Since the Appalachian Mountains cut through most of Ashland, the surrounding suburbs were greener and cleaner than what you'd find in most metropolitan areas.
The city planners worked hard to keep it that way, especially in Northtown. Trees and copses of dense woods crept into the landscape here and there, thieves staking their claims amid new subdivisions and cobblestone-fronted shopping malls.
Ashland also had its share of industrial complexes, but careful plantings of maples and walnut trees hid the dilapidated buildings and acres of concrete from sight. Rows of pine trees and twisting, grassy knolls obscured the tall towers of the city's paper mills. Irony at its finest.
I stared out the window. Everything looked so normal, so innocent in the burbs.
Soccer moms hauling around vans full of unruly kids. People power-walking with their dogs. Shoppers ambling down the nicer streets, arms full of bags. A Fire elemental letting flames dance over his fingers and doing a few other magic tricks for spare change in one of the parks. An Ice elemental performing a similar show for kids at a playground a mile away.
I couldn't help but imagine what this day might have been like, if I'd listened to Fletcher's advice about retiring and quit the business six months ago. Or if I hadn't let him talk me into doing the Gordon Giles's hit. If we'd both had just paid more attention to the job and what might be wrong with it, and less to the hefty payday.
Greed would get you every single time, just like luck.
I might have been over at the Pork Pit, waiting tables during the lunch hour rush, helping back in the kitchen, or trying to make yet another batch of Fletcher's secret sauce. Or I could have been over at the library at the community college, working on my latest assignment for whatever class I'd decided to audit. Could have even been dozing on a flight to Key West to take my long-awaited vacation.
Instead, I was on the run from the law and some mysterious figure who wanted me dead. Rock and a hard place. Story of my life.
"I made a couple calls while you were schmoozing with the detective," Finn said.
"Sophia disposed of the body you left in the freezer at the Pit. She said to tell you nice work."
I grimaced. For whatever reason, the bloodier and more mutilated the body, the more the Goth dwarf enjoyed her disposal work. I didn't know why. Didn't want to know why. Fletcher had trusted Sophia, and that was good enough for me. Her methods, predilections, and possible fetishes were her own business.
"Sophia finished the disposal this morning. She said she thought it would be better to wait until today, since the cops had already removed Dad's body." Finn's voice cracked on the last word.
"I'm sorry, Finn."
He cleared his throat and shrugged. "We all knew it would probably happen like this one day. Dad understood and accepted the risks, just like we do."
"Fletcher might have been an assassin, but he always kept his word. He didn't deserve to be double-crossed like that. It won't go unpunished."
Finn nodded. "Sophia says the cops are treating it as a robbery gone wrong, yet another one in a borderline
Southtown neighborhood that's going downhill."
I snorted. "In other words, they've already closed the case and moved on to the next one."
"Way of the world, Gin. Way of the world." He gave me a sidelong glance. "Before she called the cops yesterday, Sophia took a picture of Dad's body. She thought I might want to see him for myself."
I tensed. Damn that dwarven Goth girl. Damn and double damn her.
"She e-mailed the photo to me while you were inside the Cake Walk." Finn turned his head to stare at me. "Why didn't you tell me he'd been tortured to death by an Air elemental?"
I couldn't see Finn's green eyes behind his black sunglasses, but raw grief roughened his voice, as though someone had scraped a cheese grater over his vocal chords.
"Because dead is dead. You can't come back from it, so it doesn't particularly matter how you get there." My voice was as rough as his.
Finn's hands tightened around the steering wheel. "You still should have told me." "I was trying to spare you the details."
Emotion sharpened my voice, making it harsher than I would have liked. I'd seen a lot of bodies in my time, but none as bad as Fletcher's. The image of his flayed, ruined face, the malicious glee someone had taken in doing that to him, would always haunt me. Another ghost of the past I'd never be able to banish, no matter how hard I tried.
Because I might have stopped it. Should have stopped it. Should have gotten to the Pork Pit sooner. Should have been stronger, faster, better, smarter. Should have been everything Fletcher taught me to be, instead of just a bitter disappointment.
The memories of two more bodies flashed through my mind-the smoking, burned-out shell that had been my mother, Eira. The smaller one that had been my older sister, Annabella. A splash of blood on the rocks where Bria had been hiding. The smell of charred flesh filled my nose. Shrieks of fury and pain rang in my ears, along with my own choked sobs-
The SUV bumped over a pothole, breaking the morbid spell. But the tight knot of rage in my chest beat on, keeping perfect time with my heart.
Once I got control of myself, I leaned over, put my hand on top of Finn's, and squeezed. He didn't pull away, but he didn't look at me, either. I let go and sat back in my seat. We didn't speak for several minutes.
"Did Sophia tell you anything else? She is keeping her promise to watch over the restaurant, isn't she?" I asked. "Yeah, Sophia said she could take care of the Pork Pit.
Not a big deal. She's done it before."
"What are you going to do with the restaurant?" I asked. "Once this is over? It's yours now."
Finn shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't gotten that far yet. I suppose it depends on what we find out-and whether or not we get killed in the process." I nodded. The thought of dying didn't scare me. I'd seen too much of it, dealt out too much of it, to fear it. It was the torture that could be inflicted before the kill that worried me. That's where the real pain was. And if you got unlucky and didn't die, the memories needled you that much more, each one a fresh set of pins pricking your heart.
Death was a release, in so many ways. An end to suffering. An escape to something else. What that something else was, I didn't know. Maybe heaven. Maybe hell. Maybe nothing at all. But I doubted it could be any worse than some of the things I'd seen and done in my lifetime.
Or the ones I was going to have to do to make sure Finn and I survived the next few days.
When he was certain no one was following us, Finn headed back to my apartment.
He left the stolen SUV six blocks out. Using a circuitous route, we walked the rest of the way, arm in arm, heads close together, like a couple of lovers oblivious to the rest of the world.
Our route took us past the Pork Pit. The tattered awning looked the same, but the neon pig was dark, sad, broken. Just like Fletcher. Guilt and grief filled me, and I concentrated on my breathing, trying to squash the
feelings. But instead of frying grease and spices, tobacco smoke filled the air, adding to my discomfort. A cigarette dangled from the thin lips of the man standing in front of the restaurant. He held a tape measure in one hand and took a swig from the Dr. Enuf soda pop he had clenched in the other. A toolbox sat on the cracked sidewalk next to his booted feet. A bored glazier, fixing the pane I'd smashed.
My eyes flicked past the man, and I spotted Sophia Deveraux inside the storefront.
The Goth dwarf wore her usual black jeans and boots, although today, her T-shirt of choice was white with a giant black skull and crossbones on the front. A collar set with silver spikes ringed her neck. Her black lipstick was a dark slash in her pale face.
Sophia was too busy cleaning to notice me. She pushed a mop back and forth across the floor. The thick muscles in her arms tightened and relaxed with every movement.
Sophia gazed at the floor as though she could clean it with the force of her mind, if not her powerful strokes. I'd never seen the dwarf do any magic, but Sophia's steadfast black stare made me wonder if she'd gotten any of the Air elemental power her sister Jo-Jo had-and what she might be able to do with it.
Each of the four elements lent themselves to various things. Some Airs could control the weather. Others became healers. Stones often worked in construction or the coal mines that lay north of the city. Most of the Ices were fond of artistic leanings, like sculpture. Some of the Fires were also artists, using their heat to forge pottery and other things. Elementals could do too many things to name, and this wasn't even counting the folks with aptitudes for offshoots of the elements like metal, water, and electricity. I looked at Sophia, and I wondered.
Finn spotted Sophia too. It took him a few seconds to realize what she was doing- and exactly what she was cleaning up. Impossible to miss. Fletcher's blood had long ago turned the thick, white mop strings a rusty pink. The rhythmic slop and swish of the mop splatting against the floor was like a knife in my heart. Twisting and turning until there was nothing inside me that hadn't been ripped to ribbons.
Finn's steps slowed and faltered. I tightened my grip on his arm and dragged him across the street, before he could do something stupid, like stop. Or worse, try to go inside the restaurant. The Air elemental might not have men watching the restaurant since Fletcher was dead, but it was a chance I wasn't going to take.
"Soon," I whispered in his ear. "Soon." Finn nodded, and we strolled on.
We took the elevator up to my floor and approached my door. I pressed my hand against the stone, letting the rough texture dig into my palm. No notes of alarm, no sudden bursts of distress. The stone murmured in a low voice, like usual. No one had been near the place all day.
"Clean," I said.
Finn shivered and put his key in the lock. "You know how creepy that is, right? You listening to a pile of rocks? It's just not natural."
"What's not natural is the fact you spend more on hair-care products than I do," I said, trying to lighten the mood. I reached over and rubbed his head, messing up his walnut locks.
"Hey! Hey!" Finn protested. "Anything but the hair." I almost managed a grin.
We stepped inside. Finn settled himself at the kitchen table and fired up his laptop.
He clicked through his various e-mail accounts and messages, seeing what his sources had been able to dig up on Gordon Giles and anyone who might have wanted him dead.
"Here." I reached into my hip pocket and passed him the business card I'd gotten from the coeds outside the Cake Walk. "See what you can find out about this guy, too. Who is he, where he works, where he hangs out at."
Finn waved the card at me. "Do you really think this will lead us anywhere? The IDs we got off the other men were all fakes."
I shrugged. "Dumbass was stupid enough to hand it out to those coeds while he was tailing a guy. I bet he was stupid enough to give them one with his real name on it. If we strike out with Donovan Caine, we can always go pay Mr. Smooth a visit. Worth a shot."
While Finn tested the silky threads of his information web, I moved into the kitchen.
"On to more important matters-any special requests for lunch?"
"Sandwich," Finn murmured, never taking his eyes off the flickering screen. "You make the best sandwiches."
Truer words had never been spoken. I opened the refrigerator and scanned the sandwich fixings inside. Five minutes later, I had two turkey-and-Gouda sandwiches on chewy pumpernickel bread. I added a kosher pickle and a couple of baby carrots to each plate, along with some double chocolate chip cookies. Color and presentation were key when it came to food preparation. At least, that's what my culinary professor had claimed last semester, when he'd showed us how to turn tomatoes into roses with our paring knives. I'd aced that final.
I put a plate in front of Finn and took the chair on the other side of the table.
"Anything on Mr. Smooth yet?" I asked.
Finn gnawed off a bite of his sandwich. "Working on it. You were right. Dumbass was stupid enough to give you his real name, which is Carlyle, by the way. Charles Carlyle, although his friends probably call him Chuck. Guess where he works?" I didn't even have to think about it. "Halo Industries."
Finn shot his finger at me. "Bingo. He's an executive vice president." I frowned. Carlyle hadn't struck me as a true corporate type. More like a bouncer dressed up in a suit. "Executive vice president? That's a nice way of saying he's someone's corporate bitch."
Finn kept his green eyes on his computer. "Haley James's corporate bitch. Looks like he reports directly to her. A new hire. Just started a couple months ago."
Haley James's name kept popping up everywhere we looked. Not enough to prove her guilty of being the Air elemental or behind the hit on Giles, but definitely enough to make her a person of serious interest.
"I'll put out more requests for info on Carlyle," Finn promised. "By tonight, I should have a record of everything he's ever done."
"Good," I said. "What about the tooth necklace? Any leads?"
"The rune? Nothing so far. It's not used by anyone I or my considerable friends know.
I've put out more feelers
to my contacts. Maybe something will turn up."
I frowned again. Runes were important, especially to magic users. They transmitted information, showed allegiances, inspired awe-and fear. Hell, I hated the damn things, but I still had three of them on my mantel. And two more on my palms, whether I wanted them there or not.
A tooth represented prosperity. Power. Using that as your symbol meant you were trying to send a message you were strong. Someone to be reckoned with. If we found who used the rune, we'd find who had set this whole thing up. Or at least some of her underlings. I had no qualms about killing my way up the food chain until I got to the Air elemental herself. Charles Carlyle would be as good a guy as any to start with.