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"Something wrong?" Bria asked.
I smiled at her. "Nothing serious. A friend of mine runs a beauty salon. Seems like one of her clients didn't like the curl in her hair today. "
Bria didn't look like she believed me for a second, but there wasn't much she could do about it. She'd already called me a liar to my face and threatened to take me to the police station. I hadn't blinked at either one of those threats, and she was smart enough to realize that it would take a lot to rattle me. So she drew a card out from her coat pocket and put it on the counter between us. I didn't pick it up. I didn't want to risk brushing my fingers against hers and feeling her Ice magic again. I didn't need the distraction of that and all the emotions that came with it right now.
"Another one of my cards," Bria said. "Please call me if you hear anything about Ms. Phillips. I'd consider it a personal favor. "
"Of course," I lied. "You have a good evening, detective. "
"You too, Ms. Blanco. "
I thought Bria would turn around and leave, but instead, she just kept staring at me with her cold, icy eyes.
"Is there something else, detective?" I finally asked.
"It's funny," she murmured. "But ever since I came here a few days ago, I've had the strangest feeling of deja vu about you. Almost like I. . . know you from somewhere. "
Years of training kept any emotion from showing on my face. The first time Bria had come to the Pork Pit, when our fingers had touched and I'd felt her magic, I'd wondered if she'd sensed anything about me. If she'd felt my Ice power that was so similar to hers. Whether she had or not, something about me had tickled her memory.
Bria and I had been exceptionally close when we were kids, but I wasn't particularly worried about her recognizing me as her big sister Genevieve Snow. With my dark, chocolate brown hair and gray eyes, I looked like our father, Tristan. He'd died when Bria was a baby, and she'd never known him. Bria was the one who'd looked the most like our mother, Eira. And I'd changed a lot from when I was thirteen. I'd lost all the baby fat that had softened my features. The planes of my face were much sharper, harder, and more angular than they'd been when I was a kid. Then again, so were Bria's.
But more than that was the fact that Bria had already looked into my background, already dug into my rock-solid cover identity as Gin Blanco. There was just no reason for her to think that I was her long-lost sister Genevieve. Especially since I hadn't acted anything like she probably thought Genevieve would. I hadn't exactly been welcoming toward Bria, even though I longed to just wrap my arms around her and hug her tight, just to make sure she was real. But too many things, too many secrets, lay between us right now for all that.
Bria shrugged. "I suppose it's nothing. Just like the help that you've given me today, Ms. Blanco. "
My sister stared at me a second longer, then turned and walked out of the Pork Pit.
The first thing I did was go over to the front door, lock it, and turn the sign over to Closed. I stared out the storefront windows, but Bria had already disappeared from sight. Good. I didn't need her hanging around distracting me from what needed to be done. A long, bloody night lay ahead, and I needed to focus, needed to forget about everyone and everything that I cared about, and morph into the Spider once more, so I could get through what lay ahead. So I could get Roslyn Phillips through it- before she got dead.
So I pushed all thought of Bria away and turned to face Sophia. The Goth dwarf stood behind the counter, a dish towel draped over her shoulder, just watching me with her flat, black eyes.
"That was Jo-Jo on the phone," I said.
"Problem?" Sophia rasped.
"Roslyn left the house and went to meet Elliot Slater. He threatened to start killing the people she was close to. Slater has her now, and I have to figure out where he took her-before he kills her. " I looked at the Goth dwarf. "I need you to go babysit Xavier for me. If he finds out Roslyn went to Slater, he'll go crazy and start looking for her himself. And I can't have that. "
Sophia nodded. She knew that Xavier would only get in my way-and probably get Roslyn killed in the process.
While the dwarf turned off the french fryer and shut everything else down for the night, I called Finn and told him the situation.
"Fuck," he said.
"Fuck, indeed. " Then, I asked Finn the most important question-of Roslyn Phillips's life. "Where would Elliot Slater take Roslyn for one last hurrah before he kills her?"
"You don't think she's dead already?" he asked. "He's had her at least an hour by now. "
I thought of the hot rage that I'd seen flashing in Slater's hazel eyes last night on the riverboat. Of the embarrassment that Roslyn had caused him with her screamed accusations. Of the way that the giant had started after her, only to be called back by Mab Monroe. Of all the incessant calls that he'd bombarded Roslyn with during the long night.
"No," I replied. "Slater will want to play with her first, punish her for what she did to him. At least for a couple of hours. That's what he did to all those other women in his file. Which means I still have time to get to Roslyn-if I can find her. So where do you think Slater would go? You're the one who compiled that file on him, who dug up all of Fletcher's old information on him. You would know better than me. "
Asking for direction, for guidance, for a target to strike out at. It was something that I would have asked of Fletcher Lane, if he'd still been alive. But the old man had taught Finn everything he knew about how to gather information on a member of the opposition, analyze it, and predict how he would react in a certain situation. In some ways, Finn was even better at it than Fletcher had been, because Finn innately understood things like greed and desire and avarice. He saw them every day at the bank where he worked, and again at night, while he hobnobbed with his rich, deadly clients.
Through the cell phone, a slow, slurping sound filled my ear. Finn, drinking yet another cup of coffee and thinking about my question. I could picture him leaning back in his expensive office chair, his green eyes bright with thought, the warm scent of his chicory coffee adding to his caffeine high. I let him think. Roslyn's life depended on his coming up with the right answer. After about a minute, the slurping stopped, and I knew that Finn had come to a conclusion.
"Elliot Slater has a mansion up in the mountains north of the city," Finn said. "He calls it Valhalla, if you can believe that. It's large, remote, secluded. Dad used to speculate that Valhalla was where Slater disposed of certain bodies for Mab Monroe. I bet he's gotten rid of some of his own victims up there as well. The Aneirin River cuts through the area. Lots of gorges, lots of hollows, lots of places to dump a body where it'll never be found. If Slater wanted to spend one more night with Roslyn before he killed her, that's where he'd take her. I'd bet my life on it. "
"You're not betting your life," I replied. "Just Roslyn's. "
