Bitter Bite

by Jennifer Estep

  He snorted and gulped down some more Scotch.

  “Believe me, it was just as much of a shock to me as it is to you. I don’t remember Fletcher talking about your mother all that much. Finding that file, realizing that she might still be alive, and then seeing her in the flesh tonight, sitting with you at the bar like she was just another client . . . it threw me too.”

  “But not as much as it did me.” He took another hit of Scotch.

  “No,” I replied in an even voice. “Not as much as it did you.”

  A thought occurred to Finn, and he snapped his head around and glared at Jo-Jo. “And you,” he snarled. “You had to know that Dee-Dee was alive too.”

  Jo-Jo stayed calm in the face of his anger, shaking her head. The motion made her pink sponge curlers sway back and forth. “Darling, I promise you that I didn’t know anything about your mama until tonight when you came in here ranting and raving about her.”

  “How could you not?” he snarled again. “You and Sophia were Dad’s best friends. You knew all his secrets.”

  “Not this one,” Sophia muttered.

  Jo-Jo gave her sister a pointed look, but Sophia just shrugged back.

  “Of course, we knew Deirdre Shaw,” Jo-Jo said, focusing on Finn again. “From the day they first met at the Pork Pit, your daddy was plumb crazy about her, always talking and telling stories about her. He brought her by the salon a few times, but they mostly kept to themselves. That’s how in love they were.”

  Finn’s eyes narrowed, but he waved his hand, telling her to continue.

  “They’d been together a few months when Fletcher dropped by and told us that Dee-Dee was pregnant.” The dwarf’s face softened with memories. “Fletcher said it was the happiest day of his life, knowing that he was going to be a father.”

  Finn shifted in his seat, some of the cold rage leaking out of his face. “So what happened?”

  “Family emergency,” Sophia rasped.

  Jo-Jo nodded. “We had an elderly cousin up in Cypress Mountain who was dying of old age and didn’t have any close family to help her. So Sophia and I packed up and went to stay with her. We thought we’d only be gone a few weeks, but it was much longer before our cousin passed. Of course, we came back to Ashland every now and then, but we didn’t see much of Fletcher. By the time we got through our cousin’s funeral and settled up her estate, several months had passed.”

  “And?”

  “And you had been born, but your mama was gone,” Jo-Jo said. “Fletcher told us that someone had figured out that he was an assassin. This person had stormed into the Pork Pit one night with several giants while he was there with you and your mama. Fletcher said that he had to make a choice whether to save you or Deirdre—and he chose you. He said that the giants murdered your mama right in front of him. He managed to kill them all in the end, and he got rid of all the bodies except your mama’s. He made it look like she’d died in a car accident. He told everyone that was how she died, and he made Sophia and me swear to tell you the same story too.”

  “Why? Why would he do that?” Finn demanded.

  She hesitated. “Fletcher thought it would be easier on you if her death seemed like an accident. He claimed that he didn’t want you to blame yourself because he chose to save you and not her.”

  “And you believed him?” Finn asked. “Just like that?”

  “He didn’t want to talk about it,” Sophia chimed in.

  Jo-Jo shook her head again. “Of course, we had questions, but Fletcher was so heartbroken that we didn’t press him about it. Besides, why would he lie about something like that? What reason would he have? After that, Fletcher threw himself into raising you, and Sophia and I helped him as much as we could. The years passed, and eventually, Gin came along, and well, here we are tonight.”

  Everyone fell silent, digesting Jo-Jo’s story, and once again, the only sound was the tick-tock-tick-tock of the grandfather clock, punctuated every once in a while by a soft whine from Rosco.

  Ever since I’d found out that Deirdre was alive, I’d wondered what the Deveraux sisters might know about her, and I’d thought about asking Jo-Jo and Sophia about her a dozen times. Jo-Jo’s voice had been strong, her tone sincere, her clear, almost colorless eyes steady on Finn’s the whole time. She’d told him everything she knew, but it only increased my frustration, since I still had more questions than answers.

  If I couldn’t find out anything about Deirdre’s past, then I’d have to focus on who she was now. So I turned to the one person who could shed some light on that: Finn.

  His nostrils flared when he realized that I was staring at him, but the rest of his features remain fixed in that cold, blank mask.

  “Why don’t you tell us what you know about Deirdre?” I said, struggling to keep calm. “When did you meet her? You said that she’s a client of yours?”

  Finn jerked his head. I thought he might stay quiet, just to get back at me for keeping this from him, but he sighed and finally set his glass of Scotch aside. “It all started back over the summer,” he said. “A couple of weeks after that mess with Harley Grimes up on Bone Mountain. One of the bank higher-ups came into my office and said that a big fish had just walked in the door, wanting to move her accounts and other business interests over to First Trust. He asked me to see what I could do for her. The next thing I know, Dee-Dee is strolling into my office. She was just like you saw her tonight—big, bold, confident. We hit it off right away.”

  A faint smile pulled up his lips, easing some of the anger that tightened his face.

  “At first, I didn’t think anything of her. She was just another client with old family money who spends most of her time lunching with the ladies and doing charity work. Your typical society broad. Apparently, she’d heard about me and wanted to see what I could do with her investment portfolio. Seemed like her last guy had been skimming and mismanaging funds from her charity foundation, and she wanted to get back on track.”

  “And . . .” I prompted.

  Finn shrugged. “And things just progressed from there. I looked at her finances, straightened out a few things, recommended some investments. She would come by the bank to check on things whenever she was in town. A few weeks ago, she rented a penthouse in Ashland to stay in while she puts together a local charity exhibit. After that, we started seeing each other more often, having coffee, meeting for drinks. Dee-Dee started getting a little friendlier, opening up to me. It happens once a client feels comfortable enough. We talked about movies, TV shows, books. All your usual chitchat.”

  “What about tonight?” Bria asked. “What were the two of you meeting about tonight?”

  “A couple of weeks ago, Dee-Dee asked me to put her in touch with some folks who could help with her charity exhibit, and she was telling me how well everything was going.” He paused. “Although she wanted to take me out to dinner, said that there was something else she wanted to talk to me about. Something personal. I guess I know what that is now.” He barked out a harsh, humorless laugh.

  “What about Hugh Tucker?” I asked. “What’s his story?”

  Finn shrugged again. “Your typical assistant. Fetching coffee, taking messages, and the like. He’s come into the bank with Dee-Dee several times now. She rented some safety-deposit boxes in the basement vault for her jewelry, and he carried in the briefcases for her. Nothing unusual there.”

  Nothing unusual at all. Many wealthy people in Ashland employed personal assistants. Still, the wealthier the person, usually the more obnoxious the assistant was, some of them even more aggressive than giant bodyguards about not letting you get close to their bosses. At least, not without an appointment. And most assistants were actually concerned with, well, assisting their bosses, not drinking, texting, and being bored like Tucker had been tonight. Silvio would have given him a stern talking-to about proper decorum.

  Finn fell silent again and stared at his glass of Scotch, brooding.

  “That’s all?” I asked. “That’s all the con
tact you’ve had with her?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  I could have told him that something about Deirdre just rubbed me the wrong way. I could have told him that long-lost relatives didn’t appear out of thin air for no reason. I could have told him that it was obvious that she wanted something from him.

  But I held my tongue and kept my suspicions to myself. Finn had gotten a brutal shock, one he was trying to drink into oblivion, and he wasn’t thinking straight right now. He was too close to the situation, too involved, too hurt and curious and hopeful and a hundred other things to wonder exactly why his mother had chosen this exact moment to reappear in his life after being gone for the previous thirty-three years of it.

  But I was here, I was thinking clearly, and I wondered all those things. More important, I was determined to get answers to every single one of my questions. And if Deirdre was, in fact, conning Finn, then I was going to rain down a whole lot of hurt onto her for daring to think that she could sashay back into his life and use him for her own dark, devious ends.

  But first, there was something else I needed to do.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner, that I didn’t tell you the second I found her file. I just . . . didn’t know how. Of all the bad things that have happened to us, of all the secrets the old man kept from us, your mom being alive . . . it’s not something that I had ever even considered.”

  Finn snorted, but his face softened, and a little more of the cold anger leaked out of his eyes. “You and me both, sister,” he muttered, sounding much more like his usual cheerful self. “So what do we do now?”

  I grabbed the glass out of his hand and set it on the table. “You are going to go upstairs, take a shower, and crash here for the night. Then, in the morning, you’re going to call in sick so you can sleep off your hangover. After that, you’re going to put on your best suit, come to the Pork Pit, and talk to your mother.”

  Finn nodded. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  He got out of his chair, took a step, and wobbled. He would have done a header onto the floor if Bria hadn’t rushed up and grabbed hold of him. Even then, he kept wobbling back and forth.

  Owen started forward to help Bria with Finn, but Sophia got there first. She swung Finn up into her arms, as though he didn’t weigh any more than Rosco.

  “My Princess Charming,” Finn drawled. “Sweeping me off my feet.”

  Sophia snorted. “Lightweight,” she said, a fond note in her gruff voice.

  He gave her a drunken smile, his glassy eyes indicating that he was feeling no pain now, and pointed toward the hallway. “Yep, that’s me. Finnegan Lane, lightweight drinker. Now, to the shower, my lady!”

  Sophia carried Finn out of the salon, with Bria following them. That left me with Owen, Jo-Jo, and Rosco. The basset hound had apparently had enough drama for the night, because he hauled himself to his feet, waddled over, and curled up in his wicker basket in the corner.

  “I wish I could tell you more, Gin,” Jo-Jo said. “But Fletcher kept Dee-Dee to himself.”

  I nodded and rubbed my temples, which were throbbing like I’d just downed as much Scotch as Finn had. I started pacing back and forth, even though the snap-snap-snap-snap of my stilettos against the floor added to my headache. My troubled thoughts were as quick as my steps, and more and more questions crowded into my mind.

  “You really think she’s up to something?” Owen asked.

  “For Finn’s sake, I hope she’s not. This is one instance where I would be happy to be wrong.”

  “But?” he asked.

  That photo of Deirdre staring down at newborn Finn with no expression on her face popped into my head again. Funny, but that was exactly how Finn had looked at me tonight, as if I didn’t matter to him at all, and it had shaken me far more than I cared to admit.

  “Gin?” Jo-Jo asked.

  I stopped pacing and looked at her and Owen. “But something tells me there’s a lot more to Deirdre Shaw than just a mother trying to reconnect with her son.”

  10

  We left Finn at the salon, and Owen drove me back to Fletcher’s. He offered to spend the night, but I sent him home. I wasn’t good company right now. Not when so many thoughts and questions kept swirling around in my mind about Finn, Fletcher, and Deirdre.

  I had just locked the door behind Owen and slipped out of my stilettos when the phone rang. I sighed, knowing exactly who it was—and that he would just keep calling until I answered him.

  So I went into the den and grabbed the cordless phone. “Hello, Silvio.”

  Silence. “How did you know it was me?” The vampire’s voice flooded my ear.

  “Because I turned off my cell phone before I went to the bank, and no doubt you have been trying to reach me ever since you heard about the robbery.” I sat down on the couch. “Not to mention the fact that the phone rang a mere minute after Owen left. How would someone know that I was home right this very second? Unless, of course, he had planted a GPS tracker on Owen’s car.”

  Silvio cleared his throat. “I will neither confirm nor deny that.”

  “Of course not.”

  I didn’t say anything more as I leaned back and put my feet up on the coffee table. The silence stretched on . . . and on . . . and on . . .

  Finally, Silvio sighed. “You’re going to make me ask what happened, aren’t you?”

  “Would I do something like that?”

  “Absolutely,” he grumbled.

  Even though he couldn’t see me, I still grinned. “Sadly, it’s the most fun I’ve had all night.”

  I filled him in on the robbery and Deirdre’s big reveal. When I finished, he was silent, although a series of clickety-clack-clack-clacks sounded through the phone, as if he was typing out notes on our conversation. Now, that was what a good assistant was supposed to do.

  “I have some preliminary information on Ms. Shaw,” he said, still typing away. “I’ll have it and more waiting at the Pork Pit in the morning.”

  “Thank you. You’re a good friend, Silvio.”

  “I do try,” he said, an amused note in his voice. “Now, get some sleep. I’ve got work to do.”

  We hung up, and I went upstairs, took a shower, and got into bed. I thought I would have trouble falling asleep, since my brain was still in overdrive, but as soon as my head touched the pillows, I dropped off into the land of sleep, dreams, and memories . . .

  “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  Finn rolled his eyes. “Of course, you don’t think it’s a good idea. You never think anything fun is good.”

  He went back to stringing up white lights along the fireplace mantel in the den. I shifted from one foot to the other, my stomach twisting into tight knots, but I didn’t try to stop him. I had no right to. After all, this was his dad’s house. I was just a guest here. At least, that’s how I still felt sometimes, even though I’d been living with Fletcher for almost a year now.

  The old man had gone off on some assassin job as the Tin Man and wouldn’t be back until morning. He’d wanted Finn and me to spend the night at Jo-Jo’s, but Finn had griped that he was sixteen now and Fletcher had to start leaving him alone sometime. After an hour of arguing on Finn’s part, the old man had reluctantly agreed. Even though I would never tell him so, I’d thought Finn was right. Neither one of us was a kid. Not after all the bad things we’d seen and done.

  What I hadn’t realized was that Finn had a secret agenda.

  Sure, he wanted to be trusted enough to be left home alone. But he also planned to throw a massive party.

  The second the old man left, Finn had started calling up all his friends.

  “Hey, man. Yep, my dad’s gone, just like I planned. Why don’t you guys come over about eight? Sure, it’s cool if you bring your own beer . . .”

  He’d had the same conversation with a dozen people. After he’d finished his calls, he raced up to the attic, carried down several boxes of Christmas lights, and strung th
em up all over the house, as if the small white glows would hide all the clutter, mismatched furniture, and assorted junk that Fletcher had accumulated. Finn also taped up a couple of old silver disco balls on the ceiling.

  He had gone into the kitchen and arranged cold cuts, carrot sticks, and more food from the fridge on platters and then filled bowls with chips, pretzels, and popcorn. He had also set out cans of soda, along with bottles of gin, Scotch, and other liquor from Fletcher’s office. For a final touch, he’d hooked up an old stereo system in the den and tuned it to a popular radio station.

  “Hey, Gin,” Finn called out now. “Hand me some more tape. I need to get this final string of lights up before anyone gets here.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “You’re going to get into so much trouble. Fletcher’s going to find out. You know he will.”

  The old man was downright spooky when it came to figuring out Finn’s latest schemes and how he was plotting to get around Fletcher’s rules, whether it was about homework or curfew or doing his chores. But Finn was just as stubborn as the old man, and he kept right on doing exactly what he wanted, no matter how many times Fletcher punished him.

  Finn grinned, but his smile was more calculating than kind. “He won’t find out if you don’t tell him. And since you haven’t called him or Jo-Jo yet, well, I’d say that makes you just as guilty as me now. Wouldn’t you?”

  I shifted on my feet again. I hadn’t called anyone because I hadn’t wanted to get into trouble. Fletcher said that he loved me, that I was part of his family, now and forever, but we weren’t related.

  We weren’t blood.

  The truth was that Fletcher could kick me out anytime he wanted to, and I couldn’t help but think that he would if I ever pissed him off enough. Like by letting a bunch of kids eat his food, guzzle his booze, and trash his house.

  “Come on, Gin,” Finn said, his voice taking on a wheedling note. “If you think we’re going to get into trouble anyway, then we might as well go ahead and have the fun now. Make all that punishment really worth it in the end.”