Bria shrugged. "This is a popular place. Lots of people come in and out of here all day long. I thought that maybe you or one of your cooks or waitresses might have overheard something. Somebody bragging about being the Spider. Something like that."

I raised an eyebrow. "From what I read in the newspapers, the Spider doesn't seem like the kind of person to brag about what she does. She kills people and then vanishes without a trace. At least, that's my impression of her."

Bria turned around one of the rings on her index finger. The top ring, the one with the spider rune stamped on it. My ring.

"Yeah," she said in a soft voice. "That's something that I plan on talking to her about, when I find her. And I will find her, Gin. Make no mistake about that."

We didn't speak. Sophia continued wiping down the counter, but the dwarf kept her black eyes on the two of us, just watching.

Bria let out a long sigh and started digging into her jeans pocket. "So what do I owe you for the food?"

I waved my hand. "Your money's no good here tonight. It's on the house."

Bria shook her head. The motion made the light dance on the primrose rune around her neck. My heart twisted at the sight.

"You should let me pay you, Gin. I know how hard you work."

I held back a snort. I doubted that her tone would be so kind, so considerate, if she knew how much money I had stashed away in various bank accounts-money that I'd gotten for killing people.

I glanced at the ticket stapled to the bag. "It's a ham sandwich, beans, fries, and two pieces of strawberry pie. Don't worry. It's not going to break me. Besides," I said, thinking of Jonah McAllister and his measly thirteen cents. "A customer gave me a big tip tonight anyway. More than enough to cover your meal, detective."

She opened her mouth, but I cut her off.

"I insist," I said in a firm voice. "Think of it as an early Christmas present."

The least I could do was slip my own sister a free meal now and then. The very least.

"All right," Bria said, being gracious enough to take me up on my offer. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

She grabbed the bag, gave me a nod and a smile, and turned to go.

Sophia cleared her throat-loudly. I glanced over at the dwarf, and she stabbed a stubby finger in Bria's direction before stabbing it back in mine. Then, Sophia crossed her arms over her chest and gave me a flat stare. I felt like a naughty schoolgirl being chastised by her nun of a teacher. I knew what the dwarf wanted. For me to talk to Bria, to get her to stay, to do something, anything, to further our relationship, even if it was only the tiniest bit.

"Um, detective?" I said.

Bria stopped and looked over her shoulder at me.

"I know that you don't have any ... family in Ashland." The lie stuck in my throat like lumpy gravy, but I forced it out. "I was wondering if you had any plans for Christmas."

I knew that because I kept an eye on Bria whenever she came into the Pork Pit, trying to learn everything I could about her. Usually she brought Xavier along with her, since the giant was her partner on the force whenever he wasn't busy helping Roslyn run Northern Aggression. Finn had also compiled a fat folder of information on Bria that contained just about everything that she'd ever done in her twenty-five years.

But for some reason I just hadn't been able to bring myself to look at the file, and it lay unopened on the coffee table in the den in Fletcher's house. I didn't want to read about what my sister had been up to all these years-I wanted her to tell me herself. About her life, about her job, even about her hopes and dreams. Sappy and sentimental of me, but I didn't care.

Every time that Bria came into the Pork Pit to eat, I tried to strike up some kind of conversation with her, tried to learn more about my sister and what she'd been doing since the last time that I saw her, when she was eight years old. To let her tell me in her own words about all the things that had happened to her since that horrible night when our family had been torn apart by Mab.

From the bits and pieces that she'd told me and what Xavier had let slip, I knew that Bria had been adopted by a couple named Coolidge. The man had been a cop down in Savannah, Georgia, where they'd lived, and he was Bria's inspiration for joining the force. Her foster father had died a couple of years ago from a heart attack. Her foster mother had followed him a year later, hit and killed by a drunk driver.

By all accounts, they'd both loved Bria, and she'd loved them. I'd learned a while back that when your family had been murdered and torn away from you like mine had, you had to make a new family for yourself. Sometimes with what was left of your own flesh and blood, and sometimes with the people you met along the way. It helped to ease the pain.

Shadows darkened Bria's blue eyes, and her mouth flattened into a tight line. "I was planning on working Christmas and letting somebody else spend the day with her family since I don't really have any."

The harsh tone in my sister's voice indicated that I should drop this awkward conversation. I looked at Sophia, who cleared her throat again and raised her eyebrows, a rare show of expression from her. The dwarf didn't want me to give up. Neither would Finn, Owen, or Jo-Jo, if they'd been here. The truth was that I didn't want to give up either. Not when Bria was finally back in my life after so many years. Not when Fletcher had gone to so much trouble to make sure that I knew that she was alive and to bring her back to Ashland in the first place.

"Well, Owen Grayson is having some people over at his house," I said, taking the plunge. "Me, Finn, Xavier, Roslyn. I thought that if you weren't doing anything else, you might like to join us."

After, of course, I called Finn, Xavier, and Roslyn and asked them all to come.

Bria didn't say anything, but a sad sort of longing flickered in her blue eyes. It matched the ache in my heart.

"I'm cooking," I said, trying to sweeten the pot, so to speak. "So I can assure you that the food will be excellent."

After, of course, I told Owen that I was whipping up a Christmas feast for all the people that I hadn't actually invited over to his house yet.

Bria stared at me a moment more before answering. "I don't want to intrude," she said in a soft voice.

I smiled at her, letting a rare bit of warmth creep into my cold gray eyes. "You won't be intruding. You're Xavier's partner. You're practically family now, Bria."

Behind me, Sophia let out a soft snicker at my lame attempt to establish some sort of connection with my sister. Yeah, my words dripped with cheese, and I knew that it was amusing to see big, bad Gin Blanco reduced to pleading just to spend a few hours with her own bloody sister. But still, this comedy of errors had been the dwarf's idea to start with.

I turned and glared at Sophia. Below the counter, out of Bria's line of sight, I grabbed the silverstone knife that I'd stuck in there when McAllister and LaFleur had come into the restaurant. I brandished the weapon at the dwarf, telling her exactly what I was going to do to her if she didn't quit her giggling.

But my flashing the blade only made her snicker harder. Given her extremely thick, dwarven musculature, I could make Sophia look like a pincushion with my silverstone knives, and it wouldn't hurt her-much. At least, not as much as she'd hurt me with her fists, something that we both knew.

"I'll ... think about it," Bria finally said.

I gave her another smile, but her lack of commitment made some of the warmth drain out of my features. "You do that."

Bria nodded at me once more, then turned and headed out of the restaurant. This time, I didn't try to call her back or stop her from leaving, even though my heart felt as cold and empty as the snowy night outside as the door swung shut behind her.

Chapter 15

I stood there staring at the front door of the Pork Pit, wishing Bria would come back, wishing I could just tell her who I really was without worrying about how she would react to the information. But I didn't want to immediately lose my sister all over again when I'd just found her, which is probably how things would go if I told her I was the Spider.

I shook my head and pushed away my wistful thoughts. Now was not the time to be sloppy and sentimental. Not when I had an assassin to stalk and kill tonight, and hopefully, a little girl to rescue. So I locked the front door, dug my cell phone out of my jeans, and called Finn. He answered on the first ring.

"What took you so long?" Finn groused in my ear. "I've been following LaFleur for almost half an hour now. I got in position just like you wanted, Gin. I expected you to call as soon as she left the restaurant with Jonah McAllister."

"Sorry," I murmured. "I had one more customer I had to take care of. But the restaurant's closed now, and you have my complete and undivided attention. So what's happening?"

"Well, after they left the Pork Pit, LaFleur and McAllister got into his limo, which was parked just down the block," Finn said. "You might be interested to know that the two of them started sucking face before they even got into the backseat."

I thought of the way I'd seen Jonah look at Elektra earlier. "Yeah, they're fucking each other. What else?"

Finn huffed. "Must you always ruin my surprises?"

"Yes," I replied. "Then what happened?"

I heard Finn take a sip of something through the phone. Probably from his fifteenth cup of chicory coffee of the day. It was a wonder his stomach didn't explode from all the caffeine he sucked down on a daily basis.

"The limo cruised through downtown, going absolutely nowhere in particular, probably so Jonah and our good assassin could have a little personal time," Finn replied. "After that, the limo whisked them away to the always elegant confines of the old Ashland train yard. LaFleur disappeared into the hallowed depths. McAllister watched her go, obviously admiring her ass, then got back into the limo and rode away. I chose to stay with LaFleur, since we both know that you can stiff the lawyer any old time you want to."

"True, McAllister isn't nearly the problem that LaFleur is." I frowned. "But why did he take her to the old train yard? What is she doing there?"

Like most metropolitan cities, train lines crisscrossed through the greater Ashland area before their slender metal rails snaked out into the more mountainous countryside. Several years ago, the city had built a fancy new complex for passenger rail service out in the Northtown suburbs that included a state-of-the-art train station, upscale shops, a couple of five-star restaurants, and several ritzy hotels.

As a result, the old Ashland train yard on the outskirts of downtown had been largely abandoned and left to rust. Oh, trains hauling coal, lumber, and other industrial products still rumbled past the area on their regular daily schedules, as it was the quickest and most direct route through town, but none of them actually stopped there anymore. These days, the train yard was a popular area for homeless bums, who liked to squat in the abandoned railcars to take shelter from the cold. At least until the cops could be bothered to come out and roust them.

"It looks to me like LaFleur's set up shop here," Finn replied. "There's a lot of activity out here, and I'm not just talking about hobos starting trash can fires. Giants moving around lots of construction equipment and building materials. Some dwarves and humans too, all working on some of the old railcars and what used to be the old train depot. Looks like they're building something brand new."

I thought about what Vinnie Volga had told me, about how Mab Monroe was planning on opening up her own nightclub in Ashland, a place that would offer absolutely anything a person's black heart could desire, no matter how twisted, perverted, illegal, or deadly it was.

"You think this is where Mab is going to establish her new business?" I asked.

Through the phone, I heard Finn take another sip of his coffee. "That thought crossed my mind as well, so I did some checking on my laptop after I realized that LaFleur was going to be here a while. Guess who just happens to have bought up all the land in the area recently, including the train yard itself."

My hand tightened around the phone. "Mab Monroe."

"The one and the same," Finn said. "Whether it's the new nightclub or not, Mab's up to something out here. And LaFleur is helping her with it."

That was more than enough reason for me to pay a visit to the area tonight. But there was something else I wanted to know before I met Finn-the reason we were doing all of this in the first place.

"Any sign of Natasha?" I asked.

I doubted that the little girl was still alive. Mab's men had probably killed her last night, since they'd been planning to do the same to Vinnie. Given what Bria had told me, the bodies of the three men I'd disposed of last night had been found at the park, along with my rune. The Fire elemental would know that I was responsible for stiffing her goons. And since Vinnie wasn't among the corpses, Mab would also realize that I'd gotten my hands on him-and that he'd probably spilled his guts to me about LaFleur and everything else that was going on.

All of which meant that there was just no reason for Mab to keep Natasha alive, except maybe for use in her sick nightclub. I had Vinnie now, not the Fire elemental, so the girl was no good as leverage anymore. But there was a slim chance that she might still be breathing-there was always a chance, even if it rarely turned out that way. But more important was that I'd made a promise to Vinnie to do what I could to find his daughter. Or at least make the people who took her pay-with their lives.

"Not yet," Finn said. "But I'm going to take a casual stroll around the premises and see what I can see. Might be nice if you came and joined the party. You know, like you wanted me to last night at the park."