I always did what was needed.
He pulled into the driveway, and we stepped into the house and went our separate ways. Fletcher ambled back to the den to watch some TV and unwind before going to bed, while I headed upstairs and took a long, hot shower.
As I brushed out my wet hair, I couldn’t help but lean closer to the bathroom mirror and peer at my own reflection, trying to see myself through Sebastian’s eyes. Oh, I was pretty enough, with my dark brown hair, pale skin, and gray eyes, but I was certainly no great beauty. Not like my mother, Eira, and Annabella had been, with their golden hair, rosy skin, and cornflower-blue eyes. And Bria would have been even more beautiful than both of them, if she’d gotten the chance to grow up.
My body was lean, fit, and strong, thanks to all the years training with Fletcher and then my time on the job as the Spider. My br**sts weren’t large, but they were decent enough, and I had a few soft curves here and there. All put together, it was a nice package, but I didn’t know that it was enough to hook someone like Sebastian Vaughn and get him to look past my seeming lack of money, magic, and social standing—at least, not for very long.
But the way he’d smiled, laughed, and flirted with me . . . no man had looked at me like that . . . well, ever, really. Oh, I got enough attention from the guys at Ashland Community College, where I took some classes, but all they were interested in was banging me in between beers and ballgames. And the professors, well, they just wanted to feel young again by sleeping with a coed. Neither option exactly screamed romance. But more important, no one had really seemed interested in me, and absolutely none of them had sparked my own interest like Sebastian had.
But Fletcher was right. It was stupid to daydream about having any sort of relationship with Sebastian. Someone had hired me to kill his father. Not exactly the sort of thing that you looked for in a potential girlfriend.
Girlfriend? I snorted. What was I thinking? I’d never had that sort of relationship with any guy. I’d accused Sebastian of being a love-’em-and-leave-’em type, but the truth was that I was that way too. I had to be, as the Spider. And not just because I didn’t want to end up dead or in jail for my many crimes. Because what kind of guy would ever really be okay with his girlfriend being a coldhearted assassin?
Still, as I left the bathroom, put on my pajamas, and slid into bed, I couldn’t help but think back to the warm interest in Sebastian’s eyes, his teasing grins, and all the sly, saucy winks he’d given me during dinner. For once, I let myself remember. Not only that, but I reveled in the memories, replaying them over and over again in my mind.
Even though nothing would ever come of it, even though nothing could ever come of it, it was still nice to be noticed, to be admired, to be wanted, if only for an evening.
I went to sleep with a smile on my lips.
8
Over the next few days, I plotted the best way to kill Cesar Vaughn.
Where to do the job, how to get close to him, how to actually kill him and then slip away after the fact. I reviewed all of the information that Fletcher had given me, then went out and collected my own, discreetly following Vaughn as he went about his days, seeing what his routines were, how much security he had, and what his vices were, if he even had any. I wanted to go to his home the night after the dinner party and kill him, but Fletcher put his foot down, talking about “procedure” and “caution.” Whatever. I gave in, if only because I knew that he would cancel the hit entirely if I didn’t, and I wanted to protect Charlotte from her father.
But Vaughn was indeed the upstanding, hardworking, hands-on businessman that he appeared to be. After a quick visit to his office in the morning, he spent most of the day driving around Ashland, going from one construction site to the next and checking on his crews and their progress, before grabbing a quick lunch somewhere on the road.
This was the third day that I was following him, and I didn’t think anything of it when he parked his car on one of the downtown streets, got out, and started ambling along the sidewalk. It was lunchtime, so he was probably on the prowl for some sort of vittles before going to the next job site. But as he walked by restaurant after restaurant, passing up everything from Mexican to Italian to Thai food, my unease slowly cranked up notch by notch by notch. Because Vaughn was rapidly running out of dining options in this part of town, unless he was in the mood for one thing in particular.
Barbecue.
Sure enough, he headed straight for the Pork Pit, opened the door, and stepped inside.
I was so surprised that I stopped cold in the middle of the sidewalk and would have stayed that way if someone hadn’t bumped my shoulder, snapping me out of my shock. I hurried out of the flow of traffic on the sidewalk, but I stayed outside the restaurant, pretending to be talking on my cell phone, when I was really peering in through the storefront windows, wondering if I’d somehow been made, if Vaughn had figured out that I was following him, who I was, where I worked, and that I had plans to kill him as soon as I could.
My heart pounded, and a bit of nervous sweat gathered at the nape of my neck as I watched him walk to the back of the restaurant and take a seat at the counter, three stools down from where Fletcher was sitting behind the cash register.
Vaughn leaned over toward Fletcher, as though he were going to talk to him.
I tensed up a little more. This was bad, so very, very bad. . . .
He stretched his hand out toward Fletcher as though he were trying to get the old man’s attention.
I sucked in a worried breath, wondering what I could do to get us out of this situation. . . .
Vaughn grabbed a menu that someone had left on the counter and leaned back, away from Fletcher.
I collapsed against the window in relief.
Fletcher must have seen Vaughn reach for the menu, because he looked up from his battered copy of Where the Red Fern Grows, which he’d had for as long as I could remember and which he read at least once a year. Fletcher started to go back to his story but did a double take when he recognized Vaughn. His gaze lingered on the other man a moment before cutting over to the windows. Fletcher spotted me lurking outside and raised his eyebrows in a silent question. I winced and then shrugged. As far as I could tell, Vaughn had a hankering for barbecue—nothing else. Otherwise, he would have confronted Fletcher already. Or called the cops. Or both.
Still, my nerves were frayed, and I tapped my fingers on the brick wall, like a junkie in need of a fix, as I watched Sophia whip up my target’s barbecue pork sandwich, potato salad, onion rings, and lemonade. If I knew that he would come back for lunch one day soon, I could always slip something into his food, then let nature take its course. Poison wasn’t my favorite method of execution. In fact, I thought it was rather sneaky, low-down, and cowardly, but you went with what worked. But there wasn’t any pattern to Vaughn’s lunch habits that I could see, so I couldn’t count on him returning to the restaurant.