Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies (16 page)

“Did you send everyone home with pay already?” I asked. “Is that why there’s nobody here but you?”

“Um-mmm.” Sophia’s grunt for
yes
.

The Goth dwarf started stirring the dressing into a mound of chopped green and purple cabbage and carrots, even though there wasn’t going to be anyone around to eat it. A shame, really.

Finn wasn’t due to show up for a few more minutes, so I decided to fix myself a plate of food while I waited. Nobody else was going to be clamoring for barbecue today.

A barbecue beef sandwich, baked beans, iced blackberry tea, some coleslaw from the dwarf ’s metal vat. I took my food and sat at one of the tables in the middle of the restaurant, so I could watch for Finn coming down the street and still talk to Sophia.

I was halfway through my food when the bell over the front door chimed. I looked up, expecting to see Finn.

The man wore an impeccable business suit and polished wingtips, but that’s where his resemblance to Finnegan Lane ended.

His gunmetal gray hair was parted on the side, with a thick doo-wop that curled up, down, and around his forehead like a scoop of vanilla soft serve. Given the gray hair, I would have put his age at around sixty. But he had the face of a much younger man—smooth, clean-shaven, and curiously free of wrinkles, even around the corners of his brown eyes. My guess? The finest Air elemental facials and skin treatments his hefty retainers could by.

Debutantes and trophy wives weren’t the only vain folks in Ashland. He’d left his hair au natural, though. Probably thought the silver color made him look more distinguished.

Still, for all his youthful vigor, the man radiated awshucks charm the way a snake-oil salesman might. Shake his hand, and you’d be wiping the grease off yours for the next ten minutes. And wondering where your wallet went. I recognized him from his many pictures in the newspaper and Fletcher’s thick file on Mab Monroe and her flunkies.

Jonah McAllister, Ashland’s slickest attorney and personal counsel to Mab herself, had just walked into my restaurant.

And he wasn’t alone.

Jake McAllister strutted in through the door behind his old man. Rock-star jeans, vintage T-shirt, heavy boots, a black leather coat that skirted the floor. Another punk getup.

Two giant bodyguards also stepped inside the restaurant, taking up all the available space by the front door.

The goons were probably on loan from Mab Monroe, via her other number-two man, enforcer Elliot Slater, who was a giant himself. Even if I’d had a customer today, she wouldn’t have been able to get inside with the two behemoths blocking the entrance.

I stared at the giants, with their big, buglike eyes and black suits that had probably taken a whole field of cotton to construct. No telltale bulges could be seen under their arms. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about them shooting me, if things went badly here. They’d enjoy beating me to death more anyway. Giants who worked for Elliot Slater were notorious for that.

And they just might get a chance, the way the hate and magic sparked in Jake McAllister’s brown eyes.

Jonah McAllister stood in the middle of the Pork Pit.

But instead of looking at me or even Sophia, McAllister’s gaze slid over the blue and pink booths, the faded pig tracks on the floor, the clean tabletops, the ancient cash register. His eyes resembled his son’s—flat, brown, hard—but without the fiery glint of magic. Jake must have gotten his Fire power from his mother. She died several years ago, from what I remember having read in Fletcher’s file.

Jonah McAllister didn’t say anything. I might as well not have even been in the same room with the man for all the attention he paid me. His arrogance annoyed me.

If that was the game he wanted to play, I was more than happy to participate. I sprinkled some more black pepper on top of my coleslaw, dug my fork into the colorful mound, and took another bite. Sweet and sour. Yeah, that’s the way things were going today.

Finally, after two minutes of intense perusal, Jonah McAllister turned his head to me. I got the same treatment he’d given the rest of the restaurant. A slow, thoughtful gaze that weighed, measured, and calculated my worth down to the last rusty penny.

“I assume you’re Gin Blanco, the owner of this fine establishment,” McAllister said in a rich, deep, sonorous baritone voice that would boom like thunder in the closed confines of a courtroom.

I chewed another bite of coleslaw and tilted my head.

“I am. Don’t bother introducing yourself. I already know who you are, Mr. McAllister.”

Jonah nodded his head back at me and gestured at the chair on the opposite side of the table. “May I be so kind as to take advantage of your hospitality?”

My lips twitched. My, my, my, he was slathering on the charm already, like sweet butter on a hot biscuit. “Sure.”

McAllister unbuttoned his suit jacket and sat down.

Jake made a move to join us, but his father turned a pair of cold eyes in his son’s direction. “In the booth, Jake. Now.”

Jake jerked like a dog who’d been whipped so many times all it took to make him cower was the faintest whisper of its owner’s voice. But he did as his father asked and slid into a booth by the front window—the same one Eva Grayson and her friend Cassidy had sat in two nights ago.

The two giant guards remained where they were by the front door. Hands loose by their sides, chests puffed out, spines as tall and straight as flagpoles on the Fourth of July. They could have been statues for all the emotion or interest they showed, although their pale, bulging eyes never left me, not even for an instant. Still, sloppy, sloppy of them standing so far away. I could have easily palmed one of my silverstone knives and cut Jonah McAllister’s throat before the guards took two steps.

Jonah McAllister turned his full attention to me. A thin smile pulled up his lips, although his face had been so sandblasted by Air elemental magic, no lines appeared anywhere. The curve of his lips did little to disguise the cold, calculating glint in his eyes. Still, he had a presence about him, a commanding sort of air that probably made people promise him their first-born, if only he’d give them a moment of his time. The hard stare made me want to chuckle. McAllister was nothing compared to some of the folks I’d been up against as the Spider.

“Now, Ms. Blanco,” he said in a smooth voice. “Let’s talk.”

“Sure,” I replied. “Let’s chat.”

“Now, I know about your difficulties with my son the other night, but you have to realize that he just wasn’t feeling like himself. Were you, Jake?”

Jake McAllister stared at the floor. “No,” he muttered and kicked the underside of the booth opposite him.

Jonah nodded his head at the expected answer, no matter how sullen, fake, and reluctant it had been. “As you can see, my son feels terrible about his part in the incident on Monday night. I came here today hoping we could resolve this situation without any further interference by the police or the court system. What do you say?”

For a moment, I just stared at him. The man had a set of silverstone balls, I’d give him that. Jonah McAllister had nerve to spare, coming into my place of business and trying to talk his psychopathic son out of a lengthy jail term. I thought about stringing him along, pretending to be the weak, country bumpkin he so obviously thought I was. Letting him try to manipulate me the same way he did all those juries, all those people who tried to stand up to Mab Monroe. It’d be a hell of a show, if nothing else. But I had other things to do today, other problems to take care of, namely finding out why Tobias Dawson wanted Violet Fox dead. I didn’t have the time or more importantly the inclination to go along quietly. Besides, I’d never been good at playing the victim.

“Let’s be clear,” I replied. “You’re asking me to drop the charges against your son, right? Recant my statement to the police, refuse to testify, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That’s what all the eye contact, oily words, and fake charm are about, yes?”

Jonah McAllister frowned, taken aback by my blunt tone. His eyes narrowed, and I met his gaze with a level one of my own. Something in my gray eyes must have registered with him, because the smile dropped from his face. Time to change tactics.

“All right,” Jonah McAllister said. “You want to be compensated for your trouble. I can certainly understand that.”

He reached into his suit and pulled out a slim black checkbook and a matching Mont Blanc fountain pen.

“How much do you want?”

I laughed.

The chuckles rumbled out of my throat like motorcycle exhaust. Low, thick, black. Once more, McAllister’s lips tightened into a thin, hard line, even if the rest of his face couldn’t follow suit. The attorney didn’t appreciate being laughed at. Too bad. Because he’d just tickled my funny bone with his blatant bribery attempt, whether he’d intended to or not.

“Sorry,” I murmured. “I didn’t actually expect you to bring your checkbook along, much less whip it out. You certainly have a style about you, Mr. McAllister, trying to bribe me in my own restaurant.”

“I’m just trying to get this mess taken care of, Ms.

Blanco,” McAllister replied in a smooth tone. “It’s not the first one I’ve cleaned up for my son, and I’m sure it won’t be the last, no matter how many reformatory schools I’ve shipped him off to over the years. So why don’t you just answer my question, and we can be done with this little charade.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And what charade would that be?”

McAllister allowed himself a brief chuckle. Low, thick, black, just like mine had been. “The ludicrous idea you’re going to testify against my son in any court of law in Ashland or anywhere else. The absurd notion I’d ever
allow
such a thing to happen.”

“It’s not a charade, Mr. McAllister,” I said. “I fully intend to testify against your son—and there’s nothing you can offer me to get me to change my mind. Certainly not money.”

Jonah McAllister leaned forward. His brown eyes burned now, though not with Fire elemental magic. Instead, the lawyer put the full force of his charm into his gaze. “Come, come now, Ms. Blanco. There’s no need to play the upstanding citizen with me. I’ve researched you. You’re an orphan, aimless, a drifter who lucked into running this restaurant after the owner, the distant cousin who took you in, was murdered a few months ago. Hell, you can’t even decide on a major so you can graduate from the community college you take so many classes from.”

Good to know the Gin Blanco cover identity I’d worked so hard to build over the years had passed the thorough inspection of someone like Jonah McAllister.

But that didn’t stop the knife of pain that sliced through me. Because his words were truer than he realized. I had been something of a drifter, aimless, until Fletcher’s murder.

That brutal event and its aftermath had made me take a hard look at my life—and made me start to change.

I was still a work in progress, but I’d be damned if Jonah McAllister was going to threaten anything that was mine.

McAllister took my silence to mean I was considering his proposal and decided to up the ante. “Besides, I’m certain there’s something I have you might find of value or interest.”

I shook my head. “You don’t have anything I want, McAllister. Not a thing. Now why don’t you drop the charade of a concerned father just trying to do what’s best for his son? We both know little Jakie is an embarrassment all the way around. Did he tell you he was going to kill two girls just for kicks?”

“Shut up, bitch,” Jake growled from his booth. “Or I’ll fry your ass.”

I stared at him. “You don’t scare me, Jakie. I would have thought our encounter the other night would have proven that to you, even if you were high on your own Fire elemental magic at the time.”

More sparks of hatred flashed to life in Jake’s eyes, and the red, magical rage slowly filled his gaze. Jake opened his mouth, but his father held up a manicured hand. It was as free of wrinkles as his ageless face was.

“If you know who I am, Ms. Blanco, then you know who I work for,” Jonah said in a smooth voice. Changing tactics again. Bringing out the big guns.

“Mab Monroe,” I replied. “Everyone knows that.”

“Then you know the connections I have, the power, the influence. I can make things very difficult for you, if I so choose. You’ll find standing up and doing the so-called right thing to be a very trying proposition.”

My eyes narrowed, but I didn’t respond.

“Have you wondered why you haven’t had any customers the past two days?” Jonah said in a soft voice.

“No,” I replied. “I figured it was you, telling people to steer clear of the Pork Pit. Just how long do you think you can do that?”

“As long as it takes for you to realize you can’t win,” he replied. “I’ll keep people away every day until you go out of business, if I have to. I have the money, time, resources, and motivation to pull it off. Maybe you should think about that, before you so cavalierly throw away my generous offer. I’m trying to be civil about things. Trust me when I say you wouldn’t like the alternative.”

The bastard was actually trying to bully me. Trying to squeeze me the way he had so many other people over the years. It might have worked, if I’d still been thirteen, living on the streets, and mourning the loss of my family.

It might have worked, if I’d still been Genevieve Snow.

But no matter how much I changed, no matter how I tried to be different and leave my past profession behind, part of me would always be the Spider, the assassin as sharp as the silverstone knives she carried. I hadn’t been small, weak, or frightened in a long time. And I certainly wasn’t now.

“Keep it up as long as you like,” I said. “Do whatever you want to keep people away from the Pork Pit. I’ll still be here every single day, doors wide open, food hot and ready. I’d rather give my food to the rats in the streets than shut down for one fucking
hour
because of a slimeball like you. Is that clear enough?”

The charm oozed out of Jonah McAllister’s eyes, like syrup slopping over a pancake. “Crystal clear. Too bad, Ms. Blanco. Too bad for you.”

“I told you we should have just killed the bitch,” Jake snapped. “Come on, Dad. Let me do her, right here, right now. That dwarven bitch behind the counter too.”