Bitter Bite (Elemental Assassin #14)(42)

Finally, right at three o’clock, the bell over the front door chimed, and

Finn strolled into the restaurant . . . arm in arm with Deirdre.

Not good. Not good at all.

Jo-Jo wasn’t the only one who’d taken a little extra care with her

appearance. Finn was sporting his snazziest charcoal-gray suit, his walnut-

brown hair carefully styled, while Deirdre was decked out in another tight-

fitted dress, this one an electric blue that was almost too bright to look at.

Her blond hair was once again done up in pin curls and held back from her face

with several long diamond pins, while her icicle-heart rune glimmered around

her neck.

Deirdre was laughing at some joke Finn had made, her voice as light and happy

as wind chimes tinkling out a merry tune. Her carefree chuckles made me grind

my teeth.

Finn didn’t deign to glance at me or anyone else as he led Deirdre over to

the booth in the front right corner of the restaurant and helped her sit down.

Then he turned and snapped his fingers at me, as if he didn’t already have my

full attention.

Annoyance spurted through me. I wasn’t his servant, and I thought about

ignoring him, just out of spite, but I was too curious and worried about

Deirdre. So I plastered a smile on my face and went over to the booth.

Bria was already sliding into the side across from Deirdre, with Finn sitting

down next to her. Once again, my sister stared at the Ice elemental’s rune

necklace, still trying to remember where she had seen it before.

“Why, hello, Gin,” Deirdre chirped in a cheery voice. “So lovely to see you

again.”

Before I could unclench my jaw and force out some semi-polite response, Jo-Jo

walked up to stand beside me.

“Hello, Deirdre,” the dwarf said.

“Why, hello, Jolene. I thought that was you sitting at the counter. And I see

that Sophia still works here.” Deirdre’s blue eyes flicked over to the Goth

dwarf, who had her arms crossed over her chest and a cold expression on her

face as she eyed Deirdre right back. “Both of you look exactly the same as I

remember.”

Jo-Jo nodded. “The years have been kind to you too.”

The two of them engaged in some meaningless chitchat, with Deirdre asking

about the salon and Jo-Jo inquiring about the other woman’s charity work, but

they quickly exhausted those topics. Jo-Jo looked at Finn, obviously hoping

that he would invite her to sit down and join them, but he tapped his fingers

against the tabletop, as if he wanted her to just go away already.

Jo-Jo’s head dropped, her shoulders sagged, and even her curls seemed to

deflate a bit. Anger sizzled in my chest. The dwarf was the one who’d helped

Fletcher raise Finn, she was the closest thing to a mother he’d ever had, and

he was ignoring her in favor of some stranger. Ungrateful brat.

I opened my mouth to tell Finn exactly what a thoughtless jackass he was

being, but Jo-Jo cut me off.

“Well, y’all enjoy your lunch,” she said, trying to inject some false cheer

into her soft, sad voice.

“You do the same,” Deirdre chirped back.

Jo-Jo nodded at her again, then turned toward the door as if she were going to

leave. But Owen got up, took her arm, and led her over to his booth. I flashed

him a grateful smile, and he winked back at me. At least someone around here

knew how to treat his friends right.

I turned back to the booth and pulled a notepad and a pen out of the back

pocket of my jeans. “Well, now that you’re here, you might as well eat. What

can I get you?”

“I’ll have a grilled cheese and a sweet iced tea with lemon.”

Deirdre didn’t bother glancing at the plastic menu on the table, as if she

already knew every single item on it. She probably did. The menu hadn’t

changed much over the years. Instead, she looked out over the restaurant, her

gaze taking in everything from the other booths and tables to the blue and

pink pig tracks curling across the floor, walls, and ceiling. I expected her

scarlet lips to curl up into a sneer and derision to fill her pretty face, but

Deirdre’s features remained calm and serene.

“I see that you’ve done some remodeling,” she said after she’d completed

her inspection. “I was looking in the windows, admiring everything, when

Finnegan came up to me on the sidewalk.”

So they’d run into each other outside the restaurant. No doubt waiting

outside for Finn had been a deliberate move on her part, since it was another

opportunity for Deirdre to ingratiate herself with him just a little bit more.

“Good for you,” she said. “Fletcher wouldn’t have let you upgrade so much

as a dish towel if he were still alive. He never was much for change, no

matter how beneficial it might have been.”

Her voice was perfectly pleasant, but my jaw clenched a little tighter. She

had no right to come in here and comment on anything—not one f*cking thing.