Elemental Assassin 01 - Spider's Bite

pull his gun, or do anything stupid that would get him dead. Instead, his hazel eyes narrowed, and he regarded me with a cool expression.
    “You’re either the most daring assassin I’ve ever met or the stupidest.” His voice, a low, rich baritone, rumbled out of the deepest part of his chest.
    My smile widened “You have to be both in my line of work.”
    My quip was met with another flat stare. Donovan Caine needed to work on his sense of humor.
    “Why are you here?” he asked. “To finish what you started the other night?”
    “No,” I said. “I’m not here to kill you, detective. I just want to talk.”
    Another hard look. Then his eyes dropped to the gun holstered on his belt. A brief flicker, a quick glance down and nothing more, but I saw it.
    “If I were you, detective, I wouldn’t do anything stupid, like attempt to pull your gun.”
    His body tensed, a coiled spring wound that much tighter. “Why not?”
    I jerked my head toward the window. “See that black Caddy out there? The SUV?”
    He nodded.
    “One of my associates is in that vehicle. He happens to have several guns with him. If I don’t leave the restaurant in fifteen minutes, he’s going to start shooting the coeds over in the college quad. If I am impeded or followed, he’s going to start shooting coeds. If he gets bored or his nose itches, he’s going to start shooting coeds. Your choice, detective.”
    I didn’t mention the fact I also had a knife palmed in my hand and that I could sever his femoral artery under the table quicker than he could draw his weapon. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, though. I needed the detective, and right now he needed me as well, if he wasn’t too stubborn to see it.
    Caine didn’t respond. Instead, he kept staring at me, as if he could discern the secrets to my character just by peering into my eyes. After a few moments, his gaze moved away from mine. Caine studied my face, hair, clothes, committing them to memory for later use. He’d probably have a new, better sketch of me circulating to the media in time for the six o’clock news. But the good detective wasn’t above checking out my breasts. A brief flicker, a quick glance down and nothing more, but I saw it.
    “Fine,” he muttered. “Talk.”
    I took a sip of my lemonade. Not nearly tart enough. “I have a proposition for you.”
    Caine snorted. “Really? What would that be? Letting me choose my own death?”
    “No,” I replied. “But I thought you might be interested in learning who paid me to kill Gordon Giles.”
    His gaze sharpened. “You know who that is?”
    “Not yet, but I’m going to find out.”
    “Why?”
    “Because they double-crossed me. They sent someone to take me out after I killed Giles.”
    Caine laughed—a harsh, bitter sound that could have peeled paint off the walls. Several people stared at the detective. He waited until they turned their attention back to their half-eaten pieces of pie before he spoke again.
    “Does that surprise you?” he asked. “The lack of honor among murderers?”
    “No. But that they tried it with me does. I have a reputation. One that’s been tarnished by this incident. I’m going to correct that.”
    “So you have a name,” Caine said in a flat tone. “Some stupid moniker that doesn’t mean anything to anyone but you.”
    The name the Spider did mean something to me, but not in the way Donovan Caine thought. It had been Fletcher’s idea, and I’d gone along with it. He’d called me that because of the rune scars on my palms. He also said I’d reminded him of a spider when we’d first met—all thin arms and long legs hiding in a dark corner. The memory tugged at me, wanting to blossom into something more. But I curled my free hand into a tight fist and willed the unwanted emotions away. Now was not the time to show any sort of weakness.
    “Care to tell me what that name is?” Caine asked.
    “Some people call me the Spider.”
    Assassins don’t exactly advertise, but lots of folks who dealt in the shady side of life knew my moniker, if nothing else. Donovan Caine was no exception. But the slight bulge of his eyes and the flare of his nostrils told me exactly who and what he was thinking about: Cliff Ingles. And whether or not I was the one who’d murdered him.
    “If you’re wondering if I’m the one who killed your partner, the answer is yes.”
    No reason to hide the information since Caine was considering the possibility already. Better to have it