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Jennifer Estep: By a Thread

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When killing people is your job, there’s no such thing as a vacation. Then again, how often does an assassin live long enough to enjoy her retirement? In this line of work, you either get lucky or you get dead. And since I destroyed my nemesis Mab Monroe a few weeks ago, all of Ashland’s lowlifes are gunning to make a name for themselves by taking out the lethal Spider—me, Gin Blanco. So I’m leaving behind my beloved barbecue joint and heading south with my baby sister, Bria, to cool my heels in a swanky beach town. Call it a weekend of fun in the sun. But when a powerful vampire with deadly elemental magic threatens an old friend of Bria’s, it looks like I’ll have to dig my silverstone knives out of my suitcase after all. Complicating matters further is the reappearance of Detective Donovan Caine, my old lover. But Donovan is the least of my problems. Because this time, the danger is hot on my trail, and not even my elemental Ice and Stone magic may be enough to save me from getting buried in the sand—permanently

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I’d never played golf a day in my life, and I had no intention of starting while we were here. Although I wasn’t above using one of the clubs to bludgeon someone to death, if the situation called for it.

The bellman shrugged and moved to get the next bag. Behind his back, Bria pulled down her sunglasses and narrowed her eyes at me in suspicion, but I just gave her a serene smile. If my sister thought that I would leave my silverstone knives and the other tools of my bloody, violent trade back home just because we’d come to the beach for a few days, well, she didn’t know me at all.

The thought depressed me more than it should have.

Finn had put our suite for tonight in Bria’s name, so she handled checking in while I kept an eye on our bags. Finally, twenty minutes later, the bellman grunted again as he heaved my suitcase onto the bed. Bria tipped him, and he left us alone, taking the cart and closing the door on his way out.

It might not have been my preferred choice for a hotel, but even I had to admit that Finn had booked us an impressive suite. Three lavish bedrooms all featured king-size beds, mounds of pillows, and flat-screen TVs, while the matching bathrooms contained oversize porcelain tubs that rested on real golden claw feet, along with white wicker baskets full of expensive soaps and flowery lotions. The bedrooms all connected to an enormous central living room with furniture done in shades of white, black, and gray, as well as a fully stocked kitchen and a wet bar that had almost as many different kinds of liquor as Northern Aggression, a nightclub that we frequented back in Ashland. Two French doors led out to a patio complete with furniture and that overlooked the ocean. Tomorrow, when the boys arrived, Finn had arranged for Owen and me to share a similar suite while he and Bria stayed in this one.

“Now what?” I asked, watching Bria while she riffled through the various room service and spa menus that had been propped up on the kitchen counter.

“What do you mean, ‘Now what?’? Now we go out exploring. You know, see the sights, buy some souvenirs, things like that, before we go see Callie later this evening.” Bria looked at me. “You have been on vacation before, haven’t you, Gin?”

I shifted on my feet. “Sure I have. I went to Key West just last fall.”

I didn’t tell Bria that I’d spent most of my time down there reading, drinking, and brooding about a number of things, including Fletcher’s murder and my strange relationship with Donovan Caine, a cop that I’d been involved with before he dumped me and left Ashland for good.

“Well?” she said, grabbing her purse off the sofa where she’d thrown it when we’d first come into the suite. “Are you ready?”

“You betcha.”

Bria didn’t seem to notice the sarcasm in my voice, and she turned toward the door so she didn’t see the forced smile drop from my face. We’d just gotten here, but I could already tell that this was going to be a long, long weekend.

Watch out, tourists and locals alike. Gin Blanco is on the prowl.

One of the valets brought the car around, and we headed out. The resort hotel was close to one of the long, narrow bridges that connected the island and town of Blue Marsh to the outside world. Instead of crossing the bridge, Bria turned left and headed inland.

The farther we drove, the more the landscape shifted from smooth, sandy beaches to thick, swampy bogs choked with gray cypress trees full of thick wads of Spanish moss and neon green cattails that were taller than I was. But no matter the plant life that surrounded the soupy marshes, the still, shallow waters reflected back the brilliant blue sky overhead, until it seemed that the surface of the swamp was as bright and clear as the azure sky. Hence the name Blue Marsh, I guessed.

But the swampland was far from deserted. Through the twisted, gnarled trees, dozens of mansions could be seen clinging to what high ground there was, along with several themed shopping developments, coffee shops, and high-end restaurants. Looked like Blue Marsh was a bit of a Southern boomtown.

“It reminds me of Northtown,” I said, watching something that looked like a gray-green log with eyes drift across a pond, disturbing the perfect reflection of the sky there. “But with gators.”

Northtown was the rich, fancy, highfalutin part of Ashland where the city’s power players—magical, social, monetary, and otherwise—lived on their immaculately landscaped estates. McMansions just like the ones I was looking at right now filled Northtown, along with sly, uppity folks who’d call you sugar to your face and then stab you in the back with their dessert forks the second they got the chance. I had no doubt that the people who lived in the mansions down here were just as dangerous. Geography might change from place to place, but human emotions and appetites rarely did.

Bria nodded. “Blue Marsh is definitely more of a resort town these days. Developers are buying up all the land, filling in the swamps as best they can, and pushing out the middle- and lower-class folks, making it too expensive for them to live here anymore even though they work in all the restaurants and hotels on the island. It’s a shame, really. Every time I’ve talked to Callie, she’s told me that it’s only gotten worse since I’ve been gone.”

“Ah, progress,” I mocked, and we drove on.

Bria parked the car in one of the lots in the downtown district, and we spent the next two hours exploring the Southern coastal town. It was quite a bit warmer here than in the cool mountains of Ashland, and the oppressive humidity made the air thick and heavy, despite the steady breeze that blew in off the ocean. Shops, restaurants, and hotels filled the area, all facing the water to take advantage of the picturesque view and the strip of beach below.

We strolled along the cobblestone walkway that ran past the shops and cafés, ducking into the various storefronts and listening to the street musicians trying to impress passersby and pick up tips with their lively jazz tunes. In the distance, ships with glassed-in decks sailed up and down the waterfront, showing tourists all the sites worth seeing.

Shopping wasn’t really my thing, but it seemed to make Bria happy, so I tagged along behind her, making the appropriate oohing and aahing noises when called upon. I even let her buy me a tacky T-shirt that said I’m a real peach above a picture of the fruit.

“Well,” I said as we left the shop. “Finn will certainly get a kick out of the shirt.”

Bria snickered. “I know.”

She bought a few more things, including a massive T-shirt for Xavier, the giant who was her partner on the police force back in Ashland, and a much smaller one for Roslyn Phillips, his main squeeze. Then she stopped at a flower stand and picked out two bouquets of blue and white forget-me-nots.

“Who are those for?” I asked. “Callie?”

The smile faded from her face. “No, not Callie. You’ll see.”

We left the downtown district behind and walked through some of the island’s historic gardens, passing more shops, restaurants, and museums along the way. Eventually we left the tourist sites behind and came to a wrought-iron gate that wrapped around a small cemetery. Magnolia, cypress, and palmetto trees had been planted around the gate, and their thick branches arced from one side of the square cemetery to the other, creating a canopy that blotted out the blazing sun and cloaked everything below in soft, sleepy shadows. The air was hushed and heavy inside the cemetery, and even the drone of the dragonflies seemed muted and far away.

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