Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

decoBut I got up and hugged my foster brother anyway. He rated my palms. A small circle surrounded by eight thin hugged me back as tight as he could.
    rays. one on either hand. A spider rune. The symbol for
    “You ready to leave?” Finn asked.
    patience.
    I looked up at the tin sign mounted over the front
    “You’re only going to get stronger now, Gin,” Jo-Jo door. Country Daze. Yeah, dazed was one way of putting said in a quiet tone. “one day soon, you’ll be the stroneverything I’d gone through the last few days. I stared gest elemental in Ashland. Even stronger than Mab Monat the gleaming sign a moment longer, then turned and roe herself.”
    smiled at Finn. “Let’s blow this gin joint. Take me home. Stronger than Mab? I didn’t know if that was a good Take me to the Pork Pit.”
    thing, seeing as how the Fire elemental only used her power for destruction. All Mab used her magic for was to kill, hurt, and burn everyone who stood in her way. I might have been an assassin, but I didn’t want to be like her. Not now, not ever.
    I curled my hands into fists, hiding the scars from sight, and tried to ignore the shiver that shook my body.
    I spent the rest of the night at the Foxes’, resting up, and Finn came to get me the next day just before the crack of noon, as was his style. I was sitting on the front porch of Country Daze in some of Violet Fox’s borrowed clothes when he pulled up in his Cadillac Escalade. I’d already said my good-byes to Warren T. Fox, who was still inside with Jo-Jo Deveraux. Sophia was coming up later to pick up her older sister, who wanted to spend a few more hours gossiping with Warren.
    Finn got out of the car and walked over to me. He slid his designer sunglasses down so he could peer over the top of the lenses. “Nice clothes.”
    “Lovely to see you too, Finn,” I replied in a wry tone. Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 380-381
    12/17/09 9:32 PM
    Web of Lies 383
    mine, and Grayson was quoted as saying he wasn’t in a rush to make a decision. Either way, I’d destroyed the diamonds in the cavern, so no one would be sniffing around 34
    there anytime soon. Which meant Warren T. Fox, his granddaughter, Violet, and their store, land, and house were safe for now and the foreseeable future. I was glad I’d been able to help the Foxes, glad I’d been able to do something for someone who had once meant so much to Fletcher Lane. I thought the old man would have approved of me helping Warren, even if the two of them had parted on bad terms all those years ago. As for me, I lapsed gracefully back into retirement. Auditing classes at Ashland Community College. Reading. Cooking. Running the Pork Pit.
    The incident at the coal mine played out for the next That last one was easier now, since Jake McAllister week. Folks worked around the clock for days, digging, was out of the picture. The incident at the mine shaft moving, and hauling earth and stone out of the way behad dominated the news, of course, but there was a small fore they finally recovered Tobias Dawson’s body, along mention about Jake and the fact he’d been found dead with those of his two giant workers. The coroner said at his father’s home. The coroner blamed it on natural both the giants and Dawson died of blunt force trauma. causes caused by an undetected heart defect—or some Yeah, the cave-in had taken out the giants, but Dawson such nonsense. There was no mention of Jake being at had died from those Ice daggers I’d launched into his the party at Mab Monroe’s house, and no mention of him torso. Too bad the evidence had melted away—just like being found stabbed to death in one of the bathrooms. always. Something I was grateful for.
    But with Jake dead, his father, Jonah McAllister, had After the rescue workers recovered the bodies, there no real reason to squeeze me anymore. At least, not about wasn’t much else to do. So they closed down the mine the robbery and pressing charges again his son. oh, I and went home. A couple of days later, Finn showed imagined Jonah was still angry at me over what had hapme a business article in the Ashland Trumpet that said pened the day he had come to the restaurant and that owen Grayson had bought Tobias Dawson’s company he’d get back around to harassing me sooner or later, if for a song—lock, stock, and barrel. No plans had been only because he enjoyed that sort of thing. But for now, announced about what would happen to the collapsed the Pork Pit was back up