"And what's Giles done to merit my particular brand of attention?"
"Seems the chief financial officer has been cooking the books at Halo Industries," Fletcher said. "Somebody found out and wants to address the situation."
"Protection?" I asked.
Fletcher shrugged. "None that I know of, but the rumor is Giles is getting nervous and thinking about turning himself over to the cops, as if they would even bother to keep him safe."
Cops. I snorted. What a joke. Most of Ashland's finest were more crooked than the mountain roads that crisscrossed the city. If you went to the po-po for protection, you might as well hang yourself and save your cellmate the trouble of tearing up his perfectly good bed sheets.
"Halo Industries," I murmured. "Isn't that one of Mab Monroe's companies?"
"She's the major stockholder," Fletcher said. "But one of her flunkies, Haley James, and James's sister, Alexis, actually front the business. Halo Industries was started by their father, Lawrence. Him and the sisters kept it in the family for years, until Mab decided she wanted a piece of the action and muscled in on them. The father died of a heart attack two weeks after Mab took over. At least, that's what the official word was."
"And unofficially?" I asked.
Fletcher shrugged. "Rumor has it the father was making lots of problems. Wouldn't surprise me if his heart attack was more of an unfortunate accident arranged by Mab herself."
"A heart attack? That's not really her style," I said. "Usually, she just incinerates people with her magic, burns their house to the ground, that sort of thing."
"True," Fletcher agreed. "Which meant she probably passed the job on to one of her boys and asked them to make it look like natural causes. Either way, Lawrence James ended up dead."
Ashland might have a working police force and government, but the city was really run by one woman. Mab Monroe. Mab was a Fire elemental-strong, powerful, deadly. All that was bad enough, but she wasn't just your run-of-the-mill elemental.
Mab Monroe had more magic, more raw power, than any elemental had had in five hundred years. At least, that's what the rumor mill churned out. Given the fact that anyone who went up against her got dead sooner rather than later, I tended to believe the hype.
A respectable, multitiered business front hid Mab's moblike empire. Intimidation.
Bribes. Drugs. Kidnappings. Murder. None of it bothered Mab. She reveled in the blood like a hog in slop. She had her spies everywhere. Police department. City council. Mayor's office. Cops, district attorneys, judges, and other assorted good guys didn't last long in this city, unless they went over to the dark side-and into Mab's hip pocket.
Like all savvy businesswomen, Mab Monroe hid her true nature behind a veneer of cultured sophistication. Donating money to charity. Spearheading fund-raisers.
Giving back to the community. All of it designed to distance her from the ugly things she ordered done on a daily basis. Mab kept her eye on the big picture, which is why she had two lieutenants, for lack of a better word, who ran the day-to-day operations.
Her lawyer, Jonah McAllister, and Elliot Slater.
McAllister handled the people who challenged Mab through legal means. The slick lawyer buried the poor folks in so much paperwork and red tape that most of them went bankrupt just trying to pay their own attorneys. Slater claimed to be a security consultant, but the giant was really nothing more than an enforcer in a nice suit. He handled Mab's minions and dealt with those who crossed the Fire elemental in a swift, brutal, permanent manner-when Mab didn't deign to do it herself.
To most folks, Mab Monroe was a paragon of elemental virtue, a perfect marriage of money and magic. But those of us who dealt in the shady side of life knew Mab for what she really was-ruthless. The Fire elemental had a stranglehold on Ashland, her fingers in every worthwhile, lucrative, or helpful operation in the city, but it just didn't seem to be enough for her. Mab just kept reaching for, and accumulating, more and more and more, as though money, power, and influence were the vital oxygen she needed to fuel herself. Simply put, she was a bully, albeit one with enough magic to back up any claim she made and get her anything she wanted.
I'd never liked bullies.
But Mab's magic didn't keep folks from quietly plotting against her. Several times a year, Fletcher got inquiries about hiring me to take out Mab Monroe. We'd done some recon on her over the years and had decided it was too close to being a suicide mission to bother with. Even if I could get through her layers of security and giant bodyguards, Mab could always kill me herself. She wasn't afraid to use her own Fire elemental magic. That's how she'd clawed her way to the top in the first place-by killing anyone who challenged her meteoric rise through the ranks of Ashland's underworld.
Still, Fletcher kept an open file on the Fire elemental, tracking her security, her movements, looking for any signs of weakness. For some reason, the old man wanted Mab dead. He just hadn't found a way to get it done yet. At least, not one that didn't involve him going out in a blaze of glory with her.
"You're telling me Gordon Giles was stupid enough to embezzle money from one of Mab Monroe's companies?" I asked.
Fletcher shrugged. "It appears that way. Client didn't give any more details, and I didn't ask. If you'll flip to the back page, you'll see there's a time limit on this one."
I turned to the appropriate sheet and read the info. "They want the job done by tomorrow night? You want me to do a job on less than twenty-four hours' notice?
That's not like you, Fletcher."
"Read the payment."
My eyes skimmed farther down the paper. Five million. Question asked and answered. Fletcher might have loved me like a daughter, but he also loved getting his fifteen percent. I wasn't adverse to my cut, either.
"It's not a bad chunk of change," I admitted.
"Not bad? It's twice your going rate." A mixture of pride and anticipation colored Fletcher's rough voice. "The client's already made the fifty percent deposit. Do this job, and you can retire."
Retirement. Something that had been on Fletcher's mind ever since I'd come back with a broken arm and a bruised spleen from a botched job six months ago in St.
Augustine. The old man kept talking about me retiring in a dreamy tone, as if there were a world of options that would magically open up to me the second I put down my knives. Instead of the dull boredom of reality.
"I'm thirty, Fletcher. A highly effective, well-paid, sought-after professional in my area of expertise. I'm good at my job, the blood doesn't bother me, and the people I kill have it coming. Why would I want to retire?"