AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Not much," Finn admitted. "A couple of trucks brought some more supplies in a few minutes ago, and there were just too many men roaming around for me to get very far into the rail yard. But I did see LaFleur step into that car over there. The one past the depot. "
He pointed it out to me. The car was almost in the exact center of the train yard, with people moving back and forth all around it. Of course, Elektra LaFleur had gone where it would be the hardest to get close to her without being seen.
I let out a soft curse. "Why couldn't she pick a nice, dark, quiet, deserted spot to do her evil machinations in?"
"Because she's an arrogant bitch and her main goal in life is to frustrate you before she kills you," Finn quipped.
I gave him a sour look, but Finn just flashed me another grin. After a moment, though, the smile dropped from his face, and he was serious once more.
"What do you want to do, Gin?" Finn said. "Going after LaFleur down there will be risky. I'm not so sure it's worth it-especially since I haven't seen any sign of Natasha. No one standing guard, nobody carrying food anywhere, nothing. "
I sighed. I'd hoped by now that Finn would have found some indication that the little girl was still alive. But regardless, I knew what I had to do.
"I know," I said in a low voice. "I know that I'm taking a big risk here tonight. But I promised Vinnie that if his daughter was still alive I'd do my absolute best to find her and bring her back to him in one piece. If there's even a chance that she's down there somewhere, then I have to go look for her. And if she's not, well, maybe I'll see just how good LaFleur really is. "
Finn nodded, accepting my decision. "So what do you want me to do? Go with or stay put?"
I'd have a hard enough time slipping through the construction workers below. Two of us trying to do it would be suicide. So my eyes scanned the area once more before settling on one of the railcars that was parked away from the others. The slight rise it was perched on offered a view of the whole train yard and the added bonus of a clear, easy exit out the back. If I got caught, I wasn't dragging Finn down with me.
"Cover me from the top of that car," I said, pointing it out to him. "I'm going in to see if I can get to LaFleur. "
"And if you can't?" Finn asked.
I gave him a cold, hard smile. "Maybe if I can't get close enough to kill her, I can flush her out and you can put a couple of bullets in that pretty little skull of hers. Dead is dead, remember? That's what Fletcher always told us. I don't care how LaFleur gets there, as long as we're still breathing in the end and she's not. "
Chapter 16
Finn and I hashed out a few quick details, like the fact that he was to get out of Dodge if things went bad for me in the train yard. Then we both pulled black ski masks down over our faces and slithered off into the night.
Back before my retirement, when I'd been killing people for money as the Spider, I hadn't bothered wearing a ski mask. Mainly, because I never left anyone alive after the fact to talk about what I looked like or give the police any sort of helpful description of me. But ever since I'd declared war on Mab Monroe, I'd worn a mask while I'd been out stalking her men. Because I had other people to think about now besides me. Finn, the Deveraux sisters, Owen and Eva Grayson, and Bria. This way, if someone did spot me, the mask would hide my face, my identity. A small precaution that I took to keep my loved ones safe.
I waited for Finn to get into position with his rifle on top of the railcar before I palmed one of my knives and headed down the hill and into the train yard itself. I made it to the first railcar with no problem and carefully, slowly, peered around the side. Lights had been strung up all around the depot so the workers could see what they were doing, which meant that it was plenty bright enough down here-in fact, much brighter than I wanted it to be.
Even more debris cluttered the ground than what I'd spotted from the hill, and I had to be careful where I stepped so as to not send metal, rocks, and more skittering off into the shadows. Underneath my feet, the gravel grumbled, groaned, creaked, and whined, just like all the trains had done so many times here over the years. The air smelled of water, oil, grease, and rust.
It took me about twenty minutes to maneuver through the train yard. I stayed well clear of the hubbub of activity around the old depot, as that would be the most dangerous place for me to get caught, and worked my way around to the railcar that Finn said LaFleur had disappeared into.
As I skulked from shadow to shadow, I also kept an eye out for any sign of Natasha. But Finn had been right about that too. I didn't see anyone standing guard outside one of the railcars, nobody taking a tray of food anywhere, and nothing else that would indicate that the girl was being held here somewhere. All the construction workers seemed focused on the depot, the railcars, and their repairs to them.
Which meant that Natasha was probably already raped, tortured, and dead.
My heart twisted at the unpleasant thought, but I pushed it aside and kept moving. Finally, I was able slither up beside the railcar that Elektra LaFleur had entered. Since I didn't want to take a chance on anyone from the depot seeing me hovering beside the front windows, I crept around to the back, the side that faced the Aneirin River. Lights blazed inside the railcar, and I went to the window farthest back, where the golden glow was the dimmest. To my surprise, it was actually cracked open, as though someone had forgotten to completely shut it against the cold. The window was about ten feet off the ground, so I had to scale the ladder on the right side of the car to see in through it. I hung there in midair, like a spider clinging to its own web, and peered inside.
The inside of the railcar was completely finished-opulently so. Thick crimson carpet covered the floor, while the walls had been shined to a high silver gloss. A lone table covered with a fine white cloth sat in the middle of the rectangular area. A single red rose perched in a slender crystal vase on top of the table, which was set with bone china with a scarlet floral pattern swirled through it. A silver bucket of champagne chilled nearby, while a crystal chandelier dangled over the table, sending out rainbow sparks of light in every direction. An enormous bed covered with black silk sheets and crimson brocade pillows took up the back wall. All put together, the railcar looked like some kind of high-class bordello, just as Vinnie had said it would.
Elektra LaFleur lounged on a crimson loveseat in the corner, the dark green of her shirt looking particularly garish against the blood-colored fabric. She twirled a single white orchid in her hand, the same kind of flower that she'd left on the dwarf's electrocuted corpse two nights ago. I wondered whose body she planned to drop the orchid on tonight.
But what surprised me most was that LaFleur wasn't alone-Mab Monroe was inside the car with her.
Mab relaxed at the table, sipping a glass of champagne. The golden gleam of the liquid matched the play of the chandelier's lights across the sunburst necklace that ringed the Fire elemental's creamy throat. The rune's golden rays flickered as though they were actually moving, while the ruby set into the middle of the design proudly whispered of fire, death, and destruction-a sound that always made me grind my teeth.
Mab was dressed down tonight in a dark green pant-suit that made her copper-colored hair seem even redder than usual. Despite the bright lights of the chandelier, the Fire elemental's eyes were still bottomless black pools that seemed to suck the glow out of the crystals dangling above her head. I supposed it was only appropriate, since Mab herself consumed everything she came into contact with, just the way fire destroyed whatever was in its path and left nothing behind but dull, gray, useless ash.
"Well, Elektra, I have to admit that you've whipped the giants and other builders into fine shape," Mab murmured, taking another sip of her champagne. Her voice was as soft and smooth as silk delicately rasping together, but there was a clear undercurrent of power in each word she spoke. "I didn't hear any muttered complaints about working through the night the way I had before you came to town. "
LaFleur gave her a thin smile. "You hired me to come to Ashland, to restore . . . morale and authority to your organization after Elliot Slater's untimely death. To help you open your new nightclub. That's what I've done. I'm mildly disappointed that I only had to kill two of your men to get them all back under control. It was hardly a challenge. "
"Three, counting the dwarf you electrocuted at the docks," Mab reminded her. "Which I still think was unnecessary. "
