Snared

by Jennifer Estep

  For the first time, I wondered what had happened to Hugh Tucker to turn him into the man he was today. The one who did so many bad things on someone else’s orders. I wondered how fast the vampire’s downward spiral had been. I wondered what the tipping point had been, the one thing that had dragged him down, down, down into the darkness, never to surface into the light again.

  My own downward spiral had started with the murders of my mother and Annabella. But what had been Tucker’s trigger? The loss of his family’s wealth, power, position, and prestige? His own ruthless ambition to get it all back? Helping to orchestrate my mother’s death? Or perhaps all the dirty deeds he’d done for the Circle since then? The ones that had chipped away at his soul a little bit at a time until now there was nothing left?

  In the end, Tucker’s reasons were his own, and I doubted that I would ever learn them. And however sad and tragic his motives, however they might pluck the heartstrings, they still didn’t change everything the bastard had done to me and my friends. Tucker’s rationale didn’t change how he’d stood by and watched Deirdre Shaw weasel her way into Finn’s life, pretending to be a doting mother, when all she really wanted was to rob the First Trust bank. It didn’t change how Tucker had drugged and kidnapped Finn, Bria, and Owen so that I would hand over some precious jewels that Deirdre had hidden from him and the Circle. And it certainly didn’t change how many times he’d tried to kill me.

  Or the fact that I would kill him, when the time came.

  Because that sweet, innocent little girl was long gone, and this stone-cold killer would do whatever it took to protect the friends and family that she had left.

  Feeling much calmer, I raised my glass in a toast to Fletcher’s photo. “Good talk.”

  I downed the gin and set the empty glass aside. Then I got to my feet, turned off the lights, and went back to Owen to try to get what sleep I could tonight.

  5

  I didn’t think that I would sleep, but eventually my questions faded away, and I snuggled up next to Owen and slipped into a soothing blackness.

  I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and already plotting how I could find out what Damian Rivera had done that had upset Tucker. Maybe I could kidnap and put the squeeze on Rivera, threaten to go public with his many sins, unless he told me who the leader of the Circle was. After that, well, I would have to keep Rivera from ratting me out to Tucker.

  Of course, the obvious answer was to kill him. I didn’t have any problem with that, but I couldn’t just stab him to death the way I normally would. Tucker would realize that it was me and that I was onto him and the rest of the Circle, and then I’d totally lose the element of surprise. No, I’d have to figure out some other way to silence Rivera, something that looked like a plausible accident. I hadn’t done many of those sorts of jobs as the Spider, but I’d think of something.

  I always did.

  Owen and I chowed down on a light but filling breakfast of egg-white omelets loaded with spinach, cheddar cheese, and ham, along with whipped vanilla Greek yogurt topped with crunchy homemade granola and fresh fruit. Once we’d finished eating, we went our separate ways for the day.

  I headed upstairs, showered, and changed into a pair of black boots and jeans, topped by a royal-blue sweater. My spider rune pendant glinted brightly against the fabric, while a matching ring glimmered on my right index finger. Normally, I wore my rune tucked away inside my clothes, but today I wanted it out for everyone to see. I wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe it was my own small way of officially declaring war on Rivera and Tucker.

  Whatever it was, it felt good.

  It was almost nine thirty by the time I drove downtown, parked my car, and made my way to the Pork Pit, my barbecue restaurant. I stood at the corner of the brick building and eyed the flow of traffic on the street and sidewalks, but the air was bitterly cold, with a few flurries fluttering on the breeze, and people all ducked their heads and hurried on toward their destinations.

  No one gave me a second glance, so I did my usual check for rune traps and bombs on the front door and windows. Finding everything clean, I headed inside to do another equally thorough check. But no one had broken into the restaurant overnight, so I pulled a blue apron on over my clothes and got to work.

  The first thing I did was mix a big vat of Fletcher’s secret barbecue sauce and let it simmer away on one of the back burners. The rich, heady smell of cumin, black pepper, and other spices permeated the restaurant, making it feel warm and inviting. Once the sauce was cooking, I moved on to my other chores, including wiping down all the tables and the long counter that ran along the back wall.

  About ten o’clock, a loud knock sounded on the front door, followed by the click of a key turning in the lock. Silvio Sanchez, my personal assistant, stepped inside and shut and locked the door behind him. The vampire sighed as he took off his hat and jacket and unwound the thick gray scarf from around his neck.

  “Days like this make me glad that you work out of a restaurant,” he said. “No matter how cold the weather, it’s always nice and toasty-warm in here.”

  “Happy to oblige,” I drawled.

  I finished wiping down the counter, then moved over to the stove to stir the still-simmering sauce. Silvio sat on his usual stool at the counter, pulled out his phone and tablet, and fired everything up for the morning briefing.

  “So I got your texts last night, and I have to admit that I’m as baffled as Finn is,” Silvio said, swiping through some screens on his tablet. “I can’t imagine what Damian Rivera has possibly done to warrant a personal visit from Hugh Tucker. Apart from his recent DUI arrest and general boorish and drunken state, Rivera’s been behaving himself lately.”

  “Well, he’s done something wrong, and I want to know what it is. Especially since he seems like the easiest member of the Circle to interrogate and then eliminate.”

  “Agreed,” Silvio said. “Rivera does seem to be the weak link in this chain of evil. I’ll keep digging into him.”

  While Silvio texted and emailed his contacts, I took the barbecue sauce off the burner to let it cool and started on something new. Milk and dark cocoa powder went into a small pot, along with a splash of vanilla extract and a cinnamon stick. A few minutes later, I pushed a steaming mug of hot chocolate, topped with a large dollop of vanilla whipped cream, mini marshmallows, and a generous drizzle of homemade chocolate sauce, across the counter to Silvio.

  He took a sip and sighed with pleasure. “You know, I’m starting to get spoiled with all the hot chocolate and cookies and food all the time,” he grumbled. “I’ve had to add five miles to my workout routine every week just to burn off all the extra calories.”

  “I do try.” I grinned. “And all that grumbling would sound a whole lot more convincing if you didn’t have a whipped cream mustache right now.”

  Silvio gave me a sour look and wiped away the offensive whipped cream with a napkin, but he kept right on sipping his hot chocolate, and he took the refill that I gave him several minutes later.

  By the time Catalina Vasquez, Silvio’s niece and my best waitress, and Sophia Deveraux, my head cook, came into the restaurant, the vampire was on his third mug of hot chocolate. Catalina rolled silverware into napkins, while Sophia and I started on the day’s cooking. The rest of the waitstaff trickled in one by one, and as soon as I opened the front door at eleven o’clock sharp, customers streamed in, eager to get somewhere warm and cozy, just like Silvio.

  The lunch rush passed in a busy blur, although I kept an eye on everyone, always alert for potential trouble. More than a few underworld bosses came into the Pork Pit to eat and pay their respects to me, and to bend Silvio’s ear, hoping to set up a meeting with yours truly so they could gripe about their rivals, the general lack of respect for their territories and boundaries, and all the other petty problems that they expected me to solve.

  Complain, complain, complain. That was al
l the other bosses did to me, and why any of them thought that it would actually be fun or fulfilling to be the head of the underworld was beyond my comprehension. They shouldn’t be plotting to murder me. They should all be down on bended knee, profusely thanking me for putting up with the whole sorry, corrupt lot of them instead of stabbing them all to death the way that I so often dreamed of. Now, that would be fun and fulfilling.

  Every time some boss tipped his head at me or had one of his minions sidle up to Silvio, I had to grind my teeth to keep a bland smile fixed on my face. Everyone thought that I was in charge, that I was the head honcho, that I was in complete control, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

  For weeks now, Hugh Tucker had been leading me around like I was some cute little kitten playing with the strings that he kept dangling in front of me. Sure, I knew who some of the Circle members were, and I even knew the group’s rune, a circle of sharp swords pointing outward. But none of the members was going to be easy to get to, much less take out, especially not the still-­unidentified mystery man in charge of the whole shebang. But all I could do was build my own web of death one strand at a time, starting with Damian Rivera.

  Annoying underworld bosses aside, lunchtime went by with no problems, and I finally had a chance to relax and eat my own lunch at around two o’clock. Since it was so cold outside, I wanted some warm, hearty comfort food, so I whipped up a pot of chili, along with a couple of ooey-gooey grilled cheese sandwiches. The chili was a fantastic mix of meat, beans, and spices, all in a rich, thick, tomato-based sauce, while the grilled cheese sandwiches were buttery, melty, and perfect for dunking into the chili. I finished off my meal with some chocolate chip cookies and a tart, refreshing raspberry lemonade.

  By the time I finished, I was actually in a good mood, despite last night’s shocking revelations about Tucker and my mother. I’d just wiped the last of the cookie crumbs off my hands when the bell over the front door chimed, and a woman dressed in a long crimson coat trimmed with black faux fur entered the restaurant. Her blond hair gleamed under the lights, and a pair of oversize black sunglasses perched on her face, like she was a movie star trying not so successfully to go incognito.

  Jade Jamison was a minor underworld boss with big-time ambitions who was always looking to climb higher and get richer. Jade had helped me out in the past, and I considered her a friend, one of the few that I had among the city’s criminals. I smiled as she hurried over to the counter, her black stiletto ankle boots clacking against the blue and pink pig tracks on the floor.

  “Jade.”

  “Gin.”

  She slid her sunglasses on top of her head, pushing her blond bob of hair out of the way. Jade was a beautiful woman, and her makeup was as smooth and flawless as ever. But the expertly applied lipstick, powder, and shadow didn’t quite hide the tired lines around her mouth, the purple streaks under her eyes, or, especially, the fear and worry glimmering in her green gaze.

  Something was wrong.

  The longer I stared at her, the more certain I was. Jade had come to the Pork Pit not as a friend but as an underworld boss, which only meant one thing: she had a problem that she wanted me to solve.

  Sure enough, Jade drew in a deep breath, then slowly let it out. “You owe me a favor, and I’m here to collect.”

  I raised my eyebrows at her pronouncement. “Well, that sounds rather ominous.”

  Her lips tightened into a grim slash. “Believe me, it is.” She glanced around the restaurant, then turned back to me. “Can we go somewhere private and talk?”

  “Sure. Step into my office. You too, Silvio.”

  I motioned for Jade to walk around the counter and over to the swinging double doors that opened into the back of the restaurant. Silvio grabbed his phone and followed us. I led the two of them past the metal shelves full of sugar, ketchup, cornmeal, napkins, silverware, and other restaurant necessities and opened the back door of the restaurant. I stuck my head outside, just to make sure that no one was lurking in the alley foolishly hoping to kill me, but the coast was clear, and the three of us stepped outside. Silvio shut the door behind him.

  Jade looked up and down the alley, taking in the dirty, broken pavement, the overflowing trash cans, and the battered metal Dumpsters hugging the walls. The air wasn’t nearly cold enough to kill the stench of rotten meat, putrid vegetables, and other spoiled food mixed with the sticky-sweet and sour scents of crushed soda cans and broken beer bottles. Her crimson lips curled up with disgust, and she made sure to keep her boots out of the puddles of oily water that had filled in the cracks in the asphalt.

  “Some office,” she muttered.

  I shrugged and leaned a shoulder against the brick wall of the Pork Pit. “What’s up?”

  Jade looked at Silvio, who was standing off to my right, his phone in his hands, ready to take down notes of our meeting.

  “Does he have to be here for this?” she asked.

  “Yes. He’s my assistant. He gets rather cranky when I don’t let him actually assist me.”

  Silvio’s gray eyes narrowed, and he let out a little huff of disapproval, not liking my quip, especially since it was true. I winked back at him, teasing him a little more.

  Jade bit her lower lip and glanced around the alley again, as if she was afraid that someone was going to overhear us. Of course, that wasn’t the case, since no one else was back here, and I got the sense that she was stalling, trying to work up to delivering whatever bad news she had. I wondered if the delay was for my benefit or for hers.

  “Spit it out, Jade. What’s wrong?”

  She let out a long sigh and finally raised her green eyes to mine. “One of my girls is missing.”

  My eyebrows rose. Jade Jamison ran a variety of businesses, everything from temp services to cleaning groups to coin laundries to hookers.

  “What kind of girl? Do you mean—”

  Jade shook her head. “No, she’s not a hooker. She’s one of my talkers.”

  My eyebrows rose a little more. “Talkers?”

  “Yeah,” she replied. “Talkers. Women who go out with someone for the night and provide companionship only. No sex.”

  “Who would pay for something like that?” Silvio asked.

  Jade shrugged. “Older men mostly, ones who’ve lost their wives. Folks who need a plus-one for some charity event or party but don’t want the bother of finding someone to go with them. So they call me up and arrange a date.”

  “And what exactly do these dates do?” I asked.

  She shrugged again. “Most of the time, it’s just simple companionship, like I said. A young, pretty, friendly face by your side with no pressure of it being a real date. Lots of, well, talking. Hence the name. Talkers also help to keep the vultures and gold diggers away, especially at society events. I have some guys who are talkers too, who go out with older women, widows, and the like.”

  “And one of your talkers is missing?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Her name is Elissa Daniels, and she’s been missing since last night.”

  Jade pulled her phone out of her jacket pocket and called up a photo. Her fingers trailed over the screen for a few seconds before she passed the phone over to me.

  Elissa Daniels looked to be in her early twenties, and I was guessing that she was a student, given her dark blue Ashland Community College sweatshirt. She was a pretty girl, with a long blond ponytail, green eyes, and a shy smile. But what was most interesting about the photo was that her arm was slung around Jade’s shoulder and their heads were tilted together as though the two of them were best friends. No, it was more than that. Despite the fact that Jade was at least a decade older than Elissa, the two of them could have been twins, with their blond hair, green eyes, and matching features.

  And I suddenly realized exactly why this was so important to Jade.

  I passed the phone over to Silvio, who blinked an
d then brought the device closer to his face so he could get a better look at the photo.

  “Elissa’s not just a missing worker, is she?” I asked in a sympathetic voice.

  Jade’s lips pressed together, as though she was having trouble answering, as if actually saying her fears out loud would make them that much more real. After a few seconds, she cleared her throat and forced out the words. “She’s my little sister.”

  6

  Jade’s confession echoed down the alley, colder than the winter wind whistling between the buildings. Despite her coat, she shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, as if just saying the words out loud had chilled her more than the weather ever could.

  “Elissa is my sister, and she’s missing,” Jade whispered, her voice cracking like the asphalt under our feet. “Will you help me find her? Please, Gin?”

  Before I could answer, she started pacing back and forth across the alley, her stiletto boots clicking against the pavement. “I know that I have no right to ask you this. It’s not a business favor like Silvio and I agreed on, not at all, not even close. Believe me, I didn’t want to come here. I didn’t want to bother you with this. I’m a professional, and I don’t expect you to solve all my problems for me. Not like the other bosses. But I can’t find Elissa anywhere. I just can’t find her . . .”

  Jade kept talking, the words, fear, and worry spilling out of her even faster than her short, staccato pacing. I let her keep talking, expecting her to wind down once she got it all out of her system. Silvio stepped back against the restaurant wall, giving her a wide berth. But after the better part of a minute came and went and she showed no signs of slowing her rapid-fire movements, I stepped in front of her.

  “Stop—please stop.”

  Jade froze at the sharp command in my voice. She dropped her head and closed her eyes, as if bracing herself for my rejection.