Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd

by Web of Lies (pdf)

  shattered mountain, I really, truly, started to believe her. I shook my head and trudged on toward the edge of The thought made my stomach clench.

  the ridge. Noise drifted up to me from the basin below.

  “Damn,” I whispered.

  Men yelling at each other, along with the grind of heavy For a moment, another image flashed before my eyes. machinery. I hobbled closer to the edge of the ridge and The ruined, crumbled shell of my own childhood home. stared down. I wasn’t particularly surprised by the scurry I’d used my magic to destroy it as well, to bring all the of activity. Men and women, mostly firefighters, cops, stones down, to try to save myself and Bria. I shook my and other rescue officials, stalked back and forth on the head, and the image vanished. But the tightness in my rocky floor below me. Some of them had driven their vestomach didn’t go away. hicles into the basin, and the red and blue lights spun I looked down and I realized my hands were glowaround and around. The sirens had long ago been turned ing again. The spider rune scars on my palms burned off, though. The people hung together in small clusters with cold, silver flames once more—even though I wasn’t talking among themselves, but mostly what they did was consciously holding onto my magic. I curled my hands stare at the mine before them.

  into fists and willed the light, the magic, away. After a or what was left of it.

  moment, the flames died, vanishing back into the scars The right wall of the basin, which had once been just as though the silverstone in my flesh was somehow the as tall and strong as the others, had crumbled in on itself, source of their power. I couldn’t quit staring at my palms. like a cheap piece of tinfoil. The entrance to the coal mine Was it my imagination or had the spider rune scars beand the second, smaller shaft that led to the diamonds come more pronounced? For some reason, they looked had been completely obliterated. Dirt had spilled hunlike pure silver swimming in my flesh now, instead of the dreds of feet outside the original opening, burying the paler scars they’d been before. I rubbed my aching head. metal tracks that had led inside the mine. The whole side Something to worry about later. Much later. of the basin looked a sandcastle somebody had kicked I focused on the basin once more, my eyes flicking over.

  over the many figures below. Despite the crowd, it didn’t Me. I’d been the one who’d done the kicking. I’d used take me long to find him—Donovan Caine. The detecmy magic to escape Tobias Dawson, and I’d crumbled tive stood near the entrance to the mine, peering at what half the mountain in the process. I’d always thought Jo-Jo looked like a map spread over the hood of a truck. ProbDeveraux had been blowing smoke up my ass when she ably a map of the coal mine itself. A white hardhat covclaimed I had more Stone magic than anyone she’d ever ered the detective’s head and cast his features in shadow, seen. That she’d just been pretending when she said I was along with those of the man beside him. But I recognized even more powerful than she was. But as I stared at the him too. owen Grayson.

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  I frowned. Why would owen Grayson be here? Then At least somebody was glad to see me, because DonoI remembered. He was into mining just like Dawson had van Caine wasn’t. He tipped his hardhat back, and I spotbeen. With the dwarf buried underneath the mountain, ted the frown on his face. The sight, his lack of happiness Grayson was the closest thing to an expert the city of Ashor even just some relief, cut me more than the rocks that land had been able to call upon. Behind the two men, had sliced into my feet.

  various bulldozers and backhoes moved earth out of the I focused on Donovan Caine and lifted my bloody way. Tobias Dawson was dead. They should have saved hand in greeting. The detective stood there for several their gas.

  seconds—immobile. Then he turned and said something I stood there on the ridge and stared at Donovan, to Grayson, who frowned and nodded his head. Grayson drinking in the sight of the lean, rugged detective. After walked a few feet away and pulled out a cell phone. He this was finished, after I was healed, he and I were going punched in a number and spoke to someone, still looking to have a long talk—about us. Because I wanted the deat me. tective and he wanted me too—and I was tired of his Grayson finished his call and said something to Donomorals, his guilt about wanting to be with me, getting in van, who nodded back. Then the detective turned and the way of what we could have together.

  walked toward the entrance of the collapsed mine. He Even though I was thousands of feet away, Donovan didn’t even glance back at me.

  Caine somehow sensed my steady gaze, the way people And it fucking hurt.

  do when you stare at them long and hard enough. His Donovan turning his back on me hurt far worse than head turned right, then left, trying to find the source of anything Tobias Dawson had done to me in the coal his unease. He said something to Grayson and headed mine. or anything else I’d endured these last few hours. in my direction. Donovan kept looking right and left at But I didn’t have time to dwell on the detective’s harsh everyone he passed. I stepped farther out onto the edge reaction because of owen Grayson.

  of the ridge, so he could hopefully see me. The detective Grayson didn’t stay where he was, but he didn’t go back walked back through the mass of people and machines. either. Instead, he walked closer to me, glancing over his After a moment, owen Grayson followed him. Probably shoulder every once in a while to make sure no one was curious as to what the detective was up to. too interested in his whereabouts. He stopped close to Donovan Caine was halfway across the basin toward the bottom of the ridge where I stood, close enough now me when he stopped and finally looked up. our eyes met that I could see the grin that stretched across his features. and held over the distance. Gray on gold. owen Grayson Too bad the smile was on the face of the wrong man. reached his side and followed the detective’s line of sight. But what was even more curious was the fact Grayson He spotted me too. He actually smiled.

  started climbing up the ridge. I stepped away from the Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 364-365

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  edge and hobbled back into the clearing. I didn’t want his eyes. Admiration mixed with amusement. A look I’d anyone seeing me in my current state—or guessing where never seen in Donovan Caine’s golden gaze. I’d been. Let them think owen Grayson wanted a better

  “Did Donovan say anything else to you down in the view of the disaster I’d caused. But there was nothing I basin? Anything at all?”

  could do about Grayson now, so I sat down on the bare Grayson’s face shuttered. “Nothing important.”

  earth and leaned against a tree. Waiting.

  His voice was so kind, so pitying, it made me want to It didn’t take him long to climb up the ridge. He stab him with my walking stick. I hated being pitied. didn’t even bother to dust the mud and leaves off his

  “Donovan wasn’t happy to see me, was he? He thought jeans. Instead, he came straight to me and stopped, his I’d died in that mine with Tobias Dawson and the others, violet eyes flicking up and down my body, assessing my and he was happy about it. or at least relieved.” My heart injuries.

  twisted as I said the words, but I knew they were true.

  “You look like you’ve been to hell and back,” he murThat was the only way to explain the detective’s cold reacmured. tion to me. “He didn’t want me to be alive. Not really.”

  I almost managed a smile. “You might say that.”

  owen Grayson shrugged. “I don’t know what DetecGrayson took off his leather jacket and carefully draped tive Donovan Caine thinks or wants, but I consider him it over my chest. His scent drifted up to me—that rich, to be an enormous fool.”

  earthy aroma that made me think of metal.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Can I do anything for you?’ he asked. “The detective He stared at me. “Because he’s down there looking for asked me to call your fri
end Finnegan Lane. I had a rather Dawson, and I’m up here with you.”

  interesting conversation with him at Mab Monroe’s party I didn’t say anything. My emotions were too raw, too last night. I don’t think Mr. Lane believed me when I told fresh for that. owen Grayson opened his mouth again, him you were standing on the ridge above the coal mine. but the sound of a car engine cut him off. He got to his He called me a cruel, lying bastard, but he said he was feet.

  on his way. And that if I was lying, he’d beat me to death

  “I think your friend Finn is here,” he murmured. with his bare hands.”

  Grayson held out his hand to me, but I didn’t take it.

  “Finn was probably just upset. He tends to be emoInstead, I heaved myself to my feet, using my crude walktional in times of crisis.”

  ing stick for support.

  “And what do you do in times of crisis, Gin?” Grayson

  “You know you can lean on me if you need to.”

  asked.

  I shook my head. “No need. I’m fine.”

  I stared at him. “I survive.”

  Again that small smile quirked his lips. “I think your A grin spread across his face, and emotions flashed in definition of the word fine needs a serious overhaul.”

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  The sound of the engine grew louder. Whoever it was, they were in a hurry. A few seconds later, Finn’s Cadillac Escalade burst through the trees and skidded to a stop in front of us. The tires turned and threw mud all over me and owen Grayson. I grimaced. A final, messy insult on 33

  what had been one hell of a night.

  The SUV doors opened. Finnegan Lane stepped out first. His green eyes swept over me, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The other doors popped open, and Jo-Jo Deveraux got out of the car. So did Sophia. The three of them stood there by the vehicle just staring at me. Finn looked flabbergasted, overjoyed, and stunned at the same time. Jo-Jo had a thoughtful, knowing look in her pale eyes I didn’t like. And Sophia, well, the Goth dwarf was actually smiling at me—as much as she ever There was a lot of hugging and crying. Finn did most smiled at anyone.

  of the hugging, gently putting his arms around me and

  “Did you guys miss me?” I croaked.

  squeezing as tight as he dared. Jo-Jo did most of the crying. Tears ran down the dwarf’s face as though her eyes were the epicenter of a waterfall. They quickly overpowered her waterproof mascara. Sophia remained stoic as always.

  “How did you get out of that mountain?” Finn asked. His green eyes kept sweeping over my body as if he still wasn’t quite sure that I was alive.

  I opened my mouth to answer him when Jo-Jo cut me off.

  “Later,” the dwarf said. “Look at the poor girl. We need to get her back to Warren’s so I can start working on her. Right now. Sophia, if you will, please.”

  The Goth dwarf came over to me and scooped me up. Her touch was far gentler than I’d imagined it could be, Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 368-369

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  and she held me as though I were some delicate crystal the back of the Cadillac, and our eyes locked. Gray on statue she was afraid of breaking.

  violet. oh yes, I thought, staring through the tinted glass

  “I can walk,” I protested in a weak voice. “I’ve been at him.

  doing it all night and day.”

  owen Grayson was definitely someone worth watch“Which is why you’re going to rest now,” Jo-Jo said. ing.

  “You’re going to need your strength for when I start healing you. Because it ain’t going to feel good, darling. EspeFinn drove slowly, but it was still a bumpy ride down cially your face.”

  the access road. Every jar made my bones rattle together. Sophia strode over to the vehicle. Jo-Jo opened Now that I was among friends, I could let my guard the backdoor for her. owen Grayson walked over and down, let go of that cold, hard will I’d held on to for so stopped the Goth dwarf before she could set me inside. long. And it made everything hurt that much worse. I

  “I’d like to know how you got out of the mountain must have blacked out because the next thing I knew I too,” he said. “Maybe you’d like to tell me one night over was lying on top of the square counter in the front of the dinner.”

  Country Daze store.

  I thought of Donovan Caine and the way he’d turned

  “What are we doing in here?” I murmured, staring up his back on me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the detecthe ceiling fan spinning above my head. tive at the moment, much less someone new like owen Jo-Jo’s face hovered over mine. “Because when you colGrayson. But I thought of the way Grayson had looked lapsed the mountain, it created a gigantic sinkhole out at me—openly, directly, with no hint of judgment in his back. It’s already filled in with water. It hasn’t reached the violet eyes. “Perhaps.”

  house yet, but it might. So we brought you to the store

  “You have my number,” Grayson replied.

  where it was safer. Now, relax, Gin, as much as you can. I snorted. “oh yeah, I do.”

  Because this is going to hurt.”

  “I’ll be seeing you, Gin. Real soon, if I have my way.”

  Jo-Jo’s eyes flashed a brilliant white, and her Air power I wondered at the confident promise in his tone—and rolled off her like invisible waves. The dwarf put her hand the strange bit of eagerness it stirred in me. The thought against my forehead. The hot pain of her magic filled me, crossed my mind that maybe it would be . . . nice to be and I knew nothing more.

  chased, to just be . . . wanted, without any guilt or strings or morals attached. Either way, I knew I hadn’t seen the The next time I woke up, I was lying in a bed that wasn’t last of owen. Whatever his interest in me was, it wasn’t my own. I felt better, but bone-tired at the same time, going away anytime soon.

  which told me that my body was still recovering from He gave me another grin before Sophia put me into the trauma I’d been through and being blasted with JoEstep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 370-371

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  Jo’s healing Air magic. I shuddered to think how much

  “. . . can’t believe the amount of power she used, how the dwarf had had to use to put me back together again. much magic she was able to tap into.”

  But while I’d been unconscious, someone had bathed I stopped where I was in the hallway. Jo-Jo was talkand dressed me in a pair of oversize black sweatpants, a ing—about me.

  matching long-sleeved T-shirt, and thick socks.

  “I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t felt it,”

  I threw back the blanket on top of me, got to my feet, Warren T. Fox replied in his high, reedy voice. “Felt like and stumbled over to the dresser in the corner. I stared at the whole mountain was going to tear itself in two. Worse my reflection in the mirror. I looked the same as always, than an earthquake.”

  dark chocolate brown hair, gray eyes, light skin, a few

  “Gin’s only just now coming into the full extent of her freckles on my nose and cheeks. I wiggled my jaw. Perpower,” Jo-Jo replied. “She’s only going to get stronger.”

  fect as always, and all my loose tooth felt attached once

  “I’d hate to get on her bad side,” Warren muttered. more. However terrible I’d looked when I’d come out of I waited in the hallway, but the two of them didn’t the mountain, Jo-Jo Deveraux had healed me—all of me. say anything else. So I padded into the den where they I’d have to get Finn to give the dwarf a bonus for going were sitting. Both of them looked at me. Sophia and Finn above and beyond this time.

  were nowhere to be found, and Violet was probably still I opened the door to the bedroom and looked around. at Eva’s. The television flickered in front of Warren and I was upstairs in the Fo
xes’ house, from the look of all the Jo-Jo, showing scenes of the collapsed mine, although the pictures of Warren, Violet, and the rest of their family on sound was muted.

  the walls. I headed right and padded down a set of narrow

  “Feeling better?” Jo-Jo asked.

  stairs. I’d just stepped onto the landing when something I shrugged. “Some. I’m still tired, though.”

  shimmering outside through the window caught my eye.

  “You will be,” the dwarf replied. “It took me quite a The small creek that ran by the Foxes’s house and country long while to patch you up this time. Whatever you did store had turned into a large pond. It stretched out perhaps in that mine shaft, it took its toll on you.”

  a quarter of a mile, settled into a new dip in the ground. I didn’t respond. Instead, I looked at Warren. “I’m sure Probably right over the spot where the cavern with the you’ve guessed by now, but Tobias Dawson is dead. So are diamonds had been. The pond was another sign of how two of his giants. He won’t be bothering you anymore.”

  my magic had altered the landscape, of how I’d done this The old man nodded and rocked back and forth in his thing without even thinking about the consequences. recliner. “I figured as much.”

  “Fuck,” I whispered.

  “What happened down there, Gin?” Jo-Jo asked. “In I shook my head and went down the stairs. Soft voices the mine.”

  drifted out from the den, so that’s where I headed. I sat on the sofa and curled my feet up underneath my Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 372-373

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  body. “Dawson knocked me out at Mab Monroe’s party. Warren hit the remote, and the sound came on. He recognized my magic somehow. When I woke up, I

  “They’re saying it was an earthquake. That Dawson was in the mine with the dwarf and two of his giants. We and his men were doing a late-night inspection and got were in this cavern, this beautiful cavern. That’s where the trapped inside. They’re still digging for them, although diamonds were, hundreds of them set in the stone walls everybody knows he’s probably dead by now.”