yard is almost twice the size of mine.”
Silvio shrugged. “He probably wants it to expand his business. Word on the street is that Clyde has made some bad investments lately and is hurting for cash.”
I’d heard those rumors too, although I hadn’t paid much attention to them. Lately, my focus had been on Mallory and Mosley’s wedding, along with Gin’s recent heist at the Bellum Bank and then our final battle against Mason Mitchell.
But if you didn’t have enough money to pay your crew and bribe the cops, then even the most ruthless crime boss could quickly go belly up in Ashland. Clyde O’Neal was a pain to deal with when things were going well. A desperate Clyde would be a much bolder and far more dangerous enemy.
I started to take another sip of my blackberry lemonade, only to find that the glass was empty. I sighed and pushed it away. “Maybe I should have gone on vacation with Gin and the others. Because right now, I definitely need a break from blood and bodies.”
Silvio chuckled, and then his face turned serious again. “Maybe Clyde sent that guy to your house last night in hopes of intimidating you into selling the shipping yard.”
“Maybe,” I murmured. “Although Clyde usually prefers to make examples out of people himself.”
The crime boss had a not-so-secret habit of beating people to death with his combination of giant and dwarven strength, then dumping their bodies in the Aneirin River right outside his shipping yard.
“I don’t know if Clyde sent the mystery man to my house, but he’s going to have to do a whole lot better than some random tough guy with a gun if he wants to scare me. I’ve dealt with far worse than that.”
Silvio gave me a sympathetic look. “Of course you have.”
I ground my teeth to keep from snarling at him. Silvio was a dear friend, but I always hated it whenever anyone gave me that look. The one that said how sorry they were that my father and my brother had been such horrible monsters, how much they sympathized with me, and especially how much they bloody pitied me. Sometimes I thought that look was even worse than how I’d always had to tiptoe around my father and my brother, never knowing what small, innocent, random thing might set them off.
Okay, okay, so that look wasn’t that bad, but it still rubbed me the wrong way. I wasn’t a victim anymore, I was a survivor.
Then again, when one of my friends was Gin Blanco, it was hard for folks to remember that I was a badass in my own right. Just like Silvio, Sophia, and the rest of our friends were smart, tough, strong, and capable in their own ways. But the legend of the Spider tended to eclipse us all.
Silvio must have sensed my simmering ire, because he cleared his throat, focused on his tablet again, and started swiping through screens. “I’ll email these photos to Xavier right now. Maybe I can have some info to you in a couple of days.”
“Anything you and Xavier can dig up would be great,” I replied, forcing my voice to remain calm and even. “Maybe this guy was creeping around on Clyde’s orders, or maybe he was just looking for a mansion to rob. Either way, I’d like to know who he was and especially who might have moved his body.”
“I’m on it.” Silvio glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “By the way, how are your interviews going? Have you hired a new number two yet?”
The image of all those manila folders waiting on my desk flashed through my mind, and once again, I had to grind my teeth to keep from snarling. It took me a few seconds to unlock my jaw and answer Silvio.
“I have some more interviews set up with potential replacements today.” A thought occurred to me, and I leaned forward and gave the vampire my warmest, friendliest, and most enticing smile. “Although I will cancel them all immediately if you come work for me, Silvio. I’ll double your salary, give you a company car, anything you want.”
I wasn’t joking. I would double, triple, quadruple Silvio’s salary if I thought I could steal him away from Gin. He was an excellent assistant, and he would make my work life so much easier.
He laughed and shook his head. “As tempting as your offer is, I’m happy here.”
I let out a loud, overly dramatic sigh. “I know you are. Darn it.”
Silvio grinned back at me, then returned to his tablet.
By this point, it was almost one o’clock and way past time for me to go to work. I paid my bill and was waiting for Sophia to fix me a to-go lemonade when the bell over the front door chimed. I didn’t pay any attention to it, but Silvio glanced over his shoulder. His gray eyes narrowed, and his lips puckered, as though he had just bitten into something sour.
“Remember what I said about no bad guys coming into the restaurant while Gin’s been gone?” he muttered. “Well, I was wrong about that.”
Sophia turned away from the stoves to see who he was talking about. I also looked over at the door and froze, just like I had in Underwood’s last night.
Because for the second time in two days, Hugh Tucker had just strolled into the restaurant where I was eating.
Tucker stepped into the Pork Pit like he was just another hungry customer in search of a hearty barbecue lunch. He shrugged out of his long black overcoat and hung it on the rack by the front door. Mesmerized, I watched his smooth, fluid movements, along with how his dark gray suit hugged his body, hinting at the hard, lean muscles underneath. Tucker was far from the first man I’d seen in a suit, but somehow he transformed standard business attire into a work of art.
Tucker’s eyes met mine. The corner of his mouth quirked up, as though he realized I’d been checking him out. He prowled in this direction, and I resisted the urge to look away. The second you looked away was usually the moment when the predator in front of you chose to strike, and Hugh Tucker was most definitely a predator.
He stopped beside me and tipped his head to Silvio, then Sophia. “Well, I see most of the usual gang is here. Where’s Gin? Out killing someone on this cold day?”
Silvio spun around on his stool and crossed his arms over his chest. “You know as well as I do that she is currently on vacation.”
“Good for her,” Tucker murmured, then focused on me again. “Ms. Parker. May I have a word?”
“Certainly,” I drawled. “What word would you like? Arrogant? Inscrutable? Annoying jackass?”
He arched a black eyebrow. “That’s two words.”
“And yet they both fit you so perfectly.”
His eyebrow arched a little higher, but he gestured over at an empty booth. “Let me buy you a lemonade. Please.”
Silvio and Sophia both looked at me, questions in their eyes, but I shrugged at them. I didn’t know why Tucker was here or what he wanted, but I’d play along—for now.
Besides, we weren’t exactly enemies, and he wasn’t stupid enough to attack me in the restaurant. Not when Silvio looked like he wanted to bludgeon the vampire with his tablet, and Sophia was clutching a tomato knife with a serrated blade that was longer than her hand.
I stood up, and Tucker held his arm out to me in a clear challenge. I rolled my eyes, but I wasn’t one to back down, so I threaded my arm through his and let him escort me over to one of the booths by the windows. Tucker waited until I was settled in one side of the booth before sliding into the opposite half.
Sophia stalked over and slapped a menu down in front of Tucker, along with handing me a to-go cup of lemonade. Then she crossed her arms over her chest, making her biceps bulge, and glared down her nose at the vampire.
“I’ll have a barbecue chicken platter with all the fixings, along with an unsweetened iced tea with lemon,” Tucker said.
Sophia gave him another hot glare, then grabbed the menu and stalked back behind the counter to fix his food. Silvio returned to his tablet, although he kept sneaking glances at us, ready to leap to my aid should the need arise.
“Unsweetened tea?” I drawled. “That’s not very Southern of you, Mr. Tucker.”
Yes, it was a stupid thing to say, but those were the first words that popped into my mind, and I desperately needed to distract myself from the way Tucker’s shirt clung to his chest.
“Some of us are trying to watch our intake of sweets, Ms. Parker.”
“Well, I’ve never been one of those people. Sugar is the lifeblood of many a Southerner, myself included.”
Amusement danced in his eyes. “I know. I can literally smell the sugar in your lemonade.” His gaze dropped to my lips. “And on you too.”
Heat flooded my body, and I resisted the urge to shift in my seat.
“You always seem to have one sweet treat or another nearby,” Tucker continued. “Like that dessert you were eating last night at Underwood’s. Or the petit fours you were nibbling on when we met at the Eaton Estate.”
More heat flooded my body, and in an instant, my cheeks were burning even hotter than the restaurant’s stovetops. Several weeks ago, I had attended an auction at the Eaton Estate, along with Gin and some of our other friends. Gin had pointed out Tucker to me, and I’d been struck by how smooth, polished, and darkly handsome he was.
“Do you remember our conversation at the Eaton Estate?” Tucker asked. “Because I certainly do.”
A third wave of heat zipped through my body, but I shrugged, as though I was as cool and calm as he appeared to be. “We talked about some books we had both read. Nothing important.”
After Gin had pointed him out, I’d run into Tucker later that evening, in one of the Eaton mansion’s many libraries. I had found him perusing a shelf of fantasy books, and I’d been mesmerized by the way his fingers had skimmed over the leather covers, as though the books were beautiful treasures that he needed to handle with care.
I’d started to sneak away, but of course, Tucker had heard me with his sensitive vampire ears. Instead of hissing threats as expected, he had been a perfect gentleman, inquiring about what kinds of books I liked to read and which ones I might bid on during the auction. Our conversation had been strangely fascinating, especially since he seemed to enjoy so many of the same books and authors that I did.
Our next encounter hadn’t been nearly as pleasant.
Tucker had been waiting at the Mitchell family mansion when Emery Slater and her giants had kidnapped me, Gin, and Bria from the Posh boutique parking lot. Despite all the threats of violence on both sides, Tucker had once again been a perfect gentleman, offering me his arm and escorting me inside the mansion. He’d even shielded me from one of the giants who’d wanted to hit me. I didn’t need his protection, but part of me had appreciated it all the same.
Only a few people had ever stuck up for me, much less tried to protect me. Lily Rose, Mallory, Mosley, Gin. And then Tucker, even though he was working for Mason Mitchell at the time. The vampire had a strange sense of honor that I found oddly appealing.
Even when I’d scuffled with Tucker in the woods around the Circle family cemetery, I never thought he truly wanted to harm me, not even after I’d stabbed him in the thigh with an elemental Ice dagger so that Gin, Bria, and I could escape.
Tucker frowned at my quick dismissal of our previous conversation. I also thought a bit of hurt flickered across his face, but he was so hard to read that I couldn’t tell for certain.
“What do you want?” I asked, annoyed by both my attraction to him and the fact that he hadn’t told me why he was really here. “My lunch break is over, and I have a business to run.”
“Yes, your business. That’s what I want to speak to you about.” He reached into his jacket pocket, drew out a folded piece of paper, and slid it across the tabletop to me. “I have a proposition for you.”
His face was once again schooled into a calm, blank mask, and I couldn’t tell if there was any hidden meaning behind his cryptic words. So I grabbed the paper, opened it, and scanned the contents.
Surprise zipped through me, and I looked up at him. “This is an offer from Clyde O’Neal to buy my shipping yard.”
Tucker nodded. “Yes, it is. A very generous offer.”
“So that’s what you and Clyde were celebrating at Underwood’s last night. You’re working for him now.”
Tucker nodded again.
My eyes narrowed. “You could have your pick of any underworld boss in Ashland, or better yet, start your own crew. So why work for Clyde O’Neal? He’s a pompous, overbearing jackass who thinks he’s bigger, stronger, tougher, and smarter than he truly is. He’ll never listen to you, no matter how good your advice is.”
Tucker shrugged one shoulder, although I couldn’t tell if he was agreeing or disagreeing with me. “What’s that old saying? The price was right. Clyde offered me a substantial bonus for joining his organization, as long as I can meet certain performance requirements.”
“Like getting me to sell my shipping yard to him,” I said in a cold, flat voice.
“Something like that.”
Disbelief filled me. After Tucker had saved me from the falling rubble at the Mitchell mansion, I’d thought… Well, I wasn’t quite sure what I’d thought. At the bare minimum, that he was as interested in me as I was in him. Then, later on, when Gin had told me that he was staying in Ashland, I’d thought… Well, once again I wasn’t quite sure what I’d thought.
That Tucker would call me? That we might go on a date? That we might finally explore this strange attraction between us? I should have known better. Hugh Tucker was simply a duplicitous pile of danger wrapped up in an extremely handsome, appealing package. Nothing more, nothing less.
I was such an idiot.
Anger sizzled through me, scorching through my disbelief and embarrassment. I grabbed the paper with both hands and slowly, deliberately, ruthlessly balled it up, cramming it into as tight a knot as I could manage. Then I set the wad down on the tabletop and used my finger to flick it back over to him. The ball of paper hit Tucker’s chest and bounced off, making him flinch.
“You can tell Clyde exactly what I think of his offer,” I growled.
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Why? Because I won’t give in to an arrogant bully who’s suddenly decided that he wants my shipping yard for some obscure reason?” I snorted. “Please. Do you know how many underworld bosses have threatened me over the years? I’m still here, and most of them are not.”
Tucker shook his head. “Clyde is different.”
“Why? Because you’re working for him now?”
“Something like that.”
Even more anger sizzled in my chest, and I leaned forward and stared him down. “I don’t care if you’re working for Clyde. My answer is still the same: no. So eat your food, scurry back to your new boss, and tell him the bad news. You’re good at being an errand boy.”
Once again, I could have sworn that hurt flickered across Tucker’s face, but it was gone in an instant. Either way, the thought that I might have wounded him made something sick and oily squirm in my gut: shame.
I knew exactly what it was like to be cut down with cruel words when you hadn’t done anything wrong, and yet here I was, doing the same thing to Tucker that my father and brother had done to me. I was better than that. I was better than them.
I exhaled. “I’m sorry. Who you work for and how you go about it is your business, not mine.”
Tucker’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, but he tipped his head, acknowledging my point and my apology.
“Either way, my answer remains the same,” I continued in a calmer voice. “I’m not selling my shipping yard to Clyde O’Neal or anyone else.”
I slid out of the booth, got to my feet, and grabbed my lemonade. I started to leave, but the image of the dead guy in the woods popped into my mind, so I stopped and looked at Tucker again.
“And if something unfortunate were to happen to me, you can tell Clyde that he wouldn’t be able to get the shipping yard from Mallory either. We have multiple safeguards in place to prevent things like that from happening.”
Tucker tipped his head again. “Understood. I’ll convey your message.”
I nodded back at him, matching his politeness. “Good day, Mr. Tucker.”
“And to you as well, Ms. Parker,” he drawled right back at me.
I stared at him a heartbeat longer, then spun around on my heel and stalked away.