Jennifer Estep Elemental Assassin 02 Web of Lies

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the corners.
I dropped my Stone magic and let my skin revert back to its normal texture. Then, I moved to the back
of the apartment and the open window where the shooter had been when he d fired into the Pork Pit.
Again, there was nothing. No cups, no wrappers, no evidence anyone had been inside the apartment
today or anytime in the recent past. I peered under the window.
He d even policed his brass, picking up the spent shell casings from the bullets he d fired. Again, not
something I would expect from a reckless, twitchy, Fire elemental hothead like Jake McAllister.
Dingy exposed brick outlined the window, and I pressed my hand against it. The uneven stone bit into
my palm, and I closed my eyes and reached for my magic again, letting the cool power flow through me,
attuning myself to the smallest vibrations embedded in the brick.
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Nothing. Just calm. I concentrated, going deeper and deeper into the stone, until it felt like a part of me.
A natural extension of myself I could examine and analyze the way I might my own fingernails. I felt more
calm and& the sense of someone waiting. Not particularly bored, but not excited either. Just waiting&
for the right moment to come along. An emotion, an action, I knew all too well.
My frown deepened. I opened my eyes, dropped my hand, and stepped away from the brick. I looked
at the room again with a more critical eye, putting all the facts together.
There was nothing in the apartment, no trash, no shell casings, no emotions, because Jake McAllister
hadn t been here. He wasn t smart enough, wasn t calm enough for this sort of action. This this was the
work of a professional.
An assassin, just like me.
My gray eyes narrowed. So Jake, or more likely Jonah McAllister, had hired a big boy to clean up his
son s mess.
Now I was really annoyed.
But still& I couldn t shake the feeling I was missing something. Something important. Vital. Obvious.
My reading, my sense, of the vibrations in the stone was correct. I knew it was. Even from an early age,
I d been able to hear the stone murmuring to me, and my power to understand and interpret it had only
sharpened and strengthened over time. And would continue to do so until I died, hopefully at the ripe age
of a hundred and fifty or so.
From the vibrations I d picked up, the shooter had been waiting the better part of an hour. Maybe
longer.
Sophia came in early, usually by nine, to start baking the day s bread. I usually showed up around ten,
and the restaurant officially opened for business at eleven. But the shots hadn t been fired until almost
noon.
Why? Why had the assassin waited so long? I d been moving through the restaurant all morning.
Cooking, cleaning, wiping off the tables and booths, flipping the sign on the front door over to Open. He
could have taken me out at any time during the morning. So why hadn t he taken a shot before
lunchtime? Why then?
I went back over the shooting in my mind. I d been standing behind the counter when the shots had been
fired. A tough shot to make, even for a professional assassin, no matter how good with a gun he was.
Maybe he d wanted an audience when he killed me. Maybe that s why he d waited. Finn had been in the
restaurant, standing off to my left. The girl had been there too, more or less in front of me
And I realized what I d been missing. The shooter, the assassin, hadn t been firing at me.
He d been aiming at the girl.
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6
The girl, Violet. The shooter had been aiming at her, not me.
That was the only thing that made sense. The assassin could have shot me any time I d been close to the
storefront windows. But he hadn t. Instead, he d sat in this apartment for almost an hour, waiting for her.
She d been sitting in a booth in the back, out of sight of the storefront windows, so he d had to wait for
her to finish her lunch. When she d paid and started for the front door, that s when he d taken his shot.
My mind processed the information and moved on to the next question. Why shoot her inside the
restaurant?
Why not wait for her to step outside onto the street? Why not just do her in some back alley?
The answer came to me. The robbery. The assassin must have seen the story in the newspaper about the
botched robbery at the Pork Pit.
Maybe the assassin had realized that if he took out the girl in the restaurant, there was a good chance her
death would be connected to Jake McAllister and the robbery last night. No doubt the cops would have [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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