Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies (21 page)

I didn’t respond. At one time, I would have enjoyed the comparison. Now, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be like Fletcher Lane, with his secrets and hidden agendas. I still couldn’t believe he’d known who I really was all these years, that he’d compiled that file about the murder of my family, that he’d known Bria was alive and where she was—and that he hadn’t told me about any of it.

Why had Fletcher kept it from me? What had been the point of hiding it from me? I thought I’d known Fletcher better than anyone. I was his apprentice, after all. The one he’d taught all his secrets to. Now I wondered if I’d really known anything about him—other than what he’d wanted me to know.

“You’re hard like he was,” Warren continued. “Able to put his feelings aside and do what needed to be done no matter what. I always admired that about him. Fletcher was always stronger than me. Even when Stella left us both, I never saw him break. He never wavered, not once, not even for a second. You would have never known anything was even wrong with him.”

Stella, the woman they’d both loved. The one who’d ruined their friendship, then run off with another man.

Warren lapsed into silence again, and his glossy eyes dulled with old memories. After a minute, he shook his head and came back to himself. “Anyway, I know I don’t deserve it, but I appreciate your help, especially for Violet’s sake. She would have died last night if not for you.”

I shrugged. “I would have done the same for anyone else.”

Warren shook his head. “No, I don’t think you would have. You know there are some people who just deserve killing. Something Donovan hasn’t realized yet. Something he won’t ever be able to admit to himself. His father was the same way. He tried to help me out with Dawson some years back, but it didn’t take.”

“So that’s how you know Donovan. You knew his father.”

Warren nodded. “Daniel Caine, a fine man. Donovan is too. But he’s not the one for you.”

He was more observant than I’d given him credit for. I raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

Warren glanced over his shoulder, but Donovan Caine was still talking on his cell phone, so he turned back to me. “I mean you and Donovan are on opposite sides. Always have been, always will be. He’s not going to change, and he’ll never accept what you are, what you’ve done. It’s just not in his nature, no matter how much he might want to.”

“And you’re telling me this because…”

“Because Donovan’s a good man, and you’re good too, in your own way. At least you should be if Fletcher raised you right,” Warren said. “At the very least, you’re good at what you do.”

“The best. I was the best at what I used to do,” I corrected him. “But I’m retired now.”

Warren snorted. “Right. Just remember what I said. Don’t get too attached to Donovan Caine. Because it’s not going to end the way you want it to.”

His eyes didn’t glow with power, and I didn’t sense any magic trickling off him, which meant Warren T.

Fox didn’t have an Air elemental’s sense of precognition.

Whether Warren had any magic or not, he was still observant enough to recognize the conflict between me and Donovan Caine.

Finn murmured something, which made Violet giggle.

Warren’s head snapped around at the sound. He shuffled off to glower at Finn and put an end to the younger man’s flirting with his granddaughter. This time, I could have offered him the advice of not bothering. Short of shooting Finn with the shotgun, there was nothing Warren could do. Flirting with the opposite sex was as natural and necessary as breathing to Finn.

I looked past the trio to where Donovan Caine paced back and forth on the floorboards. The detective saw me watching him, frowned, and turned his back to me. Shutting me out once again.

I sighed. Warren T. Fox was definitely sharper than he looked. Even worse, I had a sinking suspicion he was right about me and Donovan. The detective wasn’t going to let it work between us, no matter how hot the sex had been, no matter how bright the attraction still flared. My gray eyes traced over the detective’s lean body.

A shame, really.

———

By the time I followed Warren over to his house, made everything as secure as I could, and walked back to the store, it was well into the afternoon. My stomach growled, reminding me that the half of the barbecue sandwich I’d eaten for lunch was long gone. So I perused the coolers in the front of the country store. I picked up a cellophanewrapped bologna and Swiss cheese sandwich from one of the coolers, along with a bottle of lemonade. Some chips and a candy bar from the display rack near the counter completed my gourmet meal. I took my items to the cash register.

“You don’t have to pay for that,” Violet Fox protested.

I slapped a ten-spot down on the counter. “Sure I do. Keep the change.”

I took my dinner out onto the front porch and settled into a rocking chair. One of the barrels made an excellent table for my food, and I dug in. The lemonade was far too weak and watered down for my tastes, and the bread was getting hard and stale, but smothering it with mayo made it palatable enough. Not the best meal I’d ever had, but it would do. I’d hate to go to the trouble of breaking into Tobias Dawson’s office only to have my stomach growl and give me away to whatever guards he might have stationed there.

I’d just unwrapped my candy bar when Donovan Caine stepped out onto the porch. The detective hesitated, then walked over to me.

“Care if I join you?” he asked in a low voice.

“Sure.” I sank my teeth into the candy bar. Crunchy, slightly bitter almonds coated with dark chocolate. Definitely the best part of my meal.

The detective stared out at the crossroads. An empty coal truck rumbled by, stopped, and made the turn to go on up to the mine.

“I got some info on Tobias Dawson,” Donovan said.

“And it’s not good. He’s a real piece of work, from all reports. He’s got almost a complete stranglehold on the mining in the area, so he pays his employees belowaverage wages. A couple of them tried to form a union a few months back. They all met with mining accidents soon after. Roof collapses, equipment malfunctions, even a cave-in.”

“Did you expect anything else? You saw Dawson threatening the Foxes. He’s not a nice man.”

Donovan ran a hand through his black hair. “But that doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to just kill him.”

“And just because Dawson has money doesn’t make it right for him to intimidate people into getting whatever he wants,” I pointed out. “So which is worse—me assassinating Dawson for threatening the Foxes or him telling his brother to go rape and murder Violet just to send a message to her grandfather?”

Caine blew out a long breath. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. But two months ago, I would have taken you in for plotting to kill someone. Slapped my handcuffs on you and dragged you down to the station, no questions asked.”

“And now?”

Donovan looked out at the road, although I got the impression he wasn’t really seeing it. “Now, I’m thinking about helping you get to him.”

“Don’t sound so broken up about it, detective. Getting rid of Dawson is the right thing to do.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s what
you
want to do. I’m just going along with you.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why go along with me if it bothers your conscience so much?”

Donovan stared at me. Emotions flickered like candle flames in his eyes. Guilt. Desire. Need. Weariness. Resignation.

“I don’t know that either.”

Tires crunched on the gravel, and a classic convertible pulled into the parking lot. The vehicle was as black as black could be, with a long body and swooping fins. Despite its pristine, gleaming beauty, the convertible always reminded me of a hearse. The top was up, but I didn’t need to see inside to know who was driving. Sophia Deveraux had arrived. I got to my feet.

Donovan tensed. “Trouble?”

“Relax, detective. I called a friend to come help Finn watch the Foxes, while you and I sneak off to Dawson’s mine.”

Sophia opened the driver’s door and stepped out.

The detective frowned. “Isn’t that your cook from the Pork Pit? The one who was working when Jake McAllister tried to rob you?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “She moonlights as a badass, just like me.”

But Sophia wasn’t alone. The passenger side door opened, and a mound of bleached, white-blond curls appeared, partially covered with a sheer pink headscarf.

Sophia had brought her big sister, Jo-Jo, along with her.

Jo-Jo said something to Sophia that I couldn’t hear, and the Goth dwarf grunted back in response. Then the two women shut their car doors and headed toward us.

They stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Sophia gave Donovan a flat, uninterested look, but Jo-Jo’s eyes lit up at the sight of the rugged detective. In addition to being a social butterfly, the dwarf was also a terrible flirt, just like Finn was.

“Well, now,” Jo-Jo asked, her pale eyes landing on Donovan. “Who is this?”

I stood and made the introductions. “Jo-Jo Deveraux, this is detective Donovan Caine with the Ashland Police Department. And vice versa. The Goth chick is Sophia, Jo-Jo’s sister.”

Jo-Jo held out her hand, as though she wanted Donovan to kiss it. Disappointment flickered across the dwarf ’s face when he merely shook it instead.

“I asked Sophia to watch Warren and Violet while we check out Dawson’s mine,” I explained to the detective.

“And I’m here for moral support,” Jo-Jo chimed in.

Donovan Caine eyed the dwarf ’s rose-covered dress, pearls, high-heeled sandals, and manicured nails. No doubt he thought she wouldn’t be much good in a fight. But Jo-Jo was almost as strong as Sophia—and she had her Air elemental magic to supplement her natural strength.

Even I didn’t know if I could take Jo-Jo in a fight.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go inside where the others are.”

18

Finn was still digging for info on Tobias Dawson, so I left him and the Foxes in Sophia’s and Jo-Jo’s capable hands.

Violet was happy to see the older dwarf again and started peppering her with questions about hot-oil hair treatments.

To my surprise, so was Warren. Jo-Jo must have known him and his parents better than she’d let on because the old man pulled up two rocking chairs, and he and Jo-Jo proceeded to gossip about all the folks they knew up here in Ridgeline Hollow. Then again, Jo-Jo Deveraux was more than two hundred fifty years old. I couldn’t imagine how many people she’d met in her lifetime. Hard to keep track of them all, but somehow she managed it. She seemed especially chatty with Warren.

That left Sophia with guard duty. I showed her the various access points to the store and the house out back.

Once we finished, the Goth dwarf stuck an iPod in her ears and took up a position on the front porch steps to keep an eye out for Tobias Dawson and his men.

I also made a quick circuit through the store and picked up a few items I thought might be useful. Flashlights, rope, gloves, binoculars. I left a hundred on the counter to cover everything. Then Donovan Caine and I left the others in the store and got into his sedan.

The detective sank into the driver’s seat, while I took the passenger’s side. Unlike most cop cars I’d been in, this one was clean to the point of being pristine. No fastfood wrappers, no empty soda cups, no trash or debris of any kind littered the inside. The car even smelled like Caine—clean and slightly soapy. Or maybe that was just the air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror. Either way, I breathed in, enjoying the crisp aroma. Mmm.

Donovan started the car and looked at me. “Where to?”

I glanced down at the printouts Finn had given me.

Finn hadn’t found much on Tobias Dawson yet, but he’d been able to find several maps of the dwarf ’s mine—including the building that housed his office.

“Go to the stop sign and hang a left like you’re going back to the interstate,” I said. “There’s an old access road that runs over the top of the ridge and overlooks the mine. We can stop up there and see what’s going on below before we make our move.”

Donovan nodded and steered the sedan out of the parking lot. He cruised to a stop, then made the appropriate turn. We didn’t speak as the vehicle climbed up the twisting, winding road.

As the tourist sign at the crossroads claimed, it was a scenic stretch of highway, with dense woods that crowded to the edge of the road on both sides. A couple of weeks ago, the fall foliage would have been magnificent. But the elevation was slightly higher here than in the rest of Ashland, which meant the maples, oaks, and poplars had already shed most of their colorful leaves. Still, I found the curving branches of the trees enchanting in their own way, ribbons of wood winding together to make artful shapes.

Through the bare limbs, I spotted the creek Warren Fox had mentioned, the one that curved around the back of his house and flowed past Country Daze. I didn’t know that I’d call it a mere creek, though. The rushing water stretched thirty feet wide in some places, tumbling over unusual rock formations. Gravel pull-offs on either side of the road marked popular fishing and wading spots.

I glanced at the map again. “Take the next right.”

Donovan nodded and did as I asked.

The smooth concrete fell away to cracked pavement as the car twisted and turned even higher onto the mountain ridge. Gravel replaced the pavement. It ran out into two hard-packed dirt ruts that passed for a road. Despite the terrain, Donovan drove on. We went almost a mile down the ruts before they ended in a small, wooded clearing.

The detective stopped the car, and we got out.

The air was even cooler up here than it had been at Country Daze, and it had started to drizzle again. I turned up the collar of my black fleece jacket, hefted the coil of rope over my shoulder, and made sure I had all my other supplies. Donovan reached into the backseat and grabbed a navy rain slicker embossed with the words
Ashland Police Department
on the back. He offered the jacket to me, but I shook my head.

“You keep it,” I said. “You’re the one who brought it, not me.”

The detective shrugged into the jacket. I stuffed the maps Finn had given me into my jeans pocket so they wouldn’t get too wet.