Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

sure your friend wants to see giving turkey.”
    how you are.”
    Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 12-13
    12/17/09 9:32 PM
    14 JENNIFER ESTEP
    Web of Lies 15
    “Cassidy!” the other woman called out since Sophia wanted the cops, you called them yourself. You certainly still wasn’t letting her go. “Are you all right?”
    didn’t depend on the kindness of strangers to do it. Not Her friend’s voice penetrated Cassidy’s fearful daze. in Ashland.
    She sighed and nodded her head. The girl reached out, I frowned. Cops. Just what I needed. Some of Ashand I grabbed her trembling hand. Cassidy’s fingers felt land’s finest getting an eyeful of me, the former assassin, like thin, fragile icicles against the thick scar embedded in a Goth dwarf who liked to dispose of dead bodies in her my palm. I tugged the girl to her feet. She eyed me with spare time, and the two guys we’d so easily dispatched. understandable caution, so I kept my movements slow Not the kind of attention I wanted to draw to myself, and small, not wanting to startle her.
    even if I was retired. Nothing I could do about it now,
    “I’m fine, Eva,” Cassidy said in a low voice. “Just a though.
    little shook up is all.”
    Sophia went back to the stove to check on her baked Sophia let go of the other woman, and I stepped back. beans. Eva spoke in a low voice to someone on her phone. Eva rushed forward and caught her friend in a tight hug. Cassidy finished her 911 call and sank into the nearest Cassidy wrapped her arms around the other women, and chair.
    the two of them rocked back and forth in the middle of The girl stared at Jake on the floor; then her brown the restaurant.
    eyes flicked to the bloody knife. Her lower lip quivered, I walked over to Sophia, who was watching the two her eyes grew glossy, and her hands trembled. Trying to women with a flat expression on her pale face. hold back the tears. Something else I’d had to do, once.
    “Friendship. Ain’t it a beautiful thing?” I quipped. I walked over to the counter and picked up a glass cake
    “Hmph.” Sophia grunted again.
    plate filled with the black forest cookies I’d baked this But the corners of the Goth dwarf’s lips turned up into morning.
    a tiny smile.
    “Here.” I took the top off and held the plate out to The two girls hugged a minute longer before Eva her. “Have a cookie. They’ve got plenty of sugar and butpulled a cell phone out of her jeans. ter and chocolate in them. They’ll help with the shakes.”
    “You call the cops,” Eva told her friend. “I need to let Cassidy gave me a wan smile, took one of the chocoowen know I’m okay. You know how he is. He’ll freak late treats, and bit into the concoction. The bittersweet when he finds out about this.”
    chocolate melted in her mouth, and her eyes brightened Cassidy nodded her head in sympathetic agreement with pleasure instead of worry.
    and pulled her own phone out of her jeans. The two Eva finished her call and sat down next to her friend. women started dialing numbers, instead of asking me, the Her hands didn’t tremble as she snapped her phone shut, restaurant owner, to do it for them. Not surprising. If you and she looked at Jake with a thoughtful expression. The Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 14-15
    12/17/09 9:32 PM
    16 JENNIFER ESTEP
    only sign anything had happened to Eva was a red welt on her cheek, where her face had smacked into the floor. The girl had a level head on her shoulders and a firm grip on her emotions. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t crash later.
    2
    I held the plate out to her. “You too.”
    Eva took a cookie, broke it in two, and stuffed half of it into her mouth. Not shy, either.
    I also plucked one of the chocolate treats off the stack. Not because I had shaky nerves, but because they were damn good cookies. I’d made them myself, and I was just as good a cook as I had been an assassin.
    I looked at the two unconscious men on the floor. Lance lay spread-eagled next to one of the booths where Sophia had dropped him. Blood continued to drip from A couple of uniformed patrol officers showed up twenty the cuts on Jake’s throat and temple, staining the floor a minutes later. Late, as usual. If we’d really needed them, rusty brown.
    our bodies would have been getting cold and sticky on I grabbed another cookie off the plate and watched the floor. The cops barreled through the front door and him bleed.
    stopped, surprised by the calm scene.
    Eva and Cassidy sat in their