The Librarian and the Assassin, a Sapphic Romance at the End of the World - 38. Chapter 38 - The Gria Job

Tawni and Bix were together on the roof of their building.

Tawni was holding a pair of binoculars to her eyes, and she was pointing out over the city. The intersection she had mentioned in her note to Duke Kentonworth was more than ten city blocks away, but Tawni had chosen that specific spot because she knew she could periodically check on it from her home without going anywhere near the manual crosswalk signal or the ventilation shaft.

“The pendant is red.”

Bix groaned. “The duke has another target he wants taken out.”

Tawni lowered the binoculars and turned to her. “Wanna wait here while I get the paper?”

Bix shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Tawni kissed her and headed down to ground level.

She began to walk toward the intersection where Duke Kentonworth had deposited the name of the person he wished eliminated, but before Tawni reached it, she turned up a side street. The slip of paper had been sucked underground by the ventilation shaft, and it was taken the length of more than a city block to where the pipe provided air to the space beneath a nearby building. Tawni knew exactly where the paper would end up, and its location was a significant distance from anywhere Duke Kentonworth had been.

As soon as Tawni entered a crawlspace beneath the structure, she spotted what she was looking for. She grabbed it, reemerged into the light, and opened the folded parchment.

Tawni scrutinized the name. She knew of Gria White. Gria was a lesser member of the White family. She was not in charge of anything important. She had no power over the family’s estate or holdings. Gria did not seem to Tawni like a necessary or important target.

“I wonder what Bix’ll think.”

She headed back to her home, and when she arrived, she extended the piece of paper to Bix. “It says Gria White.”

“Do you know who that is?” Bix asked.

“Yeah,” Tawni confirmed, “but she’s nobody. She’s not important.”

“Well, if she’s a member of one of those important families,” Bix countered, “maybe the duke knows something you don’t. We’ll ask Chef Zed about her.”

Tawni looked worried. “Should we limit who we talk to about Duke Kentonworth’s targets? I don’t want Chef Zed to get suspicious of us. Maybe we should start with Pan Cakes each time there’s another job, since she already knows what we’re doing, and if she doesn’t know anything about his target, then we can branch out with who we ask.”

Bix nodded her head in agreement. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.” She glanced at the paper. “You know you’re working for a monster, right?”

Tawni let out a laugh. “Bix,” she said, ignoring Bix’s statement, “I want you to choose who we make donations to this time. You’ve made so many friends, and we could help them by sharing some of the money we make. So I’ll leave it up to you; after we get Duke Kentonworth’s next payment, we’ll share it with anyone who you want to help. He may be a monster, but we aren’t.”

The pair made their way together into the Stonespire city streets, and they headed toward the Alphabet District and the outreach center.

“Oh good,” Tawni whispered as they entered.

Pan Cakes was there.

“Hey gals, what are you up to?”

“Are you alone?” Tawni asked under her breath and looking around the kitchen.

“Yeah, I’m the only one here so far,” Pan replied.

“We have another target,” Tawni quickly stated, and she added, “Gria White.”

“Huh, Gria isn’t anyone special,” Pan said quietly. “I mean, she’s a White, but there are more important Whites.” Pan paused. “They were the worst of the island’s wealthy families from back in the old world, and Gria married in, knowing full well who they were. Wonder why your contact wants her taken out though, and he’s really going to pay you two-thousand dollars to do it?” Tawni nodded to the queen. “I can’t even fathom that much money… I don’t think I’d make that much in five years! Wowzers.”

“So who is she?” Bix asked.

Pan shrugged. “Gria’s marriage wasn’t beneficial to the Whites, and it wasn’t an arranged marriage. She wasn’t in charge of anything, and she didn’t run a powerful business. Oh you know, Gria’s a member of Family Tenabor. She married Margorie White, who was maybe second cousin to the White heiress, Esmerelda. Both Margorie and Esmerelda got into some nefarious stuff back in the old world, and the two of them died in the plague. I know Gria still resides within the grounds of the White estate, but she’s never been an important member of the family.”

“Pan, what do you suppose is the duke’s reason for wanting her taken out?” Bix added.

Pan frowned. “Oh, he’s no duke. That’s just his stupid name.”

Tawni smiled. “That’s what I thought.”

Bix glanced at Tawni and back at Pan. “Okay, so why do you think Duke wants Gria dead?”

“Why don’t we call him Kentonworth?” the queen recommended. “And I suspect he knows something we don’t. Gria has been part of the White family for the better part of three decades, but they’ve been villains for much longer than that. Both the Whites and her family, the Tenabors, were violent organized crime-lords of Stonespire before the plague, for generations. Gria knew exactly what kind of family she was marrying into.” Pan scrutinized Tawni. “What do you think?”

“I think I should take the job.”

“And what about you, Bix?” Pan added, turning to her.

Bix was gnawing on her bottom lip. “I don’t know. If Gria is just some nobody, how is she worth killing?”

“How is she worth two-thousand dollars?” Pan questioned in agreement.

Bix looked from Pan to Tawni. “I don’t have any reason for you not to accept the job, especially if the Whites really were the most violent, but I don’t know… there’s something about this that doesn’t feel right. What are the consequences going to be if you do this?”

Tawni took Bix’s hand. “The only consequence we can be certain of is that we’ll have two-thousand dollars, and we can donate more to our friends and neighbors.”

Pan let out a little gasp and repeated words she had said to Tawni before. “You’re that bitch?!”

Tawni was startled by Pan’s declaration. “Wha-what do you mean?”

“You’re the ones who dropped off that money?” Pan’s jaw dropped.

“Yeah,” Tawni replied sheepishly, “I gave a lot of people some of the money I made from that second job. Bix and I are going to go around and give away a bunch more once Duke Kentonworth makes his deposit for the Gria job.”

“I found that twenty-dollar bill at the pleasure dungeon, and I could not figure out for the life of me where it had come from. Celest was the first one here the day you left those three twenties for her. You should have seen her; when I got here, she was sobbing with joy, and her makeup was a mess. She used the money to commission the construction of an addition to the outreach center, and the building on it starts tomorrow.” Pan shook her head in disbelief. “Tawni, you’re quite a character. You’re a hired killer, and at the same time, you’re a hometown hero.”

Twelve hours later, Tawni was alone in the darkness. The grand manor of Family White was before her.

Earlier in the afternoon, she had inconspicuously slipped a note addressed to Duke Kentonworth into a shipment of goods that was on its way up to the Kentonworth estate. Tawni had written only a few words to the man.

Accepted.

Signed, The Librarian.

Duke Kentonworth had made his deposit at sunset, as instructed, and Tawni was on the job.

Guards were patrolling around the main house and front gate of the White family estate, and Tawni crept through the shadows at a distance as she evaluated her target’s location. Gria lived on the premises, but unlike Tawni’s ease in finding Sathiel within the Grondsen house, there was no unguarded area close to the primary building of Family White.

Tawni cut up a street and approached another section of the property. At the back of the house was a small grove of fruiting trees, but there were a pair of guards standing among them. Tawni continued farther along to a separate section of the grounds where what used to be the servants’ quarters still stood. There were no guards protecting the old minor structures, and Tawni entered the property unseen.

She approached the building at the end of the row and peeked inside. It turned out to be an old horse barn, but it looked like it had been unused for years. Around the back of the stable, Tawni could see the next building, and a candelabra was burning inside. She crept to the window, and there were still no guards, but there was someone moving around in the old servants’ house.

It was Gria.

The woman was in her late forties. She looked weathered and tired, but Tawni was surprised by how beautiful Gria still was, and Tawni found herself feeling very attracted to the woman.

Gria sat in a spindly wooden chair by her candles and picked up a book.

Tawni hesitated. She was curious what Gria was reading.

Noises by the main house sharpened Tawni’s focus back on her task at hand. She scoured the region of the White property that she could see from where she was, but the guards seemed to be remaining near the primary residence.

Tawni’s hand came to her blowgun as her eyes turned back to Gria.

The light from the candelabra was illuminating the pages Gria was reading, but the rest of the small building’s interior was dark. For several moments, Tawni watched Gria. The woman turned to the next page in her book, and Tawni very much wanted to know what she was reading.

After another few minutes, Gria yawned. She glanced at her bed in one shadowy corner, and she blew out her candles.

Tawni’s curiosity vanished, and she did what she was there to do. Her blowgun flashed to her lips, and she fired a dart into the dark room. Gria let out a small cry of pain and alarm, and she collapsed to the floor.

Tawni again glanced around the property, but she had achieved her goal without being seen. She turned to leave, but her curiosity prickled again. She wanted to know what Gria had been reading. Tawni considered climbing in through the window and taking the book, but she let out a frustrated breath and abandoned it with the dead woman.

Tawni retraced her steps and disappeared into the dark Stonespire city streets.