The Goth dwarf grunted at me. Jo-Jo nodded her head.

"We know, Gin," Jo-Jo said. "This isn't the first time Sophia and I have done this sort of thing."

I frowned. "It's not?"

The dwarf smiled. "No. We watched out for folks for Fletcher a time or two as well."

Again, there was that mention of Fletcher Lane helping out other people. That secret part of him that I hadn't known about. I don't know why the thought unsettled me, but it did. Or maybe it was just because I was off the edge of the map here. I'd spent seventeen years of my life killing people, and here I was trying to save an old man and his granddaughter from a greedy miner - for free, no less. I wasn't sure what to make of it. Only one thing was certain. It was a hell of a lot more entertaining than my retirement had been so far.

I left the dwarves to watch over Warren and stepped outside. Violet waited with Finn on the porch. Donovan Caine leaned against the porch railing, still brooding.

"Take Violet straight to Eva Grayson's house," I told Finn. "No stops."

Finn pouted. "Would I do something like that?"

"Yes."

He stuck out his lip a little more. Violet laughed at his expression. Finn's green eyes swept over her. He grinned.

"Shotgun, Finn," I murmured to him. "Remember Grandpa Fox and his shotgun."

That dulled Finn's smile, but it didn't completely erase it. Few things could ever do that. Finn had pulled his Cadillac over to the house. He opened the passenger's side door for Violet, who gave him another shy smile, then slid inside.

After a moment, Finn tore his gaze away from her long enough to glance at me. "Hope you don't mind sitting in the back," he said in a very unapologetic tone.

"I don't mind at all because Donovan's going to drive me home," I announced.

Finn blinked. "He is?"

"I am?" Donovan chimed in.

"Yeah," I said. "You are."

Donovan's face tightened a little more in the darkness.

Finn and Violet headed back toward Ashland, and Donovan and I did the same in his sedan. We didn't speak, except when I gave him directions to Fletcher Lane's house.

We pulled up about thirty minutes later. Donovan Caine peered through the windshield at the rambling, mismatched structure.

"So this is where you live now?" he asked.

"Yeah. It was actually Fletcher's house, the old man who ran the Pork Pit."

"Finn's father, your former handler. The one who was tortured and murdered by Alexis James."

I nodded. Donovan said nothing.

I stared at the detective, my eyes tracing over the rough planes of his face. "You could come in," I suggested.

"Spend the night. With me."

Donovan turned his gaze to mine. Heat. Desire. Guilt.

All that and more flashed in his eyes, but after a moment, he shook his head. "I don't think that would be a good idea, Gin."

"Why not? A bed would certainly be more comfortable than the backseat of your sedan." I glanced at the mud we'd left everywhere in our frenzy. "Cleaner now, too."

He shook his head again. "I'm not coming inside, Gin."

"Why not? Is it because of what I plan to do to Tobias Dawson?"

Donovan ran his hands through his black hair. "That's part of it. I still can't believe I'm going along with that."

"And the other part?"

He blew out a breath. "Do you remember that night in your apartment, before we went to the rock quarry to rescue Finn and Roslyn Phillips? Do you remember what I said to you about my partner, Cliff Ingles?"

"I remember. You wanted to kill me for assassinating him."

He nodded. "Mainly, though, I wanted to know why you killed him. And since you wouldn't tell me, I did some digging on my own."

I tensed. Damn and double damn the detective and his tenacity.

"A lot more people were willing to do me favors after the Alexis James incident," Donovan continued. He stared out the windshield at the rain instead of looking at me. "One guy who worked vice was particularly helpful. He told me that I should talk to a hooker, one of Roslyn Phillips's girls, strangely enough."

Roslyn Phillips was the vampire madam who ran Northern Aggression, a trendy, upscale nightclub that catered to the rich folks of Ashland and serviced their every need and twisted desire. She was also one of Finn's friends with benefits. I'd killed Roslyn's abusive brother-in-law several months ago, after he'd almost beaten her sister and young niece to death. Roslyn, in turn, had told one of her girls about my services. Loose lips get people dead, and Roslyn's furtive whispers had eventually led to Fletcher Lane's murder. Something I wasn't going to let the vampire forget - ever.

But if Caine had talked to the hooker I had in mind, he knew exactly why I'd killed his partner - and what the bastard had done to the woman's thirteen-year-old daughter.

"I know Cliff raped and beat that girl," Donovan said, confirming my suspicion. "I know that's why you killed him, so he'd never do that to another girl."

No use denying it now. "Yes. That's why I killed him. Because of the girl. When did you find out?"

"Two weeks ago."

Pain deepened the grooves on Donovan's face. The detective reminded me of a mythological character out of one of my literature books, of Atlas, bearing the heavy, heavy burden of others' evil, perverted actions upon his lean shoulders.

"All that time you let me blame you for Cliff 's death," Donovan said. "All that time you let me think you were a monster. And you weren't."

I shrugged. "That's debatable. I still killed him. And slicing off a guy's balls isn't exactly the action of a normal person."

Donovan barked out a laugh. "Do you know what the funny thing is? If I'd known about Cliff, about the hookers he was beating, about that girl he raped, I might have killed him myself. But you got there first." His voice dropped to a whisper. "And somehow I feel indebted to you, Gin. Grateful, even. Because you killed him, and I didn't have to."

"So that's what this is still about. Me killing Cliff Ingles. That's why you don't want to come inside. That's why you don't want to be with me." I could have killed the dirty cop all over again for pushing Donovan away from me.

Donovan shook his head. "Not entirely. It's mostly about me. Finding out about Cliff, it's made me think. About a lot of things. And now, this mess with Warren and Violet... I'll help Sophia and Jo-Jo watch out for them as best I can."

"But..."

"But I'm not going to help you with Tobias Dawson. Not like I did with Alexis James. I can't, Gin. I just can't. I can't be a part of something like that again. I can barely live with the fact I know what you're going to do to Dawson and the knowledge I'm not going to do a thing to stop you from killing him." His voice dropped again.

"And I can't be with you. Not tonight."

"You weren't too concerned with Tobias Dawson and what I was going to do to him when you were fucking me in the backseat a couple of hours ago." My voice was harsher than I would have liked. "Or have you forgotten about that already?"

Donovan flinched. "No, I haven't forgotten about it, none of it."

"But you're not going to do it again. Not going to sleep with me again."

His hands tightened around the steering wheel until the leather creaked. "No, I'm not."

I heard the hard resolution in his voice. Donovan Caine had made himself a promise, and he wasn't going to break it. Oh, I imagined I could get him to forget about his morals, his rules, his vows. All I'd have to do would be to crawl over and start giving him the lap dance of his life. A variation of the striptease I'd performed earlier this evening in the rain.

But I'd made the first move twice now. I wanted the detective to want me, Gin Blanco, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Not just succumb to my charms in the heat of the moment, then feel guilty about it afterward.

"It appears we're at an impasse then," I said in a low voice.

"Guess so."

Donovan didn't look at me. He's not the one for you, Warren T. Fox's reedy voice whispered in my head. I didn't want his words to be true, but it looked like they were - at least for tonight. Besides, I had Tobias Dawson to take care of. Fletcher Lane had trained me to put the job first, ahead of my own wishes. Distracted assassins got sloppy, and then they got dead. I especially needed to focus this time, since I had a couple of innocent people to protect. One problem at a time. I'd deal with Donovan and his conflicted feelings about us later.

"All right," I said. "You watch out for Warren and Violet. I'll get Finn to help me with Tobias Dawson."

Donovan nodded. "I think that's for the best."

There was nothing else to say. Not tonight. So I got out of the car. The detective didn't look at me as he threw the vehicle in reverse, turned around, and drove away. I stood there and watched the fog and darkness swallow him up.

For some reason, my heart felt as icy as the rain drizzling down around me.

Chapter Twenty-Three

I'd just finished pulling a blackberry cobbler out of the oven around noon the next day when I heard the sound of tires crunching on the gravel outside. I padded into the front living room and peered out a crack in one of the curtains. A silver Aston Martin crouched in the driveway.

I unlocked the front door, then went back into the kitchen.

A minute later, Finn stuck his head inside the room.

As usual, he wore an impeccable suit, this time in a dark charcoal gray. His cheeks were ruddy from the ever-present drizzle, and water droplets glistened in his walnut hair. He carried his laptop in a black leather waterproof case.

"About time you got here." I dumped a tin pan full of orange-cranberry muffins onto a white plate. "Coffee's on already."

Finn helped himself to a mug of the hot chicory brew. He took a couple of sips, then moved a basket of sourdough rolls out of the way so he could set his laptop on the kitchen table. "Looks like somebody didn't get any last night."

I glared at him.

Nonplussed, Finn threw his arm out and gestured at the kitchen. "C'mon. I see a cobbler, muffins, rolls, a chocolate cake, and what I assume are strawberry preserves. You always cook more when you're upset."

He had me there. The situation with Donovan Caine hadn't been resolved to my liking, and it had affected me more than I'd realized. Why couldn't the detective just accept me for what I was? Morals. They always ruined everything.

I'd gotten up early with nothing but time to kill until Finn showed up. So I'd started cooking. But the mixing, stirring, and baking hadn't relaxed me nearly enough.

Maybe if I made another pound cake or two -

"I take it things didn't end with the good detective in your bed last night?" Finn asked in a sly tone.

In addition to treating me like a sister, Finnegan Lane also had an annoying tendency to analyze my sex life - along with everyone else's.

"No," I snapped. "The detective didn't spend the night, although I invited him to."

Finn shook his head. "Idiot. The man's an idiot. But don't feel bad. I didn't have any luck myself last night."

I raised an eyebrow. "You mean the evening didn't end with you having a threesome with Violet Fox and Eva Grayson?"

"Touche."

Finn took another sip of his coffee. He examined the various treats I'd baked and grabbed two orange-cranberry muffins to start off with.

"I hope you did something last night other than hit on those two girls," I said, dishing up a generous portion of blackberry cobbler into a large bowl.

"If you consider sifting through reams of information on Tobias Dawson, then yes, I did do something useful last night, although it was a thoroughly eye-glazing experience. The man doesn't have nearly enough vices to make things interesting. All he does is mine coal and buy equipment to mine coal and look for more places to mine coal. Did I mention he mines coal?"

"Once or twice." My lips twitched up. No matter how bad I felt, Finn could always make me smile. I loved him for that.

I used my Ice magic to frost a mug and create some small Ice cubes, then poured myself a glass of milk and dug into the cobbler. I didn't bother with ice cream this time. I just wanted warm sugar, and a lot of it.

"But you were right about the diamonds," Finn said.

"According to the cell phone photos the detective took in Dawson's office, the dwarf is planning a major expansion of his current mining operation. And guess where the new primary shaft leads to?"

I didn't even have to guess. "Warren T. Fox's country store."

Finn nodded. "Actually, our good friend Tobias Dawson has already started shoring up the mine, and he's even crossed over into Warren's land."

"Explains all the rumblings and mini earthquakes they've heard and felt." I took another bite of cobbler. The oat topping provided a crunchy, chewy contrast to the syrupy sweetness of the blackberry filling. Mmm. Perfect.

"But wait, there's more," Finn said. "Dawson might be mining his brains out, but he's not making a lot of money doing it anymore."

"Why not?"

Finn shrugged. "The usual reasons. Equipment's more expensive, the coal's harder to get to, and there's less of it, which means more man hours and more money invested in getting it out of the ground to start with. Dawson also got sued last year. There was a cave-in at one of his other mines further up in Virginia. Killed almost a dozen men, injured that many more. Despite the dwarf 's attempts to keep it quiet, the accident got a lot of press. Dawson had insurance, but he still had to pony up almost thirty million for the families."