Jennifer Estep - Spider's Bite

“Of course,” I murmured.

I stepped forward. Finn had already tossed his flower in, and a white rose rested on top of the golden wood. So did two others, a pink rose from Jo-Jo and a black one from Sophia. I clutched my red rose. The thorns dug into the spider rune scar on my right palm, pricking my skin, drawing my blood, but I didn’t care. I let out a deep breath and threw my rose on top of the others.

The petals spread out when they hit the surface of the casket, kissing it like I had the old man’s face just before they’d shut the lid on him.

“Good-bye, Fletcher,” I whispered.

One by one, the other mourners came over to Finn to pay him their respects and tell him how sorry they were about the old man. A few offered me their condolences as well, but most of the attention focused on Fletcher’s son, not the stray girl he’d taken in off the streets. As it should be, I supposed.

During a lull, I wandered over to Roslyn Phillips. The vampire wore a somber black suit, but the subdued fabric did little to disguise the lush curves of her body. A matching pillbox hat perched on top of her head, and a faint breeze made the lacy veil flutter against her cheeks. I moved to stand beside her, and we both watched Finn talk to a dwarf bent double with rheumatism, arthritis, and old age.

“Good of you to come,” I said in a soft voice. “I know it means a lot to Finn.”

Roslyn nodded. “I wanted to be here for him. The least I could do.”

“You mean since you inadvertently got his father killed?”

The vampire stiffened like I’d just stabbed her with one of my knives. Her shocked eyes met mine. “How did you—”

“How did I figure it out?” I shrugged. “I’ll admit it took me awhile. The whole time Alexis James was chasing me, I couldn’t figure out why she’d picked me to set up or even how she’d found Fletcher in the first place. But she told me that night in the rock quarry. You heard her. She got the information from one of Gordon Giles’s hooker friends, the one whose daughter was raped, the one I killed Cliff Ingles for.”

I stared at Roslyn. “Gordon had a whole stack of photos of himself with prostitutes, most of whom wore the heart-and-arrow necklace that’s the signature for your club. The hooker Alexis squeezed for information, she was one of your girls, wasn’t she?”

After a moment, Roslyn jerked her head in confirmation. No use denying it now.

“I imagine the hooker came to you, wanting time off to take care of her daughter, who’d been so brutally raped and beaten. You told her about Fletcher and Finn. That they could arrange certain … accidents for people. When Alexis James had Stephenson pick her up, the hooker had to give them something to save her own skin — and she picked Fletcher and Finn.”

“I thought I was doing her a favor. I never dreamed this would happen. If I’d known how it was going to turn out—” Roslyn started.

“Save it,” I snapped. “It’s done now. There’s no changing it.”

We stood there, side by side, and watched another mourner come up to Finn. Tension radiated off Roslyn’s body like cold did mine.

“Are you going to tell Finn?” she finally asked.

I waited a few seconds, letting her sweat. “No. There’s no reason for him to know, and it would only sour things between the two of you.”

“I really do care for him,” Roslyn murmured.

I stared at her with my cold, gray eyes. “I know you do. And he cares for you, which is why I’m letting you live. That, and Catherine.”

Roslyn frowned. “Catherine?”

“She needs you. I know what it’s like to be without your family. That little girl deserves better.” I turned so Roslyn felt the full force of my hard stare. “But if you ever mention what Finn and I do to anyone else, I will slice you up and burn the leftovers. And anything, anything, Finn or I need that you can provide, you will from now on until I say otherwise. No questions asked. Understood?”

After a moment, Roslyn slowly nodded. Relief shimmered in her eyes. She knew she’d made a mistake — and that I was letting her off easy.

“Good,” I snapped. “Now go pay your respects to Finn, before I change my fucking mind.”

I drifted away from the crowd and headed toward the very top of the cemetery. Fletcher Lane wasn’t the only person buried here that I’d known.

A series of five graves lay atop the ridge, shaded by a massive maple that seemed to pierce the sky with its arcing limbs. A stone statue had been mounted above the five plots, marking them. Even though thick curls of kudzu covered the stone and the rest of it had been pitted by the rain and wind, the shape was unmistakable. A giant snowflake. The rune of the Snow family, my murdered family.

My eyes drifted down from the statue to the graves themselves. My father, Tristan’s, tombstone was the most weather-worn. He’d died when I’d been a child. I barely recalled his gray eyes, much less what he’d been like. But the others — I remembered them in vivid detail. Eira, my mother. Annabella, my older sister. And Bria, the baby of the family. Runes marked their tombstones. A snowflake, an ivy vine, and a primrose, just like the three drawings I’d done.

I walked past their graves until I came to the fifth one on the end of the row.

Genevieve Snow. Beloved Daughter and Sister . That’s what the tombstone said, along with the dates of my birth and supposed death. A rune had also been carved into the stone. A small circle with eight thin rays radiating out of it.

A spider rune — identical to the scars on my palms.

I’d thought I’d feel something staring at my own tombstone, my own cold grave, but I didn’t. Just … emptiness at everything I’d lost. First my family, now Fletcher. Not much left for me to hold on to.

“A friend of yours?” a low voice called out behind me.

I turned to stare at Donovan Caine.

The detective stood a few feet away. He wore a black funeral suit that outlined the lean strength of his body. Caine moved to stand beside me. As always, he walked with that loose, easy confidence I found so attractive. But the detective looked a little thinner than I remembered. A little more haggard, and the lines on his face cut a little deeper into his bronze skin, as though something was haunting him. Something he just couldn’t quite shake. I wondered if it was me. I’d certainly thought about him often enough in the week since the incident at the rock quarry.

Donovan’s eyes met mine. Emotions flashed in the hazel depths, the way they always did. Weariness, resolve, curiosity. Caine’s gaze slid down my body, taking in my black pants suit and low pumps, before flicking back to my hair. A chocolate brown color now, with caramel highlights. As close as Jo-Jo had been able to dye it to my natural color. Letting that grow in would take time. It always did. Like so many other things.

His golden gaze read the tombstone. “A friend? Or was this someone you killed?”

I thought of the happy, innocent little girl I’d been and the night everything had changed. The night my mother and sister had been murdered. “You might say that. What are you doing here?”

Donovan jerked his chin at the mourners below. “I came to pay my respects.”

“How did you find out about Fletcher?” I asked.

He shrugged. “People are a lot more willing to do me favors these days. I asked one of the rookies to pull all the deaths that happened the night Gordon Giles died. There was only one that matched the cell phone picture you showed me.”

“I see.”

Donovan hesitated. “I’m — I’m sorry about him, Gin. I know he was Finn’s father, that he was important to you.”