"Y'all make yourselves comfortable," I said. "I'm going to fix us a snack."
Once again, nobody said anything. Eva kept looking at the runes, while Owen sat down on the end of the plaid couch and turned on the television, staring at it without really seeing it. I jerked my head at Finn, who followed me into the kitchen.
Finn put the folder he'd been carrying down on the table, right next to his open laptop, then poured himself what was probably his fifteenth cup of coffee of the day. I started pulling things out of the cabinets, in the mood for something sweet, crispy, and crunchy, all at the same time. Besides, cooking almost always soothed me. The simple motions of mixing, measuring, and stirring comforted me and gave me time to work out whatever was bothering me - and there were plenty of things on my mind tonight.
Home-canned apples, flour, buttermilk, salt, sugar, and more soon crowded onto the counter, and I filled a pan with oil and let it start warming on the stove. I combined the flour and buttermilk to form a soft, sticky dough, used my biscuit cutter to divide it up, and rolled out the sections into several, large, flat rounds. A heaping scoop of apples went into the center of each piece of dough, which I then folded over, crimping the edges together with a fork, making a half-moon-shaped pie.
I repeated the process until I'd made a dozen pies. Then, one by one, I dropped them into the sizzling oil and let them cook until they were light, fluffy, and golden brown. When they were done, I slid the fried apple goodness onto a plate.
"So lay it out for me," I finally said to Finn as I topped the pies off with powdered sugar, cinnamon, and a few drizzles of sourwood honey.
He snatched one of the pies off the plate before I could stop him. "Don't you want to wait until we go back in the den with the others?"
I shook my head. "No, I want to hear what you have to say first without any interruptions. Eva and Owen aren't exactly objective here. You should have seen Eva after Salina worked her magic on Antonio and then tried to do the same to Kincaid. She was terrified. Yeah, watching Antonio get wrung dry wasn't exactly pleasant, but it seemed like there was more to Eva's reaction than just simple shock, fear, and disgust. So tell me what you found out about Salina."
"Nothing good," Finn said in a quiet voice, making sure his words wouldn't carry into the den, where Eva and Owen were. "From what I can tell, Salina Dubois has never worked a day in her life - she hasn't had to, thanks to all her husbands."
"'Husbands'? As in, more than one?"
Finn nodded and took a bite of his pie. "Since leaving Ashland, Salina has had not one, not two, not three, but four husbands. Each one richer than the last, and each one dead under suspicious circumstances. Hubby number one, Rodgers, slipped and fell in the bathtub, cracking his skull open. Numbers two and three, Smythe and Steele, died in boating accidents. Number four, Henley, drowned while swimming in his own pool. He managed to make it all the way to his third anniversary with Salina. None of the others lasted more than two years with her."
"So she's a black widow, then," I murmured. "One who likes to use her water magic to kill her husbands for their money, because she's bored with them, or for whatever other reason she might have."
Finn polished off his pie and shot his thumb and forefinger at me. "Bingo. All of the deaths were suspicious, though the police could never pin anything on Salina. Along the way, she's collected an impressive fortune in insurance money, as well as what her hubbies left her in their wills. If I had to guess, I'd say that money is helping fund her return to Ashland. That might even be why she married all these men in the first place."
"So she could return to town one day in lavish style?"
He nodded. "And there's one more interesting thing about Salina and her hubbies. Here, see for yourself."
Finn grabbed the folder off the table and handed it to me. Curious, I opened it and started flipping through the pages inside. Most of the sheets were copies of newspaper and magazine articles about Salina's husbands that Finn had printed off the Internet. Business deals. Civic awards. Wedding announcements.
"Keep going until you see the obituaries," he said.
I did as he said. One, two, three, four. I skimmed through the obits, but there was nothing out of the ordinary about them, just a headshot of each man and some facts about his life and those he'd left behind. So I went through the pages again, slower and more carefully this time, studying each one of the headshots, and I finally realized what Finn was talking about.
Black hair. Blue eyes. Nice smiles. Rugged good looks. Every single one of Salina's husbands had the same coloring and the same features. They were so similar they could have been brothers - and they all looked more or less like Owen.
I sucked in a breath, but it wasn't enough to banish the cold, sick feeling that filled my stomach.
Finn gave me a sympathetic look. "They say you never really get over your first love. Seems like Salina's taken that to heart more than most. I'm sorry, Gin."
I stood there, absorbing the news, then grabbed some forks, napkins, and a large tray out of the kitchen drawers and cabinets, along with an ice pack from the freezer for Owen's black eye. I added a pitcher of milk from the fridge to my tray, along with some glasses. I reached for my Ice magic and used it to frost each one of the glasses, so the milk would stay nice and cold inside them, but I wasn't really thinking about what I was doing. All I could focus on was the four men Salina had married, and how they'd all appeared to be substitutes for Owen.
Still on autopilot, I carried everything into the den, with Finn following along behind me. Owen and Eva were exactly where I'd left them - him on the sofa staring at the television and her standing in front of the mantel.
"Eat up," I said, putting the tray on the scarred coffee table between them. "Because we need to talk."
Finn didn't have to be told twice. He sat in a chair, leaned forward, grabbed two of the apple pies and wolfed them down, along with a glass of milk. I ate a pie as well, although the buttery, fried dough and sweet apples failed to satisfy me like they usually did. Owen only picked at his before grabbing the ice pack and holding it against his bruised face. Eva didn't eat anything at all, although she did finally sit down on the opposite end of the sofa from her brother.
Chapter 13
After a few minutes, we all gave up the pretense of eating, except for Finn, who never let awkwardness get in the way of something as important as his appetite. He was finishing another pie when I wiped my hands on a napkin, turned off the television, and stared at Eva.