All too soon, though, the minister finished his sermon and called my friends and family forward, each of them taking a rose from the casket spray to supposedly remember me by. Jo-Jo let out a particularly loud bawl when she did so and stumbled, as if she were overcome with grief. Sophia grabbed her sister’s arm, supporting and leading her away from my casket.
I raised my hand to my face to hide my grin. Jo-Jo had thoroughly enjoyed this charade, and she had wholeheartedly thrown herself into everything from picking out my casket, to planning the funeral, to selecting the tombstone that would be erected at my grave. I thought that it was a bit morbid, but Jo-Jo had gotten catalogs of various markers and had made me go through them with her while she did my nails in the salon one evening.
Still, I supposed it could be worse. I could actually be in that casket, and I might still end up there. My grin faded away.
Finally, the service concluded, and everyone started drifting away and walking back to their cars.
Everyone except Madeline.
She stayed rooted in her spot and lifted her veil, her green eyes sweeping back and forth over the crowd, as if she was searching for someone—me.
I ducked my head, not wanting to lock gazes with her, and slowly shuffled away, sticking close to a pair of older men as though I were with them. But I didn’t have to worry about Madeline’s seeing me because Bria chose that moment to pounce.
“You need to leave,” her voice rang through the entire cemetery.
Everyone who’d been leaving stopped and turned around to witness the commotion.
Bria stood a few feet away from Madeline, her eyes narrowed, her body stiff, her hands curled into fists, as though she were about two seconds away from tackling the other woman.
Madeline gave my sister a cool look. “I just came to pay my respects. Same as everyone else.”
Bria let out a hard, brittle laugh. “Sure you did. Since you’re the reason that my sister’s dead in the first place.”
Madeline arched an eyebrow. “I know that you’re grieving, but I had nothing to do with Gin’s unfortunate . . . accident.”
Bria surged forward, but Finn grabbed her arm, supposedly holding her back.
“Come on, Bria,” he said in a disgusted voice. “She’s not worth it.”
Bria ostensibly let him march her away, although she kept shooting dark looks back over her shoulder at Madeline. I had to hand it to my baby sister and the rest of my friends. They’d done an excellent job pretending that I was dead.
Still, given the small chance that Madeline hadn’t bought our charade, I slipped behind a tree about thirty feet away from my grave, bent down, and started dusting the leaves and twigs off a tombstone, as if I were also visiting that person before leaving the cemetery. But Madeline never even glanced in my direction.
The rest of my friends, family, and legions of adoring enemies headed back to their cars, but Madeline, Emery, and Jonah stayed beside my casket. Madeline stared at Finn and Bria, watching as they walked over to Sophia’s classic convertible and slid into the backseat. Sophia and Jo-Jo got into the car as well, and the four of them drove away. Xavier and Roslyn departed, and so did Owen, Eva, Violet, and Warren. Phillip and Cooper left together, and Silvio and Catalina drifted away with the rest of the staff from the Pork Pit.
“What are you going to do about Coolidge?” Emery asked. “She’s not going to give up. Now that Dobson’s dead, she’s already challenging his supposed investigation into her. She has enough friends in the department to get her job back. If that happens, she could make trouble.”
“She can try, but she’s not nearly as dangerous as Blanco was,” Madeline replied. “None of them are. So they get to live—for now. Besides, I’m not done with them yet. Just because their beloved Gin is dead is no reason for them not to suffer even more before they join her. Don’t you agree?”
Emery’s low, evil laughter matched Madeline’s.
“Besides, without Gin around to protect them, it will be all the more amusing to see how they deal with the problems we send their way.”
Jonah cleared his throat, finally getting into the conversation. “Needling Blanco’s loved ones is all well and good, but we need to focus on the matter at hand—the party tomorrow night.”
Madeline and Emery both gave him a flat look. They didn’t care to be interrupted when they were plotting someone else’s pain and suffering. Jonah took a step back and smoothed down his tie. I wondered if he could see how clearly numbered his days in Madeline’s employ were. It wouldn’t surprise me if she killed him anytime now, since I was apparently dead and out of the picture. Perhaps Emery would string him up like a piñata, and she and Madeline would take turns whacking him. Now, that would be a party.
“Well, Jonah,” Madeline drawled, “you are actually right about something—for a change. We do need to focus on the party. I assume that you’ve handled things on your end?”
Jonah’s head snapped up and down as he hurried to reassure her. “Of course. I started sending out the invitations this morning. All the underworld bosses have gotten theirs by now. They will all be too curious and afraid not to come.”
“Oh, I’m counting on it,” Madeline murmured. “Let’s go. I’m done here.”
She and Emery both turned their backs to Jonah and strolled away. The lawyer swallowed and followed them, although his steps were much slower than theirs. His obvious misery at his new, tenuous status in life filled me with dark satisfaction.
But I was going to get even more satisfaction when I crashed Madeline’s party.
* * *
The rest of the stragglers left, and a couple of guys in blue coveralls appeared, along with another one driving a small tractor with a crane attached to it. I held my position by the tombstone and eyed the men since I’d been attacked by gravediggers at Mab’s funeral as part of one of Jonah’s many plots to kill me. But the men ignored me, took a couple of swigs from the thermoses full of coffee they’d brought along, grabbed their shovels, and got to work.
An hour later, a car cruised through the cemetery, following the winding path. By that point, the gravediggers and the guy on the tractor had gone, having finished their work. What was left of the casket spray of pink and white roses rested atop the disturbed, black earth. Behind the roses, my tombstone rose up, with my spider rune carved into the center of it. The mark was the same size as the scars on my palms.