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.
“What about Caine? Think he’ll take you up on your offer to trade information?” Finn crunched a carrot between his teeth.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It depends on what he wants more — me dead for killing his partner or to find out who really murdered Giles and which one of his fellow esteemed boys in blue is helping her. My money’s on the second one. Caine already thinks I’m a monster. He’ll want to go after the other two — the ones he doesn’t know.”