Elemental Assassin [9] Heart of Venom by Jennifer Estep Page A

would put a sticker on the wood way down there where no one was likely to notice it. But what was odder still was the sticker itself: a couple of white scythes crossed over a red heart, all on a black background. It wasn’t Fletcher’s style at all . . . 
    But it was definitely Sophia’s.
    My heart quickening, I got down on my knees and ran my hands all over the bookcase, searching for a secret compartment, but there wasn’t one. The case was just a case, solid wood from top to bottom. Puzzled, I rocked back on my heels, wondering where the file could be, since it wasn’t actually sitting on one of the shelves.
    Then I remembered something that Fletcher had always said: Simpler is better . I let out a laugh, leaned forward, and reached  under  the bookcase. A second later, my fingers closed around a folder, and I pulled it out into the light. Unlike the manila folders that Fletcher used for everything else, this one was black and simply had  Sophia  scrawled across the front in silver ink. I sat on the floor, leaned my back against the desk, and opened it.
    Hello, Gin. If you are reading this, then I am dead, but Harley Grimes is not.
    I recognized the old man’s handwriting, and the distinctive flow and cadence of his words made it feel like he was sitting there right beside me, slowly, carefully, quietly reviewing the information with me.
    If Harley Grimes has any sort of heart at all, then it is a  heart of venom—cold, cruel, and delighting in the suffering  of others. Sophia wasn’t the first girl he took, and she certainly wasn’t the last . . .
    Fletcher went on to detail everything that Jo-Jo had told me. How Grimes had seen Sophia, wanted her, and kidnapped her. How Jo-Jo had reached out to Fletcher and hired him as the Tin Man to rescue Sophia. Fletcher’s journey up Bone Mountain to where Grimes had his camp. The guerrilla tactics that he had used to pick off 
    Grimes’s men one by one. And finally, his last battle with Grimes.
    I had already killed Horace and Henry, Grimes’s older  brothers, and wounded Hazel, his younger sister, and I managed to trick Grimes himself into using up all of his Fire  magic before I finally confronted him face-to-face.
    We fought. He used his fists. I had my knives. It was a long, hard battle, but I was wearing him down and moving  in for the kill when Hazel snuck up behind me and gutshot me with a pistol. I stabbed Grimes in the chest, but he ran away, and I knew that the wound wouldn’t kill him—but that mine would if I didn’t get to Jo-Jo in time.
    So I left. I regret that. I should have stayed and finished  the job, even if I would have died up there on the mountain  with Grimes. At least then I would have known that Sophia  and Jo-Jo were safe from him forever . . .
    Fletcher went on to describe how he and Sophia had helped each other down the mountain and how they’d gotten back to his car and then over to Jo-Jo’s house so she could heal them both. He also detailed some other skirmishes that he’d had with Grimes over the years, but by then, he’d had other things to think about—like me and Mab.
    But the file contained other useful things, including a map of the mountain where Grimes made his home and detailed sketches of the camp itself. Apparently, Fletcher had trekked up there every single year to see
    what Grimes was up to. His final trip had been in May of last year, several months before his death. That meant that the map and the sketches were more than a year old, but they would have to do. Besides, given the old-fashioned suit that I’d seen him wearing earlier and the fact that Fletcher’s own maps didn’t vary much year to year,
    Grimes didn’t strike me as the kind to change a lot about his home or his operations.
    Still, as I read through all the information, it almost seemed like there was something missing. Some gap in his narrative, some small piece of information that Fletcher had decided not to