“Who’s the target?”
“Cesar Vaughn. A Stone elemental.”
I frowned. “Why do I know that name?”
“He owns Vaughn Construction,” Fletcher replied. “It’s become a big firm in Ashland in recent years. You’ve probably seen the name on signs at construction sites around the city. Vaughn and his company have put up a lot of the new office buildings downtown.”
I opened the folder. The first item inside was a photo of Cesar Vaughn, taken at some groundbreaking event. He was wearing a business suit, holding a shovel full of dirt, and grinning at the camera. He looked to be younger than Fletcher, maybe fifty or so, with a shock of peppery hair, tan skin, and dark brown eyes. He was beaming in the photo, giving him a proud, pleasant appearance, but I knew how deceiving looks could be.
More photos showed Vaughn at various construction sites. It looked like he was more than a corporate figurehead, given the fact that several of the pictures featured him loading bags onto trucks, driving nails into boards, and even pouring concrete. He seemed happy sweating alongside his crew, and his smiles were even wider in these photos, as if he actually enjoyed the hard, physical labor of building something from the ground up.
One close-up shot showed the logo for Vaughn Construction. The words were simple enough, written in a plain font, although what looked like two thorns curved together to form the V in Vaughn. That must be his business rune. Curious. I would have expected a stack of bricks or something similar for a Stone elemental. I wondered what the thorns represented to Vaughn.
“So what’s he done?”
It was the same question I always asked. Oh, I knew that what we were doing wasn’t right. We were assassins, after all, trained, ruthless killers for hire to anyone who had enough money to meet our asking prices. But the people we took out were usually worse than we were. Someone didn’t pay hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to off their kid’s piano teacher or the barista who made them a lousy cup of coffee. Well, not usually. You had to do something to someone, royally piss them off, be a dangerous threat, or stand in the way of whatever they wanted. That’s when we got called in.
Besides, Fletcher had his own set of rules as an assassin, ones that he’d taught me to live by: no kids, no pets, no torture. So you didn’t get on the Tin Man’s radar by being innocent.
Sometimes I thought that we did everyone a favor by taking out the folks that we did. It didn’t make us the good guys by any stretch of the imagination, but we weren’t the most evil folks around either. Not by a long shot. Not in Ashland.
Fletcher shrugged again. “It could be any number of things. Maybe Vaughn didn’t spread enough bribe money around to the right people, and they’re angry about it. Maybe he took a job that a competitor wanted. Maybe he’s building on someone’s land who wants his project to disappear.”
As with most other businesses in Ashland, there were certain rules when it came to the construction industry. Certain people you had to pay off for everything from building plans to zoning permits to construction materials. Such things helped to keep . . . accidents from happening—to you and yours.
“But I’m guessing that the assignment has something to do with that incident up in Northtown a couple of months ago,” Fletcher continued. “The one at that new shopping center.”
“I remember that. Some enormous third-story stone terrace collapsed at a restaurant on opening night. It was all over the news.”
“Five people died, and a dozen more were injured,” Fletcher said. “They’re still investigating the cause. But guess who built the restaurant and the rest of the shopping center?”
“Cesar Vaughn.”
He nodded.
“So what? You think someone blames him for the accident?”
“It’s possible,” Fletcher said. “Especially if Vaughn used substandard building materials or cut corners. That’s what the rumor is, anyway. That he skimped on supplies, labor, and more, and that’s why the terrace collapsed. Supposedly, the families of the victims are getting ready to sue him over it, bankrupt him over it.”
I waved the folder at him. “Yeah, but if someone wants Vaughn dead now, then it sounds like they don’t want to wait around for a lawsuit or any money they might get. They just want his blood.”
Fletcher nodded. “Or maybe they realize that a lawsuit will probably drag on for years, if it doesn’t get thrown out of court somewhere along the way. Look at who his lawyer is.”
I flipped past the photos and scanned through some court documents that Fletcher had included in the file. “Jonah McAllister? But I thought he was Mab Monroe’s personal lawyer. That he worked for her and her alone.”
“He is, and he does,” Fletcher replied. “But Mab happens to own a significant stake in Vaughn’s company. So she has a vested interest in making sure that any trouble Vaughn is in disappears. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s already gotten Elliot Slater to go pay visits to some of the victims’ families to make them reconsider filing their lawsuits.”
Slater was the giant who served as the head of Mab’s security detail and oversaw her bodyguards. At least, that’s what he was on paper. But everyone in the underworld knew that Slater was her top enforcer, who carried out all of her ruthless commands. No visit from Slater was ever pleasant, and most ended with blood and broken bones—at the bare minimum.
“You think Mab wants Vaughn dead? With him gone, that might make it a little harder for the victims’ families to sue.”
Fletcher shrugged a third time. “Maybe. But Vaughn’s company is a cash cow for Mab. He’s probably worth more to her alive and running things smoothly than he is dead and buried.” He hesitated again. “But there’s something else.”
“What?”
“According to our mysterious client, Vaughn has been under some serious stress for months now, and he’s been taking that stress out on his daughter, Charlotte. Hitting her, slapping her, screaming at her.”
“Where’s her mom?” I asked. “Why isn’t she protecting Charlotte?”
“Samantha Vaughn died in a car crash several years ago,” Fletcher answered. “I checked it out with some of my sources. Vaughn has had an Air elemental healer over to his mansion to see to his daughter four times in the last six months, three times for broken bones and once for a concussion. Supposedly, she fell down some stairs, fell off her bike, et cetera, et cetera.”