Web of Lies

by Jennifer Estep

  “Fat lot of good it does me to know she’s alive, since flayed and ripped from his body. His face and chest and I can’t find her. That picture could have been taken anyarms and hands a ruined mess of raw flesh and bones. where, and Fletcher wasn’t kind enough to scribble a loI shook my head, trying to banish the memory. Didn’t cation on the back of it.” Emotion tightened my throat, work. Never did.

  and I had to force out my next words. “I don’t—I don’t

  “I just don’t understand what he expected me to do even know if I want to find her.”

  with the information. Take my revenge on the Fire el“Why not?” Finn asked. “She’s your sister.”

  emental? It’s been years, and I still don’t know who she

  “She was my sister,” I replied in a husky voice. “I have was or why she killed my family. I didn’t even see the elno idea what she’s like now. If she remembers me, if she’d emental before one of her goons caught and blindfolded even want to see me. Hell, she probably thinks I’m dead, Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 80-81

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  just like I thought she was. Then there’s the small fact of I rubbed my palm over my forehead. The silverstone what I’ve been doing with my life. Call me crazy, but I metal in my skin felt as hard and cold as my heart. “I doubt anyone would want an assassin for a big sister.”

  don’t know what Fletcher wanted me to do. Now I’ll Finn was silent a moment. Then he raised his head and never know.”

  stared at me with his bright green eyes—eyes that were so

  “You’ll figure it out,” Finn said. “And I’ll help you.”

  similar to Fletcher’s it made my heart crack. “You might Spoken like a true brother, blood or not. I smiled at not have been his biological daughter, but Dad loved you him. “I know you will—”

  just as much as he did me. You said it yourself. He loved Click-click. Click-click.

  knowing other people’s secrets. He probably started digFinn’s laptop spit out a different sort of noise, as though ging at first just to see who you really were and whether the hard drive had caught and snagged on something. I or not he could trust you.”

  raised my brows. Finn leaned forward and hit a button.

  “And then?”

  Numbers popped up on his laptop monitor, along with Finn shrugged. “And then you became his daughter, what looked like a driver’s license photo. Frizzy blond his protégé, and he loved you. Maybe Dad wanted to find hair. Dark eyes. Dusky skin. Black glasses. the Fire elemental for you. Maybe he realized Bria hadn’t

  “Got her,” Finn said. “Violet Elizabeth Fox. Credit died that night. Maybe he wanted to make up for everycard records, bank accounts, school transcripts. Read all thing that had been done to you and your family.”

  about her.”

  I’d wondered those same things myself. Because that’s I joined him on the sofa and read the information on exactly the kind of man Fletcher Lane had been. Live and the screen. Violet Elizabeth Fox, age nineteen, parents let live, had been his motto. After all, assassins didn’t have deceased. A straight-A student on a full scholarship, geta lot of moral high ground to stand on and cast stones ting her business degree at Ashland Community College. and aspersions down at others. But if you fucked with A couple hundred bucks’ worth of charges on her credit somebody Fletcher Lane cared about, you might as well card, a couple thousand in a savings account. A small cut out your own heart with a rusty spoon—before he check deposited every two weeks into her checking acdid it for you. The old man had taught me to be the same count from some business called Country Daze. Probably way. Loyalty, love, whatever you wanted to call it, it was a part-time job of some sort. Nothing out of the ordinary the only thing as important as survival—and the only and nothing to suggest why she’d come into the Pork Pit thing truly worth dying for. Which is why I’d hunted looking for the Tin Man.

  down Alexis James, the Air elemental bitch who’d killed

  “Violet Fox commutes to school,” I said.

  Fletcher and had Finn tortured, even though I’d almost

  “How do you know that?” Finn asked.

  died in the process.

  I tapped the screen with my fingernail. “Because she’s Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 82-83

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  got an ACC parking permit and assigned slip. And look I pointed to a clock on the wall. “It’s not even four at her home address.”

  thirty yet. The bookstore is inside the student center, and

  “Ridgeline Hollow Road?” Finn asked. “That’s up in the building doesn’t close until six. Violet will probably the mountains.”

  stay put until then. ”

  “In the coalfields,” I added.

  “You’re the expert when it comes to the college,” Finn Folks had been carving coal out of the Appalachian said. “Seeing as how you spend so much of your free time Mountains for decades, and rich seams of it ran through there reading books by dead white guys and getting busy the mountains just north of Ashland. Coal mining was with the young studs in your classes.”

  dangerous, dirty, hard work, not for the claustrophobic

  “That’s right,” I said. “And your jealousy is unbecomor faint of heart. But it paid well enough for generations ing. Now, get your lazy ass off the sofa. It’s time for you of men and women to risk life and limb digging the fossil to show me just how fast that Aston Martin of yours fuel out of the ground. For some, mining was the only job can go.”

  the members of their family had ever known. For others, the mines were the final resting places of their fathers,

  “This is pointless,” Finn said. “She’s not coming back mothers, brothers, sisters. Dark, silent tombs no machinhere tonight.”

  ery and no 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

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  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 t
he 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 fast-food 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 thirty.”

  the various halls and buildings were more or less grouped

  “All the campus buildings except the library close at together and connected by a series of grassy quads. But six,” I said. “If she’s not at the library cramming, Violet space was at a premium in the downtown area, and the Fox should be on her way here right now. We’ll give her a lots that surrounded the college had been developed long few more minutes. This lot is almost a mile from campus. Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 86-87

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  It takes a good twenty minutes to get here from the stuinto the parking lot. His head swiveled right and left, and dent center, and that’s if you’re hoofing it fast.”

  he stayed as close to Eva as her own shadow. His bulky Finn sighed and settled a little deeper into his seat. I windbreaker had ridden up, revealing a Glock tucked rolled down the window. It was still drizzling, and the wet into the small of his back. Looked like owen Grayson sheen of rain made the night seem colder and gloomier had gotten his sister that bodyguard after all. than it really was. Even in the Aston Martin’s plush conViolet and Eva stopped in the middle of the lot and fines, I could hear the vibrations of the concrete barriers exchanged a few words. Violet said something that made and broken asphalt of the parking lot. Sharp, worrisome Eva laugh. Then Violet waved her hand and started walkmutters that spoke of violence, blood, fear. This was a ing toward her aging Honda. Eva waved back. The man place where people got beaten, robbed, and mugged with grabbed her elbow to escort her out of the parking lot, alarming regularity, even for Ashland—

  but Eva gave him a nasty glare and shook him off. The A figure passed through a gap in the concrete barriers. two of them turned, walked back through the gap in the A short, curvy woman with a mop of blond hair that had concrete barrier, and disappeared from sight. frizzed out to TBH—Tennessee Big Hair—proportions Since we’d already disabled the light in the front of the thanks to the drizzle. Violet Fox. She wore a heavy down car, I opened the door of the Aston Martin and swung jacket that didn’t do enough to shield her from the rain. my legs outside.

  Her purse was looped over her chest and shoulder. She

  “Well, she’s alone now.” Finn reached for his own door stepped underneath the flickering light, and a small metal handle, but I grabbed his arm.

  canister glinted in her right hand. Pepper spray, unless I

  “Wait,” I said in a low voice. “Let’s see who else is missed my guess. Smart, sensible precautions. This was a around.”

  girl who was used to walking through here at night.

  “You think the shooter is here?” he asked. “We would But she wasn’t alone. Another girl was with her. Bluehave seen him by now.”

  black hair, pale eyes, slim figure, designer jeans. I recogI shrugged. “Maybe. Depends on how good he is. He nized her too.

  could have slipped in the other side of the lot. The point

  “That’s Eva Grayson,” I said.

  is he missed her at the Pork Pit and probably couldn’t get Finn’s green eyes latched onto Eva. He smiled and to her on campus today. Too many witnesses, too many sat up in his seat. “Really? owen Grayson never told me security guards. This is his last shot at her before she goes what a looker his sister is.”

  home for the night.”

  “Then he knows you well enough to know not to do

  “And you think he’s going to take it,” Finn said. that,” I replied.

  “I would.”

  As I watched, a man about my age followed the girls So we watched. Violet Fox was no fool. She approached Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 88-89

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  her car cautiously. She looked right, then left, in front and behind her. She also stayed in the middle of the lot away from the sides of the parked cars. Making sure no one was sneaking up on her or was waiting underneath one of the vehicles to grab her ankles and pull her down. Smart girl. 8

  But she wasn’t quite smart enough. Violet Fox reached into her purse, and her steps slowed as she fumbled for her keys. She didn’t immediately find them because she stopped, dropped her head, and peered into her bag. And that’s when I saw a shadow slither out of the bed of the monster truck and head toward her.

  “There he is,” Finn said, scrambling to open his door.

  “He was hiding in the truck bed the whole time.”

  I didn’t respond. I was already out of the car, running toward the girl.

  Even as I started running, I saw the shadowy figure creep closer to Violet and take on the form of a short, stocky man. A dwarf. I was two hundred feet away. I wasn’t going to make it in time. I was going to be too late. Again.

  I opened my mouth to shout a warning, when something skitter-skittered across the pavement. The dwarf must have stepped on a soda can. Violet froze at the noise, one of her hands still in her purse. Then she bolted. Didn’t look back, didn’t check to see what the noise was. She just ran.

  She got maybe twenty steps before the man grabbed her by her frizzy blond hair. Violet shrieked in pain and turned to flail at him, her hands arced into claws. He let her slap at him. Those sorts of blows would mean nothing to a dwarf. Magic and weapons were the only things that got their attention. Violet paused half a second to Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 90-91

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  draw in another breath to scream. That’s when the man the knife hidden up my left sleeve, and studied the man punched her in the face—hard. I heard the crunch of before me.

  bone a hundred feet away.

  Since he was a dwarf, he wasn’t quite five feet tall, but Violet moaned, and the man hit h
er again. Her head his shoulders were wider than a chair. His biceps looked snapped to one side, and she fell to her knees, retching. like they’d been carved out of steel and attached to his The dwarf kicked her in the stomach, and the force lifted barrel chest. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt, and a large Violet off the pavement and threw her ten feet. She hit tattoo showed on his left bicep—a lit stick of dynamite. A the hood of a rusty pickup and slid to the ground. She rune. one I’d seen somewhere before, although I couldn’t didn’t move.

  quite place it at the moment. Didn’t much matter. I could The dwarf cracked his knuckles and advanced on her study it in further detail when he was dead. again. He picked her up and splayed her out on the hood

  “This isn’t your fight, lady,” he spat. “This is between of the pickup. The motion snapped Violet out of her the girl and me. Run along before I do you too.”

  daze, and she moaned and looked at her attacker. one of

  “oh, but it is my fight,” I replied in a cold voice. I the dwarf’s hands dropped to his pants. He wasn’t using shifted the knife in my left hand, moving it into position. a gun this time. The dwarf was going to beat Violet to

  “Why’s that?”

  death—after he raped her.

  “Because you shot up my restaurant today.”

  I was fifty feet away and closing fast. I wasn’t trying to The dwarf’s blue eyes narrowed. “So what if I did?

  be quiet, not anymore, but the dwarf was too intent on What are you going to do about it?”

  opening his fly to hear the swish-swish of my sneakers on

  “For starters? This.”

  the wet pavement.

  I threw my knife at him. The dwarf didn’t flinch But the deep, throaty roar of a vehicle rumbling to life as the blade caught him in the chest and sank into his somewhere behind me made him turn. The dwarf spotright pectoral. Damn. I’d missed his heart by at least an ted me running at him, zipped up his pants, and stepped inch. Probably closer to two. I hadn’t been retired that back. Waiting. Just waiting. Violet lay on the hood, her long, but I hadn’t exactly been training every day either. hands underneath her, trying to find the strength to push Looked like some rust had already gathered. Use it or lose herself up, to run away. Blood covered most of what I it, Gin. Since I didn’t want to lose anything, since I knew could see of her face, and the bottom half of her nose I couldn’t afford to, I made a mental note to get in some was no longer in line with the top part. Her glasses barely throwing practice after this was over.