Jennifer Estep - Deadly Sting

Then there were the bodies.

Three men and two women sprawled across the floor, their arms and legs bent at impossible angles, their eyes dull and sightless, their expensive clothes red and mottled with blood. The bodies were clustered right in front of the main entrance to the rotunda. It looked like the bad guys had come in with guns blazing, not caring who they mowed down with that first initial blast. The people in front never even knew what hit them.

But everyone else did.

All of the surviving guests had been herded into the center of the room so that they were standing on the enormous mosaic star embedded in the floor. Giants holding guns surrounded them on all sides. Some in the crowd were crying, a few were clutching the wounds they’d gotten from the bullets flying around, but most were staring at the giants, their eyes wide, wondering what was going to happen next.

My gaze went from one face to another, looking for my friends, my family—Finn, Eva, Phillip, Roslyn, and Owen.

Finally, I found them, huddled together near the back of the crowd of hostages. I carefully examined each one of them in turn, but they all looked fine, if a little shaken up. Owen had his arm wrapped around Eva, while Roslyn stood on her other side. Meanwhile, Finn and Phillip were staring at the giants with narrowed eyes, obviously hoping for an opening so they could try to take them out. I would have told them not to bother. Even if they could get past a few of the guards and make a break for one of the exits, there was no way they could raise one of the lowered gates before they were shot to pieces.

The five of them weren’t too far away from where my mother’s and sister’s pendants were, and I caught a glint from the silverstone runes from my position on the balcony, winking at me like mocking eyes. So close yet so far away. Just like my friends. I wondered if Finn or one of the others had spotted the necklaces and realized what they were, but I quickly pushed the thought away. All that mattered right now was that my friends were safe—and figuring out how to keep them that way.

So I looked down again, but this time, I concentrated on the bad guys. About three dozen men and women, all giants and all holding at least one gun, had arranged themselves around the rotunda, their weapons pointed in at the hostages. Waiters, guards, the parking staff. Every single one of the giants was wearing some sort of uniform. I’d thought there had been more security on the scene tonight than usual. Now I knew why.

. . . it seems like more bad guys than usual have come out of the woodwork these past few days. And the really weird thing? There’s no one around to stop them . . . It’s like all the giants who work as bodyguards have suddenly decided to move on up to bigger and better things . . .

Bria had said those words to me a few days ago at the Posh boutique. I wondered if the giants’ presence with Clementine was the reason there had been so many robberies lately. It would make sense. Why spend your time working at some lowly security job when you could be in on a sting like this? Just the jewelry off everyone in the rotunda would be enough to set this crew up for life. Add Mab’s trinkets on top of that—at least, the ones that hadn’t been damaged in the initial attack—and the dollar figure climbed even higher.

Bigger and better things, indeed.

The more I stared down at the giants and the frightened crowd, the more I felt a sinking sense of déjà vu. The scene was eerily similar to what had happened a few weeks ago at the Dubois estate. Salina had hired some giants to hold folks hostage so she could use her water magic and a series of fountains to try to drown all the people she had blamed for her father’s murder. I wondered if Clementine’s plans would involve as much death.

My gaze moved to Clementine, who was standing in the rotunda entrance, talking to Dixon. Opal, the giant who’d taken Finn’s invitation, was also standing with them. The three of them must be running the show.

Well, now I knew why Opal had been so taken aback by my appearance outside. She’d recognized me just like Finn had thought and had realized that I could be a threat to their plans. She’d probably alerted the others as soon as I’d gone into the museum so that Clementine and Dixon could be on the lookout for me and start planning my murder. Still, why not just trap me in the rotunda with everyone else? Why take on the added risk of killing me?

My gaze went from one face to another. Hazel eyes, square jaws, strong cheekbones, long, sharp noses. For the first time, I noticed the familial resemblance among the three of them. Opal had to be Clementine’s daughter, given that she was practically a twenty-something carbon copy of the middle-aged woman. Dixon looked to be roughly the same age as Opal. He didn’t resemble the two women quite as strongly, but it was obvious he was somehow related to them. Maybe a nephew or a cousin.

Dixon nodded at something Clementine said and left the rotunda. A few seconds later, I heard a faint rattle-rattle, along with the screech-screech-screech of metal. Dixon must be lifting one of the gates and creating an opening so the giants could come and go as they pleased, now that they’d cornered everyone else in here.

Clementine smoothed down her black tuxedo vest, then strode to the center of the room to stand directly in front of the hostages. Opal took up a position on her right.

Clutching a gun in her right hand, Clementine put her left hand on her hip, cocking it to one side. She gazed out over the crowd, almost like a circus ringmaster getting a feel for the audience before a big performance. Slowly, the hostages quieted down, realizing that she was the one in charge of everything—including whether they lived or died.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” she said, a broad smile creasing her face. “My name is Clementine Barker, and this here is a holdup.”

Clementine looked out over the crowd again, then threw back her head and laughed. Her loud, booming guffaws echoed off the thick walls just like the screams and gunshots had a few minutes earlier. Somehow, though, her dark chuckles seemed far more sinister. Or maybe that was because I’d seen how casually she’d reacted to Dixon shooting Jillian and knew that she’d do the same thing to anyone who got in her way.

“Forgive me,” she said, her laughter finally dying down. “I always wanted to say that.”

Everyone stared at the giant, but no one said anything. No one dared to.

I put her theatrics out of my mind and focused on something else: her name. Clementine Barker . Again, it sounded familiar, like someone I’d heard Bria or maybe even Finn talk about. A glimmer of a conversation came back to me, something Finn had said in passing recently about some up-and-coming security firm started by a giant. The woman running it had approached Finn’s bank about taking over the security there, but the higher-ups had turned her down.

She had an unusual name, Finn’s voice whispered in my mind. Clementine. It made me want an orange.

I wondered if Clementine had plied her services to other Ashland businesses, if maybe the folks on the Briartop board had hired Clem and her men for tonight’s event, to help out as waiters, to direct traffic in the parking lots, maybe even to beef up the museum’s security staff. That would have been one way to get so many of her men onto the island without raising suspicions. Then all they would have had to do was wait until the moment was right to overpower the regular guards, and the museum—the whole island—would be theirs. Just like it was now.