Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

light would ever be able to penetrate again. We’d arrived at the college just after five and had Click-click . Click-click . The computer sounded once walked through the student center, looking for Violet more, and a new screen popped up, overwriting the info Fox. I knew the center well, along with the rest of camwe’d been looking at. pus, since I’d been auditing classes at Ashland Commu“What’s that?” I asked. nity College for years. Cake decorating, yoga, charcoal Finn grinned. “I flagged Violet Fox’s credit card, which drawing, watercolor painting. I’d taken all those and she just used to make a purchase at the campus bookmore, as part of my cover as an eternal college student store.”
    and cook and waitress at the Pork Pit.
    “What did she buy?”
    This semester, I’d signed up for a course in classic litFinn stared at the monitor. “Two iced teas, two candy erature, hence the fact I was currently reading The Odys- bars, and a copy of The Hero with a Thousand Faces by sey. I’d always liked learning new things and saw no reason Joseph Campbell.”
    to stop taking classes just because I wasn’t killing people
    “Two drinks? Sounds like she has a study date with anymore. Besides, you just never knew when a new skill somebody.” I got up off the sofa. “Let’s go.”
    might come in handy. Especially given my past.
    “To the college?” Finn asked. “What if she leaves beAnd I was thinking of taking several classes next sefore we get there?”
    mester, because, truth be told, my retirement was turning Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 84-85
    12/17/09 9:32 PM
    86 JENNIFER ESTEP
    Web of Lies 87
    out to be rather, well, boring. During the day, I worked at ago. All of which meant there was no student parking the Pork Pit, of course, just as I always had. But at night, anywhere on campus. Instead, those who commuted I didn’t know quite what to do with myself since I wasn’t every day had to leave their vehicles in a variety of lots reviewing files, trailing marks, and plotting the best way and garages on the outskirts of downtown, then hike or to kill someone. I could only watch the Food Network bike their way over to the campus.
    for so many hours a night. Most of the time, I ended The parking lot we were in was the farthest one from up staring blankly at the television, wondering if eight the campus quads and located just below the Southtown o’clock was too early to go to bed. on the bright side, I border. A single light flickered overhead, painting the cars was always extremely well rested now.
    below a ghostly silver. Four-foot-high concrete barriers Finn and I hadn’t found Violet Fox during our search ringed most of the area, warning the drivers away from of the student center. It had lots of little cubbyholes for various potholes in the cracked asphalt. Spray-painted students to hide and study in. or Violet and whomever gang symbol runes, including clenched fists and crude she’d been with might have decided to study in the library outlines of guns and knives, dirtied the stone surfaces. or a computer lab or even someone’s dorm room. Too Crumpled fastfood wrappers, crushed-out cigarette many possibilities and no way to narrow them down. So butts, and limp, used condoms littered the ground. we’d come to the one place Violet Fox had to show up According to the info Finn had compiled, Violet Fox sooner or later—the parking lot.
    drove an old, black Honda Accord. The midsize service“Trust me,” I said. “She’ll come back and get her car. able car sat in the center of the lot, dwarfed on one side by Nobody in their right mind would leave their wheels here a truck on monster wheels covered in army green paint. A overnight.”
    Confederate flag covered part of the truck’s back window,
    “I can’t imagine why,” Finn muttered and shifted in along with a gun rack. We sat several rows away, parked his seat.
    next to a Volkswagen bug with a red hood that didn’t I stared out the window. Ashland Community Colmatch the rest of its white body. lege was located in the downtown district, a small circle
    “Any more charges on her credit card?” I asked. of knowledge hidden among the glass-and-chrome corFinn reached into the backseat and hit a button on his porate buildings that passed for skyscrapers in the city. laptop. “Not since the last time you asked five minutes Even though the college took up a couple of city blocks, ago. How long are we going to wait? It’s almost six