Snared (Elemental Assassin #16)(74)

A hundred-dollar bill.

Not just one but a whole stack of them all rolled up together.

I frowned. The vampire had seen me. I knew that he had. So why hadn’t he told the Fire elemental? And why leave this money behind? Was he . . . trying to help me? Why would he do that?

I didn’t know, but I wasn’t about to pass it up. I snatched the money off the ground. Then I got to my feet and headed back toward the dwindling bonfire of the mansion. My plan was the same as before. As soon as I was sure that everyone was gone, I’d walk down to the road and start heading toward the city. After I got to Ashland, well, I didn’t know where I would go or what I would do, but one thing was for sure. I couldn’t stay here any longer.

So I put my head down and started walking. I made it back to the mansion with no problems. The Fire elemental and her men were gone, along with Hugh, whoever he really was.

I let out a sigh of relief, stepped out of the woods, and headed for the road, forcing myself to keep moving forward instead of looking back at the ruins of my entire world. But I couldn’t escape it. Not with the ash still fluttering through the air like snow and the acrid stench of smoke coating everything, including me . . .

The stench woke me up. It was a harsh chemical odor but strangely comforting in a way, as though I’d sensed this same scent a hundred times before and associated it with a specific place. Someplace warm and inviting. Someplace safe. I drew in another breath, trying to figure out why it seemed so familiar. It almost smelled like some sort of . . . hair dye.

I relaxed. Owen and the others must have come back for me at the Rivera mansion. They must have fought their way through all those guards and pulled me out of there. I opened my eyes, fully expecting to see the warm, cozy confines of Jo-Jo’s beauty salon.

But what I woke up to was another nightmare.

I was tied to a chair, my wrists and ankles lashed so tightly to the wood that I couldn’t move them at all, no matter how hard I tried. And I definitely tried, straining and straining with all my might. I only stopped when the ropes started digging painfully into my skin, causing ugly burns, and I realized that I couldn’t escape them. At least, not this way.

I was still wearing my black assassin clothes, along with my boots, but all of my knives were gone—the two up my sleeves, the two tucked into the sides of my boots, and the one in the small of my back. So I looked around, searching for my weapons.

I was in another cottage, although it wasn’t Bruce Porter’s caretaker cottage, since the stone floor here was still intact. I was sitting in the middle of a large den, halfway between a stone fireplace and a dark green leather couch. Several pieces of kindling were arranged in the fireplace, ready to be lit, with other, thicker logs stacked neatly in a nearby basket.

I glanced around the rest of the den. Brightly colored throw rugs, end tables, a bookcase bristling with paperbacks. The furniture was nice enough, although it had obviously been here for a while, given how well worn and old-fashioned it looked.

At first glance, everything seemed normal. Except for, you know, me being tied to a chair. Sadly, this wasn’t my first time at that particular rodeo, so I moved on. I turned my head, scanning the kitchen area in the back of the cottage, still looking for my knives.

And that’s when things started to get really, really weird.

A romantic table for two was set up in the middle of the kitchen. White tablecloth, two lit candles, a crystal vase full of red roses, fine china, a bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket. Someone had really gone all out.

I drew in a deep breath. In addition to the hair dye, I got a faint whiff of the food that had already been dished out on the two plates on the table. Lemon-pepper chicken, if I had to guess, along with honey-glazed carrots and mashed potatoes. A simple, elegant meal.

Still, the longer I stared at the table with its picture-perfect spread, the more my stomach roiled. It reminded me of the romantic dinner that Owen had surprised me with a couple of days ago. But there was no romance here—only death.

I listened, but I didn’t hear anything but the faint whistle of the wind swirling around the house. And the stones, of course. They shrieked with the exact same notes of blood, violence, pain, and death that the caretaker cottage had, telling me that I was sitting smack dab in the middle of the Dollmaker’s lair. This was where he’d brought all the other women he’d kidnapped, and this was where he’d killed them all, when they didn’t live up to the twisted fantasy that he’d so carefully crafted.

I wondered how it went exactly. If he complimented them on how pretty they were. If he expected them to make polite chitchat. If he force-fed them dinner while they were still tied up. If he flew into a rage when they stared at him with fear and horror. If he finally started beating them when he realized that the fault was with himself instead of them.

I didn’t want to stick around to find out.

White lace curtains covered the windows, so I couldn’t tell where I was, although it was dark outside. Given the lack of noise, the cottage was probably isolated, which meant that I needed to get out of here before Rivera came back. So I started struggling against my ropes again, harder than before. And just like before, I got absolutely nowhere.

Something moved out of the corner of my eye, and I turned my head, noticing another piece of furniture, a full-length mirror propped up in the corner by the fireplace.

For a moment, I didn’t understand exactly what I was seeing in the mirror. Who was that strange-looking woman in the glass?