But the minutes slipped by and turned into hours, and nothing happened.
No vamps, no threats, no action of any kind. No one even tried to murder me when I took the trash out back after the lunch rush. That only made me more suspicious that something sinister was brewing. Whether it was related to me or Catalina, well, only time would tell.
But the most troubling thing was the fact that I didn’t hear from Bria. Not so much as a text. No doubt, she was completely wrapped up in Troy’s murder and tightening a noose around Benson’s neck. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself, instead of dwelling on the fact that Bria’s need for revenge was consuming her, the way it had consumed me in the past. Either way, her radio silence shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did.
Especially since she called Catalina instead.
I went into the back to get a jug of ketchup to refill the bottles on the tables and found Catalina standing beside one of the industrial-size refrigerators, clutching her phone to her ear. Startled, she sucked in a breath and froze, the proverbial deer-in-the-headlights look on her face. When she realized it was me, she relaxed—but only a little.
A low murmur echoed out of her phone, as though someone were asking her a question.
“I’m okay,” Catalina replied. “Someone just surprised me.”
She listened for a few seconds. “Yeah, she’s here right now. Do you want to talk to her?”
That’s when I knew that Bria was on the other end. So I stopped and waited.
Silence. Then another low murmur sounded.
“Oh, okay.” Catalina gave me an apologetic look and tiptoed a little closer to the back door, turning away from me. “So what’s the next step, then?”
Disgusted, I grabbed the ketchup off a metal rack, shoved one of the doors open, and stormed back out into the storefront.
•
Catalina eased into the front of the restaurant a few minutes later, tucking her phone back into her jeans pocket. She looked at me, then bit her lip, grabbed a pitcher of sweet iced tea, and started refilling glasses.
I stood at a cooking station along the back wall, chopping up carrots and celery for another batch of macaroni salad and being far more vicious and violent than I needed to be with the defenseless veggies. A few feet away, Sophia hefted a vat of Fletcher’s barbecue sauce off the hot burner and onto several oven mitts so it could cool down, the thick muscles in her arms rolling with the motion. She glanced at Catalina, then at me.
“Not her fault,” Sophia rasped, picking up on my anger and frustration. “Innocent.”
“I know,” I muttered, slicing my knife into another carrot. “And that is what makes this whole thing all the more tragic and ironic. But whose fault is it going to be when Benson kills her for trying to do the right thing?”
Sophia didn’t have an answer for that, and neither did I.
Thirty more minutes passed, and a few more customers came and went. I had just finished slicing the last of the celery when my own phone rang. I wiped my hands off, then pulled the device out of my pocket and stared at the number on the screen, hoping that it was Bria, finally checking in with me, finally letting me in, finally asking me to help her with this.
But it wasn’t.
Disappointment surged through me, but I recognized the number, so I took the call.
“Gin?” Roslyn Phillips’s low, sultry voice filled my ear.
“Hey, Roslyn. What’s going on? Kind of early for you to be calling.”
It was three in the afternoon, and Roslyn was something of a night owl, since she operated Northern Aggression, Ashland’s most decadent after-hours club. Most nights, the drinking and debauchery at the club didn’t kick into high gear until well past midnight.
“Oh, I came in early to do some inventory. It never ends.” She let out a laugh that sounded more brittle than genuine. “Anyway, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
I frowned. Roslyn had never once talked to me about inventory in all the years I’d known her. “What’s up?”
“I finally have that special bottle of gin you asked me to order for you.”
My hand tightened around the phone, and my danger radar pinged up into red-alert territory. I’d never asked Roslyn to order any booze for me. Something was wrong. Someone was there with her. Someone was using her to get to me.
“How many bottles are there?” I asked in a casual voice, in case anyone was listening on her end of the line. “I hope you got me more than just one. You know how much I love that stuff.”
“Oh, yeah,” Roslyn said, not missing a beat. “You’re right. I forgot that you had ordered three bottles.”
She knew what I was really asking: how many people were there with her. Three was more than manageable, and the idiots who’d strong-armed her into doing this were going to realize what a fatal mistake they’d made as soon as I got over there.
“Anyway, I thought that you might want to come and pick up the bottles this afternoon,” Roslyn chirped, her voice going a bit higher, as though someone was telling her to hurry up. “Before the club opens up for the night.”
My mind raced, trying to come up with a way to buy myself—and Roslyn—some more time. My gaze landed on the plastic tub full of dirty dishes that Catalina had set on the counter. I reached over, grabbed a fork out of the tub, and started scraping it against a plate that was sitting inside.
“Well, we’re a little slammed, as you can probably hear. I’ve got about ten customers waiting for food right now. But I can probably be there in an hour, ninety minutes tops. Okay? Or will that be too late for you?”
Roslyn let out a relieved breath. “Sure, an hour or so will be fine. See you then.”
“Oh, you can count on it.”
11
I ended the call, slid my phone back into my pocket, and dropped the fork into the tub. My gaze cut left and right, scanning over the customers, but they’d all been here for at least fifteen minutes now, and I didn’t see anyone obviously studying me to see how I reacted to Roslyn’s call.
When I was sure that no one was watching me, I grabbed a newspaper from beside the cash register, then strolled toward the double doors at the far end of the counter, untying my blue work apron and hanging it on a hook on the wall as I went. I kept my movements easy and casual, as though I were just taking a break, but Sophia noticed the cold fury in my eyes and the hard set of my mouth as I stopped next to her.
“Gin?” Sophia asked. “What’s wrong?”