Since I had no hope of catching her, I tucked my knives up my sleeves and hurried back to the main deck. It looked like a tornado had swept through the area. The gaming tables, the chairs, even the cooking station Sophia and I had manned. Everything was turned over on its side and had been trampled into a splintered, broken mess. All those precious chips the students had been vying for earlier now littered the deck like forgotten bits of confetti. Oh yes. The party was definitely over.
By this point, most of the college students had left the riverboat, although I could see them milling around on the boardwalk below, still stunned by what they'd seen. Many of the giants who made up the riverboat's security force were down there with them, although most of the giants looked just as shell-shocked as the kids did. Shootings, stabbings, and beatings were as common as the sunrise in Ashland, but this - this display of magic and malice had just been downright vicious. Probably more vicious than anything Kinkaid's men had ever seen, much less done themselves. No, Antonio's death had been particularly cruel, and would have impressed even Mab.
I walked over to where Sophia and Violet hovered next to the doors that led inside. Someone had thrown a white tablecloth patterned with small gold imprints of the casino rune over Antonio's corpse, something the few students and giants still on board were trying very hard not to look at.
And then there was Phillip Kincaid.
The casino owner stood a few feet away from the sheet covering what was left of Antonio. He has his arms wrapped around Eva, who was sobbing into his shoulder. But the most surprising thing was that Kincaid was actually . . . comforting her.
"It's okay, Eva, it's okay," he said, patting and rubbing her back the way one might soothe an upset child. "She's gone now. She can't hurt you anymore."
And on and on it went, with Eva crying and Kincaid murmuring platitudes into her ear. Not at all what I'd expected to find. Then again, nothing about tonight was turning out like I'd thought it would.
"What is that about?" I asked Sophia in a low voice, jerking my head at Kincaid and Eva.
The dwarf shrugged. So I turned to someone who might be able to give me some answers.
"Violet," I said in a dark tone, making sure she heard all my questions loud and clear in that one word.
She sighed and ran a hand through her blond hair, making it frizz out a little more. "I'm not supposed to say anything."
"I know this is going to make me sound like somebody's mom, but right now, I don't f**king care. You either tell me what you know, Violet, or I'm going to call your grandfather and tell him that you've been keeping company with one of Ashland's most notorious crime lords. Somehow, I don't think Warren will like that."
I might have been the Spider, might have been one of the scariest folks in Ashland, but even I couldn't hold a candle to the force of nature that was Warren T. Fox. The old coot was just as tough as I was, and he wouldn't hesitate to give Violet a severe tongue-lashing for hanging out with Kincaid. Maybe it was judgmental of me, thinking the casino boss was such a bad guy when I was an assassin myself, but I would never hurt Violet. I'd do everything in my power to protect her, just like I had in the past when she'd been threatened. And I'd do the same for Eva. I wondered what Owen was going to make of his sister's friendship with Kincaid - and the fact she'd witnessed such a brutal murder because of that association.
Violet sighed again, knowing she was beaten. "It was a fluke, really. Eva and I were out shopping a couple of weeks ago over in Northtown, and we ran into Phillip."
Northtown was the uppity part of Ashland, where the yuppies and all the other folks with money, power, influence, and magic to spare lived. The area was full of themed shopping developments and exclusive, trendy restaurants designed to cater to folks with expensive tastes and help them spend as much of their money as quickly as possible.
Violet drew in a breath. "Anyway, we'd finished shopping, and we'd decided to get coffee and dessert in this cafe. Eva saw Phillip sitting by himself having an espresso and insisted that we go over to him. I thought she was out of her mind, wanting to talk to someone like him, but he actually smiled at her, like she was a friend he hadn't seen in a long, long time. The two of them started talking, and one thing just sort of led to another - "
"Until we all wound up on the riverboat tonight," I finished.
Violet nodded.
I looked at Kincaid, who was still murmuring to Eva. Whatever he was saying was working, because her sobs had died down to faint sniffles.
"How does Kincaid even know Eva to start with?"
"Eva's been sort of . . . vague on the details. She just said that she knew him from when she and Owen were living on the streets."
Well, well, well, the surprises just kept coming and coming tonight, and my eyebrows shot up once again. If they kept doing that, there were going to get permanently stuck there.
Violet's words made me once again think about Mab's funeral back in early March. The whole underworld had turned out for the service, and everyone had been looking at and speculating about me and my role in the Fire elemental's death. Kincaid had gone so far as to smile at me that day, which had been strange enough, but I'd also seen him talking to Owen after the service was over. I'd been distracted by other things - namely, the dwarves who'd tried to kill me at Mab's coffin - and I hadn't thought much of it at the time. Owen had brushed off my questions, saying that the two of them had just been exchanging idle chitchat, but it was clear there was more between them than I'd ever suspected.
"And let me guess," I said, looking at Violet again. "Eva told you not to mention Kincaid to me. And, I'm guessing, especially not to Owen."
A guilty look filled her dark brown eyes, which was all the confirmation I needed.
Kincaid drew back from Eva and whispered something into her ear. She wiped the tears off her cheeks and nodded. I scanned the rest of the deck, taking in the kids, the giants, the ruined remains of the fund-raiser, and the body sprawled in the middle of it all.
What a f**king mess. But there was nothing to do now but deal with it - starting with Eva.
I pulled my cell phone out of my jeans pocket and called Owen. He answered on the third ring.
"Hey," his low, sexy voice rumbled in my ear. "Done with your catering job already?"
I stared at Antonio's still-wet wing tip peeking out from underneath the tablecloth. "You might say that."
"Where did you say it was again?"
I hesitated. Eva wasn't the only one who'd keeping secrets. I hadn't told my lover that I was catering an event for Kincaid. I hadn't been sure what game Kincaid had been playing, and I hadn't wanted him to worry. Besides, Owen and I hadn't seen much of each other these past few days, except for when he'd come to the Pork Pit for a quick lunch.