So I concentrated, and a dim silver light flashed, flickered, and finally flared to life in the palm of my hand, centered on the spider rune scar there. It took me a minute, but I managed to bring enough magic to bear to form two small, slender shapes: Ice picks. Why carry around a set of lock picks when you could make your own?

I slid my glove back on and went to work on the lock with the Ice picks. Less than a minute later, the tumblers fell into place, and the door snicked open. I dropped the picks onto the gravel, where they would soon melt away, given the warm, muggy night. Then I drew in a breath, stepped inside, and quietly closed and locked the door behind me.

I stood at the end of a long hallway that stretched for about fifty feet before splitting off left and right. I paused again, looking and listening, but I didn’t hear any heavy footsteps from the guard stationed out front coming in this direction. No rustles of clothing, no creak of another door opening, and nothing else to indicate that someone had seen me approach and enter the building and was headed this way. That was another reason I’d decided to do the hit here: the lack of security cameras. Oh, a couple of cameras were trained on the compound entrance, out where the guards were sitting in their shack, but there was none at all inside the offices, which meant that there was no chance of anyone seeing or recording what I was here to do.

So I pushed away from the door and headed toward my ultimate destination: Cesar Vaughn’s office.

According to everything I’d read and observed about him, Vaughn wasn’t the sort of man who went in for a lot of frills, so the building was solid but bare. White paint covered the ceiling, and thick Persian carpets stretched across the floors, but that was it. No art decorated the walls, no sculptures sat in the corners, no potted plants perched in the windows. This building was about business and business only. I couldn’t decide if I liked it or not.

I moved quickly and quietly through the hallways, gliding from one part of the structure to the next. I glanced into every room that I crept by, but all of the offices were dark. For a moment, I wondered what Sebastian was doing tonight, if he’d found another girl to spend the evening with since I’d turned him down, but I pushed away the pang of longing that rippled through me. Finn and Fletcher were right. I should forget all about Sebastian, because he was certainly going to do that to me. Besides, I needed to focus on the job at hand, not daydream like some silly, simpering girl who’d never been on a date before.

I crept up to the end of the hallway that I was skulking along and peered around the corner. Vaughn’s office stood at the far end of the next corridor over. The door was closed, but he was in there. Light leaked out from under the door, highlighting the gold threads in the carpet in front of it, and I could hear the faint tap-tap-tap of his fingers on his keyboard. I felt safe enough to ease over to his office door.

Then I waited.

A minute passed, then another one, but those tap-tap-taps kept up a soft, steady rhythm, as Vaughn typed out whatever report, e-mail, or other work he needed to finish. I drew in a breath and reached for the knob to see if the door was locked—

A phone in the office rang, making me freeze and momentarily interrupting Vaughn. A faint murmur sounded as he picked it up and spoke to whoever was on the other end of the line.

I bit my lip, hating the delay, but I couldn’t exactly murder him while he was talking on the phone. So I drew in another breath, thought of Charlotte, and palmed one of my silverstone knives. The familiar weight of the weapon steadied me, centered me, and prepared me for what was to come next: the death of Cesar Vaughn.

I started to reach for the knob again, but the handle started turning on its own. Too late, I realized that I couldn’t hear Vaughn talking or typing anymore. I bit back a vicious curse, because I’d made such a simple, rookie mistake. I’d been too cautious, too slow, and I’d waited too long to strike. Now he was leaving his office, for whatever reason.

And I had nowhere to go.

Oh, I could have rammed my knife into Vaughn’s back the second he stepped through the doorway, but that wasn’t my plan. No, I needed him to be in his office before I attacked, firmly out of earshot of the guard at the front desk on the far side of the building. If I tried to take him out here in the hallway, he might scream and bring the guard running. The chance of that happening was small, but I didn’t want to risk it, not when I’d already screwed up my approach. No, I couldn’t kill Vaughn now, not unless there was no other choice.

My eyes darted left and right, even though there was nothing to see. The hallway was too long for me to have any hope of sprinting down it and disappearing around the corner before Vaughn stepped out of his office. That left me with only one option.

The door opened outward, and I darted behind it and plastered myself to the wall there, hoping that Vaughn wouldn’t shove the heavy wood open as wide as it would go and that he wouldn’t stop to close the door behind him.

But Vaughn was in a hurry, and he merely pushed the door open and started moving down the corridor at a fast clip. I caught the wood right before it slammed into my face, then eased to one side so I could peek out from behind the edge of the door.

Vaughn never looked back. He thought that he was all alone, which made his sudden departure more puzzling. It wasn’t like he was strolling to another office to check in with one of his workers, and I didn’t think that he was leaving the building for good. Otherwise, he would have taken the time to turn off his office lights and grab the briefcase that he always carried. I hesitated, wondering where he was heading and why he’d picked such an inconvenient time to go there. Maybe it had something to do with the call he’d received.

I had no choice but to follow him. For all I knew, Vaughn was, in fact, rushing home for the night, and I wasn’t about to let him get anywhere near Charlotte again. Not after I’d seen that dark, haunted look in her eyes today at the Pork Pit. I wanted to kill Vaughn in his office in order to minimize the noise and maximize my getaway time, but if I had to improvise and take him out elsewhere, so be it.

Vaughn rounded the corner of the hallway and stepped out of sight. I pushed the door away from the wall, slipped out from behind it, and hurried after him.

10

To my surprise, instead of heading toward the front of the building to speak with the guard, Vaughn made his way to the loading dock, stepping out of the same door that I’d Ice-picked open earlier. I was glad that I’d remembered to lock it behind me. Vaughn threw the lock, turned the knob, and went outside, disappearing from view again.

I bit back another curse, wondering where he was going and how many more ways I could mess up such an easy assignment. Vaughn should have been bleeding out on the floor of his office by now, not traipsing around like he didn’t have a care in the world. Maybe Fletcher was right to keep looking over my shoulder. I hadn’t exactly been the smooth, suave assassin so far tonight.

Determined to finish this, I hurried over to the door, which was cracked open a couple of inches from where Vaughn had forgotten to pull it shut behind him. I plastered my back against the wall, then crouched down and tipped my head forward so I could peer through the opening between the door and the frame.

Vaughn stood about ten feet away, pacing back and forth across the loading dock.

I frowned. He wasn’t a smoker, so this wasn’t some cigarette break. So what was he doing?

I got my answer two minutes later, when a car rounded the corner of the building. It was an older navy sedan, big, stout, square, and worn, the sort of car that criminals recognized the world over. A cop car if ever I’d seen one. One of the guards at the shack must have called Vaughn to let him know that he had a visitor.

The sedan rolled to a stop, and a man got out, carrying a thick, overstuffed manila folder. In contrast to Vaughn’s business suit, the other man was dressed down in khakis, scuffed brown boots, and a loose white cotton shirt patterned with bright pink, garish roses. A straw hat perched on his head, hiding much of his dark brown hair, although he tipped the hat back on his forehead so he could get a better view of his surroundings. His pale eyes flicked over the compound, his gaze cool and assessing as it went from the construction equipment to the outbuildings to Vaughn standing on the loading dock. Oh, yeah. If he wasn’t a cop, I’d eat one of my own knives—point first.

Great. Now my mistakes were starting to multiply exponentially. Because not only did Vaughn have a visitor, which meant that I couldn’t kill him right now, but that visitor also happened to be a cop. Fletcher was going to love this. He wouldn’t come right out and say “I told you so,” but he’d definitely be thinking it.

Still, I held my position, trying to think things through and see how everything played out. Why was Vaughn meeting with a cop after hours? As far as Fletcher had been able to determine, Vaughn didn’t have anything illegal cooking with the po-po, other than a few necessary bribes. But Fletcher had said that there was something about this job that felt slightly off. Maybe Vaughn having a cop on his payroll on the sly was it. Cops in Ashland didn’t like their meal tickets being murdered. That was one of the few things that would prompt a thorough, comprehensive investigation into someone’s death. In those cases, the cops were all too eager to find whoever had cut off their cash flow and punish them accordingly.

I studied the cop some more, but I didn’t recognize him. Maybe Fletcher would know who he was when I described him. In addition to all of the criminals in town, the old man also kept tabs on the inner workings of the police department, including who was moving up, who was on his or her way down, and who was getting pushed aside in terms of power, prestige, and position.

The cop tromped up the steps to the loading dock. Vaughn stepped forward, and the two men shook hands.

“Nice shirt, Harry,” Vaughn said.

Harry, the cop, grimaced. “A birthday present from my daughter. You know how much she likes roses.”

Vaughn smiled. “I remember. How did she like the snow globe that Charlotte sent her for her birthday?”

“She loved it,” Harry replied. “Especially since it was full of pink glitter. Naturally, pink is her favorite color right now. She’s still talking about it. She’s looking forward to the party and seeing Charlotte again.”

Vaughn nodded. Among all the info that Fletcher had uncovered, he’d learned that Vaughn planned to throw a huge party in a few weeks in honor of his and Charlotte’s birthday, which was on the same day. Friends, distant relatives, business associates. Vaughn had invited practically everyone he knew to his party, and he was going all out with the food and decorations, according to Fletcher.

Too bad Vaughn himself wasn’t going to make it to the big celebration.

Vaughn nodded again. “Good. I’m sure Charlotte will be happy to see her.”

The two men fell silent, although Vaughn couldn’t quit looking at the folder in the cop’s hand. I wondered what secrets it contained that were so important. Finally, Vaughn sighed and jerked his head at the folder.

“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what you found out.”

Harry hesitated, and sympathy filled his face, momentarily softening his flat cop stare. “Maybe you should read through the file first. Then we can talk about things.”

Vaughn kept staring at the folder. “So it’s as bad as I feared, then.”

“Worse, actually. All of your suspicions were correct.”

“You’re sure?”

Harry nodded. “I’ve been over all of it. Witness statements, building manifests, material logs, work orders. I even had a Stone elemental I know come in and take a look at the actual crime scene, including the rubble that was cleared away. He agreed with your assessment. You were right about what happened.”

Crime scene? He must have been talking about the terrace collapse at the restaurant. The one that had so many people screaming for Vaughn’s blood and money. He must have gotten his cop buddy to look into the accident—only it sounded like Vaughn thought that it hadn’t been an accident after all.

“Dammit.” Vaughn pinched the bridge of his nose, as though he suddenly had a headache.

I frowned, wondering what suspicions the cop had confirmed and why the knowledge upset Vaughn so greatly. But it didn’t much matter. All that did was making sure that Vaughn got dead. That was what I was here for; that was my assignment, my job. Nothing else. No matter how much curiosity that file raised in me.

Vaughn dropped his hand from his face and composed himself. Harry gave him the file. Vaughn sighed and slowly hefted the folder in his hand, as though it weighed as much as one of the cinder blocks out in the compound.

“Thank you for looking into this for me,” Vaughn said, reaching out and shaking the other man’s hand again. “You were the only one I could trust.”

Harry gave him a thin smile. “What? You mean you put more stock in an old, washed-up cop from Blue Marsh than in Ashland’s finest?”

Blue Marsh? I’d never heard of it, but the quirky name sounded like some sort of small town. I made a mental note to ask Fletcher where it was later.

Vaughn barked out a harsh, bitter laugh. “You know what the cops around here are like as well as I do.”

Harry nodded his agreement, then looked at his friend again. “So what are you going to do?”

This time, Vaughn stared at the file in his hand as though it were a poisonous snake, one that was about to bite him. His lips curled with disgust. “What I have to. I have to make this right, no matter what it costs me.”

Harry nodded again and clapped him on the shoulder. “Take care, Cesar. I’ll see you at the party. If you need my help in the meantime, just let me know.”

Vaughn nodded back, and the two men shook hands a final time. A bit of hope flared in my chest that maybe I could still go through with the job after all, hope that intensified when Harry got into his car, turned it around, and drove off toward the front gate. Vaughn watched his friend leave. Then he sighed, and his shoulders slumped, as though a load of bricks had been set on them. He turned toward the door—the one I was still hiding behind.