Deadly Sting

Given the shady life we led and all the people Finn, Fletcher, and I had killed over the years, the extra key was a little safety precaution we took. Finn had them stashed on all his vehicles, just like I had one on my car. Just in case one of us wanted to get into the other's ride without making a lot of noise or needed to make a quick, clean getaway.

I used the key to pop the trunk, which contained a couple of black duffel bags. Finn always kept extra gear in his various cars, just as I had some stashed in the back of the Pork Pit, at Jo-Jo's salon, and other places that I frequented. In case of emergencies. I'd say tonight definitely qualified as one of those.

I unzipped one of the duffel bags. Pistols, silencers, ammunition, cleaning oil. Most of the items inside were gun-related, since those were Finn's weapons of choice. I dumped the gun I'd taken off the giant and grabbed one of Finn's instead, along with a silencer and several clips of ammo. Guns jammed too much for my liking, but my foster brother was obsessive about keeping his in tip-top shape, so I knew they would be far more reliable than the giant's.

Finn also had an extra suit, shirt, tie, and socks and a pair of glossy wing tips stowed in a small suitcase in the trunk, along with an iron. Not helpful, unless I wanted to steam and starch someone to death. I shook my head again, this time at his obsessiveness when it came to his appearance.

Finally, I unzipped the final bag - my bag.

Finn kept some of his things in my car, and I reciprocated in his. After the gun, the next items I grabbed were two extra knives and their holsters. I buckled the bands of leather around my thighs and slid the weapons into the appropriate slots. Now I had four blades instead of just two. Good for me, bad for everyone else.

Last, I pulled a pair of black boots out of my bag.

The scarlet heels I'd worn earlier were still tied to the leather belt around my waist. After dropping them in the trunk, I grabbed a pair of socks out of the bag and sat on the rim of the open trunk. I used some of the cut-off fabric from my dress to wipe as much of the dirt, dew, and grass off my feet as I could before sliding the cotton socks and boots onto my feet.

The black socks and boots didn't exactly go with my dress. Or maybe they did, given how tattered, torn, and bloodstained the scarlet gown was now. Either way, now I wouldn't have to watch where I was walking or worry about cutting up my feet. Besides, I felt better in the boots - stronger and more grounded. Steel toes tend to bolster a girl's confidence in her ability to kick some serious ass.

When I was properly attired, I walked around the car, opened the passenger door, and grabbed my purse off the seat. I didn't carry a purse all the time, and I hadn't wanted to keep up with one tonight, which is why I'd left it in the car. But there was one final item in the tiny bag that I needed - a cell phone.

Clementine had mentioned that she had set up jammers inside the museum to stop people from calling the cops, but I was hoping that she hadn't thought to put them outside too, especially way down here in the parking lot. I powered up the device and was pleased to see that I had a signal.

I checked the time. Ten-oh-three. Forty minutes had passed since I'd stepped outside the museum. Owen should almost be through the vault door by now, if Clementine's calculations had been correct. Add the twenty minutes I'd spent roaming around inside the museum, and Phillip had been shot roughly an hour ago. That meant he probably had another hour left. Maybe two if we were both lucky.

Tick, tick, tick. Time to get on with things.

I touched a contact on my cell phone. It rang three times before she picked it up.

"Detective Coolidge." My sister's warm, confident voice flooded the line.

"Hey there, baby sister," I drawled. "Have I got a story to tell you."

Chapter 14

"Are you joking?" Bria asked three minutes later when I'd finished explaining everything. "Please, please, please tell me that you're joking."

"Unfortunately not."

"You're telling me that a group of giants is holding everyone at the Briartop museum hostage? And robbing the place while they're at it?"

"You got it," I replied. "I'm out here in the parking lot, taking a halftime break before I head back in and let Clementine know that things aren't sewn up quite as neatly as she thinks they are."

"What are you going to do, Gin?"

The suspicion in her voice might as well have been code for How many people are you planning to kill? Always a valid question when it came to the Spider.

"Well, right now, I'm going to take the bomb I got off the bridge, go back into the museum, and blow something up. I haven't decided what, exactly. Any suggestions?"

Bria was silent for a moment. Then she let out a rueful laugh. "Well, I'd suggest the abstract wing. I never understood what all the fuss was about with that. Art should look like art, trees and flowers and people, not weird shapes and splotches of color all smeared together."

I grinned, even though she couldn't see me. "A woman after my own heart."

Through the phone, I heard Bria typing on her keyboard. She was at the police station, and as soon as I'd told her Clementine's name and description, she'd started searching for information on the giant.

"Here she is. Clementine Barker. Fifty-eight. Lives on Bear Hollow Road. Head of Barker Industries. Private security firm offering personal and corporate protection. I'm looking at the company website right now . . ." Bria let out a low whistle. "Wow. It looks like she's hired at least fifty, sixty giants in the last few weeks, judging from all the announcements on their press page."

"She actually put all her new hires on her website?"

"Yep," Bria said. "She's got up photos and bios listing all of the giants' credentials."

"Well, that would certainly fit in with the rah-rah-giants speech she gave in the rotunda earlier."

I told Bria what Clementine had said about getting her crew together so the giants could finally take what should have been theirs all along from the museum and everyone at the gala. When I finished, Bria hit some more buttons on her computer.

"No arrests on record for Clementine or her daughter, Opal," Bria continued. "But it looks like her nephew has had more than a few brushes with the law. Dixon Barker: bar fights, drunk and disorderlies, even an assault charge he managed to skate on a few months ago."

"Oh, yes," I said. "I've seen Dixon. He's a real Prince Charming."

"As for Clementine, it looks like she's kept her nose clean, although there have been several complaints filed against her, her company, and her employees for assault, intimidation, things like that. She's also been questioned in a couple of murders. Seems like a few folks that Clementine was providing protection to died under mysterious, violent circumstances on her watch."

"You mean that she helped them along herself. Or got a better offer from someone else to eliminate her clients."

Bria snorted. "I'd say that's a distinct possibility from the autopsy photos I'm looking at right now. Most of the victims were beaten to death. No weapons were ever recovered, so I'd say Clementine used her fists on them. Nothing's stuck, though. Seems like Clementine has enough money and clout to get herself out of most scrapes. That, or she's paid off enough of the right people in the police department to make some of the more serious unpleasantness simply go away."

I nodded. That sounded exactly like something Clementine would do, given what I'd seen here tonight.

"So what do you need me to do?" Bria asked.

"Grab Xavier and get out here," I said. "Just you two. I don't want a whole bunch of cops showing up, sirens blaring, and spooking the robbers before I'm ready. Also, track down Jo-Jo. Finn had said that she was on a date with Cooper tonight. I couldn't tell how badly Phillip was injured, but at the very least, he's lost a lot of blood, and I want her to be able to heal him just as soon as it's safe."

"I'm waving Xavier over here right now. I'll call Jo-Jo and tell her to get out there as soon as she can. I'll text you when Xavier and I are on the island."

"Good," I said. "I've disarmed the rune trap on the bridge, but I'd still leave your car on the mainland side and cross on foot. After the two of you are on the island, stay in the gardens and move through them. That should keep you and Xavier away from any giants who might be patrolling the museum perimeter. I'm going inside right now to get Owen away from Clementine and her men. Once I have him, we'll head to the gardens on the west side of the island. Clementine's set up some cell-phone jammers inside the museum, so if I miss your text or don't respond, you and Xavier work your way through the gardens to that part of the island. That's where we'll meet."

"See you there." Bria hesitated again. "And, Gin?"

"Yeah?"

"Watch your back."

The concern in her voice warmed my heart. It always amazed me how far our relationship had come in the months since Bria had returned to Ashland. How we'd gone from suspicion, anger, and mistrust to understanding, acceptance, and respect.

"Don't worry, baby sister. I always do."

* * *

I hung up with Bria, silenced my phone and clipped it to my belt, and closed the trunk on the Aston Martin. Then I grabbed the bomb and carefully set it on top of the smooth metal lid so I could study the cluster of wires and figure out which buttons to push to turn the attached cell phone into a timer that would trigger the device.

While I worked, I also turned up the volume on my stolen walkie-talkie. Clementine had trained her crew well, because there was no unnecessary chatter clogging up the airwaves. Just brief bursts of conversation about the giants moving from one room to the next, stripping all of the art from the floors and walls, and loading it up.

"The first truck is full," Dixon said at one point. "We'll have to open the second one now."

"Roger that," Opal responded. "I've got the rest of the jewelry loaded into the other two cases and ready for transport."

Once again, I wondered where exactly the giants were stashing the jewelry, but it didn't really matter. I didn't care about the gems and what became of them - only what happened to my friends and the rest of the hostages.

After that . . . silence, as the giants continued with their various tasks. I'd just found the command to program the cell-phone timer when the walkie-talkie crackled again.

"Anton?" Clementine's voice filled the air. "You and Hannah back inside the museum yet?"

I hesitated, debating whether or not to answer her. Anton had been one of the giants I'd killed at the bridge, so it wasn't like he was going to chime in. I didn't want to say the wrong thing and tip off Clementine that someone was running around the museum murdering her men, but I still needed a few more minutes of anonymity before I made my presence known.

"Anton?" Clementine asked again, her voice sharper and more demanding than before.

From the conversations I'd heard, it didn't sound like the crew was using complicated code words, so I decided to risk it.

"Done," I said, making my voice as deep and manly as possible. "Heading back now."

"Good," she responded. "Grayson is almost through the last of the hinges on the vault. Shouldn't take him more than another five minutes. So get your ass back up here, help the others load up the rest of the art, and get ready to move out."

"Roger that," I rumbled again.

I waited a few seconds, but Clementine didn't respond, and I didn't hear any other chatter either. It seemed like she'd bought my act, so I turned the volume back down, grabbed the bomb, and left the parking lot.

I snuck through the bushes until I was flush against the museum once more. I hugged the wall and hurried all the way around the building to the same side door I'd first snuck out of. Looking inside through the glass, I saw that the area was still dark. No giants moved in the hallway or adjoining rooms, so I used my stolen key card to open the door and slipped inside. Once again, the small snick sounded as loud as a gong banging in the mausoleum quiet of the museum, but there was nothing I could do to muffle the noise.

Now it was decision time. Where to plant the bomb? I needed a spot close enough to the vault to get Clementine's attention but far enough away to give me a chance to grab Owen, figure out what she was after in the vault, and get out before she realized that the blast was just a diversion.

Near the rotunda, I decided. The giants might have raised one gate so they could come and go from the area, but the hostages had zero chance of escaping with all of the other exits blocked. The bomb should have more than enough power to blow through one of the gates and create an opening.

I headed in that direction, once again tiptoeing across open doorways where Clementine's giants were still looting various parts of the museum. Judging from all the tubes, boxes, and crates clustered in the rooms, she'd trained her crew to be quick and efficient. She had tens of millions packed up already, more than enough to fund the most lavish criminal syndicate - or retirement - imaginable. So what was in the vault that was so important that she'd risk sticking around to get it? What score was bigger than what she already had?

I was going to find out - just as soon as I set off the bomb.

I made it all the way back to the main hallway that led into the rotunda. It was easy enough to hurry over to one of the side entrances, attach the bomb to the center of the metal gate there, and set the timer on the cell phone for ninety seconds.

90. I stared at the numbers on the phone, drew in a breath, and then let it out, preparing myself for the bloody battle to come. I was going to do this - I had to do this for Owen, Phillip, Roslyn, Eva, Finn, and everyone else the giants had trapped inside the rotunda. And for everyone Clementine and her men had already hurt and killed tonight - including Jillian.