"I got some info on Tobias Dawson," Donovan said.
"And it's not good. He's a real piece of work, from all reports. He's got almost a complete stranglehold on the mining in the area, so he pays his employees belowaverage wages. A couple of them tried to form a union a few months back. They all met with mining accidents soon after. Roof collapses, equipment malfunctions, even a cave-in."
"Did you expect anything else? You saw Dawson threatening the Foxes. He's not a nice man."
Donovan ran a hand through his black hair. "But that doesn't mean it's okay for you to just kill him."
"And just because Dawson has money doesn't make it right for him to intimidate people into getting whatever he wants," I pointed out. "So which is worse - me assassinating Dawson for threatening the Foxes or him telling his brother to go rape and murder Violet just to send a message to her grandfather?"
Caine blew out a long breath. "I don't know. I just don't know. But two months ago, I would have taken you in for plotting to kill someone. Slapped my handcuffs on you and dragged you down to the station, no questions asked."
"And now?"
Donovan looked out at the road, although I got the impression he wasn't really seeing it. "Now, I'm thinking about helping you get to him."
"Don't sound so broken up about it, detective. Getting rid of Dawson is the right thing to do."
He shook his head. "No, it's what you want to do. I'm just going along with you."
"Why?" I asked. "Why go along with me if it bothers your conscience so much?"
Donovan stared at me. Emotions flickered like candle flames in his eyes. Guilt. Desire. Need. Weariness. Resignation.
"I don't know that either."
Tires crunched on the gravel, and a classic convertible pulled into the parking lot. The vehicle was as black as black could be, with a long body and swooping fins. Despite its pristine, gleaming beauty, the convertible always reminded me of a hearse. The top was up, but I didn't need to see inside to know who was driving. Sophia Deveraux had arrived. I got to my feet.
Donovan tensed. "Trouble?"
"Relax, detective. I called a friend to come help Finn watch the Foxes, while you and I sneak off to Dawson's mine."
Sophia opened the driver's door and stepped out.
The detective frowned. "Isn't that your cook from the Pork Pit? The one who was working when Jake McAllister tried to rob you?"
"Yeah," I replied. "She moonlights as a badass, just like me."
But Sophia wasn't alone. The passenger side door opened, and a mound of bleached, white-blond curls appeared, partially covered with a sheer pink headscarf.
Sophia had brought her big sister, Jo-Jo, along with her.
Jo-Jo said something to Sophia that I couldn't hear, and the Goth dwarf grunted back in response. Then the two women shut their car doors and headed toward us.
They stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Sophia gave Donovan a flat, uninterested look, but Jo-Jo's eyes lit up at the sight of the rugged detective. In addition to being a social butterfly, the dwarf was also a terrible flirt, just like Finn was.
"Well, now," Jo-Jo asked, her pale eyes landing on Donovan. "Who is this?"
I stood and made the introductions. "Jo-Jo Deveraux, this is detective Donovan Caine with the Ashland Police Department. And vice versa. The Goth chick is Sophia, Jo-Jo's sister."
Jo-Jo held out her hand, as though she wanted Donovan to kiss it. Disappointment flickered across the dwarf 's face when he merely shook it instead.
"I asked Sophia to watch Warren and Violet while we check out Dawson's mine," I explained to the detective.
"And I'm here for moral support," Jo-Jo chimed in.
Donovan Caine eyed the dwarf 's rose-covered dress, pearls, high-heeled sandals, and manicured nails. No doubt he thought she wouldn't be much good in a fight. But Jo-Jo was almost as strong as Sophia - and she had her Air elemental magic to supplement her natural strength.
Even I didn't know if I could take Jo-Jo in a fight.
"Come on," I said. "Let's go inside where the others are."
Chapter Eighteen
Finn was still digging for info on Tobias Dawson, so I left him and the Foxes in Sophia's and Jo-Jo's capable hands.
Violet was happy to see the older dwarf again and started peppering her with questions about hot-oil hair treatments.
To my surprise, so was Warren. Jo-Jo must have known him and his parents better than she'd let on because the old man pulled up two rocking chairs, and he and Jo-Jo proceeded to gossip about all the folks they knew up here in Ridgeline Hollow. Then again, Jo-Jo Deveraux was more than two hundred fifty years old. I couldn't imagine how many people she'd met in her lifetime. Hard to keep track of them all, but somehow she managed it. She seemed especially chatty with Warren.
That left Sophia with guard duty. I showed her the various access points to the store and the house out back.
Once we finished, the Goth dwarf stuck an iPod in her ears and took up a position on the front porch steps to keep an eye out for Tobias Dawson and his men.
I also made a quick circuit through the store and picked up a few items I thought might be useful. Flashlights, rope, gloves, binoculars. I left a hundred on the counter to cover everything. Then Donovan Caine and I left the others in the store and got into his sedan.
The detective sank into the driver's seat, while I took the passenger's side. Unlike most cop cars I'd been in, this one was clean to the point of being pristine. No fastfood wrappers, no empty soda cups, no trash or debris of any kind littered the inside. The car even smelled like Caine - clean and slightly soapy. Or maybe that was just the air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror. Either way, I breathed in, enjoying the crisp aroma. Mmm.
Donovan started the car and looked at me. "Where to?"
I glanced down at the printouts Finn had given me.
Finn hadn't found much on Tobias Dawson yet, but he'd been able to find several maps of the dwarf 's mine - including the building that housed his office.
"Go to the stop sign and hang a left like you're going back to the interstate," I said. "There's an old access road that runs over the top of the ridge and overlooks the mine. We can stop up there and see what's going on below before we make our move."
Donovan nodded and steered the sedan out of the parking lot. He cruised to a stop, then made the appropriate turn. We didn't speak as the vehicle climbed up the twisting, winding road.
As the tourist sign at the crossroads claimed, it was a scenic stretch of highway, with dense woods that crowded to the edge of the road on both sides. A couple of weeks ago, the fall foliage would have been magnificent. But the elevation was slightly higher here than in the rest of Ashland, which meant the maples, oaks, and poplars had already shed most of their colorful leaves. Still, I found the curving branches of the trees enchanting in their own way, ribbons of wood winding together to make artful shapes.
Through the bare limbs, I spotted the creek Warren Fox had mentioned, the one that curved around the back of his house and flowed past Country Daze. I didn't know that I'd call it a mere creek, though. The rushing water stretched thirty feet wide in some places, tumbling over unusual rock formations. Gravel pull-offs on either side of the road marked popular fishing and wading spots.
I glanced at the map again. "Take the next right."
Donovan nodded and did as I asked.
The smooth concrete fell away to cracked pavement as the car twisted and turned even higher onto the mountain ridge. Gravel replaced the pavement. It ran out into two hard-packed dirt ruts that passed for a road. Despite the terrain, Donovan drove on. We went almost a mile down the ruts before they ended in a small, wooded clearing.
The detective stopped the car, and we got out.
The air was even cooler up here than it had been at Country Daze, and it had started to drizzle again. I turned up the collar of my black fleece jacket, hefted the coil of rope over my shoulder, and made sure I had all my other supplies. Donovan reached into the backseat and grabbed a navy rain slicker embossed with the words Ashland Police Department on the back. He offered the jacket to me, but I shook my head.
"You keep it," I said. "You're the one who brought it, not me."
The detective shrugged into the jacket. I stuffed the maps Finn had given me into my jeans pocket so they wouldn't get too wet.
"This way," I told the detective.
I headed out of the clearing. The drizzling rain had already slicked the assorted weeds and fallen leaves underfoot, so I walked carefully and slowly. I didn't need a sprained or broken ankle tonight. Behind me, Donovan did the same.
A sign at the end of the clearing read No Trespassing -
Dawson Mining Company, but I ignored it. Trespassing was going to be the least of my crimes this evening. We walked in silence through the wet woods for a few minutes before we reached the lip of the ridge. I crouched behind a tall pine on the edge, and Donovan squatted beside me. Despite the rain, the detective's clean, soapy scent washed over me. Mmm. The smell made me want to turn to him, press my lips to his, and lower us both to the forest floor. Sure, the leaves and earth would be a little damp, but I had no doubt Donovan and I could warm each other up - in a hurry.
Unfortunately, I wasn't here for a quickie with the detective, no matter how pleasurable it might be. So I raised the binoculars I'd brought along up to my eyes. Below me, the ridge sloped downward and then bottomed out, forming a fat U shape. The ridge we stood on was the base of the U, while the rest of the mountain had been removed to form the open area. Ramps of dirt twisted down either leg of the U, providing access to the topmost portions of the slope.
A variety of machines sat on the basin floor. Backhoes, bulldozers, and other machines designed to move earth - and a lot of it. Others were just big, hulking, complicated brutes of metal with more arms, cranes, and buckets than I'd ever seen. Some of them were bigger than small houses, but I had no idea what their names were or even what they did. There were dump trucks too, with beds and wheels even bigger than the ones on the vehicle Finn had used to run over Trace Dawson.
Across the basin floor was the other end of the operation - the underground mine. A square black hole in the wall of the mountain, held open by concrete support beams. Metal tracks ran into and out of the wide mouth.
I supposed at one time the tracks had been used to help move men and equipment down into the earth. Now they looked dull and rusty from lack of use. I could see places where the metal had been torn up and not replaced. I remembered what Violet Fox had said about the coal in the underground mine running out and how it had been idle for some time now. It was easy to tell that the focus had shifted to stripping off the mountain one layer at a time. That's what all the equipment was here for - to cart coal and dirt away, not bring it up out of the ground. Not anymore.
More tracks curved around the far side of the basin and disappeared from sight. According to Finn's map, they led to another area where the coal was stored and processed, among other things. I had a lot of knowledge about a lot of subjects, thanks to all the classes that I'd taken at Ashland Community College, but coal mining wasn't one of them.
But even from my high vantage point, I could hear the stone of the mountain. Growling, snarling, cursing, muttering. The stone was supremely angry at the cruel damage that had been done to it. Once upon a time, this must have been a lovely spot, with steep slopes, trees, and rocky outcroppings as far as the eye could see. But now there was nothing left but stripped, bare earth, rock, and machinery. The stone's vibrations made me want to draw on my magic, to make the whole mine, the whole rest of the mountain, crumble down and bury the men and machines that had been so cruel to her. But I didn't have that kind of power, and it wouldn't help Warren and Violet in any way. So I gritted my teeth and forced the feeling aside.
It was after six now and already growing dark. I passed the binoculars to Donovan Caine, so the detective could watch the workers climb down off their machines and head out of the basin. I kept scanning the area, fixing the overall layout in my mind. It would be easy to lose your sense of direction among the massive machines, especially with the rainy twilight rapidly giving way to full night.
"I don't see anything much. Just machines," Donovan Caine said.
"Look down to the left at the edge of the basin. Down there." I pointed to a small, white building that gleamed like a dull moon. "That's where some of the mine offices are, including Dawson's, according to the information Finn gave me."
"What do you expect to find in there?" Caine asked, peering through the binoculars at the structure. "I doubt Tobias Dawson just leaves incriminating evidence lying around."
I shrugged and got to my feet. I took a moment to swipe the dead, damp leaves from the knees of my jeans.
"Maybe, maybe not. Dawson's the big boss around here, remember? This is his mountain. He might be sloppy enough to leave things out in the open."
"And if not?"
I shrugged again and tied one end of the rope around the base of a nearby pine tree. After I made sure it was securely knotted, I tossed the rest of it down the ridge below us. "Then at least we'll have gotten our exercise for the evening."
I reached into my back jeans pocket and held out a pair of gloves to him. They were gardening gloves, white with brown trowels on them, but they'd keep us from getting rope burn on our hands - or leaving fingerprints in Tobias Dawson's office.
"Now, are you coming or not?"
Donovan Caine let out a low curse. But the detective took the gloves from me and started pulling them onto his hands.
