Several people hovered around Mosley, everyone from tellers and investment bankers trying to get a moment of face time with the head honcho to clients trying to impress upon him how important they were. But Mosley ignored them all in favor of sipping his bourbon, staring at Mallory, and nodding at whatever she was saying. Mosley wasn’t a social butterfly by any stretch of the imagination—he didn’t have to be—but he seemed downright friendly with Mallory. Interesting. I hadn’t realized that they knew each other so well.
Mallory saw us approaching and waved us over. The hoverers grumbled, but they fell back to make room for us.
“Mallory, you’re looking positively brilliant this evening,” I said, then turned my attention to her granddaughter. “Lorelei.”
Lorelei nodded at me. “Gin.”
All around us, the other mobsters tiptoed forward, trying to overhear our conversation. Lorelei was one of the major power players in the Ashland underworld, a notorious smuggler known for her ability to get anything for anyone at any time. Us talking to each other in public was sure to set the other bosses to buzzing, since she was the only one of them I’d deigned to speak to. No doubt, the others were already worrying about what sort of alliances we might have made. Truth be told, Lorelei and I hadn’t gotten that far yet, but she was the closest thing to a friend I had among the city’s criminals besides Phillip Kincaid. And I was going to need all the friends I could get if I wanted to survive.
Mallory gestured at Mosley. “Gin, this is my good friend Stuart Mosley. Stuart, Gin Blanco. I’m sure you two have heard all about each other.”
“Indeed.” Mosley got to his feet and extended his hand to me. “A pleasure, Ms. Blanco.”
We shook hands, and then he did the same with Bria and Owen. The three of them started chatting, along with Lorelei, but Mallory crooked her finger at me. I bent down, and she jerked her head in Finn’s direction.
“Finn seems quite wrapped up in his client,” Mallory drawled in her twangy hillbilly voice. “He barely said hello to me before skedaddling over to the bar to meet her.” Her words were innocent enough, but a hard tone tinged her voice. Mallory gave me a long, pointed look, as if she was trying to tell me something.
I shrugged. “You know Finn. He would try to sell water to a fish if he thought he could make a quick buck.”
“Mmm.” Mallory’s noncommittal response had me raising my eyebrows, but the dwarf waved her hand again, making her multitude of diamonds sparkle and flash. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. Your man Silvio called me earlier to set it up. We’ll have tea out by the garden. It will make for a lovely afternoon. Won’t it, Lorelei?”
“Mmm.”
This time, her granddaughter was the one who made the noncommittal sound. Lorelei might be the closest thing to a friend that I had in the underworld, but we were still trying to figure out our relationship, despite the fact that we’d worked together to take down Raymond Pike, her half brother.
“Anyway,” Mallory said, “you should go see to Finn now.”
Once again, that hard tone colored her voice, one that I couldn’t quite decipher, but I nodded. “See you then.”
Lorelei and Mallory both nodded back at me and returned to their drinks, while Mosley finally deigned to wade into his crowd of admirers and start making nice with them.
“What was that about?” Owen asked as he escorted Bria and me over to where Finn was sitting at the bar.
“I have no idea.”
Finn saw that we were finally on our way over to him, and he leaned forward, talking to his client and pointing at the three of us. The woman nodded, then finished her drink.
We reached his side, and Finn slid off his stool, grabbing Bria’s hand and twirling her around.
“You look positively smashing,” he said.
“Don’t I always?” Bria arched her eyebrows, but the blush in her cheeks told me how much the compliment pleased her.
Finn twirled Bria around again, making her laugh, before lowering her into a dip. They stayed frozen like that for a moment, staring into each other’s eyes, before he kissed her, long and deep. Finn set Bria back up on her feet, leaned forward, and whispered something in her ear that made her blush even more.
I started to make a snarky comment about the two of them getting a room, but a floral aroma tickled my nose, and I had to clear my throat to hold back a sneeze. It took me a second to realize that it was the mystery woman’s perfume. She still had her back to me, so I drew in another breath, trying to identify the scent, since it seemed so tantalizingly familiar. My heart stopped as I realized exactly what it was and where I had smelled it before.
Peonies—the same scent that was in the empty perfume bottle in the casket box.
Finn strode over to the mystery woman’s side, gave her his hand, and helped her slide off her barstool. Together, the two of them turned to face us.
“And now, let me present my favorite new client,” Finn said. “Everyone, this is Deirdre Shaw.”
5
Deirdre Shaw, Finn’s definitely-not-dead mother, was standing right in front of me. In the flesh. And not just in Ashland but here, at Finn’s bank, schmoozing with him like they were old friends.
I thought back to all the times Finn had mentioned his new client over the past few weeks. Someone he was really hitting it off with. Someone he wanted to introduce us all to tonight. Someone who was far more to him than he realized.