Spider's Bite

18

Since we’d abandoned the SUV Finn had stolen yesterday, we were without transportation. So Finn had to boost another car from a parking garage four blocks away from my apartment. He stalked through one level of the garage, sneering and passing up several serviceable compact cars, before going down to the next level.

“What’s he doing?” Donovan Caine asked as we walked along behind him. “This isn’t the supermarket.”

I snorted. “Tell that to Finn. He’s a car guy. The more expensive and roomier it is, the happier it makes him.”

Finn finally stopped in front of a late-model Lexus and nodded his head. “This will do for today. Tool please, Gin.” He held out his hand to me.

“Didn’t you bring your own?”

“Why carry the extra weight when you make such good disposable ones?” he countered.

I hated to admit it, but Finn had a point. I sighed and reached for my Ice magic. Donovan Caine eyed the silver glow flickering over my palm, wondering what I was doing. A question I often asked myself when dealing with Finnegan Lane.

A few seconds later, I passed Finn a long, slender, wirelike rod. He took the cold, Ice wand and jammed it into the car window. The lock popped open, the rod shattered, and Finn wiped the remaining chunks of the wand off his impeccable jacket. Then he opened the door, sank down into the driver’s seat, reached under the dash, and tugged on a couple of wires.

Thirty seconds later, the engine roared to life, and Finn gestured for us to get in. I took the passenger’s seat, while Donovan Caine slid into the back. Finn steered the car out of the garage. A beautiful September day greeted us. Blue sky. Wispy clouds. Faint breeze. The sun gleamed like a gold coin, brightening even the grime and graffiti on the downtown streets and buildings.

“Where are we going?” I asked Finn. “Where have you tracked Roslyn to? The nightclub?”

Finn had made a call on one of my disposable cells and set up a meeting with Roslyn just before we’d left. “Nah, the club doesn’t even open until eight. She’s at home right now.”

Despite the money generated by her nightclub, Roslyn Phillips didn’t live in Northtown like the rest of the rich types. Instead, she made her home out in the suburbs just west of Southtown. Rolling hills cut through this part of Ashland like jagged teeth on a saw, although the scarlet, gold, and cinnamon color of the fall leaves helped to smudge the edges of the rough ridges. I rolled down my window and let the cool air rush into the car.

Thirty minutes later, Finn turned into a driveway lined with crimson maples. He drove up a steep hill before the trees receded, revealing a modest, two-story home made of gray brick. Black shutters and white flowerbeds framed the square windows, while a variety of colorful toys fought for space on the green lawn. Suburban bliss at its finest. All the house needed to complete the picture was a goofy golden retriever loping through the grass.

Finn parked the stolen Lexus, and the three of us got out of the car.

“Just let me do the talking, and everything will be fine.” Finn smoothed down his suit jacket. He’d gone with a gray seersucker today, with a silver shirt that somehow made his eyes look even greener than they were.

“That was my plan,” I replied. “You’re the mouthpiece. Figured you’d use some of that storied charm you claim to have to pump Roslyn for information. Or were you planning to use a more persuasive technique today?”

Beside me, Donovan Caine snorted, but his mouth curved into a small smile.

“You’re just jealous.” Finn dug a canister of breath spray out of his pants pocket and squirted some into his mouth.

“Hardly. Been there, done you,” I replied. “Adequate, but unremarkable.”

Donovan Caine started at the revelation. He frowned, and something shimmered in his hazel eyes. But the detective masked the emotion before I could decipher what it was.

Finn clutched a hand over his heart. “Oh, Gin, how you wound me.”

“I’m going to wound you a lot more if you can’t sweet-talk Roslyn and smooth things over for us tonight,” I snapped.

“Don’t worry,” Finn said. “Roslyn will shower us with cooperation, since you took care of her brother-in-law a few months ago. Or have you forgotten already?”

A man’s face flashed in front of my eyes. Chocolate skin, curly hair, a dimpled smile, and black eyes that were even colder than mine. No, I hadn’t forgotten Jeremy Lawson. My cheek twitched with a phantom ache. The half-giant had broken my jaw before I’d managed to cut him down.

Disgust tightened Donovan Caine’s face. “You assassinated this woman’s brother-in-law, and you think she’s happy about that?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but Finn fixed the detective with a fierce look.

“Yeah,” he snapped. “Bastard liked to beat on Roslyn’s sister and her niece. Last time, they were both in the hospital for two weeks. The little girl is four, in case you were wondering.”

The detective’s gaze flicked to the toys in the yard, and the disgust drained out of his rugged face. “Why didn’t she call the police?” Caine asked in a quieter voice.

“Roslyn did, but Jeremy had a couple of fishing buddies on the force and plenty of money to get everyone else to look the other way. The coppers wouldn’t even file a domestic dispute report,” Finn said. “So Roslyn decided to look for another, more permanent solution before he killed them.”

Caine’s gaze went to me again. Curiosity flared in his hazel eyes, along with a flash of doubt. The detective had to be thinking about his partner, Cliff Ingles. Wondering if the other cop had done something like that. Wondering if that’s why I’d killed him. I kept my face smooth as I stared back. After a moment, the detective dropped his eyes.

We reached the front door. A small plaque with a rune etched into it was embedded in the stone to the right. A heart with an arrow through it. Roslyn’s symbol for her nightclub, Northern Aggression. Finn rang the doorbell. Cheery chimes echoed through the house.

After about twenty seconds, a shadow moved in front of the peephole. Somebody inside was studying us. Several locks clicked, and the door opened.

Roslyn Phillips was a beautiful woman, with eyes and skin the color of melted toffee. Her cropped, feathered black hair just brushed the edge of her strong jaw. Silver-frame glasses perched on the end of her pointed nose, and her face was free of the heavy makeup I’d always seen her wear. She looked younger without it, softer, and more vulnerable than I knew her to be.

A pair of black yoga pants covered her legs, while a matching shirt stretched over her chest. But the innocuous ensemble couldn’t hide Roslyn’s stack of full breasts, lush hips, and toned thighs that had most men wiping the drool off their chins after a few seconds. And Roslyn knew how to use her body to its full potential. She was one of the vamps who used sex to power up, along with drinking blood.

Roslyn’s lips drew back into a wide smile, revealing her fangs. They were as pale as bleach. “Finnegan Lane. What a nice surprise.” Her voice was a low, husky whisper.

“Roslyn, darling. So good of you to see me on such short notice.” Finn leaned down and pressed a kiss to Roslyn’s smooth cheek.

“Always a pleasure, Finn,” Roslyn murmured. Her dark eyes drifted to the detective before resting on me. “And you’ve brought friends with you.”

“The gent is Donovan Caine,” Finn said. “And you know Gin, of course.”

“Of course.”

Roslyn stared at me, and I met her dark gaze with a neutral one of my own. I hadn’t been there when she’d approached Finn about finding someone to kill her brother-in-law, since Finn was known as a man who could get all kinds of things done. But she’d seen me with Finn, knew I’d been chummy with Fletcher and worked at the Pork Pit. Finn had never told Roslyn he’d find someone to do the job, had never even admitted he knew anyone who would do that sort of thing. But three weeks after Roslyn had asked, her abusive brother-in-law had been found stabbed to death outside a Southtown strip club. I was sure the vampire had drawn her own conclusions — about a lot of things.

“Come in,” Roslyn said. “We were just finishing up lunch.”

She ushered us inside, then closed and locked the door behind us — with all three deadbolts. Roslyn Phillips didn’t take chances with her safety. Smart woman.

Roslyn crooked her finger and led us through several rooms filled with heavy, wooden tables, Tiffany lamps, and old-fashioned settees lined with velvet. The antique furniture was in sharp contrast to the toys, books, and other childish doodads stacked on the tables, piled in the corners, and spread over the settees. Around me, the stone of the house alternated between low worry and carefree glee, given the varying emotions of its occupants.

We stepped onto a stone patio that overlooked a heart-shaped pool that had been covered up for the winter. A little girl who bore a striking resemblance to Roslyn sat in a princess-themed, pink castle planted in the backyard and pushed a blue dump truck through the grass. Every once in a while, she’d quit making vroom-vroom sounds long enough to nibble on the tomato sandwich clutched in her tiny fist.

Roslyn gestured at a table surrounded by wicker chairs with thick, flowered cushions. The remains of a Cobb salad littered a plate on the table, along with a frosted mug half-full of blood, a cup of chocolate milk, a pitcher of lemonade, and several glasses.

Finn sat in the chair opposite Roslyn’s. Donovan Caine dropped into the seat beside him, while I took the last chair. I pulled it out from the table and angled it so I could see the little girl.

Roslyn held up the pitcher. Ice cubes clinked against the side of the glass. “Lemonade?”

Seems I wasn’t the only gracious hostess around. We all accepted, and Roslyn dispensed the cold drink. I sipped the liquid. Tart and sweet at the same time, just the way I liked it. Mmm.

Roslyn fixed her eyes on Finn. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Finn? I thought we weren’t supposed to meet until later this week at the benefit for the battered-women’s shelter.”

“Unfortunately, I’m probably not going to be able to make it to that,” he said. “So I thought I’d see you today.”

Roslyn tilted her head down and looked over the tops of her glasses at him. “Really? Is that why you came all the way out here? To tell me we aren’t meeting later? I don’t think so. You want something, Finn. Just tell me what it is. You know how much I hate it when someone bullshits me. It’s bad enough when I have to do it to my clients.”

He nodded. “All right. I’m interested in learning more about someone who frequents your nightclub and wanted to clear it with you first in case anything … unpleasant happens tonight when we have a little chat with him.”

Roslyn’s eyes cut to me before snapping back to Finn. “Who?”

Finn drew in a breath. “Charles Carlyle. Calls himself—”

“Chuckie C.,” Roslyn finished in a flat voice. “I know him.”

Roslyn didn’t ask Finn any of the obvious questions, like why we were interested in Carlyle, what he’d done, or more importantly, what we were going to do to him. The vampire had been a Southtown hooker for a long time before she’d moved up into management. She knew asking questions was a quick way to get dead.

Donovan Caine leaned forward. “What can you tell us about him?”

Roslyn took a delicate sip of her blood and smiled. Her fangs were a crimson stain in her mouth. “My clients like their anonymity. My club wouldn’t last long if I squealed to everybody who came knocking on my front door. Es pecially a cop like you. I know you used to work vice. I remember seeing you at Northern Aggression more than once.”

Caine frowned and opened his mouth, but I cut in.

“He’s with us,” I said. “Detective Caine isn’t going to bust you for anything. And if he ever dares to hassle you, I’ll deal with him myself. Finn takes good care of his friends, Roslyn. You know that.”

Roslyn took another sip of blood, then pushed her glass aside. “Fine, I’ll play along, but only because it’s Finn. What do you want to know about Carlyle?”

“Everything,” Finn said. “What he likes, who he hangs out with, what the girls say about him.”

Roslyn shrugged. “Not much to tell. He’s a vamp who fancies himself to be a player and a great fuck, despite his tiny dick. Comes in almost every night and gets a private room in the back. Likes girls that look like they’re twelve. Occasionally gets rougher than what we allow at the club. And he’s always bragging to the girls about what a hotshot he is. How he’s putting together his own crew and making his move in the underworld. Macho bullshit like that. A small fish, although he’s been flashing a lot of cash lately. More drinks, more girls, a party for anybody he’s friends with.”

So Chuckie C. had cash to burn. More proof he was working for the Air elemental. She’d ponied up half my fee up front. Made sense she’d spread the embezzled wealth around to her underlings, too.

Finn reached into his jacket and fished out the headshot of Gordon Giles from Fletcher’s file. “What about this guy? Was he one of Carlyle’s friends?”

Roslyn tapped a manicured nail on Giles’s nose. “Gor don? Yeah, the two of them used to hang out a lot and party with the girls. Not so much recently.”

Hmm. Sounded like Gordon Giles had dumped Carlyle around the same time he’d approached Donovan Caine about the embezzlement at Halo Industries. Maybe Giles had realized he was in over his head — or maybe he’d grown a conscience.

“So what do you really need?” Roslyn asked. “You said you wanted to talk to Carlyle at the club.”

“Yeah,” Finn said. “The private room he reserves … any way we could see and hear what’s going on inside?”

Roslyn sat back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “Perhaps. But like I said before, my clients enjoy their anonymity. They trust me with their secrets—all their secrets. I wouldn’t last long if word got out I’d breached that trust.”

Finn put on his most charming smile. “Surely you could make an exception just this once. For me.”

Roslyn laughed, a light, pealing sound at odds with the hard set of her features. “You’re a charmer, Finn, and I enjoy your company. You make me laugh, which is hard to do. But I’m not risking my business, my livelihood, so you can settle some vendetta with Carlyle.”

Fletcher’s ruined face flashed before my eyes. Vendetta? Oh no, this was much more than that. Since the vampire was going to be difficult about things, I decided to remind her exactly how good a friend Finn had been to her.

“Catherine’s gotten so big since the last time I saw her,” I said in a soft voice. “When you brought her home from the hospital after her surgery.”

Roslyn’s dark eyes went to the little girl playing in the castle, then snapped up to meet mine. Her gaze hardened, and her fangs poked out through her lips. Warning me to back the fuck off. Donovan Caine gave me a hard look, wondering what the hell I was doing. Finn just sighed.

“Looks like she’s really enjoying that princess castle Finn gave her as a welcome home gift,” I continued. “Tell me, how’s Lisa, your sister? I haven’t seen her in a while.”

Vroom-vroom. Vroom-vroom. Catherine pushed her dump truck back and forth on the grass.

“She’s fine,” Roslyn said in a tight voice. “I keep Catherine during the day while Lisa goes to school. She’s finishing up her business degree at Ashland Community College.”

I gave her a soft, easy smile, like we were just two gals shooting the breeze. “Nice to hear they’re doing so well — now.”

Roslyn’s mouth flattened into a thin line as she considered the meaning behind my casual words. Her fingers tapped on the table. After a few seconds, her hand stilled. “Yeah, they’re doing much better — now.”

The vampire stared at me. “There’s a passageway that runs through the back of the club. Has eyes and ears in all the private rooms. We use it to look out for the girls and make sure they’re being treated right. You could watch Carlyle from there. But he leaves the club in one piece — understand? I can’t have people disappearing from the private rooms.”

We could always grab Carlyle outside after we saw who he liked to party with. Easier that way anyhow. I nodded my acceptance to her terms. She relaxed the slightest bit.

“You’re a peach, Roslyn.” Finn leaned over and kissed her cheek. “A real peach.”

Her face softened, and a genuine smile curved her lips. “You say that to all the girls.”

“Maybe, but with you, I really mean it.”

Roslyn patted Finn’s cheek. He caught her hand and pressed a kiss to the inside of her palm. I cleared my throat before they could move on to other things.

Finn sighed. “Sorry, darling. Duty calls. We’ll be at the club tonight. Perhaps we can meet later in the week after some of my present … difficulties resolve themselves.”

“Of course. Call me when you get free.”

And so business was concluded. I got to my feet. Donovan Caine rose as well. Finn sighed again, then did the same.

“Come on, Finn. I’m sure Roslyn wants to go see how Catherine’s doing.” I smiled at the vampire again. “Give our best to Lisa.”

Her dark eyes met mine. “I will,” she murmured. “I will.”