Page 44 of Bourbon & Blood

Everything about the friend’s room said she didn’t have the quiet soul or the patience, so it had to be my little Alina.

The bathroom door opened, a billow of steam rising toward the ceiling through the open portal and my girl stepped through.

“Hey,” she said. Her hair was pulled back, braided over her shoulder. She hadn’t wet it. It would have been darker if she had, and I hadn’t heard a dryer.

“You good?” I asked her.

“Yes, better… thank you.”

I nodded and heard Saint groan as he got to his feet.

He and Cypress came out.

“Go on and leave that computer on for us, would yah?” Saint asked. “We got a guy in there workin’, tryin’ to find some things out.”

Alina nodded carefully out of the corner of my eye and I looked back to her from the boys.

“Y’all ‘re free to go about your business,” I told ‘em.

“You sure, boss?” Cypress asked, and I turned from Alina to just look at him.

He raised his hands in surrender and Saint knew better than to argue with a look like that.

“Thanks for the coffee, Miss Lina,” he said and Alina smiled and nodded.

“You’re welcome,” she said. Saint gave me an imperceptible signal he wanted to talk.

“I’m gon’ walk these two down,” I told her. “Come on down when you’re ready.”

She nodded. “I will.”

I went out with the boys. Once out on the street, I asked, “What you got?”

“Radar is in, lookin’ around,” he said. “Lookin’ through her email, looks like she was some kind of high-class hooker.”

“Angle worth lookin’ into,” I mused aloud. “She an independent, or she with one of them places?” I asked.

“That’s not the kicker,” Saint said, scratching his cheek with the back of his middle fingernail, not really answering my question. With the look he was giving me, there was a better theory rattling around in his skull, one he didn’t look all that comfortable sayin’ out loud. Like it’d bring the wrath of the voodoo queen herself down on our heads.

“Spill it,” I said in the face of his reluctance.

“She’s a Bashaw,” he said shortly and winced.

“Name supposed to mean somethin’?” I asked. The namewassome kind of familiar to me, tickling the back of my brain, but for some reason, I couldn’t place it.

“City Councilman Nathan Bashaw ring a bell?” he asked.

“A sitting city councilman’s daughter?” I asked, scowling.

“Ah yup,” Saint declared.

“Shit,” I muttered. Well, thatdidput a bit of a different spin on things, now didn’t it?

“What’s a girl like that, with all her daddy’s money, hookin’ on the side for?” Cypress wondered aloud.

“Probably daddy issues,” Saint said. “Most girls doin’ somethin’ like that with a daddy that rich and powerful are lookin’ for some kind of revenge,” he said.

Yeah,but revenge for what,was the honest question.

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