Widow's Web

10

Everyone on deck froze. All the giants, all crime scene techs, all my friends and family. Even I was a little stunned by the venom in Owen’s voice. I’d never seen him so angry. Not to mention the fact that he’d just threatened to kill someone in front of a bunch of cops. Not exactly a smart thing to do, even if corruption ran rampant in the police department and most members of the po-po were more interested in where their next bribe was coming from rather than in actually stopping crime.

Bria stepped in front of Owen. “In case you didn’t notice, I’ve got a dead body here. Right now, that trumps whatever history and vendetta you have against Kincaid. So you can either keep quiet, or I can have you escorted off the riverboat by force. Do you understand me?”

Owen glared at her, but after a moment he nodded. Satisfied, Bria turned back to Kincaid.

“Now, Mr. Kincaid,” she said in a deceptively friendly tone, “why don’t you tell me who tried to kill you?”

“Why would you think that anyone wants to kill me, Detective?” he answered.

She smiled at him, but there was a hard edge to her expression. “Oh, I don’t know. The fact that your number-two man is lying ten feet away from us, literally a former husk of himself. Or maybe it’s the fact that you would be dead right now if my sister hadn’t used her Ice magic to freeze that water noose someone tied around your neck.”

Owen frowned. “Water noose?”

Kincaid looked at him. “Yeah, a water noose. Sound familiar?”

Owen didn’t respond, but for the first time, I noticed something in his eyes besides rage—doubt. Just a tiny spark of it, so faint I wouldn’t have even seen it if I hadn’t been looking at him, but it was there.

The casino boss turned back to Bria. “It’s true. I was very lucky Gin was on board tonight, wasn’t I?”

“Luck had nothing to do with it, you bastard,” Owen growled. “You probably planned the whole thing, including the so-called attack.”

Kincaid opened his mouth to snipe back, but Bria held up her hand, cutting him off.

“Enough,” she snapped. “That’s enough. From both of you. I’ve got two dead bodies, and I want some answers as to who made them that way. Unlike some of my brethren, I actually like to earn my paycheck. So start talking, Kincaid. Now.”

“Or what?” he smirked. “You’ll get your sister to pull out one of her famous silverstone knives and make me?”

“Oh, Philly,” I drawled. “If you knew anything about me, you’d realize that I wouldn’t even have to use my knives.”

“And if you knew anything about me, Kincaid,” Bria added, her voice even frostier than mine, “you’d realize that I don’t need Gin to fight my battles. I do just fine on my own.”

Kincaid eyed Bria, then me, and I let the cold violence that was always lurking just below the surface leak into my features. Still, it wasn’t enough to motivate the casino boss, since he didn’t start singing like the proverbial canary.

“Her name is Salina Dubois,” Eva said in a soft voice.

Eva’s confession didn’t shock me like it did the others. While they all looked at her in surprise, I stared at Owen, trying to get a sense of what he was thinking, of what he was feeling. But all I saw in his face was weariness, as if this was a battle he’d fought many times before.

Bria raised her eyebrows. “Okay, so now we have a name. Progress, at last.”

Owen sighed. “Eva, you don’t know that it’s Salina just because Kincaid claims a water elemental is involved—”

“Yes, I do, Owen!” she hissed. “Yes, I do!”

Eva shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself. Owen reached over and started to put a hand on his sister’s shoulder, but she jerked away from him before he could touch her. Frustration filled Owen’s face. His fingers clenched into a fist, which he lowered to his side. Kincaid watched them, and his mouth turned down with a hint of sadness.

“And Dubois is a water elemental? How do you know her?” Bria asked.

Eva looked at Owen, then at Kincaid. She bit her lip, her eyes drifting over to Antonio’s body once more. She shuddered again.

Kincaid sighed. “We all know her, Detective. Some of us far better than we’d like to.”

“And why is that?” my sister asked.

Kincaid sighed again. “Because we grew up with her.”

Violet had said something before about Eva and Owen knowing Kincaid from when the two of them had lived on the streets, but I still stared at my lover in surprise. Owen and Kincaid? Growing up together? With Salina in the mix as well?

Owen didn’t talk much about his past, but I knew his childhood had been just as hard as mine; his parents had also been murdered by Mab. The Fire elemental had burned the Graysons’ house to the ground, with them inside, because of a gambling debt Owen’s father owed her. Though his parents had been killed in the fire, Owen had managed to get himself and Eva out of the house. He’d been about seventeen then, Eva only two. After that, the pair had lived on the streets. Eventually, thanks to Fletcher and his machinations, Owen had gotten a job with a dwarven blacksmith who lived up in the mountains above Ashland. Owen had worked hard for the blacksmith, before striking out by himself and building his own business empire. Something eerily similar to what Kincaid had done, now that I thought about it. I wondered what else the two men had in common.

I knew Owen had his secrets, just like I did, and I’d respected his privacy, just like he had mine. We both had things we didn’t like to talk about, things we’d rather forget. But now, it seemed like his past was forcing its way into the light whether he wanted it to or not.

Whether I wanted it to or not.

“And what can you tell me about Dubois?” Bria asked Kincaid.

“Salina is a cold, calculating bitch who likes to use her water magic to kill people,” he snarled. “That’s all you really need to know about her, Detective.”

Bria’s eyes narrowed at his tone. “Oh, I think I know that about her already, Mr. Kincaid. Since I was the one who got called out to come and see what was left of Katarina Arkadi, and now your friend here.”

Owen sucked in a breath. “Katarina’s dead?”

Kincaid stared at him. “You hadn’t heard?”

Owen’s mouth flattened out. “I don’t exactly run in the same circles as you do anymore, Phillip. Or should I say the same gutters?”

Kincaid jerked his head at me and smirked again. “Oh, your legitimate business interests—the mining, the timber, the metal manufacturing—they may be on the up-and-up, but you could have fooled me when it comes to your personal life, given the company you’re keeping these days. Then again, you always did like them a little dangerous, didn’t you?”

Owen stiffened, but he didn’t respond to the other man’s taunt.

Bria glanced at the two men, then at me. I shrugged my shoulders, indicating to her I didn’t know what they were talking about either.

“Why do you think Dubois killed Katarina Arkadi?” Bria asked Kincaid. “Why do you think she wants to kill you?”

His mouth twisted. “You’ll have to ask her that. I never did understand what Salina was thinking. Or some other people, for that matter.”

Owen glared at Kincaid, but he still didn’t respond to the mocking tone in the casino boss’s voice.

Bria looked back and forth between the two of them once more. Then she sighed and shook her head, as if she knew that this night was just getting started.