Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

see what Finn says.”
    “Well, according to this, Dawson is pouring most of
    “You’re going to have to give me a few minutes,” Finn his money and manpower into the new shaft these days,”
    said, typing on his laptop. “I’ve got to sort through and Finn said.
    read some of this. It doesn’t make much sense to me ei“Why would he do that?” Violet asked. ther. Not to mention that the photo quality isn’t the best Finn read some more. His frown deepened. “That I’ve ever seen.”
    can’t be right,” he muttered. “It’s not possible.”
    “Sorry,” Donovan sniped. “I was a little more worried
    “What?” Jo-Jo asked. “What’s not possible?”
    about flashing too much light around and getting caught
    “What Dawson is drilling for,” Finn said. “According than taking perfect pictures for you.”
    to this, it looks like that shaft isn’t to get more coal out of We lapsed into silence while we waited for Finn to read the mountain. It’s for—”
    and decipher the documents. But I had a pretty good idea
    “Diamonds,” I said in a soft voice. “He’s found diaof what they’d say. So I leaned against the wall and started monds in the mountain.”
    thinking about what came next—getting close enough to Silence. For a moment, everyone looked at me. Then Tobias Dawson to kill him. Because that was the only way they all started talking at once.
    this thing was going to end, if my suspicions were correct.
    “Diamonds?” Sophia rasped in surprise.
    Sophia stood beside me and twirled the baseball bat in
    “That’s not possible,” Violet Fox said.
    her hand like it was a metal baton.
    “Darling, anything’s possible,” Jo-Jo replied. After about ten minutes of reading and clicking, Finn
    “So that’s why Dawson wants the land so badly.” Donfrowned. “That’s weird.” He looked over at Warren. “Did ovan shook his head.
    you know Tobias Dawson has recently started construc“I wonder how big they are,” Finn said in a speculative tion on a new, separate mine shaft?”
    tone.
    Warren nodded. “That’s the rumor the miners have Warren T. Fox was the only one who didn’t say anybeen spouting. There’s been more activity at the mine thing. Instead, the old coot stared at me, his eyes dark, lately too.”
    pinched, and worried in his brown, wrinkled face. He
    “What kind of activity?” Donovan asked.
    knew what the diamond find meant as well as I did. DiWarren shrugged. “More blasting, more drilling. saster. For him and the mountain.
    Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 234-235
    12/17/09 9:32 PM
    236 JENNIFER ESTEP
    Web of Lies 237
    If the diamond I’d found in the safe was any indicaBesides, the store, the land, the house. They were all tion of the size and quality of the others Tobias Dawson that Warren and Violet had ever known. They were simhad discovered, the dwarf would tear the whole mounply home. I knew Fletcher Lane would have done whattain apart to get every last gemstone out of the ground. ever he could to help his friend. The old man wasn’t here, And it wouldn’t end there. Word would eventually leak but I was. And I was going to protect the Foxes—no matout about the diamond find, and then, well, it would be ter what.
    worse than the California Gold Rush around here. EveryWarren raised his dark eyes to mine, asking a silent one would be bulldozing and blasting the area, hoping question. I nodded. Question asked and answered. Jo-Jo to find diamonds on their own land and get rich themDeveraux saw the exchange. An emotion flickered in her selves. They’d destroy the whole mountain in their hasty pale gaze. It looked like relief—mixed with a spark of anticgreed—and Warren T. Fox’s house and store lay at the ipation. About what, I couldn’t imagine. But it was there. epicenter. He’d go under first. The knowledge flashed in After about three minutes, the babble of voices and his eyes, steady, weary, certain.
    conversation wound down.
    Unless I did something to stop it.
    “I just don’t see how it’s possible,” Donovan Caine I’d never considered myself to be any sort of environsaid. “Diamonds? Here?”
    mentalist, but these mountains were as much a part of me I nodded. “They have them over in Arkansas, why as they were of Warren Fox. I took the same sort of pride not here in Ashland? Tobias Dawson’s found plenty of in their beauty he did. If Tobias Dawson’s current mine coal in the mountain. That’s all a diamond really is—coal was any