Venom (Page 61)

"I’m sorry to hear that," I said in a calm voice. "Tell me what happened."

"I was busy with clients most of the day. I checked in on her at lunchtime, and Roslyn was fine. Well, as fine as she could be, given the circumstances. Quiet, but fine," Jo-Jo said. "I went upstairs to ask her what she wanted me to make for supper, if she needed some blood, if she wanted to talk about anything, and she was gone. She must have slipped out while I was doing my last perm of the day."

"Do you have any idea why she decided that she didn’t like her perm?" I asked.

Jo-Jo knew enough to realize that I didn’t want to speak openly in front of whoever might be standing nearby. "She left her cell phone behind. There was a text message on the screen from Elliot Slater. He said for Roslyn to meet him on the street outside Underwood’s restaurant in half an hour or he would start killing the people close to her-starting with Xavier. He also threatened to kill her sister and niece whenever they came back to Ashland."

So the giant had decided to play hardball. And instead of coming to me, instead of trusting me to handle things, Roslyn had gone straight to him. She might even be dead already.

"When did she leave?" I asked. "Right after you gave her the perm?"

"I finished up at six. I heard her moving around upstairs as late as five thirty. She can’t have been gone more than thirty minutes, forty tops."

I glanced at the clock on the wall. Creeping up on six fifteen now. Which meant that Roslyn had been gone almost an hour. The restaurant was only about a twenty-minute cab ride from Jo-Jo’s house, which meant Roslyn had to have reached Slater by now.

"I’m so sorry, Gin," Jo-Jo said, shame and worry in her voice. "I thought that she’d let you handle things. I had no idea that she’d take off."

I sighed. "It’s not your fault that she didn’t like her perm. Some people just don’t know good work when they see it. We’ll talk about it later. I have a customer waiting right now. But keep your door open, okay? I’ll probably stop by later."

"Sure," Jo-Jo replied. "I’ll have everything ready, including myself. Whatever you need, Gin."

What Jo-Jo really meant was that she’d be on standby, ready to heal Roslyn Phillips when I got the vamp away from Elliot Slater. If I got the vamp away from the giant before he killed her.

"Great. See you then."

I hung up and looked at Bria.

"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.