Jennifer Estep - Deadly Sting

“You two were together an awful lot tonight. Surely, you talked about a few things.”

“You mean before or after we killed all those giants?”

She looked at me.

Finally, I sighed. “No, we didn’t really get a chance to talk about anything. There was just blood, dead giants, and a lot of awkward pauses.”

“Well, you should know that he brought Eva here into the rotunda after we secured the area. The second he knew that she and the others were safe, he helped Xavier carry Phillip outside, then immediately started to head down to the boathouse to help you,” Bria said. “He would have too if Jo-Jo hadn’t showed up and told him that you were fine and on your way back up to the museum. He still cares about you, Gin, and I know you care about him.”

“I do care about him,” I admitted. “But I don’t know that it’s enough—for either one of us.”

“What do you mean by that?”

I didn’t know how to tell her that Salina’s death was still an issue between me and Owen. That I just didn’t know if he could ever forgive me for what I’d done to the woman he’d once loved. And that his forgiveness wasn’t the only thing I wanted from Owen—that I needed his acceptance too. Of what I’d done in the past and all the bad things I’d do in the future.

“Gin?” Bria asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “It’s been a long night, and I’m not thinking straight right now.”

“Well, maybe after this is over, you and Owen can finally talk.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“Either way, I’m glad that you’re all right.”

Bria hugged me, her care and concern even warmer and stronger than her arms wrapped around me. After so many years of thinking her dead, it always surprised me to realize that she was alive and here with me—and that she loved me just like I loved her. I wondered if I’d ever stop feeling that way. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing if I didn’t. Because I never, ever wanted to take her for granted—or any of my other loved ones.

Bria pulled back. The motion made the primrose rune around her throat wink, and the sly flash of silverstone reminded me that there was one more thing I needed to do tonight—for both of us.

I held my hand out to Bria. “Come with me. I have something to show you.”

She frowned in puzzlement, but she wrapped her fingers around my bloody ones. I led her over to the back of the rotunda and the recess where our mother’s and sister’s rune necklaces had been on display.

“Remember when I told you before that there were some things in here that belonged to us?” I asked.

“Yeah?”

“Well, here they are.”

I stopped in front of the wall and held my hand out—

But the recess was empty.

The glass had been smashed, and I immediately began scanning the floor around the recess, but all I saw were splinters of glass and chips of marble. I stalked back and forth along the wall, searching all around me.

Nothing—absolutely nothing.

The robbers must have looted this spot along with everything else. There was no sign of my mother’s and sister’s necklaces and no telling where they were. Maybe they were mixed in with the pile of cell phones in the front of the rotunda. Maybe they were outside in one of the moving trucks or in one of the cases I’d seen on the getaway boat. Maybe they’d even disappeared into someone’s pocket when everyone was looking the other way. There was just no way of knowing. I could search the museum for days and never find them.

They’d been right here , close enough to touch, and now they were gone again, vanished once more like they’d never existed to start with. Pain stabbed through me at the loss of these last two pieces of my mother and my sister.

“Gin? What is it?” Bria asked. “What’s wrong?”

I just shook my head. I didn’t have the heart to tell her what I’d seen—and what we’d both lost.

Again.

After that, things followed a predictable pattern. The po-po arrived, and all the fine boys in blue started taking witness statements and collecting evidence.

I didn’t know why they were bothering. Clementine, Opal, and Dixon were dead. So were a good portion of the giants they’d conned into helping them. The ones who’d left the rotunda when the shooting had started or had been outside guarding the moving trucks were being rounded up right now, and the few who’d piled into the trucks and raced the vehicles across the bridge and over onto the mainland shouldn’t be too hard to track down, thanks to all those photos and bios Clementine had posted on her website.

The only person who’d gotten away clean was Clementine’s boss, whoever that was.

Oh, she had certainly acted like she was in charge, and she’d had all of her crew fooled into thinking that this was just the beginning of the giant uprising she had planned for Ashland. But too many things about tonight didn’t quite add up. Namely, the fact was that there was no reason for Clementine to break into the museum vault just to steal Mab’s will—unless someone else had hired her to do the job in the first place.

My eyes roamed over the crowd of folks still in the rotunda. Unless I missed my guess, Clementine’s boss was here tonight, hidden among the rest of what passed for high society in Ashland. I wondered if he was studying me right now, wondering how much Clementine had told me before she’d died. He would have been pleased to know that she hadn’t said a word about him, but that didn’t mean he’d never be discovered. In fact, I had some ideas about exactly who had orchestrated the heist and why. I just needed to get Finn to check into a few things for me.

But that could wait until tomorrow. Best to let Clementine’s employer think that he’d gotten away with it, at least for a few days. Let him relax his guard and go about his business. Let him think that he was in the free and clear and that no one was coming after him.

Let him think that no one would ever figure out what he’d done—because that’s when I’d finally strike.

I stood off to the left side of the rotunda. The familiar creak-creak-creak of wheels sounded, and a few seconds later, the coroner pushed a metal cart inside the round room, followed by some assistants with several other carts. All the evidence had been gathered, and now it was time for the cleanup to start.

The coroner and his assistants all gave me solemn, respectful nods when they passed. Well, that was something new and different. Although I suppose they had a vested interest in my activities. The more people I killed, the more overtime they clocked.

Gin Blanco, the Spider, Ashland’s newest cottage industry. Yeah, that was me, all right.

Finn wandered over to me. He stood beside me, and we watched the coroner work, although Finn’s gaze kept sliding over to Bria. I’d told my sister about Clementine’s getaway boat, and she and Xavier had retrieved the three silverstone cases full of jewelry from the vessel. The two of them were busy trying to give everyone back their belongings. Not surprisingly, it was a slow process, especially since some folks saw this as an opportunity to leave with someone else’s jewels.

“Well, I promised that you’d have a good time,” Finn finally said in a cheery tone. “I totally delivered on that one.”

I gave him a flat look.

“What?” he asked. “Don’t tell me that you’re blaming me for this fiasco?”

I kept staring at him.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “I know that you didn’t want to come here tonight in the first place. But how was I supposed to know that Clementine and her crew would try to rob the museum?”