Jennifer Estep - By a Thread

It was a two-story ranch house made out of gray brick with a wide, flat yard surrounded by a matching gray wooden fence. It was an anonymous suburban home in a nice middle-class neighborhood. No lights were on inside the house. A few televisions flickered through the windows of some of the other homes on the block, but everything else was dark and quiet. Dekes’s men hadn’t come here, which meant that Donovan and Callie were safe and snug inside his house—and probably in bed together for the night.

Even though there was nothing particularly special about it, I couldn’t quit staring at the detective’s house. It was a perfect, modest home and just the sort of place that I could see Donovan settling down and being happy in. Kissing his wife good-bye in the morning, coming home to her at night, mowing the yard on Saturdays, playing football with the kids on Sundays. Yes, that’s exactly the kind of life I could picture the detective having—with Callie.

“Well, you were right,” Bria murmured. “Dekes sent his men after us instead of them. Do you want me to knock on the door and let them know what’s going on?”

“Nah. It looks like they’re asleep for the night,” I said, my voice thick and husky with emotions that I didn’t want to think too much about right now. “Let’s not wake them. There will be plenty of time to talk tomorrow.”

Bria drove away from the curb. Try as I might, I couldn’t help but look back a final time before we turned onto the main road and Donovan’s house disappeared from sight.

We passed the Blue Sands hotel again with its gleaming white stone and perfectly landscaped grounds. Bria kept right on going, steering the car all the way to the other side of the island before eventually veering onto a wide, smooth road. We drove through a ritzy subdivision, although the houses were so large and spaced so far apart that subdivision didn’t adequately describe the upscale community.

A few minutes later, we came to the end of the road and stopped in front of a three-story beach house that was half a mile away from its closest neighbor.

“Two-thirteen Mockingbird Drive,” Bria said.

“Wait here,” I told her, and got out of the car.

I’d rented the beach house a few days ago under the name Aurora Metis, which was an alias of mine, and had arranged to have it stocked with some staple foods, fresh linens, and all the other essentials that someone might need for a long weekend at the beach. Given how many people were gunning for me back in Ashland, it hadn’t been out of the realm of possibility that some of them might follow me to Blue Marsh, and I’d wanted a safe house to retreat to in case that happened.

The key was right where the realtor had e-mailed that it would be, under a small gray stone statue shaped like a lighthouse that perched on the front porch. An obvious hiding place, if you asked me, but I wasn’t going to be too critical, not after everything that had happened tonight. Even if I hadn’t been able to find the key, all I would have had to do to get inside was use my elemental magic to create a couple of Ice picks and jimmy one of the locks.

I used the key to open the front door and slipped inside the beach house. I walked through the interior, a silverstone knife in either hand, and peered into all the rooms, corners, and closets. Everything was clean and spotless, just as the realtor had promised me it would be. We’d be safe enough here for the night, but I still took my usual precautions, familiarizing myself with the location of the light switches and furniture and taking the time to trace more spiral protection runes into the various stone walls that made up the house.

When I was finished, I stepped through the door that led to the three-car garage, crossed the concrete, and opened the outer door so Bria could drive the convertible inside, where it would be hidden from sight.

“Now what?” she said, climbing out of the car.

“Now we go inside, get cleaned up, and get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be another long day.” I looked at the ruined convertible. “And one of us needs to call Finn and explain what happened to his car.”

Bria gave me a knowing, sarcastic, slightly evil smile. “Oh, that pleasure is all yours, big sister.”

We turned on a few low lights and hauled our suitcases inside. The beach house was equipped with a stone fireplace in the main room, and I rummaged through the kitchen drawers until I found a pack of matches. It was too warm for a fire, but then again, the added heat wasn’t really my intention—destroying evidence was. I grabbed the plastic bag of bloody rags and the empty bottle of bleach and stuffed them inside the grate, along with a few pieces of newspaper and kindling from a nearby brass basket. Bria went into the back of the house to take a shower, and I sat there on one of the couches and watched the evidence of my latest crime crackle and burn while I dialed Finn.

“Hello, sexy. I knew that you couldn’t get through the night without me,” Finn’s smug, slightly sleepy voice filled my ear. “So why don’t you tell me what you’re wearing?”

I rolled my eyes. Apparently, my foster brother hadn’t bothered to check his caller ID before he’d picked up the phone. I wondered if this was how he answered all his late-night calls, or if he’d actually been expecting to hear from Bria. I really hoped it was the second one.

“What am I wearing? Why, right now it would be the blood of two giants, among other naughty unmentionables,” I purred. “What does that do for you, sexy?”

Silence.

Then Finn cleared his throat. “Uh, Gin? Did you dial my number by mistake? Shouldn’t you be cooing these sweet, sweet nothings into Owen’s ear instead of mine?”

“No mistake,” I chirped in a bright voice. “I just thought I’d call you and tell you that there’s been a slight change of plans. Bria and I aren’t staying at the Blue Sands hotel anymore.”

“Why not?” he asked in a sharp voice.

It was amazing just how much suspicion and accusation Finn could put into two simple words. Then again, he knew me all too well. And really, suspicion and accusation were always warranted whenever the Spider was around.

“Let’s just say that we had some unwanted visitors tonight—the kind who were intent on making sure we didn’t live to see the dawn. Of course, that didn’t work out so well for them.”

More silence.

“What the hell did you do?” he finally asked. “And more importantly, is my car still in one piece?”

“Well,” I said. “I suppose that depends on your definition of in one piece .”

Finn just groaned.

I filled Finn in on what had happened. He agreed to call Owen so they could get an early start, drive down to Blue Marsh, and meet Bria and me for brunch at the Sea Breeze at ten. I also asked Finn to dig up everything that he could on Randall Dekes. I wanted to know exactly whom and what I was dealing with before the vampire sent more men after us—or decided to make an appearance himself.

I hung up with Finn and took a long, hot shower, washing away the stench of bleach that clung to my hands and scrubbing the blood out from underneath my fingernails. When I was done, I changed into a pair of loose cotton pajamas and brushed out my wet hair. Bria had already gone to bed, and I added my bloody clothes to hers, which were already burning in the fireplace. I should have crawled into bed and tried to sleep, but instead, I curled up on a couch in front of one of the sliding glass doors that overlooked the endless ocean.