Venom in the Veins by Jennifer Estep
Silvio showed up around ten thirty, which would have been early for anyone else but was half an hour late for him. I took one look at his tired face and whipped up a tall mug of hot chocolate, laced with sweet raspberry syrup and topped with whipped marshmallow cream, more raspberry syrup, graham cracker crumbs, and shaved dark chocolate. I also put half a dozen chocolate chip cookies that I’d just taken out of the oven on a plate for him.
Neither one of us spoke as Silvio shrugged out of his winter gear, hung it all up, and sat down at his usual stool at the counter. He fired up his tablet and hooked his keyboard to it, while I passed him the hot chocolate and cookies. He downed the whole mug and ate half the cookies before finally looking at me, as if he needed some caffeine-fueled courage to face me this morning.
“I’m afraid I don’t have good news.”
I sighed. “I figured as much. Otherwise, you would have started talking the second you stepped inside, instead of fortifying yourself with chocolate first. Tell me how bad it is.”
Silvio shrugged. “Well, it’s not bad, exactly. As far as Ashland standards go, it’s been rather restrained…so far.”
“What do you mean by restrained?”
“It’s complicated.” He held out his mug. “I need some more sugar before I get into it, and so do you. Trust me.”
I refilled his hot chocolate, then made one for myself, sat down on my stool behind the cash register, and leaned my elbows on the counter. “All right. Now that we’re both properly fortified, tell me what you found out about Alanna.”
Silvio drank half of his hot chocolate before turning his tablet around so I could see it. “Alanna Eaton. Age twenty-six. Born in Ashland, although she really grew up in several different boarding schools all over the world. New York, London, Paris, Geneva.”
Pictures of Alanna through the years flashed by on the screen, each one showing her wearing a different school uniform in a different location.
“From what I can tell, Alanna only came home to Ashland on school holidays and for summer break,” he continued. “Her mother visited her at school quite often, though, and they took lots of vacations together to places like Bigtime, Cypress Mountain, Cloudburst Falls, and Snowline Ridge. From all accounts, the two of them were quite close.”
Another photo appeared, this time showing a teenage Alanna with her arms wrapped around Amelia’s waist, both of them smiling. With their black hair, green eyes, and strikingly similar features, the two of them looked more like sisters than mother and daughter.
Silvio cleared his throat. “Alanna was devastated by her mother’s death.”
Despite everything that was going on and the danger to Mosley, I didn’t regret going after Amelia, and I certainly didn’t regret killing the vampire cannibal. It had been her or me, and I’d chosen me, simple as that. Still, the longer I stared at the photo of her and Alanna and their happy faces, the more guilt and shame knifed through my stomach.
Like I’d told Owen last night, it shouldn’t have gone down the way it had. I should have done things differently. I should have been smarter, stronger, better. At the very least, I should have spared Alanna the same sort of pain that had been inflicted on me when my mother was murdered.
“Things get much more interesting after Amelia’s death,” Silvio said, breaking into my thoughts. “That’s when Amelia’s money problems come to light, and that’s when Stuart Mosley gets involved.”
“How bad were her money problems?”
He shook his head. “She was flat-busted broke, as you might say. I’m still digging into her finances, but I don’t know how she managed to live the way she did for so long. We’re talking excessive, over-the-top, frivolous spending and some truly terrible investments, not to mention the constant upkeep of the mansion and grounds. The estate was a serious money pit, even more so than her bad spending habits. I would say that Amelia’s mismanagement of the Eaton family fortune is on par with Deirdre Shaw losing so much of the Circle’s money.”
“And how does Mosley fit into this?”
Silvio hit another button on his keyboard, and a shot of the Eaton mansion popped up on the screen. “Mosley gave Amelia loan after loan. Every single time, she put the estate up as collateral. The weird thing is that she had some sort of income, although I haven’t been able to track down the source of it yet. But she would get these big deposits every month, usually fifty thousand dollars or more a pop. She’d use that money to pay back just enough of her current loan to get Mosley to extend her another one until…”
“Until I killed her, and she wasn’t around to pay back any more loans.” I finished his thought.
Silvio nodded. “Exactly. Mosley didn’t have a choice. He had to foreclose on the estate and take possession of it in order to recoup his money. And he’s done amazingly well with it. Renting out the estate more than pays for its upkeep, gives him a nice return on his investment, and puts a very generous sum into the trust fund he set up for Alanna. He still contributes to her trust fund every single month, just like clockwork, although Alanna actually took control of the money when she turned twenty-one.”
“I’m sensing a but in there.”
“But…Alanna apparently isn’t very happy with the arrangement, despite how generous Mosley has been to her.” Silvio shook his head again. “If it wasn’t for Mosley, Alanna would have been either put into foster care or living on the streets after her mother’s death, since she didn’t have any other relatives to take her in. But Mosley made sure that she was able to stay at her current boarding school until she was eighteen and then go on to college. She should be grateful that he was so kind to her instead of hounding him the way she has.”
“What do you mean? How has she been hounding him?”
Silvio pointed at the photo still on his tablet screen. “Ever since she turned twenty-one, Alanna has been trying to buy the Eaton Estate from Mosley.”
“So she wants her family’s home back. I can understand that.” I could more than understand it. I had gone to great lengths to purchase the property the Snow family home had stood on, although I had never done anything with the land.
“Yes, but it’s the way she’s gone about it,” he replied. “Her mother literally left her with nothing, and Alanna’s never held a job in her life, unless you count being on this museum board or that charity board. She doesn’t have any money except for what’s in that trust fund that Mosley created for her and what she’s made by investing it herself.”
“Ah,” I said, finally catching on. “So she’s basically trying to buy back the estate from Mosley with his own money.”
He nodded. “Exactly. Not only that, but the estate is easily worth more than twenty-five million dollars. Alanna is rich, but she’s not that rich. So Mosley has rightly refused her offers.”
“So how is she hounding him?”
Silvio hit some more buttons on his keyboard, and document after document flashed by on the screen. They all looked like legal papers.
“Alanna and her lawyers have used every legal trick and loophole in the book to try to wrest the estate away from Mosley, from contesting the bank’s initial foreclosure to debating her mother’s mental competency to take out such a massive loan to even trying to get the estate declared a historic landmark.” An admiring light filled the vampire’s eyes. “She’s exhausted all of her legal options, but her continued doggedness is quite impressive.”
A thought occurred to me. “What happens to the estate if Mosley dies?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out,” Silvio said. “From what I can tell, and from facts stated in Mosley’s various legal battles with Alanna, the estate would remain the property of First Trust bank, although who would actually control the bank and its assets is a mystery. The only way to know for sure would be to ask Mosley directly or get my hands on a copy of his will. But I can tell you one thing, Alanna does not get the estate if Mosley dies. I’m certain of that.”
I sipped my hot chocolate, trying to put the
Sure, torturing and killing the dwarf for all the wrongs she thought he had done to her would be fun, but it wouldn’t get her what she really wanted. Plus, it would cut off that nice monthly cash flow to her trust fund, further dooming her chances of eventually raising enough money to buy back the estate.
Silvio drained the rest of his hot chocolate, then set his mug aside. “One of my sources at the courthouse did tell me a juicy rumor about Alanna, though.”
“What’s that?”
“That she’s about to make a new offer to buy the estate. Only this time, instead of using her trust fund, she has an outside investor, someone with enough money to actually buy the estate outright from the bank.”
My eyebrows shot up. “And who might that be?”
He shrugged. “My source didn’t know the investor’s name, but she thought she saw him at the courthouse with Alanna the other day. She said the guy had a black goatee.”
“Tucker,” I muttered. “Hugh Tucker is Alanna’s investor.”
Silvio nodded. “That’s my guess, and that would explain why he was at the auction with her.”
I frowned, thinking back to how Alanna had ignored Tucker last night. If he really was her investor, Alanna should have been kissing his ass to make sure that he went through with the deal, instead of treating him like an annoyance. Silvio had given me some big pieces to the puzzle, but I still felt like several parts were missing.
“Maybe Tucker’s just the front man,” I said, thinking out loud. “Maybe the mysterious Mason is the one who’s really backing Alanna.”
Silvio looked at me. “You think that Alanna is involved with Mason and the Circle?”
I shrugged. “Tucker was at the auction for some reason. Something more important than a real estate deal, no matter how significant it might be.”
“Why would they do that, though? What’s in it for them? From everything we know about the Circle, they like to keep an extremely low profile, especially Mason, whoever he really is. Buying the Eaton Estate would not be low profile. Not at all. As soon as word got out, the media would be all over the story.”
“I know,” I said. “And I agree that it’s out of character for them. But Tucker—or Mason—must want something, something he thinks that only Alanna can give the Circle.”
“But how does it all connect back to Mosley?” Silvio asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
I had a sinking feeling that my friend’s life depended on me figuring it out—before it was too late.
* * *
Silvio promised to keep digging into Alanna, whatever deal she might have cooking with Tucker and the Circle, and how Mosley might be involved in it. He moved over to a booth in the corner so he would have more room to work.
I had called Finn when I got up this morning, and he’d told me the night had gone by quietly and that he and Mosley would be at the estate all day, overseeing the pickup of the auction items. But with this new information swimming around in my head, my worry shot right back up to red-alert levels. So I pulled out my phone and texted Finn to make sure that everything was still okay. My phone beeped back a minute later with a new message.
All quiet on the western front.
Heh. Looked like I wasn’t the only literature lover in the family.
By this point, the rest of the waitstaff had shown up, including Sophia and Catalina, and I had to put my phone aside and start cooking, cleaning, and waiting on customers. My worry lingered, though. And I knew that it would until this thing was finished—one way or another.
But the lunch rush came and went with no problems, and even the criminals ate their food, paid up, and left without bothering anyone.
Bria stopped by around noon to grab a to-go order for her and Xavier. She leaned against the counter while I rang up her food. “I found out an interesting tidbit about our two muggers.”
“What’s that?” I asked, punching buttons on the cash register.
“When they weren’t out mugging, conning, and threatening people, Vera Jones moonlighted as a housekeeper at the Eaton Estate, while her hubby, Eddie, worked as one of the gardeners.”
I looked up at her. “So that’s their connection to Alanna.”
Bria nodded. “Yep. Xavier and I are still investigating, but as far as we can tell, Alanna has an agreement with Mosley that lets her visit the estate on a regular basis to make sure that the art, antiques, and everything else are being kept up to snuff. So she’s familiar with the estate staff, including our two muggers. Xavier and I will check into the rest of the staff, to see who else might be working for her.”
I nodded.
“But updating you isn’t the only reason I came by.” Bria straightened up. “I didn’t get a chance to say it last night, but I wanted to thank you for sending me that photo of Mom and Dad and for buying it at the auction. I didn’t even remember what Dad looked like. Not really.”
Tears gleamed in her eyes, and she had to stop talking and clear the emotion out of her throat. Yeah, me too. I grabbed her hand.
“I didn’t remember what he looked like either,” I whispered. “But now we both know, and we’ll never forget him again.”
Bria nodded and squeezed my hand. I squeezed back, then leaned across the counter and hugged her.
After several seconds, we broke apart. My sister promised to call me if she found out anything else, then paid for her food and left.
I checked on the customers, but everyone had what they needed, so I got to work on another, much bigger order, a barbecue buffet for Finn, Mosley, and everyone else at the Eaton Estate.
I was already going over to the estate to pick up my auction items, and I had suggested bringing lunch when I called Finn this morning. He had enthusiastically agreed. No surprise there. Finnegan Lane could eat barbecue every day of the week and twice on Sundays. But he knew as well as I did that the workers would welcome a good, hot, hearty meal, and you didn’t get much heartier than Pork Pit barbecue.
Sophia helped me pack up several large cardboard boxes of food. Then I left the restaurant in her, Catalina’s, and Silvio’s capable hands and headed over to the estate.
I steered my old white van into the line of cars creeping up the hill. Instead of driving into one of the paved lots like they had last night, today all the vehicles turned into the driveway that circled around an impressive fountain that continuously spewed water in front of the mansion.
I parked my van, got out, and flagged down two giants I recognized as guards from First Trust bank. I showed them the food in the back of my vehicle, and they happily agreed to help me carry it inside. Looked like Finn wasn’t the only one around here who loved barbecue.
We took the food to the grand ballroom, which was a beehive of activity. Last night’s glitzy, glamorous crowd had been replaced by workers sporting dark coveralls, thick gloves, and sturdy boots. Giants and dwarves carried lamps, mirrors, and more from their spots along the walls and over to Finn, who was holding a clipboard and standing in the middle of the ballroom, right where the podium had been last night. It was gone, along with the rows of chairs.
Each worker stopped in front of Finn so that he could examine their items, check the white tags on them to see who had bought them and where they were going, and mark them off his list.
Mosley was standing next to him, marking items off the list on his own clipboard. He looked far happier and much more relaxed than he had last night, and he was actually humming as he ticked off items one by one.
From there, the workers hauled the items over to a packing station, where they were either securely covered in thick, padded plastic, nestled in boxes, or both. Once the items were properly packaged, the workers took them outside so they could be loaded into the appropriate vehicles and transported to their new owners.
A dwarf walked by me, casually holding Finn’s fifteen-thousand-dollar end table under his arm like it was a rolled-up newspaper. My brother had actually bought the table, and he’d even managed to get it for the minimum bid, which was a steal, according to him.
Most of the society folks had sent their assistants and drivers to fetch their items, but not Lorelei and Mallory Parker. The two of them were watching a couple of giants carefully load Lorelei’s bookcase onto a large cart so they could roll it outside to whatever vehicle was going to transport it to her mansion. Several cardboard boxes that I assumed contained the books that had been in the case were already sitting on the cart. Lorelei had already grabbed the photo of Lily Rose that had been perched on the shelf. The silver picture frame rested in the crook of her left elbow, along with the blue book it had been propped up on.
I was going to find my bookcase and do the exact same thing with that photo of my parents.
Mallory spotted me and waved. I waved back at her. The men finished loading everything onto the cart and pushed it toward the ballroom exit, with Lorelei and Mallory following them.
Finn caught sight of me, leaned over, and said something to Mosley. The dwarf looked at me, the two giants behind me, and the boxes in our hands, then pointed to an empty table along the wall, close to the packing station. I nodded back at him and headed in that direction.
The two giants helped me carry the food over there. I unpacked everything, including plates, cups, utensils, and napkins, then rigged up some burners to reheat the food. Large metal tins full of barbecue beef, chicken, and pork. Plastic tubs filled with Fletcher’s secret barbecue sauce for those who wanted extra. Bowls brimming with baked beans and coleslaw. And what seemed like an entire mountain of Sophia’s sourdough rolls.
I’d also brought along several gallons of sweet iced tea, along with a couple of blackberry cobblers. For a final touch, I set out a tub of vanilla-bean ice cream so that folks could top off their cobbler in the proper sweet, creamy style.