Jennifer Estep - Web of Lies

Then I yanked open the door and stepped outside.

I stood by the front door a few seconds, my eyes scanning the block again. Nothing. No runners, no parked cars, no flash of light from a rifle scope in the window across the street.

After another thirty seconds, when no more bullets zipped through the air, the people who’d been on the street when the shooting started slowly raised their heads.

One by one, they eased out from behind the parked cars and metal mailboxes that they’d ducked behind, got to their feet, and hurried on about their business.

Since the gunman hadn’t taken the easy shot I’d offered him, I marched across the street to the apartment building, an older structure with small, dingy windows and chipped façade that hadn’t been upgraded or renovated since it had been built forty years ago. I pressed my hand against the stone that framed the entrance, listening to the murmur of the cold, wet brick underneath my bare fingers. A mishmash of emotions greeted me. Childish shrieks of glee. Older, adult grumbles. Sharp, worried murmurs. A babble of English and Spanish. It all added up to the noises of a typical apartment building. Nothing unusual so far.

Older buildings often lacked good security features, and this one was no different. There wasn’t even a lock on the glass door to keep out the homeless stragglers. The door led to a small hallway with stairs branching off either side, and an elevator lying at the end. I headed up the west stairs, staying to the shadows. The building smelled like bleach mixed with garlic and urine.

I reached the second-floor landing and another empty hallway. The walk across the street and up the stairs had cooled my anger. My skin might be as hard as stone, but all it took was one moment, one waver, one second I let my magic slip to get dead. Fletcher Lane had drilled that into me. Jake McAllister might be a punk, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get lucky and kill me. I wasn’t going to give him that chance, so I paused to listen and evaluate.

Muted quiet. Most of the building’s tenants were out working at their day jobs, trying to come up with enough cash for next month’s rent. My fingers tightened around the knives in my hands, and I crept forward. Since he hadn’t taken a shot at me when I’d crossed the street, there was a very slim chance Jake McAllister was still in the apartment. But I continued to move cautiously, quietly.

Three apartments on this floor faced the street. I tiptoed past the first two doors to the third one — the one I wanted.

I paused in front of the beige-painted door, waiting and listening. More silence. I put my hand on the stone that framed the door, but its murmur was low and muted.

Nobody lived here, judging from the lack of emotions and vibrations, which was probably why Jake McAllister had picked this apartment to fire from.

I closed my hand around the knob. The cold metal tickled the spider rune scar on my palm. The knob turned, and the door opened.

I nudged the door inward with my boot, careful to stay to one side of the door frame. It didn’t even creak as it swung open. I stayed in the hall and waited, counting off the seconds in my head. Ten… twenty… thirty… Noises from the other apartments farther down the hall leaked out to me. A television blaring out some children’s cartoon. Another one tuned to a soap opera. A couple arguing about Ralph drinking too much and getting fired from his latest job.

I stayed outside three minutes. Empty. The apartment was empty. If Jake McAllister had been inside to see or hear the door open, he would have come out to investigate by now. Most people weren’t good at waiting. They moved too soon, too quickly, and then they got dead.

A minute was enough to unnerve most people. Three, enough to drive all but the most consummate professional assassin crazy with adrenaline. Even I didn’t like waiting three minutes for something to happen. But there was a reason Fletcher had dubbed me the Spider — because I could be infinitely patient. Because I had that internal restraint. Because I could wait those long, long three minutes, if it meant getting to my target — or not becoming one myself.

I slipped inside the apartment and closed the door behind me.

It was a small space, divided up into even smaller rooms that reminded me of a rat’s maze. Knives in hands, I slipped from one room to the next, checking them all with extreme caution and care.

Empty. The place was totally empty.

No furniture, no appliances, not even a couple of fastfood wrappers crumpled and discarded on the linoleum floor. It didn’t even smell of anything except the cold rain gusting in through the open window. Not bleach, not food, nothing. I frowned. Not what I’d expected. Jake McAllister didn’t strike me as a patient person — much less the kind to pick up after himself. If the Fire elemental had been up here for any length of time, there should have been some evidence of it. Beer cans, cigarettes, an empty soda bottle, some candy bar wrappers. Instead, there was nothing. I didn’t even see any roach traps hidden in 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.

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?