Black Widow (12 page)

Most folks would have thought it strange that I was so concerned about a battered book and an old photo, but Silvio nodded and took them without a word, slipping them both into his briefcase.

“My car is down the block,” he said. “I'll wait for you there.”

He nodded, then turned and left the restaurant, opening and closing the door so carefully that the bell barely made a whisper at his passing.

I walked over to the door and started to follow him, but something made me stop and turn around.

My gaze swept over the storefront, so familiar with its booths and tables and the pig tracks curling across the floor, but yet so very different right now, with its empty seats and dirty dishes and crushed napkins that littered everything. Even though the sun was shining brightly outside, beating in through the yellow notices taped up to the windows, the interior still seemed dim and dull and sad.

Hollow, just like my heart.

But there was nothing I could do to fix it right now, and Sophia needed my help.

So I clicked off the lights, turned the sign on the door over to
Closed
, and left the Pork Pit.

*  *  *

I locked the front door behind me, hurried down the sidewalk, and slipped into the passenger's seat of Silvio's navy-blue Audi. A blue-and-pink pin shaped like the neon pig sign outside the restaurant dangled from the
car's rearview mirror. Of course, the real sign above the front door was dark now, since I'd turned off all the lights, but the crystals in the pin sparkled in the afternoon sun, as bright, colorful, and vibrant as ever. It comforted me.

Silvio cranked the engine and pulled away from the curb. While he drove toward the station, I pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket and hit one of the numbers in the speed dial.

She answered on the third ring. “Yes, darling?”

Jolene “Jo-Jo” Deveraux's voice filled my ear, but it wasn't the soft, sweet, Southern drawl I expected. Instead, Jo-Jo's voice was harsh, clipped, and angry. I opened my mouth to answer her, but a loud
screech-screech-screech
cut me off, followed by a series of
bang-bang-bang-bang
s.

I frowned. “Jo-Jo? What's that noise? What's wrong?”

She huffed in my ear. “Apparently, someone didn't like the perm I gave her last week and is claiming that I burned her scalp and made all her hair fall out. A bunch of folks from the health inspector's office are here, plowing through the salon, scraping paint off the walls, and making a mess of everything. Now they're saying that I've got black mold everywhere, even though I just remodeled the entire salon a few months ago.”

My hand tightened around my phone. So Madeline had sicced the health department on Jo-Jo too, and from the sound of things, they were demolishing the dwarf's beauty salon in the back of her antebellum home. I'd wondered why Madeline had spent so much time ingratiating herself with all the civic and other groups in town. Now she was making all those connections and all that money she'd spread around work for her.

“And, to top it off, I've got a bunch of stuck-up snobs from the historical association here,” Jo-Jo went on, her voice getting louder, sharper, and angrier with every word. “They're claiming that I haven't been taking proper care of
my
house—the house that's been in
my
family for more than a hundred and fifty years—and that there's some silly ordinance that says that unless I bring it up to code in thirty days, that the historical association can take ownership of it. Over my dead body, that's what
I
say.”

“Jo-Jo, listen to me—” I started to warn her to just go along with them for now, but I didn't get the chance.

“Hey!” she snapped. “There's no mold on that wall. Don't you
dare
punch that sledgehammer through my brand-new paneling!”

Thump-thump-thump.

Crash-crash-crash.

Bang-bang-bang.

More and more demolition noises rang out, along with the sharp, distinctive
tinkle-tinkle-tinkle
of breaking glass.

“Great. Now there's a giant hole in my wall, and one of these idiots has managed to upend and break an entire tub of nail polish all over the floor. I'm sorry, Gin, but I have to go. I'll call you back when I get these morons out of my salon.”

She hung up before I could tell her about the trouble Sophia was in—or how Madeline was screwing with all of us today, including her.

I thought about calling her back, but she probably wouldn't answer. Besides, Sophia was in more danger right now than Jo-Jo was. Still, I sent a text to Finn, asking him to check in with Jo-Jo when he got a chance. I
waited, but the phone didn't beep back. Looked like Finn was busy dealing with his own problems. I sighed and put my phone down on the console in the center of the car.

Silvio cleared his throat. “I take it that Ms. Deveraux is having some trouble as well?”

“Another surprise visit from the health inspector,” I muttered. “And the historical association. Madeline hit her with a double whammy.”

“She has certainly been effective in planning her attacks to target all of you at once. A classic divide-and-conquer tactic.”

“I know,” I muttered again. “And I didn't even see it coming. I thought that she would send a swarm of giants into the restaurant or hire a passel of assassins to attack me. This is Ashland, after all. Instead, the bitch is trying to legalese me to death.”

“The law can be as effective a weapon as anything else,” Silvio pointed out in an annoyingly calm tone. “Sometimes, even more so than direct brute force or overwhelming numbers.”

I slumped in the leather seat, put my head back, and closed my eyes, trying to rein in my temper and growing frustration. I didn't do
legal
. I did black-of-the-night, launch-myself-from-the-shadows, cut-your-throat attacks. Not this . . . this political
maneuvering
.

It disgusted me that Madeline wouldn't come right out and face me herself, elemental to elemental, but there was nothing I could do about it. Right now, she had the advantage, and my friends and I were scrambling to playing catch-up. No, scratch that. We weren't playing catch-up. We weren't even playing defense. Madeline had blindsided
all of us, and we were sprawled every which way on the battlefield, flat on our backs, trying to find enough strength to shake off all the punishing, head-spinning blows she'd landed on us one after another.

I brooded the few blocks over to the station. Like many buildings in the downtown loop, the main headquarters of the Ashland Police Department was located in a large, sprawling prewar building made of dark gray granite that took up an entire block. With its columns, crenellations, and curlicued carvings of leaves and vines, it was a lovely structure, despite the ugliness that passed through the doors daily.

Silvio pulled into the lot attached to one side of the building and parked. But instead of getting out and going into the station right away, I sat in the car.

Thinking.

If there was one thing I'd come to know about Madeline, it was that she always had a backup plan, usually two or three or four or more. Dobson hadn't been able to drag me away from the restaurant in handcuffs, but here I was at the police station all the same. If this was where she had planned to spring the next part of her trap for me, whatever it was, then I was sure that Madeline had already adjusted her scheme accordingly. Something bad was waiting for me inside the station—I just didn't know exactly what it might be.

So I went through various scenarios in my mind, most of which ended up with me either being trapped in a jail cell or shot to death in the middle of the station while the crooked cops of Ashland looked on and cheered. But one thing was certain. I couldn't go into the station armed.
Not with all the metal detectors and scanners. That would be a quick way to get arrested and carted off to that cell that was sure to be waiting for me.

So as much as it pained me, I palmed first one knife, then the other, setting them next to my phone on the center console. I leaned forward, removed the weapon from the small of my back, then reached down and plucked the two knives out of the sides of my boots.

“Here,” I said, straightening back up and handing the three blades over to Silvio. “Take these, and keep them safe for me. Please.”

He nodded and took the knives from me, careful of the sharp edges, then picked up the other two weapons from the console. “I have a hidden compartment built into the bottom of the trunk. I'll put them in there.”

I nodded, then slipped the ring off my right index finger and passed that over to him too. Then came the final, most difficult thing—unhooking the necklace from around my throat.

I pulled the chain out from underneath my T-shirt and held it out, staring at the spider rune pendant—that small circle surrounded by eight thin rays. The symbol for patience. Something I needed right now more than ever before.

I wrapped my hand around the rune, pressing it against the matching scar embedded deep in my palm. The slight weight comforted me, as did the cold, solid sensation of my Ice and Stone magic rippling through the smooth surface of the metal, waiting to be used. But that was why I was leaving the ring and the necklace with Silvio. They contained far too much of my power to let
them fall into the wrong hands should things go from bad to worse inside the station, the way I suspected they were going to. If the cops did arrest me, they'd take everything away from me. Madeline had already closed down the Pork Pit. She wasn't getting my jewelry too. It was far too precious to me, and not just for the power it contained.

“Would you like me to take that as well?” Silvio asked.

For a moment, I curled my hand even tighter around my rune. Then I forced myself to nod, let go, and hand the necklace over to him.

We got out of the car. I stood watch, scanning the parking lot for any sign of Madeline's spies, while Silvio opened the trunk and secured my weapons and jewelry. I felt naked, exposed, and vulnerable without the slight, comforting weight of my knives resting on my body and sad, empty, and lost without the feel of my ring and necklace and their reserves of Ice and Stone magic humming against my skin.

I was a strong elemental, but I didn't know if I could overcome Madeline's acid power without my knives or extra reserves of magic, all of which I'd just willingly stripped away. But Sophia was in trouble and needed my help, which she wouldn't get with my lollygagging around in the parking lot. So I drew in a breath and headed for the station, with Silvio shutting the trunk, locking the car, and falling in step beside me.

*  *  *

The inside of the police station was much nicer than what you would expect. Then again, the po-po could afford to keep everything in tip-top shape, given all the bribes they accepted. A narrow corridor ran for about fifty feet before
opening up into the enormous room that was the bureaucratic heart of the station. The floor and walls were made out of beautiful gray marble with silver flecks running through it, while the diamond-shaped panes in the tall, wide windows were so clean they almost appeared transparent. Crystal and brass chandeliers dropped down from the vaulted ceiling, which soared a hundred feet overhead and also featured mosaic flowers carved out of pale rose quartz. The only things that ruined the elegance of the room were the security cameras mounted to the walls, their red lights winking on and off like devilish fireflies as they swiveled around in slow, steady circles.

A brass plaque embedded in one of the columns near the entrance boasted that the interior had been restored to its original grandeur with the help of the Ashland Historical Association. Captain Lou Dobson's name was on the plaque too; he was listed as the liaison between the department and the historical association. Well, I supposed that explained how he'd help Madeline sic the group on Jo-Jo. All he would have had to do was make a couple of phone calls and cash in some favors.

Silvio and I passed through a metal detector at the end of the corridor while a bored-looking uniformed officer ran Silvio's briefcase through the X-ray scanner. Dobson must not have had time to put the word out to be on the lookout for me because the officer waved us through without a second glance.

“Let's go over to booking,” Silvio said after he'd retrieved his briefcase. “That's where Sophia will most likely be.”

I nodded and followed him out into the main part of the station.

Silvio must have spent more time bailing out Benson's drug dealers than I'd thought because he moved through the station with ease, navigating around lines of people and roped off sections as though he'd long ago memorized where the clogged trouble spots were. Even more telling, several officers waved and called out friendly greetings to the slender vampire.

Silvio nodded back, stopping a few times to speak with those he knew well. I tagged along behind him, feeling like the proverbial third wheel, but I trusted Silvio enough to realize that if he was taking the time to talk to someone, then he was most likely trying to get more information about Dobson and what the captain's plans might be for Sophia—and me.

Finally, we reached the back of the room, where dozens of desks clustered in bunches, all of them sleek chrome contraptions covered with computers, monitors, and ringing phones. Detectives wearing suits and ties sprawled in their executive, leather chairs, gabbing on their phones, while others milled around the espresso machines that lined one section of the wall, along with wooden tables that boasted platters of fresh fruit, buttery croissants, and a dozen different kinds of Danishes. I snorted. No bad coffee and stale doughnuts here. The po-po had a better spread than most of the corporate climbers in the downtown skyscrapers.

Still, it wasn't all strawberries and shortcakes. Uniformed officers moved back and forth in front of the detectives' desks, carrying files, murmuring into their radios, and escorting some unhappy-looking individuals from one side of the station to the other. Three vampire
hookers slumped on a wooden bench next to the espresso machines, their skirts riding up and their tops drooping down, showing inordinate amounts of leg and cleavage as they waited to be booked. An archway cut into the wall a few feet away led into another room that featured a fingerprint station, a camera, and a height chart for mug shots.