But even as I bent over, my gaze flicked to the windows, and I wondered if anyone had seen my fight to the death with the woman. But the commuters were already at work, and it was still too early for most folks to be thinking about lunch yet. The few people who did pass by on the street had their heads down, more interested in checking their phones than paying attention to their surroundings.

So I straightened up, went over, and shut and locked the front door before closing the blinds on all the windows. Then I turned my attention back to the woman. Blood continued to ooze out of her skull, painting the blue and pink pig tracks on the floor a glossy, garish crimson. More blood had spattered all over the skillet too, along with the woman’s hair, skin, and bits of bone and brain matter.

I sighed. Damn. Why couldn’t she have just jumped me in the alley like usual? Now I’d have to wash all the skillets and knives and mop the floor—again.

Sometimes, it just didn’t pay to come in early.

4

Normally, I would have hauled the woman’s body out to the alley, piled some garbage bags on top of it, and waited for Sophia to come in so she could dispose of it during one of her breaks. But I didn’t want to leave a corpse lying outside the restaurant, not now, with all my worries about Madeline. It would be just my luck that today would be the day that she finally put her grand scheme into motion. So I needed a better hiding place for the body. At the very least, it would be one less thing to worry about. Out of sight, out of mind, and all that.

So I grabbed the dead woman under the arms and dragged her into the rear of the restaurant, all the way over to the freezer against the back wall. Then I dropped to my knees and patted her down, but she wasn’t carrying a wallet or any sort of ID, and no rune tattoos were on her hands, arms, or neck to tell me what gang she might have belonged to, if any. She didn’t even have a cell phone stuffed into one of her pants pockets.

I frowned. Weird. No one went anywhere without her phone these days. So I had no idea who she was or whom she might have been working for. But on the bright side, no ID and no phone meant that there wasn’t anything else for me to get rid of.

So I opened the freezer lid, then hoisted the dead woman up and over the side into the frosty depths below. I even went the extra step of piling several bags of ice and a couple dozen boxes of frozen peas on top of her, to further hide the body. I absolutely hated peas, and I never, ever served them in the restaurant, but I kept the boxes around for just these sorts of occasions. Because, really, who would ever want to see what was underneath piles of frozen peas?

After the body was stowed away, I retrieved the knife that had slid under the counter and washed it, along with all the pots, pans, and skillets that the dead woman had dragged out.

I wiped down everything with bleach to destroy any minute traces of blood and was mopping the floor again when a key turned in the front-door lock, and Sophia Deveraux stepped inside.

I might be somewhat grungy and anonymous with my jeans-and-T-shirt ensembles, but Sophia always stood out in a crowd. She had on the same sort of black boots I did, although her jeans were actually white today, and paired with a black T-shirt with a pair of fuchsia puckered lips in the center of it. The words Kiss off, fool! arched over the lips in silver sequins. Matching fuchsia streaks shimmered in Sophia’s black hair, along with silver glitter, while pale pink shadow and silver mascara made her eyes seem even blacker than usual. Silver cuffs adorned her wrists, and a black leather collar studded with silver hearts circled her neck, completing her chic Goth look.

At the sight of me mopping the floor, Sophia stopped and eyed the pink water sloshing around in my bucket.

“Problem?” she rasped in her low, eerie, broken voice.

I shrugged. “Not anymore. She’s in the freezer with the peas.”

Sophia nodded, knowing exactly what I was talking about. After she got rid of the body, I’d have to defrost the freezer and scrub all of the bloodstains and smears out of it, as well as order some more frozen peas. I sighed. Sometimes, killing people just wasn’t worth cleaning up the mess afterward.

While I finished mopping, Sophia started cooking, and we opened up the restaurant. Catalina Vasquez came in to wait tables and help with the lunch rush, followed by her uncle.

Silvio Sanchez was a short, lean, quiet man who tended to blend into the background with his subdued gray suits and ties. Unlike Jonah McAllister, Silvio’s silvery hair was cut short and neatly brushed, and he didn’t try to erase the faint lines that had grooved into his middle-aged bronze skin. I thought that the vampire was still a bit too thin, given how much of his blood and emotions Beauregard Benson had drained out of him a few weeks ago, but so far Silvio was resisting all of my attempts to fatten him up with the Pork Pit’s home cooking.

As was his custom now, Silvio perched on a stool three spots down from the cash register, opened his silverstone briefcase, and pulled out his cell phone and tablet. He was always texting, typing, and making notes about something, although I couldn’t imagine what he found so interesting about the comings and goings at the restaurant to so thoroughly record them all daily.

“Hello, Gin. I’m here for the morning briefing,” Silvio said, swiping through several screens on his tablet.

I bent down and grabbed a dish towel from a slot under the counter so he wouldn’t hear me sigh. I didn’t think that my life was busy or complicated enough for a morning briefing, much less the afternoon briefings that Silvio had been making noises about adding to our so-called schedule, but I perched on my stool and listened as he told me about all the various information he’d gleaned from his contacts. Who was looking to expand into running drugs, guns, and other illegal products; who was trying to muscle in on a rival’s territory; who had threatened to kill the competition in retaliation for some perceived slight.

When he finished, I shared the information I’d overheard in the woods yesterday about the name Dobson and the party Madeline was throwing.

“See what you can find out about it please,” I said. “Especially when it is and who’s been invited. I want to know if it’s another flower-themed tea for the society ladies or something more important.”

He gave me a sharp look. “And where did this information come from? I haven’t heard a peep about Madeline hosting or attending any kind of party, not counting that library dedication later today.”

I waved my hand. “Oh, a little bird told me.”