“Until now,” I said.
Owen nodded, but he didn’t say anything else.
I got up, walked over, and put a hand on his arm. “It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. Not what happened then, and not what happened on the riverboat tonight either.”
He gave me a grim smile. “That’s where you’re wrong. It is my fault that Salina was beaten and almost raped, that she left Ashland, all because I couldn’t see the kind of person Phillip really was. I failed to protect Salina from the person I thought was my best friend—my brother, even. I’ll never forgive myself for that, Gin. Never.”
Nobody said anything. Owen was thinking about old memories, old hurts, old anger. Finn and I were digesting everything that had been said.
Mostly, though, I thought of how Salina had so easily killed Antonio, and how she’d almost done the same thing to Kincaid. If Kincaid had tried to rape her, I could understand Salina wanting to murder him. Hell, I’d happily let her borrow one of my knives if that was the case.
But why kill the giant? Sure, Antonio had been Kincaid’s friend, but what had murdering him really gotten her, other than a few minutes of shock value? If she’d wanted to, Salina could have simply used her magic to force all the water out of Kincaid’s body in the first place before anyone had been the wiser. So why waste her time and magic on Antonio?
The more people you tried to take out at a site, the riskier it was, and the less chance you had of making sure all your targets got dead. There was always a possibility that things could go wrong, that one of your intended victims could get away from you, or that someone entirely unexpected—like me—could fuck up your plans.
Even more curious was the fact that Kincaid had said he’d heard rumors that Salina was coming back to town, rumors that would have been confirmed as soon as he’d learned how Katarina Arkadi had died. If she wanted to kill Kincaid for trying to rape her, why would Salina murder the other woman first? Why tip her hand like that? Why give Kincaid any clue that she was back in Ashland at all? It just didn’t make sense—unless she’d wanted to make Kincaid suffer by watching his friends die before she killed the casino boss himself. Even then, it was still a lot of trouble to go to when she could have just murdered Kincaid first and been done with things.
Settling an old score was all well and good, but Salina Dubois didn’t strike me as the kind of person to come back to Ashland just for that. If such simple revenge was all she wanted, she could have blown into town at any time, killed Kincaid, and been on her merry way. Instead, she’d married man after man, making their fortunes her own, and then returned. She had to have some sort of plan in mind to have gone to such lengths. So why was she really here? Why now, after all these years?
Then there was her meeting with Jonah McAllister at Underwood’s. I supposed he could have been her lawyer for all these years, handling her finances, perhaps even helping her marry and murder for money. That was just the sort of thing McAllister reveled in. The obituary photos of all her dead husbands flashed through my mind, each of them seemingly a substitute for Owen, and it took some effort to push the disturbing images away.
Maybe McAllister had helped her with her husbands, or maybe not, but one thing was for sure—he needed a new boss. And I was willing to bet Salina would fit that bill nicely. If Salina had cooked up some other scheme with McAllister, it could only mean trouble. No, something else was going on here besides an old feud, something bigger, something I needed to figure out before Salina hurt anyone else, especially Owen.
But there was nothing I could do about any of that right now, especially since midnight had already come and gone.
“Well,” I finally said, “I think that’s enough secret spilling for one evening.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Finn said. “Personally, I’d love to hear more about Owen’s little larceny scheme. Got any of that loot left? I’m sure it’s only appreciated in value over the years.”
Owen winced.
“Finn?”
He gave me a friendly smile. “Yes, Gin?”
“Do yourself a favor and leave before I throw you out.”
He stuck out his lips in an exaggerated pout. “Fine. But I still want to know all about the Grayson Gang. Or was it the Kincaid Crew? Tell me you guys at least had a catchy nickname.”
I glared at him, but Finn just pouted a little more when Owen didn’t answer him.
I shut and locked the front door behind Finn, then went back into the den, where Owen was. I turned off the lights, and we walked up the stairs to the second floor.
I headed for my bedroom door, but Owen didn’t follow me. I looked over my shoulder at him.
“Maybe I should sleep in a different room tonight,” he said. “Since Eva’s right down the hall.”
It wasn’t an unreasonable request, but his words pricked my heart like tiny thorns. Eva was nineteen. She knew exactly what Owen and I did when we were alone together. Still, maybe it was for the best. We’d all been put through the wringer in some way tonight. Eva had witnessed a murder; Owen had dredged up memories of how he’d loved and lost his fiancée; and I’d realized that my lover had more of a past and more secrets than I’d ever dreamed of.
“Sure,” I said.
I could hear Eva moving around in the bedroom next to mine, so I led Owen to the one at the end of the hall. I flipped the light on and showed him where the extra blankets and pillows were stacked up in the closet. When that was done, we stood beside the bed, neither one of us knowing quite what to say to the other about everything that had come out into the open tonight.
“I’m sorry, Gin,” Owen finally said in a soft voice, “for blindsiding you with all this. I never thought Salina would come back to Ashland, or that Phillip would drag you into the middle.”
I shrugged. “It’s my fault too for not telling you about Kincaid’s so-called catering job in the first place. I would have, if I’d known you had any kind of connection to him. So let’s just forgive and forget, okay?”
He nodded. “And what about Salina?”
“What about Salina?” I asked, careful to keep my voice neutral once more.
He hesitated again. “I’d like to talk to her—about a lot of things. I need to talk to her. At the very least, I need to apologize for not finishing off Kincaid when I had the chance. I owed her that much, but I failed her.”
I suspected Owen hadn’t failed Salina so much as she’d outright lied to him, but that was neither here nor there. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t say no. Not too long ago, Owen had given me the time and space I’d needed to come to terms with my lingering feelings for Donovan. The least I could do was let him speak to Salina—even if I thought she was far more devious and dangerous than she appeared to be.
“Of course,” I murmured. “We’ll talk more about that and everything else tomorrow. Right now, we both need to get some rest. It’s been a long day.”
“Thank you, Gin,” Owen said in a soft voice. “For believing me. For trusting me.”
I looked at him, at his black hair, his violet eyes, his rough, rugged features that were so appealing to me. All these emotions roared up in my chest. All my love for him, all my caring, all my worry—and all my fear of losing him.