"Looks like Dekes and his men decided to leave the restaurant alone - at least for tonight," Bria said.

"Or maybe they just went straight to the source," I replied. "Where's Callie's house? Does she live alone?"

"No, she's not alone. She's already moved in with Donovan. Callie said that she didn't want to try to move and plan a wedding at the same time." Bria paused. "They're getting married this summer."

My heart twinged with old, familiar, bitter hurts, but I kept my face smooth. "Good. She'll be safe enough with Donovan tonight, but we'll drive by there anyway and make sure. Dekes probably sent his men after us to show Callie exactly what would happen to her if she doesn't sell out to him. Bodies tend to motivate people far more than threats do. Maybe he thought she needed some more encouragement besides Stu Alexander. We'll come back out to the restaurant tomorrow and talk to Callie about what to do next, about how we can stop Dekes for good."

Bria shook her head. "What you really mean is that you're going to pump Callie for information about how you can get close enough to Dekes to kill him. I don't know why it surprises me anymore, but it still does."

I stared at her. "Dekes sent his men to rape and murder us tonight, just because we dared to stand up to his goons. That's plenty enough reason for me to kill him, but what makes you think that he won't do the same to Callie? Or worse? His men certainly wanted to have a go at her. We're just minor annoyances, tourists passing through who were tougher than they looked. Callie is the one that Dekes really needs to get rid of in order to build his seaside casino. People are more vicious about money than any other thing, and it sounds like the vamp has already sunk quite a bit of dough into his project. He's not going to let one woman stand in the way of it, no matter what he has to do or how ugly things get. If Dekes is the kind of man that I think he is, then he likes ugly - revels in it, even, like a hog in slop."

Bria didn't like it, but she couldn't argue with my logic. My sister might not be as far gone into the shady side of life as I was, but she'd seen her share of bad things as a cop, and she'd dealt with a lot of scumbags, especially since coming back to Ashland.

"Fine," she muttered. "We'll come out here for brunch in the morning and talk to Callie like I planned. But that's hours away. So what do you want to do after we check on Callie's house? If you're right, Dekes can track us to any hotel that we might stay at here on the island, and I don't think you want to ask Donovan if you can sleep on his couch."

"One step ahead of you, baby sister. One step ahead." I pulled my cell phone out of my jeans pocket and scrolled through the screens until I found what I was looking for. "Do you know where 213 Mockingbird Drive is?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Because that's where we're going to stay tonight," I said. "I took the precaution of renting a beach house under another name just in case we ran into trouble down here."

Bria shook her head. "You can't do anything like a normal person, can you? Not even relax enough to go on vacation for one measly weekend."

The cold reproach in her voice made me shift in my seat. "I like to be prepared. There's nothing wrong with that."

Bria snorted, but she made a U-turn in the parking lot and headed back the way we'd come. Callie had given my sister Donovan's address before we'd left the Sea Breeze earlier tonight, and we pulled up to the detective's house a few minutes later.

It was a two-story ranch house made out of gray brick with a wide, flat yard surrounded by a matching gray wooden fence. It was an anonymous suburban home in a nice middle-class neighborhood. No lights were on inside the house. A few televisions flickered through the windows of some of the other homes on the block, but everything else was dark and quiet. Dekes's men hadn't come here, which meant that Donovan and Callie were safe and snug inside his house - and probably in bed together for the night.

Even though there was nothing particularly special about it, I couldn't quit staring at the detective's house. It was a perfect, modest home and just the sort of place that I could see Donovan settling down and being happy in. Kissing his wife good-bye in the morning, coming home to her at night, mowing the yard on Saturdays, playing football with the kids on Sundays. Yes, that's exactly the kind of life I could picture the detective having - with Callie.

"Well, you were right," Bria murmured. "Dekes sent his men after us instead of them. Do you want me to knock on the door and let them know what's going on?"

"Nah. It looks like they're asleep for the night," I said, my voice thick and husky with emotions that I didn't want to think too much about right now. "Let's not wake them. There will be plenty of time to talk tomorrow."

Bria drove away from the curb. Try as I might, I couldn't help but look back a final time before we turned onto the main road and Donovan's house disappeared from sight.

We passed the Blue Sands hotel again with its gleaming white stone and perfectly landscaped grounds. Bria kept right on going, steering the car all the way to the other side of the island before eventually veering onto a wide, smooth road. We drove through a ritzy subdivision, although the houses were so large and spaced so far apart that subdivision didn't adequately describe the upscale community.

A few minutes later, we came to the end of the road and stopped in front of a three-story beach house that was half a mile away from its closest neighbor.

"Two-thirteen Mockingbird Drive," Bria said.

"Wait here," I told her, and got out of the car.

I'd rented the beach house a few days ago under the name Aurora Metis, which was an alias of mine, and had arranged to have it stocked with some staple foods, fresh linens, and all the other essentials that someone might need for a long weekend at the beach. Given how many people were gunning for me back in Ashland, it hadn't been out of the realm of possibility that some of them might follow me to Blue Marsh, and I'd wanted a safe house to retreat to in case that happened.

The key was right where the realtor had e-mailed that it would be, under a small gray stone statue shaped like a lighthouse that perched on the front porch. An obvious hiding place, if you asked me, but I wasn't going to be too critical, not after everything that had happened tonight. Even if I hadn't been able to find the key, all I would have had to do to get inside was use my elemental magic to create a couple of Ice picks and jimmy one of the locks.

I used the key to open the front door and slipped inside the beach house. I walked through the interior, a silverstone knife in either hand, and peered into all the rooms, corners, and closets. Everything was clean and spotless, just as the realtor had promised me it would be. We'd be safe enough here for the night, but I still took my usual precautions, familiarizing myself with the location of the light switches and furniture and taking the time to trace more spiral protection runes into the various stone walls that made up the house.

When I was finished, I stepped through the door that led to the three-car garage, crossed the concrete, and opened the outer door so Bria could drive the convertible inside, where it would be hidden from sight.

"Now what?" she said, climbing out of the car.

"Now we go inside, get cleaned up, and get some sleep. Tomorrow's going to be another long day." I looked at the ruined convertible. "And one of us needs to call Finn and explain what happened to his car."

Bria gave me a knowing, sarcastic, slightly evil smile. "Oh, that pleasure is all yours, big sister."

We turned on a few low lights and hauled our suitcases inside. The beach house was equipped with a stone fireplace in the main room, and I rummaged through the kitchen drawers until I found a pack of matches. It was too warm for a fire, but then again, the added heat wasn't really my intention - destroying evidence was. I grabbed the plastic bag of bloody rags and the empty bottle of bleach and stuffed them inside the grate, along with a few pieces of newspaper and kindling from a nearby brass basket. Bria went into the back of the house to take a shower, and I sat there on one of the couches and watched the evidence of my latest crime crackle and burn while I dialed Finn.

"Hello, sexy. I knew that you couldn't get through the night without me," Finn's smug, slightly sleepy voice filled my ear. "So why don't you tell me what you're wearing?"

I rolled my eyes. Apparently, my foster brother hadn't bothered to check his caller ID before he'd picked up the phone. I wondered if this was how he answered all his late-night calls, or if he'd actually been expecting to hear from Bria. I really hoped it was the second one.

"What am I wearing? Why, right now it would be the blood of two giants, among other naughty unmentionables," I purred. "What does that do for you, sexy?"

Silence.

Then Finn cleared his throat. "Uh, Gin? Did you dial my number by mistake? Shouldn't you be cooing these sweet, sweet nothings into Owen's ear instead of mine?"

"No mistake," I chirped in a bright voice. "I just thought I'd call you and tell you that there's been a slight change of plans. Bria and I aren't staying at the Blue Sands hotel anymore."

"Why not?" he asked in a sharp voice.

It was amazing just how much suspicion and accusation Finn could put into two simple words. Then again, he knew me all too well. And really, suspicion and accusation were always warranted whenever the Spider was around.

"Let's just say that we had some unwanted visitors tonight - the kind who were intent on making sure we didn't live to see the dawn. Of course, that didn't work out so well for them."

More silence.

"What the hell did you do?" he finally asked. "And more importantly, is my car still in one piece?"

"Well," I said. "I suppose that depends on your definition of in one piece."

Finn just groaned.

Chapter 10

I filled Finn in on what had happened. He agreed to call Owen so they could get an early start, drive down to Blue Marsh, and meet Bria and me for brunch at the Sea Breeze at ten. I also asked Finn to dig up everything that he could on Randall Dekes. I wanted to know exactly whom and what I was dealing with before the vampire sent more men after us - or decided to make an appearance himself.

I hung up with Finn and took a long, hot shower, washing away the stench of bleach that clung to my hands and scrubbing the blood out from underneath my fingernails. When I was done, I changed into a pair of loose cotton pajamas and brushed out my wet hair. Bria had already gone to bed, and I added my bloody clothes to hers, which were already burning in the fireplace. I should have crawled into bed and tried to sleep, but instead, I curled up on a couch in front of one of the sliding glass doors that overlooked the endless ocean.

Restless, I picked up my cell phone and hit one of the numbers in the speed dial. He picked up on the third ring.

"Hello?" Owen Grayson's deep voice rumbled through the receiver.

"Hi, it's Gin," I said, even though he knew my voice as well as I did his.

"Hey." Warmth immediately filled his tone. "How are you? I just got done talking to Finn. He told me that you and Bria had a run-in with some local muscle earlier."

"You might say that."

I told Owen what had taken place tonight, starting with Pete and Trent showing up at Callie's restaurant and threatening her and ending with Bria and me dumping the four men's bodies into the palm-tree-shaped pool at the Blue Sands hotel.

Owen chuckled at that. "You know, you're going to give the pool boy a heart attack in the morning when he goes out to clean the filters."

I joined in his laughter. "I know."

We fell silent, but it wasn't an awkward, uncomfortable pause. It was one of the many things I loved about Owen. He didn't rush to fill in the empty spaces but was content to just let them - and me - be when I needed him to.

"So why did you really call?" Owen finally asked in a soft voice. "I can tell that there's something else going on besides Bria's friend being threatened. I can hear it in your voice. Something's bothering you."

Owen and I had only been together for a few months, but he could read me better than almost anyone else could, even Finn sometimes. I'd told Owen everything - except for the fact that I'd also run into Donovan tonight.

I was still trying to figure out how I felt about seeing the detective again. Oh, I didn't love him, not like I did Owen, but Donovan and I had shared something once upon a time, even if it had been only for a little while. It was hard to ignore the echoes of the old feelings and memories in my heart, even though I knew that what I felt for Owen was much, much deeper and that he was far more important to me than Donovan had ever been.

"I called because I wanted to hear your voice," I murmured. "I needed to hear it. Being on vacation is . . . harder than I thought it would be."

"How so?"

I rubbed the spider rune scar on first one palm, then the other, struggling to put my feelings into words. "Because I don't seem to be very good at it. We haven't even been gone a day, and it feels like I'm right back where I started. Like I never even left Ashland and the bad guys behind. I was looking forward to relaxing. And I tried today - I really did. I let Bria drag me around all afternoon, and I even oohed and aahed over tacky T-shirts and cheap seashell necklaces just like you're supposed to when you're on vacation. Can you believe that? I don't think I've ever oohed and aahed in my entire life."

Owen laughed again.

"What? It's not funny," I grumbled. "It's downright embarrassing."