“Nothing much,” I drawled, plastering a pleasant smile on my face. “I just need to run over to Northern Aggression. Roslyn has a rat problem that she needs some help with.”
The dwarf frowned. “Rats? Roslyn never has—” She stopped, her black eyes narrowing. “Oh. Rats.”
“Yeah. Rats. Care to help me find the poison for them?”
She nodded, pulled open one of the oven doors, and slid a tray of sourdough buns inside to bake. I headed through the swinging doors and into the back.
Since the restaurant was packed, all of the waitstaff were out front, seeing to the customers, so there was no one around to watch me toss the newspaper aside, march over to one of the freezers, and drag a black duffel bag out from behind it. I straightened up, put the bag on a nearby table, unzipped the top, and did a quick inventory of all the items inside. Money, fake IDs, tins of Jo-Jo’s healing ointment, anonymous black clothes, and enough guns, ammo, and knives to start a small war. Satisfied, I zipped the bag back up and slung it over my shoulder.
The doors opened behind me, and Sophia appeared. Her gaze locked onto the bag in my hand. She knew exactly what was inside, because she had a similar bag, one with a grinning figure of Death holding a scythe printed on the side, hidden behind another freezer.
“Problem?” she rasped.
“Someone’s decided to use Roslyn as leverage,” I replied, and told her about Roslyn’s call.
“Go with?” Sophia asked when I finished.
I shook my head. “Thanks, but no. I’ll call Finn and Owen on the way over there. Bria too.”
I went back over to the doors and looked through the round glass in the top at Catalina, who was passing out plates of food to a table full of customers. I turned back to Sophia.
“Stay here and keep an eye on Catalina for me. Okay?”
She nodded. “I’ll call Jo-Jo too.”
I knew what she really meant. That she’d let Jo-Jo know what was going on in case I needed the dwarven Air elemental to heal Roslyn or myself.
“Thanks. Roslyn sounded okay on the phone, but I have no idea if she’ll stay that way.”
Sophia nodded again, then reached out and took hold of my arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Be careful.”
I grinned back at her. “Always.”
Sophia went back out front to watch over Catalina in case Benson sent some of his vamps to the Pork Pit in search of her. Bria probably hadn’t told anyone Catalina’s name yet, but knowing that Sophia would look after the waitress let me focus on what I had to do now: get to Roslyn.
So I palmed a knife, opened the back door, and stepped out into the alley behind the restaurant, my head swiveling left and right, looking for anyone hunkered down beside one of the Dumpsters, leaning against the walls, or even stationed at either end of the corridor. If the person holding Roslyn hostage was smart, he or she would have someone watching the restaurant to tell them when I left so they could get ready for my arrival at Northern Aggression.
But the alley was empty.
No lurkers, no watchers, no assailants of any sort haunted the area, and the only sound was the skitter-skitter of a crumpled-up white paper bag bearing the Pork Pit’s pig logo that was being pushed across the cracked asphalt by the steady breeze. Well, just because no one was waiting in the alley didn’t mean that there weren’t watchers around somewhere.
Still being cautious, I walked to the end of the alley and fell into the flow of foot traffic on the sidewalk. I kept to the side streets as much as possible, quickly making my way over to my car, which I’d parked four blocks from the Pork Pit.
No one was following me, but I rounded the corner just in time to see someone snap a photo of my car, lean his ass against the hood, and start texting on his phone. No doubt, he was sharing the vehicle’s location with his boss. So whoever had Roslyn had had his or her men stake out my car instead of the restaurant. Smart. Just not smart enough.
Apparently, Roslyn’s captors had believed my lie about not being able to leave right away. Otherwise, the guy would have been skulking in one of the nearby alleys, instead of being out in the open right next to my car. Still, even if he wasn’t expecting me for a while, it was sloppy of him to be so brazen, and I planned to use his carelessness to my advantage.
I glanced behind me, but this was a narrow street, with only a few cars parked on one side, and most of the storefronts were boarded up. I was the only one on this particular block, besides the guy at my car. Good.
I hoisted my duffel bag a little higher on my shoulder and started whistling a soft, cheery tune that Sophia had taught me. The guy looked up from his phone. He started to go back to his text, but his brain finally kicked into gear, and he recognized me. He froze, his thumbs jamming into his phone’s keypad and making it beep at him.
Instead of going over and confronting him, I gave the watcher a pleasant smile and walked right on by my car, as though the vehicle weren’t mine at all. I kept my steps slow and steady, as though I were in no particular hurry. After several seconds, shoes slapped on the sidewalk behind me. A glance at my reflection in the dirty windows of a defunct Italian restaurant confirmed that the watcher was scurrying after me, his phone dangling from his hand.
I grinned.
My casual walk continued until I reached the end of the block. As soon as I stepped around the corner, I dropped my duffel bag and pressed myself up against the side of the building, scanning the area. The block off to my left was deserted, and an alcove was set into the wall two feet past my right elbow, leading to a battered metal door, although whatever business had been behind it was long closed. To my right, at the far end of this block, a bum wearing layers of tattered rags dug through a plastic bag of garbage someone had tossed onto the sidewalk, searching for tin cans to add to the load already in his shopping cart.
Normally, I would have kept going until I could lure my watcher into a completely deserted area, but the bum was focused on his recycling, and I wanted to get to Roslyn as quickly as possible.
Besides, I was good at killing people quietly.
So I stood against the building, knife in my hand, tuning out the usual humming and honking of cars and horns on the neighboring streets, and concentrating on the smack-smack-smack of the watcher’s footsteps. He was a minute out and closing fast. I counted off the seconds in my head. Sixty . . . forty-five . . . thirty . . . twenty . . . ten . . .
The guy careened around the corner, his phone still in his hand, desperately trying to catch up with me before I disappeared completely. I grabbed the back of his suit jacket, spun him around, shoved him through the alcove, and slammed him into the door.