Web of Lies (Page 62)

Jake McAllister was quicker than I’d given him credit for – or just more pissed off. Only forty-five seconds passed before he charged into the room.

"Where are you, bitch?" he growled. "I saw you come in here."

I didn’t respond. Let McAllister figure it out for himself.

"Hiding from me, huh, bitch?" he laughed. "I knew you’d be running scared of me sooner or later."

I rolled my eyes at his foolish assumption, but still I waited. Heavy footsteps sounded on the tile floor. McAllister’s shadow crept closer and closer to my hiding place.

I tensed, gathering my strength. If he got away from me, if he screamed, it was over. I had to kill him with the first strike.

Jake McAllister threw back the shower curtain I was standing behind. The Fire elemental had reached for his magic during his lumber down the hall. The power reddened his eyes, and sparks snapped and hissed around his fat fingertips. His gaze met mine, and he smiled.

"There you are, bitch – "

Last words he ever said.

With one hand, I grabbed McAllister’s tuxedo jacket and pulled him forward, so that his torso was directly above the bathtub I was standing in. With my other hand, I shoved my silverstone knife up to the hilt in his chest.

The blade scraped his ribs before plunging into his heart.

Not the best blow I’d ever made, but effective enough.

Jake McAllister’s magic snuffed out like a candle in a hurricane. The fiery sparks puffed away, and the red glow vanished from his eyes. His arms jerked and flailed against me, connecting with my chest. I grunted at the heavy, solid blows, but I didn’t dare reach for my Stone magic to harden my own skin. Any elemental in close vicinity would sense the power surge. Stones were the rarest of elementals, and any magic user who felt that kind of power would be curious about who was using it and why.

Jake opened his mouth to scream. I left the knife where it was in his heart, clamped my hand over his fat lips, and yanked him forward so the blood gushing out of his chest would fall into the bathtub and not spatter onto the tile floor. And so we stood there, seesawing back and forth over the tub, Jake McAllister trying to jerk away, and me pulling him closer, my hands digging into his face.

After about thirty seconds, Jake’s legs wobbled and gave way. His eyes glazed over, and his mouth slackened underneath my hand. I dropped my fingers from his lips.

Jake coughed twice. Blood sputtered out of his lips and flecked the front of my dress. Nothing I could do about that right now. So I put both hands on his suit jacket and dragged him forward. He was heavy, and it took some muscle to flip his legs up and over the side of the tub and then to lower his whole body down the steps and into the bottom without letting him thump down. By the time I was done, Jake McAllister was dead, and I was a sweaty, bloody mess.

First things first. I shut the bathroom door. Then I went back over to Jake McAllister. The bathtub was the fancy marble kind that was more like a small pool than a tub and sat on a raised dais. A couple of steps led up to the rim, and several more led down into the square pool.

I got down into the bottom with Jake. The first thing I did was to retrieve my knife from his chest and lay it on the edge of the tub. Then I maneuvered him so his back was facing the rest of the room. I curled his hands under head and splayed out his legs to make it look as though he’d had too much to drink and had crawled into the tub to sleep it off. At least at first glance. If someone turned Jake over, they’d see the blood on his shirt and in the bottom of the tub. But hopefully, I’d be long gone by the time that happened.

Once that was done, I climbed out and assessed the damage. The tub also featured several shower heads which were set into the walls at various angles, hence the curtain that cordoned the area off from the rest of the bathroom.

The shower curtain was a rich burgundy flecked with gold – and now blood. But unless you peered closely at it, you wouldn’t realize the spatter wasn’t part of the intended pattern.

Some of Jake’s blood had also sprayed onto the marble tile in front of the tub. I grabbed a burgundy washcloth, wet it, and used it to mop up all the stray flecks and specks. I also cleaned off my knife and tucked it back up the sleeve of my dress. The smell of warm copper filled my nose, but I blocked it out – along with the murmur of the marble under my feet. Instead of the dark tone I’d expected, the stone practically sang with giddiness – as though having fresh blood spilled on it made it happy.

The noise made my stomach twist.

I worked quickly, quietly. It had taken me less than two minutes to kill Jake McAllister. Nobody should have missed him yet, but I wasn’t taking any chances by moving slowly. Once I had the blood wiped up from the floor in front of the tub, I drew the curtain, hiding it and McAllister’s body from sight.

In addition to the tub, the bathroom featured two toilets made out of what looked like real gold. They lay opposite two sinks done in a burgundy marble with streaks of white swirled through it. A gilt-edged mirror flanked the wall above the counter. I stared at myself in the glass, assessing the damage Jake McAllister had done to me with his dying struggles. The bastard’s coughing had spattered blood all over my chest. I used the wet washcloth to mop up the blood on my exposed skin, then wrung it out, wet it again, and scrubbed the remaining blood out of my wig. It was harder getting the gobs of blood out of the fake blond tresses, but I managed well enough.

Once that was done, I went to work on my dress. I used some liquid soap from a bottle on the counter and rubbed it into the biggest blood splotches. Since the fabric was black, you couldn’t tell what the stain was, just that I’d gotten something on me. But I managed to get most of the blood out.

My eyes swept over the bathroom again, but there was no visible sign anything out of the ordinary had happened in here tonight. I carefully folded the burgundy washcloth and laid it back in its original spot next to the bathtub.

While I waited for the damp spots on my dress to dry, I rummaged in my purse and pulled out a pressed powder compact I’d brought, along with some lipstick. I’d gotten sweaty during my struggle with Jake McAllister, and I touched up my makeup into its heavy mask once more.

I’d just popped open the lipstick to finish fixing my face when the door to the bathroom opened – and Mab Monroe stepped inside.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

For a moment, we just stared at each other, her black eyes on my faux blue ones. My mind raced as I tried to figure out what the Fire elemental could be doing here – and how I could get away from her.

But since Mab Monroe didn’t immediately scream for her giant guards or worse, reach for her Fire elemental magic, I assumed she hadn’t heard me kill Jake McAllister – or clean up the mess. Only one way to find out.