"You could come with me," Violet told her grandfather.
Warren put a speckled hand on her cheek and shook his head. "You know I can't. That's just not me. The only way I'm leaving this land is when they cart me off in a pine box. Besides, Gin might need me for something. I want to be around if she does. "
Violet nodded and tried to smile. Tears filled her dark eyes.
"We need to get you to Eva's," I said in a low voice.
Violet gave her grandfather another hug and picked up her bag. Finn held open the door for her, and the two of them stepped outside.
I went over to Sophia and Jo-Jo. "If anything happens, if Tobias Dawson or his men come back, you kill first and ask questions later, understand?"
The Goth dwarf grunted at me. Jo-Jo nodded her head.
"We know, Gin," Jo-Jo said. "This isn't the first time Sophia and I have done this sort of thing. "
I frowned. "It's not?"
The dwarf smiled. "No. We watched out for folks for Fletcher a time or two as well. "
Again, there was that mention of Fletcher Lane helping out other people. That secret part of him that I hadn't known about. I don't know why the thought unsettled me, but it did. Or maybe it was just because I was off the edge of the map here. I'd spent seventeen years of my life killing people, and here I was trying to save an old man and his granddaughter from a greedy miner - for free, no less. I wasn't sure what to make of it. Only one thing was certain. It was a hell of a lot more entertaining than my retirement had been so far.
I left the dwarves to watch over Warren and stepped outside. Violet waited with Finn on the porch. Donovan Caine leaned against the porch railing, still brooding.
"Take Violet straight to Eva Grayson's house," I told Finn. "No stops. "
Finn pouted. "Would I do something like that?"
"Yes. "
He stuck out his lip a little more. Violet laughed at his expression. Finn's green eyes swept over her. He grinned.
"Shotgun, Finn," I murmured to him. "Remember Grandpa Fox and his shotgun. "
That dulled Finn's smile, but it didn't completely erase it. Few things could ever do that. Finn had pulled his Cadillac over to the house. He opened the passenger's side door for Violet, who gave him another shy smile, then slid inside.
After a moment, Finn tore his gaze away from her long enough to glance at me. "Hope you don't mind sitting in the back," he said in a very unapologetic tone.
"I don't mind at all because Donovan's going to drive me home," I announced.
Finn blinked. "He is?"
"I am?" Donovan chimed in.
"Yeah," I said. "You are. "
Donovan's face tightened a little more in the darkness.
Finn and Violet headed back toward Ashland, and Donovan and I did the same in his sedan. We didn't speak, except when I gave him directions to Fletcher Lane's house.
We pulled up about thirty minutes later. Donovan Caine peered through the windshield at the rambling, mismatched structure.
"So this is where you live now?" he asked.
"Yeah. It was actually Fletcher's house, the old man who ran the Pork Pit. "
"Finn's father, your former handler. The one who was tortured and murdered by Alexis James. "
I nodded. Donovan said nothing.