I gestured at their clothes. "Well, I see that you're treating yourselves to the nicer things in life, since you collected on your bounty. A million dollars can go a long way toward making life more comfortable."
Gentry winced a little at my pointed barb. "I don't care so much for the money myself. I've never needed much. But the girl here is a different story. Her parents came to an unfortunate end, and I'm looking after her. Now I've got enough money to take care of her-even send her to college so she can get a real job."
"But I want to be a bounty hunter like you, Gentry," Sydney protested.
Gentry gave her a fierce look. "You might be a fair enough shot for it, but a girl needs to know more than just how to shoot guns. There's book learning too, you know."
Sydney didn't say anything, but I could see the determination in her face. No matter if Gentry sent her to a dozen colleges, she'd always want to be a bounty hunter, just like the old woman. I stared at the girl, and, once again, I saw myself at that age. With a dead family and a strange new mentor that I didn't know quite what to make of. I wondered where Sydney would be in seventeen years. If our roles would be reversed, and I'd be in Gentry's shoes by then.
The thought made me smile.
Still looking at the girl, Gentry stuck her hand into her jacket pocket.
"Gently," I cautioned her. "I'm feeling a might twitchy today. So is Sophia here."
"Hmph." Beside me, the dwarf grunted.
"Of course you are," Gentry murmured.
She grabbed something in her jacket pocket and came out with it slowly, keeping her movements small and steady. Then she handed me a business card with a cell phone number on it. A rune was also stamped on the card in black foil. A revolver. The symbol for deadly accuracy. Fitting, given what I knew about the bounty hunter.
"Sydney and I have decided to leave Ashland behind for a warmer climate. If you're ever down in Charleston, give me a call," Gentry said. "Because based on what I saw in that courtyard, I'd sure as hell like to buy you a drink someday."
I probably should have ripped the card into pieces. Or better yet, stuck it on the end of my knife and then put them both through Gentry. After all, this was the woman who'd kidnapped my sister and carted her off to be tortured by Mab. But Gentry was also the reason that Bria was still breathing, which was something I just couldn't overlook. So I took the card and slid it into the pocket of my jeans.
"I just might do that."
"Well, Gin, I can't say that it's been a pleasure doing business with you, but it's certainly been an experience."
"I would say the same thing about you, Gentry. You certainly gave me a run for my money, and you earned every penny of that million that Mab paid you."
"Ah, now you're just flattering an old woman," she said, but a pleased blush crept up her leathery neck.
"That's something else you should know about me. I don't flatter people-ever."
A grin creased her wrinkled face. "Either way, Sydney and I need to be going. There's a bus that leaves for Charleston in an hour, and we plan to be on it. So you take care now, Gin. I hope we meet again someday."
"You too, Gentry, Sydney," I said and meant it. "You take care too."
Gentry nodded, before she and the girl turned and left the restaurant for the final time.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. People came and went, eating, talking, laughing, gossiping, but no one entered the restaurant looking like they wanted to do me immediate harm. I enjoyed the calm, even though I knew it wouldn't last.
Finally, about six that afternoon, more customers left than came in, and I thought about closing early. After being cooped up in Jo-Jo's house for the better part of a month, I found myself with a case of spring fever. I wanted to take a walk, do some yoga in the park, anything that would get me outside into the fresh air and sunshine. I'd just turned around to tell Sophia to shut off the stoves, when the front door opened, causing the bell to chime, and a young girl stepped inside.
I watched her, waiting for her mother or father to come inside after her, but no one did. After a moment, I realized that no one was going to. She was here all by her lonesome. She was twelve, maybe thirteen, far too young to be wandering around this close to Southtown by herself.
But what caught and held my attention was the puffy bruise on her face. It was blue, black, and every shade of green in between. There was only one way that you got a bruise like that-by someone planting his fist in your face. I stared at the girl, wondering who she was and what she wanted. There was a hardness in her face, a pinched set to her features that told me she'd already seen some bad things in her time. I knew that look. It was one I'd had ever since I was thirteen-the same one I saw every time I looked in the mirror.
The girl looked around carefully, staring at the other diners, as if she was measuring what kind of threat they might be. Apparently, she thought that she could take them, because she walked over to the counter. The girl hopped up on a stool close to the cash register and looked at first Sophia, then at me.
"Can I help you, sweetheart?" I asked.
The girl just stared at me. "That depends. Are you the Spider?"
Are you the Spider?
I'd been expecting someone to ask me that question all day long, but no one had. No one had dared to-until now.
I didn't answer the girl, but I didn't tell her that I wasn't the Spider either. If Jonah McAllister or someone else had sent her in here, I wanted to see what kind of game she was playing, and how I could twist it around to my advantage. If she had come in on her own, I still wanted to know what the hell she thought she was doing.
Some of the toughness in the girl's face melted under my hard, gray stare. She dropped her eyes from mine and drew in a breath, as if to bolster her fading courage.
"I heard that there's a lady here called the Spider who helps people," the girl said. "And I want to hire her."
Of all the things she might have said, that was one I'd never expected. I didn't help people, I killed them. The two were not necessarily one and the same. I looked at Sophia, but the Goth dwarf just shrugged. She didn't know what to make of the girl either.
"And who told you that?" I asked. "About the Spider?"
The girl reached out and fiddled with one of the silver napkin holders. "It was just something that I heard from some people."
She drew in another breath, then reached into the pocket of her jacket and came out with a wad of crumpled bills. She shoved them across the counter to me. I eyed the bills. It looked like she had maybe a hundred bucks there, total. Not exactly my going rate before I'd retired.