Elemental Assassin 01 - Spider's Bite

of my knives. Her shocked eyes met mine. “How did you—”
    “How did I figure it out?” I shrugged. “I’ll admit it took me awhile. The whole time Alexis James was chasing me, I couldn’t figure out why she’d picked me to set up or even how she’d found Fletcher in the first place. But she told me that night in the rock quarry. You heard her. She got the information from one of Gordon Giles’s hooker friends, the one whose daughter was raped, the one I killed Cliff Ingles for.”
    I stared at Roslyn. “Gordon had a whole stack of photos of himself with prostitutes, most of whom wore the heart-and-arrow necklace that’s the signature for your club. The hooker Alexis squeezed for information, she was one of your girls, wasn’t she?”
    After a moment, Roslyn jerked her head in confirmation. No use denying it now.
    “I imagine the hooker came to you, wanting time off to take care of her daughter, who’d been so brutally raped and beaten. You told her about Fletcher and Finn. That they could arrange certain … accidents for people. When Alexis James had Stephenson pick her up, the hooker had to give them something to save her own skin—and she picked Fletcher and Finn.”
    “I thought I was doing her a favor. I never dreamed this would happen. If I’d known how it was going to turn out—” Roslyn started.
    “Save it,” I snapped. “It’s done now. There’s no changing it.”
    We stood there, side by side, and watched another mourner come up to Finn. Tension radiated off Roslyn’s body like cold did mine.
    “Are you going to tell Finn?” she finally asked.
    I waited a few seconds, letting her sweat. “No. There’s no reason for him to know, and it would only sour things between the two of you.”
    “I really do care for him,” Roslyn murmured.
    I stared at her with my cold, gray eyes. “I know you do. And he cares for you, which is why I’m letting you live. That, and Catherine.”
    Roslyn frowned. “Catherine?”
    “She needs you. I know what it’s like to be without your family. That little girl deserves better.” I turned so Roslyn felt the full force of my hard stare. “But if you ever mention what Finn and I do to anyone else, I will slice you up and burn the leftovers. And anything, anything, Finn or I need that you can provide, you will from now on until I say otherwise. No questions asked. Understood?”
    After a moment, Roslyn slowly nodded. Relief shimmered in her eyes. She knew she’d made a mistake—and that I was letting her off easy.
    “Good,” I snapped. “Now go pay your respects to Finn, before I change my fucking mind.”
    I drifted away from the crowd and headed toward the very top of the cemetery. Fletcher Lane wasn’t the only person buried here that I’d known.
    A series of five graves lay atop the ridge, shaded by a massive maple that seemed to pierce the sky with its arcing limbs. A stone statue had been mounted above the five plots, marking them. Even though thick curls of kudzu covered the stone and the rest of it had been pitted by the rain and wind, the shape was unmistakable. A giant snowflake. The rune of the Snow family, my murdered family.
    My eyes drifted down from the statue to the graves themselves. My father, Tristan’s, tombstone was the most weather-worn. He’d died when I’d been a child. I barely recalled his gray eyes, much less what he’d been like. But the others—I remembered them in vivid detail. Eira, my mother. Annabella, my older sister. And Bria, the baby of the family. Runes marked their tombstones. A snowflake, an ivy vine, and a primrose, just like the three drawings I’d done.
    I walked past their graves until I came to the fifth one on the end of the row.
    Genevieve Snow. Beloved Daughter and Sister . That’s what the tombstone said, along with the dates of my birth and supposed death. A rune had also been carved into the stone. A small circle with eight thin rays radiating out of it.
    A spider rune—identical to the scars on my palms.
    I’d thought I’d feel something staring at my own tombstone, my own cold grave, but I didn’t. Just … emptiness at everything I’d lost. First my family, now Fletcher. Not much left for me to hold on to.
    “A friend of yours?” a low voice called out behind me.
    I turned to stare at Donovan Caine.
    The detective stood a few feet away. He wore a black funeral suit that outlined the lean strength of his body. Caine moved to stand beside me. As always, he walked with that