Poison Promise

by Jennifer Estep

  Sophia looked at Catalina, then at me, raising her black eyebrows in a silent question. I’d filled Sophia in on everything that had happened, so she knew why the waitress was strangely silent. I shrugged back. I wasn’t going to push Catalina to talk about what had happened to Troy. I knew better than anyone else that there were some things you simply couldn’t talk about, no matter how much they haunted your soul.

  Instead, I hopped off my stool, strolled over to the front door, and flipped the sign hanging on it over to Open. A few minutes later, the first customer walked inside, and Sophia, Catalina, and I started cooking and serving, with a few more of the waitstaff coming in to help out.

  The lunch rush came and went with no problems. Still, in between cooking, wiping down tables, and cashing out customers, I kept one eye on the front door, waiting for Benson to send some of his men to try to eliminate Catalina.

  Troy’s murder was all over the news, with Bria being quoted as saying that the po-po were pursuing all available leads. She didn’t mention having a witness, but sooner or later, she would have to tell one of the higher-ups in the police department about Catalina. Then it would be open season on the waitress, as far as Benson was concerned. I was glad Catalina had shown up for her shift, even if she didn’t want to talk to me. At least while she was at the restaurant, I could protect her.

  But the minutes slipped by and turned into hours, and nothing happened.

  No vamps, no threats, no action of any kind. No one even tried to murder me when I took the trash out back after the lunch rush. That only made me more suspicious that something sinister was brewing. Whether it was related to me or Catalina, well, only time would tell.

  But the most troubling thing was the fact that I didn’t hear from Bria. Not so much as a text. No doubt, she was completely wrapped up in Troy’s murder and tightening a noose around Benson’s neck. At least that’s what I kept telling myself, instead of dwelling on the fact that Bria’s need for revenge was consuming her, the way it had consumed me in the past. Either way, her radio silence shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did.

  Especially since she called Catalina instead.

  I went into the back to get a jug of ketchup to refill the bottles on the tables and found Catalina standing beside one of the industrial-size refrigerators, clutching her phone to her ear. Startled, she sucked in a breath and froze, the proverbial deer-in-the-headlights look on her face. When she realized it was me, she relaxed—but only a little.

  A low murmur echoed out of her phone, as though someone were asking her a question.

  “I’m okay,” Catalina replied. “Someone just surprised me.”

  She listened for a few seconds. “Yeah, she’s here right now. Do you want to talk to her?”

  That’s when I knew that Bria was on the other end. So I stopped and waited.

  Silence. Then another low murmur sounded.

  “Oh, okay.” Catalina gave me an apologetic look and tiptoed a little closer to the back door, turning away from me. “So what’s the next step, then?”

  Disgusted, I grabbed the ketchup off a metal rack, shoved one of the doors open, and stormed back out into the storefront.

  • • •

  Catalina eased into the front of the restaurant a few minutes later, tucking her phone back into her jeans pocket. She looked at me, then bit her lip, grabbed a pitcher of sweet iced tea, and started refilling glasses.

  I stood at a cooking station along the back wall, chopping up carrots and celery for another batch of macaroni salad and being far more vicious and violent than I needed to be with the defenseless veggies. A few feet away, Sophia hefted a vat of Fletcher’s barbecue sauce off the hot burner and onto several oven mitts so it could cool down, the thick muscles in her arms rolling with the motion. She glanced at Catalina, then at me.

  “Not her fault,” Sophia rasped, picking up on my anger and frustration. “Innocent.”

  “I know,” I muttered, slicing my knife into another carrot. “And that is what makes this whole thing all the more tragic and ironic. But whose fault is it going to be when Benson kills her for trying to do the right thing?”

  Sophia didn’t have an answer for that, and neither did I.

  Thirty more minutes passed, and a few more customers came and went. I had just finished slicing the last of the celery when my own phone rang. I wiped my hands off, then pulled the device out of my pocket and stared at the number on the screen, hoping that it was Bria, finally checking in with me, finally letting me in, finally asking me to help her with this.

  But it wasn’t.

  Disappointment surged through me, but I recognized the number, so I took the call.

  “Gin?” Roslyn Phillips’s low, sultry voice filled my ear.

  “Hey, Roslyn. What’s going on? Kind of early for you to be calling.”

  It was three in the afternoon, and Roslyn was something of a night owl, since she operated Northern Aggression, Ashland’s most decadent after-hours club. Most nights, the drinking and debauchery at the club didn’t kick into high gear until well past midnight.

  “Oh, I came in early to do some inventory. It never ends.” She let out a laugh that sounded more brittle than genuine. “Anyway, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  I frowned. Roslyn had never once talked to me about inventory in all the years I’d known her. “What’s up?”

  “I finally have that special bottle of gin you asked me to order for you.”

  My hand tightened around the phone, and my danger radar pinged up into red-alert territory. I’d never asked Roslyn to order any booze for me. Something was wrong. Someone was there with her. Someone was using her to get to me.

  “How many bottles are there?” I asked in a casual voice, in case anyone was listening on her end of the line. “I hope you got me more than just one. You know how much I love that stuff.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Roslyn said, not missing a beat. “You’re right. I forgot that you had ordered three bottles.”

  She knew what I was really asking: how many people were there with her. Three was more than manageable, and the idiots who’d strong-armed her into doing this were going to realize what a fatal mistake they’d made as soon as I got over there.

  “Anyway, I thought that you might want to come and pick up the bottles this afternoon,” Roslyn chirped, her voice going a bit higher, as though someone was telling her to hurry up. “Before the club opens up for the night.”

  My mind raced, trying to come up with a way to buy myself—and Roslyn—some more time. My gaze landed on the plastic tub full of dirty dishes that Catalina had set on the counter. I reached over, grabbed a fork out of the tub, and started scraping it against a plate that was sitting inside.

  “Well, we’re a little slammed, as you can probably hear. I’ve got about ten customers waiting for food right now. But I can probably be there in an hour, ninety minutes tops. Okay? Or will that be too late for you?”

  Roslyn let out a relieved breath. “Sure, an hour or so will be fine. See you then.”

  “Oh, you can count on it.”

  11

  I ended the call, slid my phone back into my pocket, and dropped the fork into the tub. My gaze cut left and right, scanning over the customers, but they’d all been here for at least fifteen minutes now, and I didn’t see anyone obviously studying me to see how I reacted to Roslyn’s call.

  When I was sure that no one was watching me, I grabbed a newspaper from beside the cash register, then strolled toward the double doors at the far end of the counter, untying my blue work apron and hanging it on a hook on the wall as I went. I kept my movements easy and casual, as though I were just taking a break, but Sophia noticed the cold fury in my eyes and the hard set of my mouth as I stopped next to her.

  “Gin?” Sophia asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing much,” I drawled, plastering a pleasant smile on my face. “I just need to run over to Northern Aggression. Roslyn has a rat problem that she needs some help
with.”

  The dwarf frowned. “Rats? Roslyn never has—” She stopped, her black eyes narrowing. “Oh. Rats.”

  “Yeah. Rats. Care to help me find the poison for them?”

  She nodded, pulled open one of the oven doors, and slid a tray of sourdough buns inside to bake. I headed through the swinging doors and into the back.

  Since the restaurant was packed, all of the waitstaff were out front, seeing to the customers, so there was no one around to watch me toss the newspaper aside, march over to one of the freezers, and drag a black duffel bag out from behind it. I straightened up, put the bag on a nearby table, unzipped the top, and did a quick inventory of all the items inside. Money, fake IDs, tins of Jo-Jo’s healing ointment, anonymous black clothes, and enough guns, ammo, and knives to start a small war. Satisfied, I zipped the bag back up and slung it over my shoulder.

  The doors opened behind me, and Sophia appeared. Her gaze locked onto the bag in my hand. She knew exactly what was inside, because she had a similar bag, one with a grinning figure of Death holding a scythe printed on the side, hidden behind another freezer.

  “Problem?” she rasped.

  “Someone’s decided to use Roslyn as leverage,” I replied, and told her about Roslyn’s call.

  “Go with?” Sophia asked when I finished.

  I shook my head. “Thanks, but no. I’ll call Finn and Owen on the way over there. Bria too.”

  I went back over to the doors and looked through the round glass in the top at Catalina, who was passing out plates of food to a table full of customers. I turned back to Sophia.

  “Stay here and keep an eye on Catalina for me. Okay?”

  She nodded. “I’ll call Jo-Jo too.”

  I knew what she really meant. That she’d let Jo-Jo know what was going on in case I needed the dwarven Air elemental to heal Roslyn or myself.

  “Thanks. Roslyn sounded okay on the phone, but I have no idea if she’ll stay that way.”

  Sophia nodded again, then reached out and took hold of my arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Be careful.”

  I grinned back at her. “Always.”

  Sophia went back out front to watch over Catalina in case Benson sent some of his vamps to the Pork Pit in search of her. Bria probably hadn’t told anyone Catalina’s name yet, but knowing that Sophia would look after the waitress let me focus on what I had to do now: get to Roslyn.

  So I palmed a knife, opened the back door, and stepped out into the alley behind the restaurant, my head swiveling left and right, looking for anyone hunkered down beside one of the Dumpsters, leaning against the walls, or even stationed at either end of the corridor. If the person holding Roslyn hostage was smart, he or she would have someone watching the restaurant to tell them when I left so they could get ready for my arrival at Northern Aggression.

  But the alley was empty.

  No lurkers, no watchers, no assailants of any sort haunted the area, and the only sound was the skitter-skitter of a crumpled-up white paper bag bearing the Pork Pit’s pig logo that was being pushed across the cracked asphalt by the steady breeze. Well, just because no one was waiting in the alley didn’t mean that there weren’t watchers around somewhere.

  Still being cautious, I walked to the end of the alley and fell into the flow of foot traffic on the sidewalk. I kept to the side streets as much as possible, quickly making my way over to my car, which I’d parked four blocks from the Pork Pit.

  No one was following me, but I rounded the corner just in time to see someone snap a photo of my car, lean his ass against the hood, and start texting on his phone. No doubt, he was sharing the vehicle’s location with his boss. So whoever had Roslyn had had his or her men stake out my car instead of the restaurant. Smart. Just not smart enough.

  Apparently, Roslyn’s captors had believed my lie about not being able to leave right away. Otherwise, the guy would have been skulking in one of the nearby alleys, instead of being out in the open right next to my car. Still, even if he wasn’t expecting me for a while, it was sloppy of him to be so brazen, and I planned to use his carelessness to my advantage.

  I glanced behind me, but this was a narrow street, with only a few cars parked on one side, and most of the storefronts were boarded up. I was the only one on this particular block, besides the guy at my car. Good.

  I hoisted my duffel bag a little higher on my shoulder and started whistling a soft, cheery tune that Sophia had taught me. The guy looked up from his phone. He started to go back to his text, but his brain finally kicked into gear, and he recognized me. He froze, his thumbs jamming into his phone’s keypad and making it beep at him.

  Instead of going over and confronting him, I gave the watcher a pleasant smile and walked right on by my car, as though the vehicle weren’t mine at all. I kept my steps slow and steady, as though I were in no particular hurry. After about thirty seconds, shoes slapped on the sidewalk behind me. A glance at my reflection in the dirty windows of a defunct Italian restaurant confirmed that the watcher was scurrying after me, his phone dangling from his hand.

  I grinned.

  My casual walk continued until I reached the end of the block. As soon as I stepped around the corner, I dropped my duffel bag and pressed myself up against the side of the building, scanning the area. The block off to my left was deserted, and an alcove was set into the wall two feet past my right elbow, leading to a battered metal door, although whatever business had been behind it was long closed. To my right, at the far end of this block, a bum wearing layers of tattered rags dug through a plastic bag of garbage someone had tossed onto the sidewalk, searching for tin cans to add to the load already in his shopping cart.

  Normally, I would have kept going until I could lure my watcher into a completely deserted area, but the bum was focused on his recycling, and I wanted to get to Roslyn as quickly as possible.

  Besides, I was good at killing people quietly.

  So I stood against the building, knife in my hand, tuning out the usual humming and honking of cars and horns on the neighboring streets, and concentrating on the smack-smack-smack of the watcher’s footsteps. He was a minute out and closing fast. I counted off the seconds in my head. Sixty . . . forty-five . . . thirty . . . twenty . . . ten . . .

  The guy careened around the corner, his phone still in his hand, desperately trying to catch up with me before I disappeared completely. I grabbed the back of his suit jacket, spun him around, shoved him through the alcove, and slammed him into the door.

  Crunch.

  The sound of his nose breaking against the door was even louder than his hurried footsteps had been. The guy yelped and whirled around, blood dribbling down his face and murder in his eyes.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” I warned.

  Too late. He dropped his phone, his right hand darting toward the gun clipped to his belt, but I didn’t give him the chance to use it. I surged forward, clamped my hand over his mouth, and cut his throat with the knife still in my other hand. He died with a choking, bloody gurgle.

  The guy pitched forward onto me, but my clothes were dark enough to hide the worst of the bloodstains. I lowered him to the ground and propped him up against the battered door, with his legs sticking out of the alcove and his feet falling away from each other on the sidewalk, as though he were a drunk sleeping off a bender.

  Tink-tink-tink.

  My head snapped to the left at the sounds, but it was just the bum still picking through the garbage. Even as my attacker bled out, the bum hooted with glee, apparently having found the mother lode. He started tossing can after can into his shopping cart like a basketball player swishing free throws. Dude had some game.

  I waited a few seconds, but the bum kept adding to his aluminum haul. He was either too preoccupied by his search to notice me, or he was smart enough to pretend that I hadn’t just murdered a man a hundred feet away from him. Didn’t much matter to me which one.

  Since the bum was seemingly fascinated with his discovery, I focused my attention back o
n the dead watcher. I didn’t recognize his face, but a pair of fangs gleamed in his mouth, which was frozen open in surprise at the brutal bit of death I’d just dealt him.

  The man could have worked for anyone, but I couldn’t help but think of Benson and his army of vamps. Could Benson be behind Roslyn’s call? If so, I hoped that he was one of the three folks waiting for me at Northern Aggression. It was about time we had a face-to-face chat.

  I started to get up, retrieve my bag from the sidewalk, and be on my way, when something let out a soft beep.

  I went back down on one knee, keeping clear of the growing pool of blood forming around the vamp’s body, and fished his phone out from underneath his leg. A message from an unknown caller lit up the screen.

  Has she left yet?

  I sent whoever was on the other end a text.

  No. Still watching for her.

  I waited a few more seconds, but apparently, the person on the other end was content to wait for the vamp to respond when he spotted me leaving. I slipped the device into the back pocket of my jeans, then pulled out my own phone and sent a text to Sophia.

  Watcher in doorway on Dalton Street. Leave as is, or dispose of at your leisure. Your choice. G.

  A few seconds later, Sophia hit me back with a smiley face:

  I grinned, put my phone away, and grabbed my duffel bag. I also took a moment to fish the dead guy’s wallet out of his suit jacket and swipe the cash inside before wiping off my prints and leaving the empty leather on the pavement beside his body so it would look like just another robbery gone wrong. Then I got to my feet and headed toward the bum, who was sorting through the cans in his shopping cart.

  He finally looked up when my shadow fell over him. His eyes narrowed, and he grabbed the handle of his cart, holding on tight with both hands, lest I try to wrest it away from him. But all I did was toss the crumpled bills I’d taken off the dead watcher on top of the sticky mound of cans.

  “For helping to keep the streets clean,” I said.