Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

this unease, beturned right and walked deeper into the mansion. The fore in other places with other elementals. But never this partygoers hadn’t gotten too serious about their sexual intense.
    gymnastics just yet, so this area was deserted. I passed a Again, I wondered about Mab Monroe’s name being in couple of rooms, none concealed enough for my liking. It Fletcher’s folder. I’d been blindfolded so I hadn’t seen the wouldn’t do any good for me to kill Tobias Dawson and bitch’s face back then, only heard her cackling laughter have someone find his body a minute later. I was going as she tortured me. But it could have been Mab. Rumor to need longer than that to slip out of the mansion after put her current age at about forty-five. She would have I’d done the job.
    had enough power, even seventeen years ago, to do all the So I strolled through the rooms, sipped my chamhorrible things that had taken place that night. But why?
    pagne, and pretended to admire Mab Monroe’s tasteful Why had she murdered my mother, Eira, and my older furnishings while I looked for a spot to stiff Dawson. sister, Annabella? Why had she wanted to kill me? Why one thing actually did catch my interest—a series of rune had she demanded to know where my baby sister Bria was paintings, not unlike the drawings I had propped up on above all else? I just didn’t understand why —the mantel in Fletcher Lane’s den.
    Footsteps whispered on the carpet off to my right, and My eyes flicked over the runes mounted on the wall opa large, beefy hand clamped onto my ass and squeezed—
    posite the back of the staircase. A sunburst. A lit match. A hard.
    teardrop-shaped flame licking at the paper it was on. The
    “Hello there, sweetness,” a male voice said. “If your framed pieces all had to do with fire or heat in some way, front looks as tight as your ass, I’m in for a real good time and all were done in burnt siennas, bloody oranges, fiery tonight.”
    yellows. It seemed Mab and I shared the same taste in He put his other hand on my opposite shoulder and something besides killing people. Weird. And disturbing. turned me around. I let him and plastered a smile on my As I stared at the paintings, an uneasy shiver tickled face, my lips ready to form an excuse to get rid of the my spine like a cold finger. Something about the artwork ogling bastard.
    resonated on a primal level with me. Here, something old I found myself looking up at Jake McAllister. The Fire Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 288-289
    12/17/09 9:32 PM
    290 JENNIFER ESTEP
    Web of Lies 291
    elemental had traded in his rock-star jeans and vintage My desire to find a quiet area to kill someone had just T-shirt for a tuxedo. It didn’t improve his looks. His body turned into a necessity. I had to finish Jake McAllister was still too beefy, his face still puffed out with baby fat. now. He was right. This was his turf, or at least Mab He looked like an oversize kid playing dress-up in his Monroe’s turf, and I had no doubt the Fire elemental daddy’s clothes. But the important thing was that he was would let Jake do whatever he wanted to with me—if here and staring at me.
    I didn’t take care of him first before he could sound the of all the people I could have run into here tonight, alarm. My eyes swept back and forth over the open doors the possibility one of them would be Jake McAllister had and rooms I passed. There. That would do.
    never crossed my mind. So much had been going on the I looked over my shoulder. Jake McAllister had strugpast few days I’d relegated Jake and his threat to kill me gled to his feet. I blew him a kiss. His face reddened, and to the back burner. But luck, that capricious bitch, had he lumbered down the hallway in my direction. I stepped decided to fuck me over once again.
    inside the room, found the spot I wanted, palmed one Jake frowned, as though he knew me from somewhere of my silverstone knives, and waited. Ten . . . twenty . . . but just couldn’t place me. Then, recognition dawned on thirty . . . I counted off the seconds in my head. his beefy face.
    Jake McAllister was quicker than I’d given him credit
    “You!” he hissed.
    for—or just more pissed off. only forty-five seconds passed before he charged into the room.
    Jake McAllister stared at me. A cruel smile spread across
    “Where are you, bitch?” he growled. “I saw you come his face, making his cheeks puff out that much more. in here.”
    “You shouldn’t have come