Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

up at me. A beautiful creature, with blond hair, it. Mab Monroe, written and underlined twice in Fletchcornflower blue eyes, and rosy skin. But her eyes were er’s tight, controlled handwriting. That was all that had cold and hard, her mouth a tight slash in her face that debeen on the paper. I still didn’t know why Fletcher had tracted from her delicate features. A rune hung off a chain written her name down and slipped it inside with the rest around her neck. A primrose. The symbol for beauty. of the information. Was Mab Monroe the Fire elemental Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 44-45
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    46 JENNIFER ESTEP
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    who’d killed my mother and older sister? If so, why? Why know if I wanted to dig up the past again—or how Bria had she done it?
    would react when she saw me and learned what I’d been Mab Monroe might be powerful, but she’d also made doing all these years.
    a lot of enemies over the years. Back when I’d still been But nothing was going to be resolved tonight. Not working as the assassin the Spider, Fletcher had gotten tonight, maybe not ever. Fretting over it wouldn’t help several requests a year from folks wanting her to be elimime unravel the mysteries Fletcher Lane had left behind. nated. We’d both agreed it was an impossible job, that Sighing, I went over and ran my fingers over each one of Mab had too many people around her, that she was just the four drawings, pushing Fletcher’s crooked frame back too strong in her magic to be taken down quietly by a sinup into its proper position. Then I turned and headed gle person. But that hadn’t stopped Fletcher from compilinto the bathroom to wash off the day’s grease, grime, ing all the information he could on the Fire elemental, and blood.
    her minions, and her organization. It had always seemed to me like Fletcher Lane had some secret interest in wanting Mab Monroe dead. A desire I’d never been able to figure out—unless it had something to do with me and my family’s murder.
    It was all a great big circle of speculation. I just didn’t know the answers to anything, and I’d been driving myself crazy trying to figure them out. Frustrated and disgusted once again, I threw the folder and Bria’s picture down on the coffee table and got to my feet. My sudden movements rattled the framed drawings on the mantel. Fletcher’s drawing—the one of the pig sign over the Pork Pit—slid down. I stared at it a moment. Then I sighed. The old man had compiled the information about my family’s murder for a reason. He just hadn’t told me what it was before he’d been murdered. It wasn’t his fault I wasn’t smart enough to figure it out—or find Bria. Something I wasn’t quite sure I even wanted to do. It had taken me years to put my family’s murder behind me. I didn’t Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 46-47
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    been a working assassin, and I certainly didn’t want to broadcast my whereabouts now that I was retired. Not that anyone had any reason to suspect that Gin Blanco, 4
    restaurant owner and part-time college student, was actually the renowned assassin the Spider. But still I worried. Paranoia was good. It had kept me alive this long. No reason to abandon it now.
    “Come on, Gin. It’s not that bad,” a deep, male voice cut into my brooding. “At least he made you out to be the hero instead of the villain. How often does that happen?”
    I glared at Finnegan Lane, who sat on a stool across from me drinking a cup of chicory coffee. Finnegan looked every bit like the smooth-talking, money-swindling investment banker he was. A fitted gray suit draped
    “I’m going to kill this person,” I said in a cold voice. over his solid frame, along with a matching wool coat. His
    “Slowly. Painfully. Really make it hurt. Really make him starched, tailored sage shirt brightened his eyes, which feel it.”
    were the slick green of a soda pop bottle. His walnutI slapped the morning edition of the Ashland Trum- colored hair curled over the collar of his coat. His thick pet down onto the empty space beside the cash register. locks had a sexy, stylish, rumpled look that had taken There it was, on top of the B section. A story detailing the Finn at least ten minutes, two mirrors, and several squirts attempted robbery at the Pork Pit last night, along with of product to obtain.
    a file shot of the outside of the restaurant. The headline In addition to being my money man, Finnegan Lane read