I lie on the bed and forced myself to breathe, to let the horrible memory fade, to bottle it up and stick it in the back of my brain where it belonged. After a little while, my breathing eased, the pain faded away, and I came back to myself once more.

My eyes were just level with the nightstand, where I'd tossed my cell phone before going to bed. Spurred on by some emotion that I didn't quite understand, I reached out, flipped it open, and dialed a number I'd memorized. A number Finn had gotten for me. A number Bria didn't even know that I had.

"Hello?" Bria Coolidge's muffled, sleepy voice filled my ear.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. They never did when my sister was around. Nothing that mattered anyway. None of the important things that I needed to say to her, like Hi, it's Gin Blanco. Guess what? I'm really your long-lost sister, Genevieve Snow, in disguise. I also happen to be the assassin the Spider. You know, the one who recently declared war on Mab Monroe. The one that you're searching for high and low. The evil villain that you probably want to kill yourself, since that's what good, decent, honest cops like you do.

"Hello?" Bria mumbled again. "Hellooo?"

I hung up.

Because Bria wasn't missing. Not anymore. She was here in Ashland and safe for this night, at least. And if I wanted her to stay that way, I needed my own rest. Deep, dark, dreamless sleep free of the memories that haunted me.

Figuring out where Natasha was, tracking down LaFleur, determining how I could best kill the other assassin. That was what was important. I had goals, targets, and certain things that I could do to keep my sister and everyone else I cared about safe, and maybe even save a young girl's life in the process. But to do all that, I needed to relax, rest, think, plan.

Somewhat calmer, for this night at least, I laid my head down on my pillow once more and forced myself to go back to sleep.

It was a long, long time before it actually happened, though.

Chapter 12

I didn't sleep nearly as well as I would have liked to, but it was enough to get me through the next day, while I waited for Finn to see what he could dig up on Mab, LaFleur, and where the two of them might have stashed Natasha.

Late the next afternoon, I stood behind the counter at the Pork Pit, the barbecue restaurant I ran in downtown Ashland. I handed a thick wad of change and a white bag stuffed to the brim with food across the counter, along with a similarly filled box. The man took them both from me, smiled, then left the restaurant and headed back out into the December cold.

I let out a loud, long sigh and looked over my shoulder at Sophia Deveraux, who was whipping up yet another pot of baked beans-the thirteenth batch that she'd made already today, and it wasn't even time to close down the restaurant for the night.

"How many party orders was that today? Nine? Ten?"

We hadn't gotten much walk-in traffic at the Pit, not like we usually did, since people were busy shopping and getting ready for Christmas, which was only four days away now. But our takeout orders had quadrupled, along with all the ones for holiday barbecue platters that we offered for large groups and gatherings. Sophia and I had been busy all day long, getting everything ready for pickups from the restaurant, and we still had an hour to go before closing.

The storefront was empty now, except for two couples sitting at different booths. Since they'd already been served and given their checks, I was just waiting for them to pay up and leave. Normally, I would have let them linger as long as they liked, but tonight I was in the mood to hurry them along, if need be. I'd already sent the waitstaff home for the evening. They'd helped Sophia and I put together the party orders, but once that was done, there was no real reason for them to stick around with only a few customers to serve.

Sophia shrugged in answer to my question, her sharp gaze never leaving the bubbling beans in front of her. The dwarf wasn't big on conversation. She gave the pot of beans another stir, the muscles in her arm bulging with the small motion. At five foot one, Sophia was tall for a dwarf, with a thick, muscled figure that was incredibly strong-even stronger than most giants. But most people wouldn't have noticed that about her. At least, not right away.

They'd be too busy staring at the rest of her.

Sophia Deveraux had a very distinctive style about her-Goth. We're not talking a little black lipstick here. More like the heart of darkness itself. Just about everything that Sophia wore was black, from her heavy boots to her jeans to the plain leather collar that ringed her neck. Her hair and eyes were black too, providing a striking contrast to the absolute paleness of her face-and her crimson lip gloss.

It always amazed me how different Sophia was from her older sister, Jo-Jo. At one hundred and thirteen, Sophia always reminded me of a moody teenager with her Goth wear, while Jo-Jo had already comfortably settled into her middle age with her ladylike pink dresses and ever-present string of white pearls.

Today, though, Sophia had decided to show off her holiday cheer, at least what there was of it, by wearing a pointed Santa hat while she cooked. Black, of course, with a tiny grinning skull dangling off the end of it, instead of the more traditional white fluffy ball. Merry Christmas.

I didn't have time to ponder Sophia's holiday proclivities, though, because the phone rang for what seemed like the hundredth time today. I loved all the extra business, but it had been a long day, and I was almost ready to stick one of my silverstone knives through the plastic receiver just to get it to shut up. Instead, I made myself answer it.

"Pork Pit," I said on the fifth ring.

"Tell me," Owen Grayson's low, sexy baritone rumbled through the receiver. "Do you know where I can get a good plate of barbecue?"

I leaned against the counter that ran along the back wall of the restaurant. "Sorry. I don't have a clue."

He let out a low laugh that warmed me, and I found myself smiling at nothing in particular. There was no one that I'd rather have heard from right now than him. For some reason, Owen soothed me, especially after the terrible dream that I'd had last night. I really was getting soft in my retirement, just like Roslyn Phillips had said. But right now I didn't care.

"You know, you left without saying good-bye yesterday morning," Owen said.

"I do have a restaurant to run you know," I drawled, trying to make light of the fact that I'd skipped out without waking him up.

"Was that the only reason?"

I hesitated. Owen and I hadn't been together all that long but he could already pick up on things that I wished he wouldn't-like my newfound skittishness when it came to our relationship. Or whatever we were calling it. Owen made me feel a lot of things that I didn't know if I was ready for, especially since I was in the middle of trying to take down Mab and had LaFleur and Natasha to worry about in the meantime. Emotions, feelings, letting down my guard. Those were all weaknesses that I just couldn't afford to indulge in right now. Maybe not ever.

"Yeah," I said about five seconds too late. "That was the only reason."

"No worries," Owen said in an easy voice, pretending that he hadn't even noticed my long pause. "It kept me from having to hide your Christmas present from you."

He couldn't have shocked me more than if he'd just gotten LaFleur to pump me full of her electrical elemental magic. For a moment, I just stood there, mouth open, blinking. Then reality set back in.

"Present? You got me a Christmas present?"

He let out another low laugh. "In a manner of speaking. That is the Christmas tradition."

"Oh."

I'd gotten a few small things for Finn and the Deveraux sisters, but it had never occurred to me that Owen might expect something too, given the newness of our relationship. I grabbed a nearby pen and scribbled a note down on the top sheet of my order pad. Buy Owen Xmas present. Too bad I had no idea what that present would be or what he would even like. Shopping had never been high on my list of priorities.

"Actually, that's why I'm calling," Owen said. "I wanted to talk to you about Christmas. I thought it might be nice if you came over."

"Oh." It seemed that was the only thing I could say. "But Christmas is family time. I thought that you'd want to spend that with just Eva. I don't want to intrude."

"You're not intruding, Gin," Owen said in a firm voice. "You are never an intrusion."

I fell silent. I didn't know about that. Having an assassin around was kind of like having an elephant in the room. It was so big that you just couldn't look away from it, even when you did your best to pretend it wasn't even there.

Owen must have taken my silence for acceptance because he continued. "I was thinking that you could ask Finn and the Deveraux sisters to join us. Maybe Roslyn and Xavier too, if they'd like. Eva plans to invite Violet and Warren Fox over. We could make it into a real holiday party."

A party? That didn't sound so bad. At least then I wouldn't have to be alone with Owen and Eva and feel like an awkward, socially inept third wheel. Killing people was far easier than making polite chitchat.

"And you could even ask Bria, if you wanted to," Owen finished.

"Oh." I was really dazzling everyone with my conversational skills today.

Owen knew that Detective Bria Coolidge was my long-lost sister and that I desperately wanted to tell her who I really was. But, of course, that I was also afraid of what Bria might do when she found out I'd been an assassin for years and that I was the Spider, the mysterious woman who'd declared war on Mab Monroe.

"Gin?" Owen asked. "Are you still there?"

The bell over the front door chimed, indicating that I had a customer, and saving me from answering him. I hoped it was the call-in order that Sophia had taken a few minutes ago so I could close my gin joint down for the night and get on with finding Natasha.

No such luck. To my surprise and consternation, Jonah McAllister walked through the door.

Despite his sixtysomething years, Jonah McAllister was still an attractive man-if you thought that having absolutely no wrinkles or natural expression in your face was something to be desired. McAllister had his chiseled features sandblasted by expensive Air elemental facials on a regular basis in order to keep his youthful glow intact. His smooth face seemed at odds with his thick coif of silver hair, which swirled around his head and gave him an elegant, distinguished air. A perfectly fitted black suit covered his trim figure, topped by a long black wool overcoat.

But more important than his slick appearance was the fact that Jonah McAllister also happened to be Mab Monroe's personal lawyer and the number two man in her organization now that Elliot Slater was dead. And he was very, very good at what he did. McAllister was known throughout Ashland for his ability to get the worst criminals off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Which is why he handled all of Mab's legal affairs. Thanks to McAllister's expertise, the Fire elemental had never been charged with anything, not even a traffic violation, much less taken to court, despite all the murders, kidnappings, and beatings that Mab had ordered over the years-or had simply rolled up her sleeves and done herself.

Jonah McAllister also happened to hate me, since he suspected me of being involved with his son, Jake's, death a few weeks ago. That's when Jake had come into the Pork Pit, scared and threatened my customers, and tried to rob me before I'd shown him exactly whom he was dealing with. But the punk hadn't learned from his first mistake. During one of Mab's parties, Jake had threatened to rape and murder me, so I'd stabbed him to death and left him in the Fire elemental's bathtub. Needless to say, the older McAllister had been extremely upset.

Ever since then, Jonah McAllister had kept an eye on me, trying to figure out what, if anything, I knew about his son's murder. McAllister had even had Slater and some of his giant goons attack me one night over at Ashland Community College. Of course, I hadn't cracked under the pressure of the giants' fists, even though they'd almost beaten me to death. But that didn't stop McAllister from suspecting me. So far, the slick attorney had gotten exactly nowhere, but he hadn't given up, as witnessed by his visit here tonight. No doubt he'd dropped by just to see what other kind of trouble he could make for me.

McAllister stepped to one side, holding the door open for someone coming in behind him, and I realized that the lawyer wasn't alone. He had a woman with him, one that I recognized.

LaFleur.

Chapter 13

In the split-second it took me to register the fact that Jonah McAllister and LaFleur were here in the Pork Pit, in my restaurant, in my gin joint, all sorts of scenarios flickered through my mind. Most of them involved my killing the two of them where they stood and helping Sophia dispose of the bodies.

The Goth dwarf had helped Fletcher Lane dispose of bodies for years, and I'd inherited her services when I'd taken over the assassination business from the old man. Sophia had the same Air elemental magic as her sister, Jo-Jo. Except in Sophia's case, she used her power to rip molecules apart, to break them down and tear them into nothingness. All of which was great for getting pesky little things like bloodstains off floors and walls.

My eyes strayed to the two couples still lingering over their food. Sophia and I couldn't take care of McAllister and LaFleur, not in front of four witnesses. Anyway, it was better to see what the dynamic duo actually wanted first before I made my move.

"I've got to go," I told Owen. "I just had a customer walk in the front door."

"Anyone I know?" he asked.

"Jonah McAllister. And he has the new girl in town with him."

Silence. I'd told Owen all about LaFleur and what her plans were for me the other night when I'd been at his house.