Not an unusual sight—in the summer. But it was November. Fifty degrees out, with a steady drizzle of cold rain. Nobody in his right mind would have his window open on a day like this unless he had a good reason. Like trying to kill me.

Made sense. I hadn’t heard a car peel away from the curb after the shots had been fired, and I didn’t see any new tread marks on the street outside, which meant it hadn’t been a drive-by. Jake McAllister had been stationary when he’d put four bullets into the front of my restaurant.

My eyes focused on the flapping curtain. Time to see if the cuckoo had left his nest or not.

“Stay here,” I told Finn.

“Where are you going?” Finn asked from underneath the table.

I gripped my knives a little tighter. “To find the bastard who just ruined my storefront windows.”

Normally, I wouldn’t have gone out the front door of the Pork Pit. Not after somebody had just shot up my windows.

That was just asking for trouble, for the shooter to put a bullet in my chest when I stepped outside to investigate.

But I was angry, and I had my elemental magic.

So I reached for my Stone power, pulling it up into my veins, letting the cool magic spread out over my skin. It took less than a second for the magic to harden my fingers, torso, toes, and everything in between, to turn my body into a rock-hard shell. As long as I held onto my magic, kept concentrating on it, even my hair would stop a bullet.

Then I yanked open the door and stepped outside.

I stood by the front door a few seconds, my eyes scanning the block again. Nothing. No runners, no parked cars, no flash of light from a rifle scope in the window across the street.

After another thirty seconds, when no more bullets zipped through the air, the people who’d been on the street when the shooting started slowly raised their heads.

One by one, they eased out from behind the parked cars and metal mailboxes that they’d ducked behind, got to their feet, and hurried on about their business.

Since the gunman hadn’t taken the easy shot I’d offered him, I marched across the street to the apartment building, an older structure with small, dingy windows and chipped façade that hadn’t been upgraded or renovated since it had been built forty years ago. I pressed my hand against the stone that framed the entrance, listening to the murmur of the cold, wet brick underneath my bare fingers. A mishmash of emotions greeted me. Childish shrieks of glee. Older, adult grumbles. Sharp, worried murmurs. A babble of English and Spanish. It all added up to the noises of a typical apartment building. Nothing unusual so far.