Web of Lies (Page 21)

The dwarf thump-thumped under the truck’s massive, oversize wheels. But Finn wasn’t finished. He put the truck in reverse and backed over the dwarf. He went back and forth over the man three more times before I held my hand up, signaling him to stop. Finn pulled the truck forward.

He stayed inside the cab, waiting to see if I needed him again. I picked up my dropped knives and walked across the pavement to the dwarf.

The wheels had flattened out the man’s thick, strong, compact body until now it resembled a fleshy, bloody pancake that had been pressed into the asphalt. Greasy black tire tracks covered his torso, and his arms and legs lay by his sides, crushed and useless. But Finn hadn’t hit his head, and the dwarf was still alive. His blue eyes burned with pain and hate as he watched me come closer.

"Want to tell me who you’re working for before I kill you?" I said.

The dwarf spat blood on my jeans.

"I’ll take that as a no."

I leaned down and cut his throat. His eyes bulged, and he gurgled once, twice, three times before his head lolled to the side and the light leaked out of his irises. I gave him a minute to bleed out, then put my fingers against his lacerated neck to make sure. No pulse. As dead as dead could be. I wiped off my bloody hand on my jeans and gestured at Finn.

Finn killed the engine, got out of the truck, and walked back to me. His green eyes flicked to the dwarf ‘s body. "You still had to cut his throat? Tough little bugger, wasn’t he?"

"He’s a dwarf," I replied. "They usually are. Now, give me your cell phone."

Finn dug into his jacket pocket and handed me a slim, silver phone. I used it to snap a picture of the dwarf ‘s frozen face, along with the tattoo on his bicep, the one that resembled a lit stick of dy***ite. It had been flattened by the truck tires, but there was still enough flesh there to get an idea of the original shape of the rune. I handed the phone back to Finn, then stuck my hand into the dwarf ‘s front pockets. No wallet, no money, no ID. Probably in his back pocket, but I wasn’t going to peel him up off the pavement to look for them. Messier than I wanted to get tonight.

"Get the car," I told Finn. "We need to take the girl to Jo-Jo’s."

Finn nodded and trotted off to retrieve his Aston Martin.

I walked over to Violet.

Sometime during my fight with the dwarf, Violet Fox had slid off the hood of the pickup. She sat propped up against the tire. Her fingers were stuck in her purse, as though she was trying to get her cell phone out to call the cops. I crouched down until I was eye level with her.

"You’re safe now," I said in a soft voice. "He’s not going to hurt you anymore."

Violet Fox’s face was a mess. Her nose had been pushed halfway across her face, while her jaw reached out in the other direction. Her skin looked like putty that had been stretched to the breaking point over her distorted features.

Blood covered the bottom half of her ruined face like a mask, and thick drops of it slid down her neck, staining her coat. Her glasses had been snapped in two in the middle. The glasses were still hooked around her ears, but the two halves dangled like earrings against her bloody cheeks.

Pain filled her brown eyes, and for a moment, I didn’t think she’d heard me. But Violet turned her head and stared at me. She squinted, and recognition flickered in her dull gaze.

"You…" she mumbled.

"Don’t try to talk, sweetheart," I said. "We’re going to get you patched up, and then you can tell us all about why somebody wants you dead and how you know about the Tin Man. Okay?"

Violet Fox didn’t answer me. She’d already passed out.

Finn brought the car over, and we stuffed Violet Fox into the backseat. I took her broken glasses off her face and passed them to Finn for safekeeping. Then I used one of my knives to cut a strip off the bottom of my long-sleeved T-shirt. I wound the cotton around the girl’s face to catch the blood oozing out of her broken nose. She didn’t stir.

"She’s going to bleed all over the backseat," Finn muttered.

"Do you know how much I paid for this car?"

"Too much," I said. "And don’t worry about your precious leather seats. I’m sure Sophia can get the blood out."

"You going to call her to get rid of the dwarf ‘s body?"

Finn asked.

"Of course. Don’t want to scare the coeds by leaving Pancake where he is and having them drive over him in the morning."

I grabbed Finn’s cell phone again and hit 7 on the speed dial. Three rings later, she picked up.

"Hmph?" Sophia Deveraux let out her usual grunt of a greeting. The dwarf didn’t like to strain her vocal cords with things like conversation.

"It’s Gin. There’s something you might find interesting over in one of the parking lots near Ashland Community College."

"Hmm." Her interested grunt.

I waited a moment to see if she’d say anything.

"Number?" Sophia asked, referring to the number of bodies I wanted her to come dispose of.

The Goth dwarf ‘s voice came out in a harsh rasp, like she’d spent the last fifty years chain smoking and knocking back jugs of mountain moonshine. I didn’t know why Sophia’s voice was the way it was, especially since I’d never seen the dwarf light up or drink anything stronger than iced tea. Another mystery I wasn’t sure I wanted to solve. Because I had a feeling that there was something real bad in Sophia’s past. Some sort of horrific accident, trauma, or even torture. Those were the only things that I could think of that would so completely ruin her vocal cords.

I also wondered why Jo-Jo had never healed her sister.

Maybe she’d wanted to and Sophia wouldn’t let her.

Maybe it had just been too late by the time Jo-Jo had reached her. Whatever it was, whatever had happened to the Goth dwarf, I knew that it couldn’t be good.

"Only one, but you might have a little trouble scraping him up off the ground," I replied. "There was a very large truck involved. Think you can handle it?"

"Hmph." Sophia’s grunt was more guttural this time.

I’d offended her.

"Well, I have faith in you," I replied in a breezy tone.

"Are you at Jo-Jo’s?"

"Um-mmm." That was a yes.

"Tell her to get ready. Finn and I are bringing over someone who needs her help. Badly. We’ll be there in a few minutes."

Sophia hung up without another word. I did the same.

Finn drove out of the parking lot. He took great care to steer his car around the dwarf ‘s smushed body.

"You could just run over him," I said. "He’s already dead, and it’s not like you haven’t done it before."

"Yeah, but I don’t want bloody bits of dwarf stuck in my wheels for the next two weeks." Finn sniffed. "This is an Aston Martin, Gin. You don’t run over dead bodies in an Aston Martin."