Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

really teeth into my heart. Fire, torture, destruction, death. All were. “You’re the one who’s going to pay when Daddy that and more had happened that one, fateful night sevfinds out you’re knocking over restaurants—or trying to. enteen years ago. My hands curled into loose fists, hidPiss poor job you did, all the way around.”
    ing the spider rune scars that had been burned into my
    “Bitch!” he screamed again. “You’re gonna die for this!
    palms—scars that were a constant reminder of my lost Do you hear me? You’re dead!”
    family.
    Jake lunged forward again, but the giant cop jerked After a few seconds, I uncurled my palms and flexed him back by the scruff of his neck—none too gently. my fingers, working the tension out of them. Xavier winked at me, and I smiled. I was starting to like I focused on Jake McAllister again, remembering the Xavier. I’d have to slip him an extra C-note or two the next sharp, sly way he’d stared at me. Two hundred dollars or time I saw him working the door at Northern Aggression. not, he’d been ready to kill me and everyone else in the “Come on, Jake,” Xavier rumbled. “Let’s get you in restaurant for nothing more than a thrill. I’d be damned the squad car so you can call your old man to come bail if I was letting him get away with it—any of it. you out.”
    Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 22-23
    12/17/09 9:32 PM
    24 JENNIFER ESTEP
    Web of Lies 25
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    Then our paths had crossed again—and in person—
    Xavier pushed Jake McAllister and his friend Lance two months ago when I’d been framed for the murder through the front door and into the back of a waiting of a corporate whistle-blower named Gordon Giles. cruiser. The other cop, the short guy, took statements Some nasty people thought the detective had informafrom Cassidy and Eva. He’d just finished talking with the tion that could implicate them in the subsequent scheme girls when the front door of the Pork Pit opened and anand cover-up, and they’d been beating it out of him when other cop stepped inside. A tall Hispanic man with short I’d shown up and taken them out. After that, Donovan black hair, bronze skin, and eyes the color of smoky whisCaine had reluctantly joined forces with me to find the key.
    real killer.
    Detective Donovan Caine.
    During the course of our investigation, we’d had a hot The majority of cops in Ashland might be known for one-night stand—well, more like a hot one-hour stand—
    their apathy and avarice, but Donovan Caine was a rare a couple months ago, but nothing since. The detective’s exception to the rule. He fought against the rampant Boy Scout mentality was a sticking point between us. I corruption, bribes, and payoffs most of the police force found his morals admirable, if impractical, in a city as took to look the other way and actually tried to catch dirty, violent, and corrupt as Ashland. He found my lack criminals. And the detective really did believe in all that of said morals and zero remorse for all the bloody things protect and serve, touchy-feely stuff.
    I’d done in my former profession disturbing, to say the My path had first crossed Caine’s several months ago least.
    when I’d assassinated Cliff Ingles, his corrupt partner. In Still, the attraction between us had been intense, and addition to forcing money and sexual freebies out of vamthe hurried sex we’d had in a supply closet had been fanpire hookers while he was on duty, Ingles had viciously tastic. I’d only seen the detective once since then, at my raped and beaten one of the prostitutes’ teenage daughmentor, Fletcher Lane’s, funeral. Caine had come to offer ters. Even among the scum in Ashland, Cliff Ingles had his condolences and check up on me. I’d kissed him right been a real prince, and I’d done him pro bono. My own there in the cemetery. Afterward, he’d bounded away sort of public service.
    from me like a scared rabbit.
    Donovan Caine hadn’t known how dirty his partner I hadn’t seen or spoken to the detective since then. I was and became obsessed with catching Cliff Ingles’s thought about him a lot, though. More than I wanted to. killer—me. of course, the trail had gone cold, since I was And now here he was in my gin joint, in my little corner nothing if not professional, but that hadn’t kept Caine of the city.
    from keeping the case alive and digging for information Donovan Caine sensed my gaze and raised his head. every few weeks.
    our eyes