Venom (Page 82)

"Excuse us," Roslyn said, following Xavier over to one of the booths by the windows.

I watched the two of them. Xavier was careful with Roslyn, not getting too close to her, putting his hand next to hers on top of the table, but not actually touching her. For her part, Roslyn made an effort, looking straight at the giant, not taking her hand off the table when he edged his a little closer to hers. It was still a work in progress, but somehow I thought they would be okay, despite the last few horrible days the two of them had been through.

Xavier hadn’t come to the restaurant by himself. About two minutes later, Detective Bria Coolidge walked through the front door of the Pork Pit. My sister wore her usual long navy coat over a sweater, jeans, and boots. Her gold detective’s badge glinted on the waistband of her jeans. Bria waved at Xavier and Roslyn, then sat in a booth by herself in the back of the restaurant to give the couple their privacy. Bria picked up the menu on the tabletop and began to read it.

Finn nudged me with his hand. "Go talk to her," he whispered. "You have to start somewhere with her, Gin. Or else everything we’ve gone through, everything we’re going to do is for nothing."

I stared across the restaurant at my sister. So close, yet so far away. But Finn was right. I had to start somewhere with Bria. There’d been enough antagonism and lies between us already. I wanted to establish some sort of friendly relationship between us, wanted a fresh slate to at least try to get to know my sister. Might as well try to start wiping away the grime today.

I looked at Finn with his bright green eyes. "Have I ever told you how much I hate it when you’re right?"

Finn just smirked into his coffee cup.

I rolled my eyes at him, then got to my feet and walked back to her booth.

"Hello, detective," I said in a pleasant voice.

Bria looked up at me and nodded her head. "Ms. Blanco."

"Please, call me Gin," I replied. "Everyone does."

She stared at me a moment longer, then nodded. "All right. Gin. Like the liquor, right?"

I blinked. That was usually my line when I was telling people my name. "Yeah. Where did you hear that?"

She shrugged. "Xavier told me you spell it like that. Seemed like an easy way to remember it."

"Sure." I pulled my pen and pad out of my back pocket. "So what can I get you?"

Bria bit her lip and looked at me. "Actually, I’m here to eat a bit of crow. That’s why I tagged along with Xavier today. I was hard on you the last time we talked, and I just wanted to apologize. Roslyn told me that you were just trying to help her, that you really had no idea where she was or what was happening to her. I’m sorry if I upset you."

I waved my hand. "Bygones, detective. Elliot Slater got what he deserved, and Roslyn is safe now, as you can see."

Bria’s blue eyes flicked to Roslyn and Xavier, who had their heads close together and were talking softly to each other.

"Any clues as to this person who killed him?" I asked. Finn had his ways of getting information, and I had mine. "What are they calling him again?"

"Her," Bria corrected in an absent tone. "It’s a her. The press is calling her the Spider, because of the rune that she left at the crime scene. The one carved into the wood and stone on Elliot Slater’s mountain mansion."

For a moment, Bria stared out the window, watching the flow of pedestrians and traffic on the cold street. Then she reached down and slowly turned one of the rings on her left index finger around. The top ring. The one stamped with the spider rune. My ring. I wondered what my baby sister was thinking about, what she was remembering, what she was hoping for.

"Well," I replied, cutting into her thoughts. "I hope you catch her."

A grim smile stretched across Bria’s face, tightening her beautiful features. "Oh, I’m going to find her, Gin. Make no mistake about that. What I do with her then, well, I don’t know just yet." She murmured the last sentence under her breath.

I smiled at her. "Well, I’m sure you’ll have better luck on a full stomach. So what can I get you, detective? Everything’s on the house today, in honor of Roslyn’s recovery."

Bria ordered a cheeseburger with all the fixings and fries. I helped Sophia cook up her order and also grabbed a piece of blackberry cobbler-today’s special dessert. Several minutes later, I carried everything back over to the table and put it down.

Bria eyed the pie. "That looks wonderful. Blackberry’s my favorite."

I knew that, even if I couldn’t tell her so. "I hope you enjoy it."

I started to turn away from her, to go back and hide behind the cash register like usual, but Finn gave me a small wave of his hand, urging me onward. So I turned back to the table and smiled once more.

"Care if I sit?" I said. "It’s a bit slow yet, and since it looks like Xavier’s going to be one of my regular customers, I’d like to get to know you a little better, detective."

Bria seemed taken aback by my strange request, but she waved her hand at the opposite side of the booth. "Sure. I hate to eat alone anyway."

So I slid into the booth and watched Bria take a bite of her blackberry pie. Her eyes rolled back in her head.

"Heaven," she replied. "Simply heaven."

I grinned. "If you think that’s good, you should try my chocolate-chip pound cake."

Bria gave me a small smile. "I’ll be sure and do that next time I’m in."

I nodded, and we didn’t speak for a few moments.

"You know, I finally figured it out, Gin," Bria said. "Why you seem so familiar to me."

I had to work very hard to do nothing but keep blinking steadily at her. "Oh?"

"Yeah," she said, taking another bite of her pie. "You look a lot like my college roommate. Same dark hair, same pale coloring. Her family had a restaurant too. Even your blue apron is the same as hers. I loved that place. I spent as much time there as I could."

She gave me another smile, and I forced out a soft chuckle.

"Imagine that. So tell me, detective. Where are you from?"

I asked the question to change the conversation, of course. To keep Bria from thinking about who else I might look like or remind her of. But I also really wanted to know the answer. I still hadn’t looked at the folder of information that Finn had compiled on Bria. For the past few days, I’d been more concerned with how Roslyn was coping and what Mab Monroe was doing to try to find me. And now, with Bria sitting here across from me, I realized that I didn’t really want to look at the information. I wanted Bria to tell me herself, the way a friend would.