Deadly Sting (Elemental Assassin #8)

In the end, I didn't have to decide. A hand touched my shoulder, and Bria stepped in front of me, blocking my view of Owen, perhaps for the best.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "Owen told us about the fight in the boathouse. That you were facing down Clementine and Opal alone. What happened?"

I shrugged. "Nothing much. I took out Opal easily enough. Clementine almost beat me to death, but I got her instead."

Bria nodded, then glanced across the rotunda at Owen, who was still speaking to Cooper. "And what about Owen?"

"What about Owen?"

"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.

Chapter 29

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?"

"Because you're Finnegan Lane," I said. "And you're supposed to know everything that goes on in this town."

Finn straightened up and adjusted his black silk bow tie. "True," he said. "But I hadn't heard a whiff about tonight. And none of my sources has either. While you were getting patched up by Jo-Jo, I was getting patched in. Clementine kept her entire scheme under wraps, which is surprising, given how many giants were involved."

"Not Clementine," I said. "Her boss."

Finn blinked. "Boss? What boss? Did Clementine say that she had a boss before you dispatched her into the great beyond?"

I thought of how she had immediately known how to open the tube that held Mab's will and all the other things she'd said and done tonight, all the information she'd had about me and my loved ones.

"Not in so many words."

This time, Finn arched his eyebrow. "Well, what did she say, exactly? Or have you branched out into voodoo and decided to start reading blood spatters and weird stuff like that? Because she's certainly not going to tell you anything now."

"Interesting idea," I said. "And one that I should probably look into, given all the people I've killed tonight. I wouldn't mind some peeks into the future and getting a heads-up on all the trouble that's headed my way. But no, I didn't deduce anything from Clementine's blood - only that she was dead and I wasn't."

"So how are you going to figure out who orchestrated this?" Finn asked. "Because as skilled as you are, even you can't make the dead speak."

"Oh, the dead tell us plenty of things," I said. "And so do people when they're alive. Clementine gave me more than enough information to track down her boss, even if she didn't realize it."

Finn eyed me. "Have I mentioned how much I hate it when you're cryptic?"

I just laughed.

Finn went over to Bria to see if he could swipe a necklace or two for himself, but I stayed where I was and watched the coroner work. He'd finally gotten around to Jillian. In the chaos and confusion, her body had been rolled over to one side of the rotunda like it was a wad of dirt that needed to be swept up, instead of a beautiful, vibrant woman who'd been alive only a few short hours ago.

My heart ached with sadness, and I couldn't take my eyes off Jillian's dress - our dress. The scarlet fabric wrapped around her body like a bloody shroud. That's what it was now. She'd been killed because of it, because she'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time and wearing the wrong damn dress.

And it was all my fault.

Oh, I knew that it was just bad timing, just bad, dumb, stupid luck that Jillian had stepped out of the bathroom before I had. Maybe if it had been me instead, I would have been able to avoid Dixon and the bullets he'd wanted to put in my skull. Maybe I would have been able to use my Stone magic to harden my skin before he pulled the trigger. Maybe I would have been able to kill Dixon and Clementine before they hurt anyone else.

Or maybe I would have been just as dead as Jillian was.

Either way, I'd never know, and an innocent woman had paid the price instead of me.

Owen walked over to me. We stood there and watched while the coroner and one of his assistants carefully loaded Jillian into a body bag.

After a moment, he sighed. "A couple of hours ago, I was talking to her, laughing with her. And now she's gone. It doesn't seem possible. It doesn't seem real."

"I know," I said. "I'm sorry. We talked a little in the bathroom before . . . it happened. She seemed . . . nice."

"She was nice," Owen said. "But I never should have brought her here tonight. And not just because of Clementine and everything that happened."

"What do you mean?"

He turned to face me. "I mean that Jillian was just a friend. She was in town so we could work out the details of a new business arrangement, and I mentioned the gala in passing to her. She asked if she could come along with me and Eva, and I said yes. She made it clear tonight that she wanted to be more than just friends and business associates, but I didn't. It didn't . . . feel right."

I nodded, accepting his explanation about why he'd been here with Jillian. "And that kiss you gave me in the vault? Have you thought any more about that? Because that definitely wasn't just a friendly kiss."

He hesitated, and pain seeped into his rugged features once more. "That doesn't feel right either. Or maybe it feels too right. I don't know anymore, Gin. I just don't know."

"It's okay," I said, my heart breaking once again. "I understand."

And I did understand. I had plenty of things in my life that haunted me - memories of the people I'd killed, the torture I'd endured, the horrible things I'd done just to survive. It was hard to be happy when I always had so much weighing me down, hard to think that I deserved any kind of peace, light, or love in my life. Now Owen was struggling with the same feelings, the same emotions, when it came to Salina. He didn't feel like he had a right to move on yet.

Just like I couldn't move on from Jillian's death.

Sure, I'd killed Dixon, Opal, and Clementine, the masterminds behind her murder, but it wasn't going to bring her back. I'd avenged Jillian the only way I knew how, and it still wasn't enough. It would never be enough, and it was one more thing that I was just going to have to live with.

Owen stayed right beside me until the coroner zipped up the black body bag, hiding Jillian's ruined face from sight, and started pushing the cart out of the rotunda.