Other than that limited action, the area was largely deserted, and I'd have had to be blind not to realize how interested the two cowboys were in little ole me. Maybe Grimes hadn't trained his boys as well as I'd thought. Or maybe he was scraping the bottom of the barrel, given how many I'd killed at the camp.
Either way, I reached my car, got inside, cranked the engine, and drove away. I looked in the rearview mirror.
The two men were hoofing it over to their own car, which was parked at the very end of the block. So I slowed down and stopped at the light, even though I could have easily coasted right on through it. I didn't want the idiots to lose track of me. It might take them hours to find me again, and that just wouldn't do, especially since I wanted Grimes dead before the sun set.
By the time the light changed, the men were pulling away from the curb and zooming up the street behind me. I went through the intersection, then drove over to Fletcher's house as though I didn't have a care in the world - and didn't realize that someone was following me.
And they did a piss-poor job of it too. Instead of hanging back at a safe distance, the men raced up until they were right on my rear bumper, then abruptly backed off.
When they realized that they'd dropped too far behind and were in danger of losing me in the downtown loop, they roared right back up on my bumper again. And it was rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, all the way over to Fletcher's house. I rolled my eyes. Good help truly was hard to find.
But I made it home without them rear-ending me
and turned into the driveway. I took my foot off the gas, coasting forward, but the men didn't veer onto the path behind me like I thought they might. Instead, they drove right on past the entrance, as though they were going somewhere else entirely.
I sighed. I'd really wanted to get on with the business of killing them and confronting their boss. But good things came to those who waited, and I was very, very good at waiting.
So I steered my car up the driveway, parked it, and went inside the house to get ready for my not-so-unexpected visitors. It didn't take long.
Half an hour later, I was sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch, drinking some blackberry lemonade, when Harley Grimes finally made his move.
One minute, I was alone, sipping my beverage and wondering how much longer I'd have to sit out here before Grimes and Hazel took the bait that I was so thoughtfully dangling in front of them - me. The next, I heard a car start rumbling up the gravel driveway. Then another one. Then another one. Three vehicles total, all churning up the hill as fast as they could, as if they thought that I would run once I heard them coming and realized who they were.
I wasn't running, not tonight.
The cars left the driveway and skidded to a stop in the yard near the edge of the trees, spewing dirt and gravel everywhere, and cutting off any escape I might have thought of making to the woods. Men erupted out of the vehicles a second later. Guns drawn, they spread out in front of me. There were only eight of them, which was about what I'd expected. I recognized six as the watchers from the Pork Pit earlier, although they'd traded in their cowboy clothes for their regular old-fashioned suits, boots, and fedoras. But it didn't much matter what they had on. Because every single one of them was dead - they just didn't know it yet.
Finally, two more figures climbed out of the last car: Hazel and Harley Grimes.
Hazel marched over to join the group of men clustered on the lawn, but Grimes lingered by the car, staring up at Fletcher's house. I wondered if he was thinking about building some similar, twisted version of it up on his mountain. Well, he wasn't going to get the chance.
I put one foot up on the railing, tipped my rocking chair back a little farther, and took another long swig of my lemonade, completely unconcerned by all the guns pointed at me.
Finally, Grimes walked over and joined Hazel and his men, standing in the middle of them all. He too was wearing another old-fashioned suit, this one in a black that was as dark as his soul. His hat was black too, with a white feather jauntily perched in the brim just like usual.
Hazel had on a white wrap dress with black ribbon pip - ing down the seams. More diamond pins glittered in her wavy black hair, this set shaped like tiny roses. I wondered if the brother and sister had matching funeral outfits. I hoped so. They'd need them soon enough.
Ever so politely, Grimes lifted his hat for a moment before bowing his head to me. "Ms. Blanco," he said.
"Please forgive me for my disbelief during our previous encounters at my camp. According to everything that my men have heard, you are indeed who you say you are, the Spider."
"Well, it's about time you figured that out," I drawled, and took another sip of my drink. "I would have thought that all of those dead bodies that I left up at your place would have clued you in to that simple fact. But I guess you're just a little slow on the uptake."
"And I see that you've picked up the same insolence that Sophia has," Grimes murmured. "But Hazel can quickly cure you of that."
Hazel smirked at me, elemental Fire flashing in her eyes in anticipation of the fight to come. She was looking forward to torturing me with her magic again. Good.
Because I was looking forward to cutting her throat.
Grimes's gaze flicked around the yard again before scanning the front of the house, trying to see if there were any lights on inside or any hints of movement through the windows. "Where is Sophia? I thought that she would be here with you, given how . . . protective you've been of her."
"You might as well forget about Sophia, because she's somewhere where you will never, ever find her."
Grimes gave me a thin smile. "I rather doubt that, seeing how easily I found you. I've had my men watching you all day long at that restaurant you run downtown."
I returned his smile with an even colder one of his own. "You think I didn't know that? You really shouldn't have dressed them all up like cowboys. Or at least you should have made sure that their clothes weren't so obviously brand-spankin' new."
Grimes studied me, trying to figure out whether I was telling the truth. "If you knew that they were there, that they were watching you, then why didn't you try to slip away from them?"
"Because I'm not afraid of them - or you. You're a small, petty, mean little man who gets his kicks by hurting others. If I ran every time one of those came into the restaurant, well, I'd never be open for business."
His frown deepened, and anger sparked in his eyes.
He didn't like hearing the truth about himself. Too damn bad.I drained the last of my lemonade, put the glass down on the railing, got to my feet, and stepped off the porch.