Black Widow

by Jennifer Estep

  Bria sucked in a breath. She knew that I’d killed them. And now, so did Dr. Ryan Colson.

  “Given your job here, I’m sure that you’ve seen that particular injury, made with the same sort of blade, more than once over the years,” I continued in a calm voice. “Not only that, but the police officer responsible for investigating the crime, the one who had done such a shitty job of it, was also found dead around that same time. Also with her throat cut, although she was buried in a bombed-out warehouse. A few weeks later, your parents received an anonymous donation, enough to help them get their store up and running again.”

  Colson’s fingers tightened on the papers, making them crackle. I wasn’t telling him anything that he hadn’t already guessed, but he deserved to hear it from me.

  “Of course, none of this brought your brother back, and none of it lessened the pain of his loss. There are some things you just can’t unsee,” I said in a soft voice. “Just like you said. But if it helped at all, well, I think Ms. Blanco would have liked knowing that.”

  Colson carefully smoothed out the papers in his hand, then raised his eyes to mine. I met his questioning, searching gaze with a steady one of my own. After a moment, his gaze flicked to Bria, then back to me again, as he mentally compared the two of us. He was a smart guy, and I knew that he’d figured out who I really was underneath the blond wig and glasses.

  “It did help,” he said in a quiet voice. “As much as anything could. Thank you for answering my . . . questions.”

  I tipped my head at him. “You’re welcome.”

  Bria stepped up and held out her hand. Colson shook it, but he kept looking at me the whole time.

  “Thank you, Ryan,” she said, dropping her hand back down to her side. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”

  A faint grin lifted his lips. “Oh, I’m sure that I’ll find out sooner or later. I usually do when Ms. Blanco is involved.” He grabbed the envelope full of cash and tossed it over to her. “You can keep that, though. I don’t want it.”

  Bria opened her mouth to protest, but I shook my head at her. We were still on thin ice, and I didn’t want him to change his mind about helping us.

  “Well, then,” she said. “We’ll leave you to it.”

  Colson moved over to the desk in the corner and started pulling on a pair of latex gloves, purposefully ignoring us. I snapped my briefcase shut and jerked my head at Bria. She slid the envelope full of cash into her back pocket, and we walked over to the door. I pulled it open, letting her step through first as I glanced back over my shoulder.

  Colson was still standing at the desk, but he’d put his gloved, fisted hands down on the metal, as if he were propping himself up. His gaze was locked on a framed photo sitting on the corner of the desk—one of two boys laughing and sitting on a stoop in front of a store.

  He realized that I was watching him. After a moment, he tipped his head at me. I returned the gesture, then let the door swing shut behind me.

  * * *

  We stepped back out into the front room.

  Bria waited until the door had shut behind us before she turned to me. “Ryan told me once about his brother’s murder. He said that it was one of the reasons he decided to become a coroner. So he could help find answers for people about what happened to their loved ones. Give them some closure.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “I can’t believe that he agreed to help us,” she said. “I never thought he would, but then I didn’t know that you’d killed the people who’d murdered his brother. Was that your backup plan if he’d said no? Reminding him of that?”

  I shrugged. “Someone that you helped returned the favor to me when Dobson was searching the Pork Pit. That got me thinking about Colson. He’s always been respectful to me whenever we’ve crossed paths. I wondered why, and then I remembered this particular job that Fletcher had sent me on. That’s why I brought the newspaper clippings.”

  “But he said yes before that. You didn’t have to tell him any of that stuff about his brother.”

  “Yeah. But he deserved to know, regardless of whether he helped us or not.”

  We left the coroner’s office, stepped back out into the hallway, and headed down the corridor. Bria rounded the corner just as the elevator chimed out its arrival. My sister stopped, then lurched back, keeping me from entering the next hallway.

  “What—”

  “Emery’s here,” Bria hissed.

  “Where is this place?” Emery’s voice boomed out.

  “It’s right up ahead, ma’am,” a male voice murmured in response. “This way.”

  Two sets of footsteps slapped against the floor, heading in our direction.

  Bria stabbed her finger at my heels. I slipped off the shoes, then the two of us turned and ran back the way we’d come. Even though I was still wearing my disguise, we couldn’t afford to let Emery see us anywhere near the coroner’s office. At the very least, she’d report Bria’s presence to Madeline, who would realize that my sister had tried to influence the autopsy results and that I was still alive after all.

  “Over there!” Bria hissed. “The stairwell!”

  We reached the end of the hall and skidded to a stop, but the stairwell door featured the same kind of ID scanner that had been in the coroner’s office. Bria fumbled in her jeans pocket for her card.

  In the distance, I could see shadows sliding across the floor, growing larger and larger as Emery and her escort headed this way. Another thirty seconds, and they would round the hallway corner and see Bria and me standing at the far end.

  Twenty seconds . . .

  Bria yanked her card out of her pocket.

  Fifteen . . .

  She slid it through the scanner, but the light stayed red.

  Ten . . . seven . . . five . . .

  Bria muttered a curse and ran the card through the reader again. The light turned green, and she yanked the door open.

  Three . . . two . . . one . . .

  We stepped into the stairwell, the door swinging shut behind us, just as Emery appeared at the other end of the corridor, along with a uniformed officer.

  Bria started up the stairs, but I grabbed her arm and yanked her back against the wall with me.

  “Wait,” I whispered.

  Sure enough, a few seconds later, a shadow moved in front of the narrow glass strip in the door, as though someone was peering inside to see if anyone was going up the steps.

  “Something wrong?” the officer asked.

  Silence. Bria and I flattened ourselves against the wall, holding our positions.

  “Nah,” Emery finally said. “Must just be all the weird echoes down here.”

  She moved away from the glass. I waited ten seconds, then looked out through the opening. Emery headed back toward the coroner’s office, threw the door open, and stepped inside. The officer followed her, and the two of them disappeared from view.

  Bria and I both let out tense breaths.

  “Come on,” I said, stooping to put my heels back on. “Let’s get out of here.”

  21

  Bria and I slipped out of the police station with no more problems, and she drove me back to Jo-Jo’s house. After that, the next few days dragged by in a slow, morbid blur.

  It was hard being dead.

  Mostly because I couldn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t go home to Fletcher’s, I couldn’t go back to the Pork Pit to survey the damage, and I certainly couldn’t return to my tree house in the woods outside the Monroe mansion to spy on Madeline.

  I couldn’t do anything but hide in one of the bedrooms above Jo-Jo’s salon and plot my revenge. A pleasant enough pastime to be sure, but once my plans had been laid, all I could do was wait and see if they would come to fruition. The lack of activity tested even my patience.

  So did the incessant news coverage. Story after story dominated the newspapers and airwaves about me supposedly murdering Dobson, setting fire to my own restaurant, and perishing in the blaze. That was
bad enough, but the reporters hounded my friends, constantly calling, texting, and following them around, trying to get exclusive interviews and wanting to know just how shocked they were that I’d turned out to be a stone-cold killer. One of them even had the audacity to book an appointment with Jo-Jo in hopes of picking up a juicy bit of info at the salon. But the dwarf realized what the reporter was up to and dyed her hair a lovely shade of pea green. The reporter never came back after that.

  Finally, though, the day of my funeral arrived.

  The others protested that it wasn’t safe, that it wasn’t smart, going to my own funeral. They were right, but I was determined to do it all the same. I hadn’t been out of the house in days, but more than that, I wanted to see Madeline and her reactions for myself and not hear about them secondhand from my friends.

  So I put on the same blond wig, blue contacts, silver glasses, and black suit that I’d worn to the coroner’s office and sat in Jo-Jo’s house, waiting for everyone else to leave. Once my friends were gone, I peered out through the white lace curtains, but I didn’t see anyone watching the house from the woods or the street outside. There was no reason to spy, now that it was seemingly empty. So I went outside, walked two streets over, slid into the silver BMW that Silvio had rented for me under a fake name, and drove over to Blue Ridge Cemetery.

  I’d thought there would be a crowd, given who I was and the messy circumstances of my supposed death, but so many folks had turned out for my funeral that I had to park my car outside the cemetery entrance and walk the rest of the way in.

  More than three hundred people clustered around my gravesite, which was right next to Fletcher’s. Given how badly my supposed body had been burned, the silver casket was closed, with a beautiful spray of pink and white roses draped over the top. I wasn’t really a pink-and-white sort of girl, but Jo-Jo had enthusiastically planned my funeral, so I’d gone along with what she wanted.

  I maneuvered past the gravestones and slipped into the center of the crowd, where I would have a clear view of my family, who were sitting in folding metal chairs in front of the casket. They all wore somber black suits and jackets and were doing their best to seem composed, although Bria and Jo-Jo kept dabbing at their eyes with black silk handkerchiefs. Before they’d left the salon, Finn had insisted that everyone sniff some menthol to give them watery eyes and runny noses and make it seem like they’d all been crying all day long. I had to admit that it was effective. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that they were all grieving deeply for me.

  The rest of the crowd? Not so much.

  Most everyone in attendance wore curious but satisfied expressions, since they hadn’t come to pay their respects so much as make certain that I was dead. I saw several lower-level underworld minions high-five each other as the minister stepped over to the podium to begin the service. For such a somber occasion, the mood was decidedly cheerful.

  At least it was until Madeline arrived.

  She swept through the crowd like the queen she thought she was, and people hurried to get out of her way. Emery and Jonah flanked her, as was their custom. Murmurs of the acid elemental’s arrival rippled through the crowd, causing my friends to turn around in their chairs. They all shot her drop-dead-bitch looks, but Madeline ignored their heated glares and took up a spot off to the right of my casket so she could have a clear view.

  As the minister quieted the crowd and started the service, I studied my enemy. Unlike everyone else, Madeline was not dressed in navy or black but wore her usual white pantsuit. Her only concession to the funeral was her black hat with a matching lace veil and a thin white ribbon around the brim. Through the veil, I could see the bright glitter of her green eyes and the cruel curve of her crimson lips.

  She was enjoying this very, very much.

  Madeline turned to get a better view of my casket, and the sun caught on her crown-and-flame necklace, as well as the matching ring on her finger. I didn’t know if there were any old sayings about wearing something new to a funeral, but Madeline was, since her jewelry was made out of gold now, instead of the silverstone set she’d worn before. I’d noticed the new bling a couple of days ago in some surveillance photos of her that Silvio had taken for me, and I’d found it extremely interesting for a number of reasons.

  I focused on her necklace. In many ways, it was the exact same as Mab’s sunburst rune had been—a thick gold chain with a large gemstone set in the middle—although Madeline had forgone the gaudy, wavy, ostentatious rays that had radiated out of her mama’s necklace.

  The longer I looked at Madeline’s baubles, the wider I grinned. I’d been hoping that she would wear them to my funeral. The gold jewelry told me more than anything else that she finally, truly believed that I was dead.

  Most of those gathered here might have done everything possible to put me in the ground, but everyone remained quiet, respectful, and solemn during the service. They might all be a bunch of criminals, but even they could behave at a funeral. Us Southerners were quirky like that.

  All too soon, though, the minister finished his sermon and called my friends and family forward, each of them taking a rose from the casket spray to supposedly remember me by. Jo-Jo let out a particularly loud bawl when she did so and stumbled, as if she were overcome with grief. Sophia grabbed her sister’s arm, supporting and leading her away from my casket.

  I raised my hand to my face to hide my grin. Jo-Jo had thoroughly enjoyed this charade, and she had wholeheartedly thrown herself into everything from picking out my casket, to planning the funeral, to selecting the tombstone that would be erected at my grave. I thought that it was a bit morbid, but Jo-Jo had gotten catalogs of various markers and had made me go through them with her while she did my nails in the salon one evening.

  Still, I supposed it could be worse. I could actually be in that casket, and I might still end up there. My grin faded away.

  Finally, the service concluded, and everyone started drifting away and walking back to their cars.

  Everyone except Madeline.

  She stayed rooted in her spot and lifted her veil, her green eyes sweeping back and forth over the crowd, as if she was searching for someone—me.

  I ducked my head, not wanting to lock gazes with her, and slowly shuffled away, sticking close to a pair of older men as though I were with them. But I didn’t have to worry about Madeline’s seeing me because Bria chose that moment to pounce.

  “You need to leave,” her voice rang through the entire cemetery.

  Everyone who’d been leaving stopped and turned around to witness the commotion.

  Bria stood a few feet away from Madeline, her eyes narrowed, her body stiff, her hands curled into fists, as though she were about two seconds away from tackling the other woman.

  Madeline gave my sister a cool look. “I just came to pay my respects. Same as everyone else.”

  Bria let out a hard, brittle laugh. “Sure you did. Since you’re the reason that my sister’s dead in the first place.”

  Madeline arched an eyebrow. “I know that you’re grieving, but I had nothing to do with Gin’s unfortunate . . . accident.”

  Bria surged forward, but Finn grabbed her arm, supposedly holding her back.

  “Come on, Bria,” he said in a disgusted voice. “She’s not worth it.”

  Bria ostensibly let him march her away, although she kept shooting dark looks back over her shoulder at Madeline. I had to hand it to my baby sister and the rest of my friends. They’d done an excellent job pretending that I was dead.

  Still, given the small chance that Madeline hadn’t bought our charade, I slipped behind a tree about thirty feet away from my grave, bent down, and started dusting the leaves and twigs off a tombstone, as if I were also visiting that person before leaving the cemetery. But Madeline never even glanced in my direction.

  The rest of my friends, family, and legions of adoring enemies headed back to their cars, but Madeline, Emery, and Jonah stayed beside my casket. Madeline stared at Fin
n and Bria, watching as they walked over to Sophia’s classic convertible and slid into the backseat. Sophia and Jo-Jo got into the car as well, and the four of them drove away. Xavier and Roslyn departed, and so did Owen, Eva, Violet, and Warren. Phillip and Cooper left together, and Silvio and Catalina drifted away with the rest of the staff from the Pork Pit.

  “What are you going to do about Coolidge?” Emery asked. “She’s not going to give up. Now that Dobson’s dead, she’s already challenging his supposed investigation into her. She has enough friends in the department to get her job back. If that happens, she could make trouble.”

  “She can try, but she’s not nearly as dangerous as Blanco was,” Madeline replied. “None of them are. So they get to live—for now. Besides, I’m not done with them yet. Just because their beloved Gin is dead is no reason for them not to suffer even more before they join her. Don’t you agree?”

  Emery’s low, evil laughter matched Madeline’s.

  “Besides, without Gin around to protect them, it will be all the more amusing to see how they deal with the problems we send their way.”

  Jonah cleared his throat, finally getting into the conversation. “Needling Blanco’s loved ones is all well and good, but we need to focus on the matter at hand—the party tomorrow night.”

  Madeline and Emery both gave him a flat look. They didn’t care to be interrupted when they were plotting someone else’s pain and suffering. Jonah took a step back and smoothed down his tie. I wondered if he could see how clearly numbered his days in Madeline’s employ were. It wouldn’t surprise me if she killed him anytime now, since I was apparently dead and out of the picture. Perhaps Emery would string him up like a piñata, and she and Madeline would take turns whacking him. Now, that would be a party.

  “Well, Jonah,” Madeline drawled, “you are actually right about something—for a change. We do need to focus on the party. I assume that you’ve handled things on your end?”