"Finn?" I asked.

"Yeah?"

"Did you bring your laptop with you?"

He sniffed. "Do I ever leave home without it?"

Question asked and answered. Sometimes I wondered how Finn pulled himself away from his computer long enough to chase after anything that had boobs.

"Then get on it. I want you to find out everything you can about Tobias Dawson. Habits, hobbies, business interests, anything that might be useful."

Finn nodded and headed toward his SUV.

"And what are you going to do?" Donovan Caine asked in a low voice.

I gave him a bright smile. "Not me, detective. We. We're going to go check out the dwarf 's coal mine, and see if we can figure out why Tobias Dawson suddenly has a hard-on for the land Warren's store sits on. What do you say, detective? Up for a little breaking and entering tonight?"

Donovan grimaced and looked away.

"So you're going to help us then?" Violet asked.

I looked at her. "I've been helping you for a while now, Violet. But yeah, I'm going to take care of Dawson for you."

"Why?" Warren Fox asked. "I knew the kind of fees Fletcher Lane got for his services - and that was years ago. I certainly can't pay you anything close to that."

"Don't worry about the money," I said. "Just give me a couple of jars of honey to take back to Jo-Jo, and we'll call it even."

"You're not even going to charge them?" Donovan Caine asked with suspicion. "Why? So you can take their land for yourself?"

I raised an eyebrow. "And what would I do with a store up here in coal country? I already have a barbecue restaurant to run. That's plenty for me. So no, I don't want their land. Believe it or not, detective, I occasionally lend out my services for free. Pro-fucking-bono, as it were, when the situation warrants it."

"But why?" Caine persisted. "Why do you want to kill Tobias Dawson so badly?"

My gaze flicked to Violet. The image of her ruined face flashed before my eyes, and the sounds of her choked sobs rang in my ears. Despite the fact Jo-Jo Deveraux had healed her, Violet had lost some of her innocence last night. Some small, pure, happy part of her that she wasn't ever going to get back. Just like I had the night my family had been murdered, when everything and everyone I'd loved had been burned to ash in the space of a few hours.

Maybe I wanted to make sure Violet didn't end up like me - hard, cold, distant from all but a very few. Maybe I wanted to get her revenge for her, since I was having so much trouble getting mine. Maybe I just wanted her to be able to sleep a little easier at night, knowing that Tobias Dawson was feeding the worms.

I couldn't pinpoint the exact reason myself, and I couldn't tell the detective all that. I didn't want to reveal that part of myself to him. Besides, he wouldn't have believed me anyway. So I went for my usual flip answer.

"Because Tobias Dawson is nothing more than a rich, spoiled bully who wants to be a cowboy," I said. "Because I'm bored. But mainly, because I'm going to thoroughly enjoy knocking his pompous ass out of that ridiculous hat and ugly boots before I slit his throat."

Chapter Seventeen

There was no further argument about my services or murky intentions, so we got to work.

Finn retrieved his laptop from his SUV and set it up on the counter inside Country Daze. Violet rustled around and found an extension cord so he could save his battery. Finn gave her a saucy wink and a sly, charming grin, working his magic. Violet smiled, ducked her head, and leaned down to get something else for him.

Behind Violet, Warren T. Fox narrowed his dark eyes, crossed his arms over his thin chest, and cast a significant glance at the shotgun on top of the counter. Finn cleared his throat and turned his attention to his laptop.

He might be able to charm women, but Finn always had considerably less luck with their male relatives. Especially ones as protective and suspicious as Warren.

Donovan Caine stalked back and forth down the store's aisles, his cell phone stuck to his ear. The detective had begrudgingly offered to help Finn get background info on Tobias Dawson, although he'd made it clear he still wasn't on board with my plan to assassinate the dwarf.

Still, it was a baby step in the right direction. Because I was killing the dwarf whether Donovan Caine liked it or not.

While the others worked, I stared out the store's front windows and kept an eye on the crossroads outside. Tobias Dawson might have said he wasn't returning for a couple of days, but I didn't put it past him to double back - with even more men. Which is why I also took the precaution of pulling out my cell phone and calling Sophia Deveraux at the Pork Pit. The phone only rang twice before she picked it up. Despite my instructions to the contrary, the Goth dwarf was still at the barbecue restaurant.

"Hmph?" Sophia answered with her usual, monotone grunt.

"It's Gin. This is going to be a bit more difficult than I'd originally thought. I need you to close the restaurant for the day and come up here. Might as well put a sign on the door saying we're closed the rest of the week, while you're at it."

"Problems?" Sophia rasped.

I glanced at Violet, who was now handing Finn a cold bottle of Dr. Enuf, and Warren, who was still glowering at him. "Not so much a problem as a concern. I need to go do some recon work on Tobias Dawson, and I don't want to leave Violet and her grandfather alone in the store while I go do it. I don't want Dawson and his men coming around behind me and doing something stupid, like burning down the store with the Foxes inside. So you'll be on bodyguard duty, along with Finn. Think you can handle it?"

"Numbers?"

"He brought two giants with him and two other guys who looked like half giants. I don't know exactly how many men Dawson has at his disposal, but I imagine he could strongarm his whole payroll, if he really wanted to."

Sophia thought about the odds for a few seconds.

"So are you coming?" I asked, although I already knew what the answer would be. Sophia liked a challenge just as much as I did.

"Um-mmm." Yes, in not-so-many words.

"Good," I said. "We'll be waiting."

We hung up, and I slipped the phone back in my pocket. The wooden floorboards creaked, and Warren T.

Fox came to stand beside me. He too stared out the front windows of the store. Two cars zoomed by, barely slowing long enough to make the left turn at the crossroads before heading toward the interstate.

We didn't speak. Silence was one thing that had never bothered me. Didn't appear to bother Warren much either.

But we needed to get on with things. Because the Foxes couldn't hide here in the store forever, and I wanted to make sure they were someplace safe when I left them to go snooping over at the mine.

"Where's your house?" I asked. "Does Violet still live at home with you?"

Warren nodded. "She does. The house sits on the back edge of the lot, behind a stand of trees, next to a small creek. You can't see it from the road."

So not only did Tobias Dawson want the land where Warren's store sat, he also wanted the old man's house.

In the South, taking someone's ancestral home was even worse than merely wanting their land. Even more reason for me to kill the dwarf.

"I'll need to see the house in a bit. Make sure it's as secure as it can be."

Not that some wood, nails, and a door would keep out a giant, but every little bit helped. Even a few seconds'delay could mean the difference between the Foxes escaping or not, living or dying.

Warren nodded, and we lapsed into silence again.

"I suppose I should thank you," Warren finally said in a gruff voice. "For wanting to help me."

"You don't have to thank me. Just do what I say, and everything will be fine."

Warren stared at me. "You're a lot like him, you know. Like Fletcher."

I didn't respond. At one time, I would have enjoyed the comparison. Now, I wasn't so sure I wanted to be like Fletcher Lane, with his secrets and hidden agendas. I still couldn't believe he'd known who I really was all these years, that he'd compiled that file about the murder of my family, that he'd known Bria was alive and where she was - and that he hadn't told me about any of it.

Why had Fletcher kept it from me? What had been the point of hiding it from me? I thought I'd known Fletcher better than anyone. I was his apprentice, after all. The one he'd taught all his secrets to. Now I wondered if I'd really known anything about him - other than what he'd wanted me to know.

"You're hard like he was," Warren continued. "Able to put his feelings aside and do what needed to be done no matter what. I always admired that about him. Fletcher was always stronger than me. Even when Stella left us both, I never saw him break. He never wavered, not once, not even for a second. You would have never known anything was even wrong with him."

Stella, the woman they'd both loved. The one who'd ruined their friendship, then run off with another man.

Warren lapsed into silence again, and his glossy eyes dulled with old memories. After a minute, he shook his head and came back to himself. "Anyway, I know I don't deserve it, but I appreciate your help, especially for Violet's sake. She would have died last night if not for you."

I shrugged. "I would have done the same for anyone else."

Warren shook his head. "No, I don't think you would have. You know there are some people who just deserve killing. Something Donovan hasn't realized yet. Something he won't ever be able to admit to himself. His father was the same way. He tried to help me out with Dawson some years back, but it didn't take."

"So that's how you know Donovan. You knew his father."

Warren nodded. "Daniel Caine, a fine man. Donovan is too. But he's not the one for you."

He was more observant than I'd given him credit for. I raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

Warren glanced over his shoulder, but Donovan Caine was still talking on his cell phone, so he turned back to me. "I mean you and Donovan are on opposite sides. Always have been, always will be. He's not going to change, and he'll never accept what you are, what you've done. It's just not in his nature, no matter how much he might want to."

"And you're telling me this because..."

"Because Donovan's a good man, and you're good too, in your own way. At least you should be if Fletcher raised you right," Warren said. "At the very least, you're good at what you do."

"The best. I was the best at what I used to do," I corrected him. "But I'm retired now."

Warren snorted. "Right. Just remember what I said. Don't get too attached to Donovan Caine. Because it's not going to end the way you want it to."

His eyes didn't glow with power, and I didn't sense any magic trickling off him, which meant Warren T.

Fox didn't have an Air elemental's sense of precognition.

Whether Warren had any magic or not, he was still observant enough to recognize the conflict between me and Donovan Caine.

Finn murmured something, which made Violet giggle.

Warren's head snapped around at the sound. He shuffled off to glower at Finn and put an end to the younger man's flirting with his granddaughter. This time, I could have offered him the advice of not bothering. Short of shooting Finn with the shotgun, there was nothing Warren could do. Flirting with the opposite sex was as natural and necessary as breathing to Finn.

I looked past the trio to where Donovan Caine paced back and forth on the floorboards. The detective saw me watching him, frowned, and turned his back to me. Shutting me out once again.

I sighed. Warren T. Fox was definitely sharper than he looked. Even worse, I had a sinking suspicion he was right about me and Donovan. The detective wasn't going to let it work between us, no matter how hot the sex had been, no matter how bright the attraction still flared. My gray eyes traced over the detective's lean body.

A shame, really.

By the time I followed Warren over to his house, made everything as secure as I could, and walked back to the store, it was well into the afternoon. My stomach growled, reminding me that the half of the barbecue sandwich I'd eaten for lunch was long gone. So I perused the coolers in the front of the country store. I picked up a cellophanewrapped bologna and Swiss cheese sandwich from one of the coolers, along with a bottle of lemonade. Some chips and a candy bar from the display rack near the counter completed my gourmet meal. I took my items to the cash register.

"You don't have to pay for that," Violet Fox protested.

I slapped a ten-spot down on the counter. "Sure I do. Keep the change."

I took my dinner out onto the front porch and settled into a rocking chair. One of the barrels made an excellent table for my food, and I dug in. The lemonade was far too weak and watered down for my tastes, and the bread was getting hard and stale, but smothering it with mayo made it palatable enough. Not the best meal I'd ever had, but it would do. I'd hate to go to the trouble of breaking into Tobias Dawson's office only to have my stomach growl and give me away to whatever guards he might have stationed there.

I'd just unwrapped my candy bar when Donovan Caine stepped out onto the porch. The detective hesitated, then walked over to me.

"Care if I join you?" he asked in a low voice.

"Sure." I sank my teeth into the candy bar. Crunchy, slightly bitter almonds coated with dark chocolate. Definitely the best part of my meal.

The detective stared out at the crossroads. An empty coal truck rumbled by, stopped, and made the turn to go on up to the mine.