Owen stared at me, but his eyes were dark and distant, and I could tell that he was lost in his memories. Thinking about various facts, clues from that time that might support—or undermine—what I’d just revealed. “I was so sure Salina was telling the truth. It seemed so obvious at the time. But if she wasn’t . . . if what you’re saying is true . . . Eva . . . Phillip . . . all these years I’ve blamed him. . . .”
His voice trailed off, and guilt tightened his features at the thought of what he’d done to Kincaid, of how he’d almost beaten his best friend to death because of Salina’s lies.
I let him sit there for a minute, thinking about everything. I would have liked to put my arms around him and tell him that everything was going to be okay, but that would have been a lie. The past was done, and we all had to live with the consequences of it. The only thing we could change was the future.
“What if I can prove it to you?” I asked. “One way or the other, who’s lying and who’s telling the truth. I think I can give you that.”
What I hadn’t told him was that there was one more person involved in this drama. There had to be. From what I’d seen, Salina had been just as crazy about Owen back then as she was now. She wouldn’t have just abandoned him for no reason. No, someone had forced Salina to leave Ashland, and I didn’t think it was Kincaid—but I was betting that the casino boss knew exactly who it was.
“How are you going to do that?” Owen finally asked, still staring off into space. “How are you going to give me answers? You weren’t even there when it happened.”
I squeezed his hand again. “You’ll see. But you’ll have to trust me. Do you think you can do that?”
After a moment, he focused on me and slowly nodded.
“Good. Then let’s get out of here.”
“This is a bad idea,” Owen muttered. “A really bad idea.”
Thirty minutes had passed. Before we’d left the Pork Pit, I’d grabbed a few things I thought I might need from the back of the restaurant and stuffed them into my jeans pockets. Now we stood on the boardwalk in front of the Delta Queen. A sign by the gangplank said the casino wouldn’t be opening until tonight, I assumed so every last bit of Antonio could be scrubbed off the main deck.
“Certainly,” I agreed. “But we both have questions that only Kincaid can answer. So let’s pay him a visit.”
Owen hadn’t said much on the drive over here, but I could see him thinking back, straining to recall everything that had happened that night. Everything everyone had said and done, all the shouts, accusations, truths, and lies. I didn’t know what conclusions he’d drawn, but his face had grown darker and darker as the miles passed, until now, his violet eyes almost glowed with rage and guilt—the first over what Salina had done, the second for not realizing what was going on. But those were emotions that Owen would have to deal with himself. All I could do was be here for him—and squeeze Kincaid until he screamed the truth for the whole world to hear.
“You don’t have to go in with me,” I said.
Owen shook his head, and a stubborn look filled his face. “No. I don’t want you going on board alone. And I need to hear what Phillip has to say for himself. I just . . . I need to.”
I nodded, undid the red velvet rope that cordoned off the entrance, and walked up the gangplank with Owen. The main deck had been cleared of all the games, tables, chips, and chairs that had been out here last night. The wood underfoot gleamed like freshly minted gold, and the sharp scent of varnish filled the air. Kincaid certainly hadn’t wasted any time shellacking over what had happened last night.
Someone must have spotted us coming up the gangplank through the windows, because we’d only taken a few steps forward when a giant stepped out of the double doors and came over to us, his hands out to his sides.
“Sorry, folks. We’re closed until tonight.”
I smiled at him. “Not for us. Tell Kincaid that Gin Blanco and Owen Grayson are here to see him.”
The giant frowned, as if the names were familiar but couldn’t quite be placed. So I decided to jog his memory. I palmed one of my silverstone knives, making sure the giant saw the gleam of the metal in my hand. Then I started casually flipping it end over end, just like I’d done in Kincaid’s office last night.
“Is there a problem?” I asked.
The giant stared at my knife. After a moment, he backed up and shook his head. “No problem. No problem at all. I’ll tell Mr. Kincaid you’re here.”
“You do that,” I said.
The giant scurried through the double doors and disappeared from sight. He came back less than a minute later and gestured for us to follow him inside. Sometimes it helped to have a reputation as bad as mine.
The giant led us into the main ballroom, where Kincaid sat at a round table in front of the stage, eating a late lunch. The table was covered with fine linens and china, but instead of the lobster and other delicacies I’d expected, Kincaid was chowing down on baby back ribs, grilled sausages, coleslaw, cornbread, and a peach cobbler topped with melting vanilla ice cream. A pitcher of iced tea sat on the table, along with the glass he was drinking out of.
The giant went over and whispered in Kincaid’s ear. The casino boss’s gaze went to me, then Owen, and he put down his fork. He whispered something back to the giant, who nodded and took up a position several feet behind the table. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. The giant should have put himself in between me and his boss, especially with me still twirling a knife in my hand. Good thing I wasn’t here to kill Kincaid. He would have been dead before he got to finish his peach cobbler.
“Ah, visitors,” Kincaid drawled, pushing his plates away and pulling the napkin out of the collar of his shirt. “Tell me, to what do I owe this honor?”
“I think you know why we’re here,” Owen said. “We need to talk.”
“Whatever for?” Kincaid asked. “You’ve spent years going out of your way not to talk to me. So why would you want to have a conversation now? Did Gin tell you what a good time we had getting to know each other last night? Is that why you’re here? Apparently, I just keep ending up with your women, Owen. Why, they practically throw themselves at me . . . whether I want them to or not.”
Kincaid smirked at me. I gave him a lazy look, then kicked his chair over, with him still in it. He’d barely thumped to the floor before I was straddling him, my knife at his throat. Kincaid started to get up, but I pressed the blade against his skin and he froze. They almost always did.
When I was sure he wasn’t going to move, I looked up at the giant who’d taken half a step toward his boss. Too little, too late. If I’d wanted it, Kincaid would have been bleeding out already.
“If you even think about reaching for that gun under your jacket, I’m going to be very upset,” I told the giant. “Trust me when I tell you that you do not want to upset me. It won’t end well for you or your boss.”
“It’s okay, Rusty,” Kincaid said. “Stand down. Gin and I are just having a friendly little chat. What can I say? She’s a feisty minx.”
“Phillip,” I said in a pleasant voice, “your snide comments are getting on my last nerve. So unless you want me to finish the job Salina started, I suggest that you shut the hell up. I don’t like getting blood on my clothes this early in the day, but believe me when I tell you that I’m no stranger to it.”
Kincaid swallowed at my threat, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down and scraping against the knife in my hand. A mottled, bluish bruise ringed his throat, a reminder of the water noose that had been wrapped around his neck.
“Maybe you should just go ahead and save us all the trouble then,” he said. “I’m sure Owen wouldn’t object. He’d probably thank you for it.”
My lover sighed. “I just want to know the truth, Phillip. I’m giving you a chance to do the right thing.”
“I always did the right thing,” Kincaid snarled back. “You were the one who was too blind to see—”
“Forget that night,” I cut in. “What I really
want to know is how you managed to run Salina out of town after the fact.”
Kincaid blinked in surprise before he could stop himself. “What are you talking about? Salina left Ashland all on her own. I had nothing to do with that.”
I shook my head. “No, she didn’t, Philly. Why would she leave? She got Owen to believe you tried to rape her and almost got him to kill you in the process. Things went exactly the way she wanted them to go. But two days later, she just up and vanishes, and no one hears a peep from her for years. Since I know Owen didn’t send her packing, that leaves you—and whoever helped you.”
Owen frowned. “Phillip? Is this true?”
Kincaid didn’t say anything, so I decided to encourage him by pressing the knife a little deeper into his throat. He clenched his jaw, but he still didn’t talk.
“I’m going to get the truth for Owen one way or another,” I said in a deceptively light voice. “You can be helpful, or you can be dead. Doesn’t much matter to me.”
He glared at me, his blue eyes practically glowing with cold anger. “What makes you think I had help?” Kincaid finally said.
“Because Salina has water magic, and you don’t. You were just a kid back then, one who’d just been beaten to within an inch of his life. She wouldn’t disappear just because you threatened her. No, Salina wouldn’t leave town unless someone with real power told her to go—someone she thought could really back up a threat.”
Kincaid didn’t say anything, but I could see the agreement in his eyes.
“Phillip?” Owen asked again.
After a few more seconds, the casino boss sighed. “It was Cooper, okay?’
Cooper Stills—Owen’s dwarven mentor, the blacksmith he’d worked for, the one who had taken in Kincaid too. It made sense, and I should have realized it before now. Of course Kincaid would have turned to Cooper to help get rid of Salina. The dwarf had probably been the only person Kincaid had left after Owen had thrown him out.
I pulled my knife away, got to my feet, and held out my hand. Kincaid hesitated, then took it, and I pulled him up to his feet. His bodyguard started to come over to him, but the casino boss waved him off. He took a moment to straighten his suit jacket and tie before he looked at me once more.
“So now what?” Kincaid said. “Have I told you everything you needed to know? Can I go back to my lunch?”
I grinned at him. “Oh, Philly. You’d better put all that food in a doggie bag. Because we’re all going for a little ride.”
20
Kincaid managed to convince his giant guard that we weren’t really kidnapping him, and ten minutes later, the three of us were in Finn’s Escalade, which I was still driving. I thought about calling Finn and telling him what was going on, but I didn’t want to distract him from chasing down his leads on Salina.
Owen sat in the passenger seat, staring out the window, while Kincaid sprawled across the backseat. None of us spoke.
I left the Delta Queen and the downtown district behind and headed toward Northtown. Driving past all the immaculate estates of that area and then into the Appalachian Mountains north of the city, we soon left the McMansions completely behind and started winding our way up one of the picturesque two-lane roads that dotted this part of Ashland. Trees crowded up to the edge of the pavement, showing off their clusters of spring leaves and painting the world in a fresh green color.
“So tell me about Cooper,” I finally said. “What’s he like?”
Owen let out a harsh laugh, but a little of the tension eased out of his shoulders. “A lot like Fletcher, I’d imagine. A rough, gruff, tough son of a bitch who worked and pushed me hard but who cared a lot about me too.”
“He pushed all of us hard,” Kincaid said from the backseat. “Except for Eva. He was like a dwarven Santa Claus to her. He was always giving her candy and treats.”
Owen glanced over his shoulder at his former friend. “That’s because Eva was a cute little girl and had him wrapped around her finger. She had everyone wrapped around her finger, including you.”
A faint grin spread across Kincaid’s face. After a moment, Owen’s lips twitched up as well, and they actually smiled at each other, the two of them lost in their memories.
“He’s an Air elemental, right?” I asked. “I remember you telling me that before. How strong is he?”
Owen shrugged. “When I was a kid, he seemed incredibly strong, but he’s pushing three hundred now.”
“Middle-aged, then, for a dwarf,” I said.
Kincaid nodded. “And he works too hard. He always has. The man isn’t happy unless he’s at his forge pounding on something. Whenever I come up here to visit him, I always tell him to slow down, but he never listens to me.”
“You visit him?” Owen asked, the surprise clear in his voice.
“Of course I visit him. Don’t you?”
Owen shifted in his seat. “Yeah. I just didn’t think you would.”
Kincaid laughed, but the sound was low, harsh, and ugly. “Still determined to believe the worst about me.”
Owen didn’t respond.
Kincaid leaned forward and looked at me. “But if you’re asking if he could stand up to Salina, the answer is yes. I just don’t know for how long. Cooper is strong, but even back then, it took everything he had to get Salina to leave town. He should have killed her when he had the chance. We both should have.”
Owen didn’t say anything, but his mouth tightened, and that troubled look filled his eyes again. He didn’t agree with Kincaid about killing Salina, not even now, when he knew what she’d done to Eva.
I wondered what he would think of me when I did the deed for him.
My mind was made up. Maybe it had been from the moment Eva told me what Salina had done to her, but seeing the water elemental this morning, talking to her, had made me realize exactly how dangerous she was. I didn’t know exactly what she was up to with McAllister and her mysterious dinner party, but like the others had said, it couldn’t be anything good. She’d only been back in Ashland a few days, and she’d already killed two people and tried to off Kincaid as well. It was just a matter of time before she hurt someone else, someone Owen cared about. And I’d be damned if I’d let that happen.
I glanced at Owen, but he was staring out the window and brooding again. Yes, I wondered what my lover would think when I killed his ex-fiancée. If he would be glad she wasn’t around to be a threat anymore—or if he would hate me for it.
We rode the rest of the way in silence. I drove past Warren Fox’s store, Country Daze, and slowed down so I could take a good long look out the window as we passed. More than a dozen cars filled the parking lot, along with a tour bus, as folks stopped on their way to wherever to get a quick drink or snack or to browse through the mountain crafts and homemade jams, jellies, and honey that Warren sold. I smiled. Nice to see that Warren’s business had picked up since I’d gotten Tobias Dawson off his back. One of the many pro bono good deeds I’d done in the last several months. The only ones that seemed to matter to me anymore.
I kept driving up into the mountains. I’d just passed a moving truck and a smaller van parked on the side of the road, their giant drivers standing in between them and conferring about something, when Owen pointed to a turnoff up ahead.
“That’s it,” he said.
I turned and steered the Escalade onto a bumpy dirt track that seemed to lead into the middle of nowhere. We drove about a mile back into the woods and up a ridge. Tiny flashes of light sparked in the trees to my left, almost like fireflies winking on and off, even though it was the middle of the afternoon. It took me several seconds to realize the flashes were from bright metal shapes reflecting the sun. I squinted, but I couldn’t quite make out what the figures were before we rounded a curve and a large house came into view.
It was a massive structure made out of gray river rock, the kind that could be found in the waterways in and around Ashland and the surrounding mountains. The smooth stones fit together beautifully, while the h
ouse’s A-line roof looked like a blanket of coal that had been thrown over the rocks.
I parked the SUV, and we got out. Owen and Kincaid stood side by side staring at the house, memories filling their faces of all the good and bad times they’d shared here.
Finally Owen shook his head, as if banishing his thoughts. “Come on,” he said. “Cooper will be around back in the forge. He always is.”
Owen led me to the right, and we walked around the house, with Kincaid bringing up the rear. We stepped into the backyard, which was clear of the trees that crowded around the front of the house. More of the river rock had been shaped into flat stones and placed on top of the grass, forming a patio and a winding path that led over to a forge that was almost as large as the house itself. The forge was made out of the same gray river rock as everything else. Two sides of it were open to the air, and I could see a variety of blacksmithing tools hanging down from the ceiling and stacked on the tables inside. A fire burned low in the hearth, sending out wisps of smoke and adding to the growing heat of the day.
Owen frowned. “It’s not like Cooper to go off and leave the forge hot when he’s not around. Too much risk of sparking a fire. Maybe he stepped into the house for a minute, after all. I’ll go inside and look. He always leaves the back door unlocked.”
“I’ll go with you,” Kincaid said.
I reached out with my magic, listening to the stone around me, but the rocks only whispered of the rivers and streams they’d been plucked out of. They also emitted a faint ringing sound—like a blacksmith’s hammer hitting metal over and over again. I concentrated on the deep, throaty, vibrant sound, but there were no uneasy murmurs, no notes of worry, anger, or fear rippling through any of the stones. No one was here who shouldn’t be, including Salina. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility to think that she would come after Cooper, especially since he was the one who’d forced her to leave Ashland—and Owen. But she wasn’t here now, so I didn’t voice my concern to the others.