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I held up my hand. Jo-Jo had painted my short nails a deep, dark red that was definitely my color. If nothing else, it would help hide the blood that was sure to get on my hands the next time some idiot tried to murder me.
"Well, I have to agree with Jo-Jo," a light, lilting voice chimed in. "I'd rather have your cooking than a manicure any day. This dark chocolate mousse pie is to die for, Gin. "
I looked to my right where my baby sister was eagerly digging her fork into a piece of said pie. Like me, Detective Bria coolidge had dressed down today, in a pale blue T-shirt, gray cargo shorts, and brown sandals, although she was still beautiful, with her blond hair, rosy skin, and cornflower blue eyes. But just because Bria was off the clock didn't mean that she wasn't armed. I knew that her gun and her gold detective's badge were stuffed into the oversize straw bag that she'd brought along, just like my knives were laid out on the buffet table within easy reach.
Bria took another big bite of the pie and made the same sigh of contentment that Rosco had a minute ago.
"What all did you make besides the pie?" she asked, her eyes going from one covered dish on the table to the next.
"Well, since it's girls only today, I decided to go all out," I replied. "There's the dark chocolate mousse pie you are currently enjoying, along with some chocolate truffles, double-chocolate-chip cookies, and dark-and milk-chocolate-dipped strawberries, kiwis, pineapples, and mangoes. "
Bria gave me a wry grin. "I'm sensing a chocolate theme. "
I returned her grin with one of my own. "You might say that. But there's some real food too, in case we get tired of dessert. Plus, Roslyn is bringing some fresh veggies from her garden. "
Jo-Jo glanced at the clock on the wall, which was shaped like a puffy cloud, her rune and the symbol for her Air magic. "Where is Roslyn?"
Roslyn Phillips, another one of our friends, was also supposed to come to the salon today, along with Sophia
Deveraux, Jo-Jo's younger sister.
Bria waved her fork in the air. "She called me this morning and said that she'd be a little late, that we should go ahead and start without her. "
"And you went for the food first. You're picking up some of Finn's bad habits," I teased. "How was your date with him the other night?"
Bria's fiery blush told me everything that I needed to know. "I plead the Fift
h," she murmured, and took another bite of pie.
"Well, when you're finished with that, come over here, darling, and tell me what color you want on your nails," Jo-Jo said.
My sister nodded, but her eyes were fixed on the glass cake stand that was filled with the chocolate-dipped fruit.
Bria turned her attention back to the buffet, while Jo-Jo put the cap on the polish she'd used on my nails. She had started to lean over and put the bottle back into a tub with the others when she paused and frowned. She stared at the bottles of nail polish, but her eyes were cloudy and unfocused, as though she wasn't really seeing what she was looking at.
"Jo-Jo?" I asked. "Is something wrong?"
The dwarf used her magic to heal wounds, but her power also gave her a bit of precognition, as it did with most Air elementals. While the stones whispered to me of all the things that people had done in a certain spot, the breeze whistled in Jo-Jo's ear about all the things that folks might do in the future.
Jo-Jo shook her head, making her soft, springy curls bounce around before they settled back into place. The cloudy, vacant look vanished from her eyes, although she put her hand up against her right temple and started massaging a small spot there, as if she suddenly had a head - ache.
"I can't put my finger on it exactly," she said. "I've just . . . I've had a bad feeling these past few days. Actually, it's been more than a few days. More like ever since that mess at Briartop a couple of weeks ago. "
I grimaced. Jo-Jo was being kind.
Mess didn't adequately describe what had happened at the Briartop art museum, when a ruthless giant named clementine Barker had decided to use her army of underlings to rob the exhibit of Mab Monroe's loot - and try to murder me to boot.
Of course, I'd killed good ole clem and her gangster family, but my victories had come at a price: Jillian Delancey, the innocent woman who'd died because she'd had the bad, stupid, fatal luck to be wearing the same dress that I was wearing that night, causing one of clementine's men to mistake her for me and shoot her.
Jo-Jo noticed me frowning, and she leaned over and patted my hand. "Don't worry, darling. It's probably nothing. Sometimes I take these spells where it seems like something bad is going to happen at any second. Most of the time, it turns out to be nothing more than a little bit of heartburn. " Despite her words, her clear eyes grew cloudy and troubled once again. "I'll just . . . I'll be glad when Sophia's here. "
Like Roslyn, Sophia was running a little late that morning, since she'd wanted to get rid of the two dead giants in the cooler. I'd given all the restaurant staff the day off with pay, so both Sophia and I could enjoy our time at the salon, and I'd told Sophia that the giants' bodies could wait another day, or at least until after our salon time, but she had insisted that she was going to dispose of them that morning. Or maybe she was simply being practical.
Odds were that someone else would jump me at the Pork Pit sometime in the next few days, and, well, that cooler could only hold so many bodies. As it was, Finn and I had had to pack the two giants in like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle just so we could close the lid.
Sophia had disposed of dozens of bodies for me and for my mentor, Fletcher Lane, before I'd taken over the assassination business from the old man. She could handle two giants with her eyes blindfolded and one hand tied behind her back. But Jo-Jo looked so worried that
I wrapped my hand around hers and gave it a gentle squeeze, careful not to smear the polish that she'd put on my nails.
