Owen was still asleep, soft snores rumbling out of his mouth, but I was too restless to lie back down, so I unlocked the door and went out into the hallway. The only sound was the soft, steady slosh-slosh-slosh of water against the riverboat. Jo-Jo had said that Phillip had had everyone, except for a few of his most trusted workers, cleared off the boat when Owen and the others had brought me on board. I climbed a set of stairs, which took me to the third level, then opened a door and stepped outside onto the main deck.
It was a beautiful September morning, cool and crisp, and I shivered with a delicious chill as a faint breeze danced over my face and gusted through my wet hair. The sun was just rising over the tops of the eastern mountains, streaking the sky with layers of red, orange, and yellow. The warm, vibrant colors reminded me of those in the heart-and-arrow sign outside Northern Aggression.
Despite the early hour, I wasn’t the only one out and about. Sophia was here too, sitting in a white cushioned deck chair next to the gangplank that led to the ground and watching a movie on her tablet. Probably one of those old westerns she loved so much, judging from the faint toot-toot of a train whistle and the soft crack-crack-cracks of gunfire that drifted out of the device. An open metal thermos sat on the deck next to her chair, the wisps of steam curling up out of the container bringing the rich scent of chicory coffee along with them. A shotgun lay next to the thermos on the deck, and a second, matching weapon was propped up against the railing.
Judging from the blanket that was draped over her shoulders like a serape, Sophia had been out here all night, screening movies, drinking coffee, and keeping a watch in case Benson and his men found us and decided to attack. Her devotion touched me, and more tears pricked my eyes. I told myself they were just there because the sun was already so bright.
Sophia glanced over at the sound of the door opening, then smiled and waved at me. I waved back. But she didn’t get up out of her chair and approach me, and I didn’t walk over and talk to her. I still needed a little more quiet time to think about things, and Sophia respected that. I went over to the far side of the deck, leaned my forearms on the railing, and watched the last bit of night give up its ghost to the dawn.
I hadn’t been at the railing long, maybe ten minutes, when one of the doors creaked open, and soft footsteps sounded. I glanced over my shoulder. Catalina stood in the middle of the deck, wrapped in a white robe, a hesitant look on her face, as if she wasn’t sure if she would be welcome. I waved her over, and she joined me. She mimicked my pose, and we stood there staring out at the rippling surface of the river.
“It’s so beautiful,” she said, skimming her hand along the brass railing. “Everything here is. I drive by the Delta Queen every day on my way to work at the Pork Pit, but I never thought that I’d get a chance to come on board, much less see the inside. It’s nice.”
I nodded, although nice was a bit of an understatement, since the Delta Queen was six levels of gleaming whitewashed wood trimmed with blue and red paint. A paddle wheel at the very back loomed up over the rest of the riverboat, casting a large shadow that cloaked Catalina and me, despite the early hour.
“I wanted to thank you,” she said. “For helping Bria and me. For saving us. What you did . . . how you got us off that bridge and away from Benson and his men . . . it was amazing. It was everything I’ve ever heard about you and more.”
I gave her a questioning, sidelong look, and a bit of a blush stained her bronze cheeks.
“I had heard all the rumors about you being an assassin, about you being the Spider.”
“But?”
Catalina drew in a breath. “But . . . I never really thought they were true. At least, not until I saw you handle Troy and those two vamps at the college. You seemed so nice, so . . . normal. I thought it was just some crazy story people were making up. An urban legend or something.”
“But weren’t you ever curious before then?” I asked, facing her. “About everything that happens at the restaurant? Especially about me and why I’m always so . . . disheveled?”
That was a nice way of saying bruised, beaten, and bloody.
She shrugged. “I was, but you were always so nice to me I figured that there was no way you could do what people said you did, that you could be what everyone said you were. Besides, even if I’d realized sooner that all the rumors were true, I wouldn’t have cared anyway.”
“Why not? Working for an assassin isn’t the sort of thing most people can overlook.”
She shrugged again. “With the way my life has been the past year, coming to the Pork Pit, working there, waiting tables, it was like a relief, you know? Because no matter how angry I was over my mom’s death, no matter how much I missed her, I knew that I could come to the restaurant and forget all about it, at least for a little while. During my shifts, I could just hang out, do my job, and pretend I wasn’t falling apart on the inside.”
“But you don’t need to work in the restaurant. Not with that trust fund Silvio set up for you.”
She nodded. “I know, and I’ve thought about quitting. But working at the restaurant, it was . . . an escape for me, you know? A place where I could feel like I was actually normal. Just a girl, just a waitress, just a college student. Instead of someone with a dead mom, an uncle who works for the biggest drug dealer in town, and a trust fund full of money made from other people’s misery.”
She closed her eyes, and her hands tightened around the railing, as if she were bracing herself for something. After a moment, she opened her eyes and looked at me again.
“I’m sorry about what happened yesterday,” she said, her voice dropping to a low, raspy, guilty whisper. “About what Benson . . . did to you. I heard Bria and the others talking about it. It’s horrible, and it’s all my fault. You were right. I never should have agreed to testify. I almost got you and Bria killed.”
I shook my head. “No, you were right, and I was wrong. You were just trying to get justice for Troy the best way you knew how. Don’t ever apologize for that. Not to me, not to anyone. What happened, what Benson did to me, it’s not your fault. I knew that you and Bria were in trouble, and I made the choice to help you, no matter the consequences. I would make the same choice again—and again.”
She nodded, then stared off into the distance, chewing her lip in worry. “What about Silvio? Bria told me that he helped rescue you, and that he went back into the mansion to lead the guards away. Do you think that he’s still . . . alive?”