Black Widow
Page 21
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“Gin?” Silvio asked, wondering what I was doing.
I came around the end of the counter and handed him the frames. “Here. Keep these safe for me. Please.”
Most folks would have thought it strange that I was so concerned about a battered book and an old photo, but Silvio nodded and took them without a word, slipping them both into his briefcase.
“My car is down the block,” he said. “I’ll wait for you there.”
He nodded, then turned and left the restaurant, opening and closing the door so carefully that the bell barely made a whisper at his passing.
I walked over to the door and started to follow him, but something made me stop and turn around.
My gaze swept over the storefront, so familiar with its booths and tables and the pig tracks curling across the floor, but yet so very different right now, with its empty seats and dirty dishes and crushed napkins that littered everything. Even though the sun was shining brightly outside, beating in through the yellow notices taped up to the windows, the interior still seemed dim and dull and sad.
Hollow, just like my heart.
But there was nothing I could do to fix it right now, and Sophia needed my help.
So I clicked off the lights, turned the sign on the door over to Closed, and left the Pork Pit.
* * *
I locked the front door behind me, hurried down the sidewalk, and slipped into the passenger’s seat of Silvio’s navy-blue Audi. A blue-and-pink pin shaped like the neon pig sign outside the restaurant dangled from the car’s rearview mirror. Of course, the real sign above the front door was dark now, since I’d turned off all the lights, but the crystals in the pin sparkled in the afternoon sun, as bright, colorful, and vibrant as ever. It comforted me.
Silvio cranked the engine and pulled away from the curb. While he drove toward the station, I pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket and hit one of the numbers in the speed dial.
She answered on the third ring. “Yes, darling?”
Jolene “Jo-Jo” Deveraux’s voice filled my ear, but it wasn’t the soft, sweet, Southern drawl I expected. Instead, Jo-Jo’s voice was harsh, clipped, and angry. I opened my mouth to answer her, but a loud screech-screech-screech cut me off, followed by a series of bang-bang-bang-bangs.
I frowned. “Jo-Jo? What’s that noise? What’s wrong?”
She huffed in my ear. “Apparently, someone didn’t like the perm I gave her last week and is claiming that I burned her scalp and made all her hair fall out. A bunch of folks from the health inspector’s office are here, plowing through the salon, scraping paint off the walls, and making a mess of everything. Now they’re saying that I’ve got black mold everywhere, even though I just remodeled the entire salon a few months ago.”
My hand tightened around my phone. So Madeline had sicced the health department on Jo-Jo too, and from the sound of things, they were demolishing the dwarf’s beauty salon in the back of her antebellum home. I’d wondered why Madeline had spent so much time ingratiating herself with all the civic and other groups in town. Now she was making all those connections and all that money she’d spread around work for her.
“And, to top it off, I’ve got a bunch of stuck-up snobs from the historical association here,” Jo-Jo went on, her voice getting louder, sharper, and angrier with every word. “They’re claiming that I haven’t been taking proper care of my house—the house that’s been in my family for more than a hundred and fifty years—and that there’s some silly ordinance that says that unless I bring it up to code in thirty days, that the historical association can take ownership of it. Over my dead body, that’s what I say.”
“Jo-Jo, listen to me—” I started to warn her to just go along with them for now, but I didn’t get the chance.
“Hey!” she snapped. “There’s no mold on that wall. Don’t you dare punch that sledgehammer through my brand-new paneling!”
Thump-thump-thump.
Crash-crash-crash.
Bang-bang-bang.
More and more demolition noises rang out, along with the sharp, distinctive tinkle-tinkle-tinkle of breaking glass.
“Great. Now there’s a giant hole in my wall, and one of these idiots has managed to upend and break an entire tub of nail polish all over the floor. I’m sorry, Gin, but I have to go. I’ll call you back when I get these morons out of my salon.”
She hung up before I could tell her about the trouble Sophia was in—or how Madeline was screwing with all of us today, including her.
I thought about calling her back, but she probably wouldn’t answer. Besides, Sophia was in more danger right now than Jo-Jo was. Still, I sent a text to Finn, asking him to check in with Jo-Jo when he got a chance. I waited, but the phone didn’t beep back. Looked like Finn was busy dealing with his own problems. I sighed and put my phone down on the console in the center of the car.
Silvio cleared his throat. “I take it that Ms. Deveraux is having some trouble as well?”
“Another surprise visit from the health inspector,” I muttered. “And the historical association. Madeline hit her with a double whammy.”
“She has certainly been effective in planning her attacks to target all of you at once. A classic divide-and-conquer tactic.”
“I know,” I muttered again. “And I didn’t even see it coming. I thought that she would send a swarm of giants into the restaurant or hire a passel of assassins to attack me. This is Ashland, after all. Instead, the bitch is trying to legalese me to death.”
“The law can be as effective a weapon as anything else,” Silvio pointed out in an annoyingly calm tone. “Sometimes, even more so than direct brute force or overwhelming numbers.”
I slumped in the leather seat, put my head back, and closed my eyes, trying to rein in my temper and growing frustration. I didn’t do legal. I did black-of-the-night, launch-myself-from-the-shadows, cut-your-throat attacks. Not this . . . this political maneuvering.
It disgusted me that Madeline wouldn’t come right out and face me herself, elemental to elemental, but there was nothing I could do about it. Right now, she had the advantage, and my friends and I were scrambling to playing catch-up. No, scratch that. We weren’t playing catch-up. We weren’t even playing defense. Madeline had blindsided all of us, and we were sprawled every which way on the battlefield, flat on our backs, trying to find enough strength to shake off all the punishing, head-spinning blows she’d landed on us one after another.
I came around the end of the counter and handed him the frames. “Here. Keep these safe for me. Please.”
Most folks would have thought it strange that I was so concerned about a battered book and an old photo, but Silvio nodded and took them without a word, slipping them both into his briefcase.
“My car is down the block,” he said. “I’ll wait for you there.”
He nodded, then turned and left the restaurant, opening and closing the door so carefully that the bell barely made a whisper at his passing.
I walked over to the door and started to follow him, but something made me stop and turn around.
My gaze swept over the storefront, so familiar with its booths and tables and the pig tracks curling across the floor, but yet so very different right now, with its empty seats and dirty dishes and crushed napkins that littered everything. Even though the sun was shining brightly outside, beating in through the yellow notices taped up to the windows, the interior still seemed dim and dull and sad.
Hollow, just like my heart.
But there was nothing I could do to fix it right now, and Sophia needed my help.
So I clicked off the lights, turned the sign on the door over to Closed, and left the Pork Pit.
* * *
I locked the front door behind me, hurried down the sidewalk, and slipped into the passenger’s seat of Silvio’s navy-blue Audi. A blue-and-pink pin shaped like the neon pig sign outside the restaurant dangled from the car’s rearview mirror. Of course, the real sign above the front door was dark now, since I’d turned off all the lights, but the crystals in the pin sparkled in the afternoon sun, as bright, colorful, and vibrant as ever. It comforted me.
Silvio cranked the engine and pulled away from the curb. While he drove toward the station, I pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket and hit one of the numbers in the speed dial.
She answered on the third ring. “Yes, darling?”
Jolene “Jo-Jo” Deveraux’s voice filled my ear, but it wasn’t the soft, sweet, Southern drawl I expected. Instead, Jo-Jo’s voice was harsh, clipped, and angry. I opened my mouth to answer her, but a loud screech-screech-screech cut me off, followed by a series of bang-bang-bang-bangs.
I frowned. “Jo-Jo? What’s that noise? What’s wrong?”
She huffed in my ear. “Apparently, someone didn’t like the perm I gave her last week and is claiming that I burned her scalp and made all her hair fall out. A bunch of folks from the health inspector’s office are here, plowing through the salon, scraping paint off the walls, and making a mess of everything. Now they’re saying that I’ve got black mold everywhere, even though I just remodeled the entire salon a few months ago.”
My hand tightened around my phone. So Madeline had sicced the health department on Jo-Jo too, and from the sound of things, they were demolishing the dwarf’s beauty salon in the back of her antebellum home. I’d wondered why Madeline had spent so much time ingratiating herself with all the civic and other groups in town. Now she was making all those connections and all that money she’d spread around work for her.
“And, to top it off, I’ve got a bunch of stuck-up snobs from the historical association here,” Jo-Jo went on, her voice getting louder, sharper, and angrier with every word. “They’re claiming that I haven’t been taking proper care of my house—the house that’s been in my family for more than a hundred and fifty years—and that there’s some silly ordinance that says that unless I bring it up to code in thirty days, that the historical association can take ownership of it. Over my dead body, that’s what I say.”
“Jo-Jo, listen to me—” I started to warn her to just go along with them for now, but I didn’t get the chance.
“Hey!” she snapped. “There’s no mold on that wall. Don’t you dare punch that sledgehammer through my brand-new paneling!”
Thump-thump-thump.
Crash-crash-crash.
Bang-bang-bang.
More and more demolition noises rang out, along with the sharp, distinctive tinkle-tinkle-tinkle of breaking glass.
“Great. Now there’s a giant hole in my wall, and one of these idiots has managed to upend and break an entire tub of nail polish all over the floor. I’m sorry, Gin, but I have to go. I’ll call you back when I get these morons out of my salon.”
She hung up before I could tell her about the trouble Sophia was in—or how Madeline was screwing with all of us today, including her.
I thought about calling her back, but she probably wouldn’t answer. Besides, Sophia was in more danger right now than Jo-Jo was. Still, I sent a text to Finn, asking him to check in with Jo-Jo when he got a chance. I waited, but the phone didn’t beep back. Looked like Finn was busy dealing with his own problems. I sighed and put my phone down on the console in the center of the car.
Silvio cleared his throat. “I take it that Ms. Deveraux is having some trouble as well?”
“Another surprise visit from the health inspector,” I muttered. “And the historical association. Madeline hit her with a double whammy.”
“She has certainly been effective in planning her attacks to target all of you at once. A classic divide-and-conquer tactic.”
“I know,” I muttered again. “And I didn’t even see it coming. I thought that she would send a swarm of giants into the restaurant or hire a passel of assassins to attack me. This is Ashland, after all. Instead, the bitch is trying to legalese me to death.”
“The law can be as effective a weapon as anything else,” Silvio pointed out in an annoyingly calm tone. “Sometimes, even more so than direct brute force or overwhelming numbers.”
I slumped in the leather seat, put my head back, and closed my eyes, trying to rein in my temper and growing frustration. I didn’t do legal. I did black-of-the-night, launch-myself-from-the-shadows, cut-your-throat attacks. Not this . . . this political maneuvering.
It disgusted me that Madeline wouldn’t come right out and face me herself, elemental to elemental, but there was nothing I could do about it. Right now, she had the advantage, and my friends and I were scrambling to playing catch-up. No, scratch that. We weren’t playing catch-up. We weren’t even playing defense. Madeline had blindsided all of us, and we were sprawled every which way on the battlefield, flat on our backs, trying to find enough strength to shake off all the punishing, head-spinning blows she’d landed on us one after another.
