Unraveled

by Jennifer Estep

  I let go of the knob and stepped back, my breath in my throat, but the door didn’t swing open and give away that I’d forced my way into the suite. But I didn’t know how long it would hold. Time to get while the getting was good.

  So I walked down the hallway to where the giants were stationed outside the door to Finn’s suite. Once again, they all snapped to attention at the sight of me and my heaving, corseted bosom. I dropped my tray down to my side, giving them a better view of my chest, even as I gripped the platter tight, ready to snap it up and slam it into the guards’ faces if they tried to stop me.

  The giants leered at me again, but they didn’t step in front of me, and I nodded and smiled politely as I moved past them. Even though I wanted to pick up my skirts and make a mad dash for the elevators, I forced myself to walk at a normal pace, even though I could hear two of the snow globes rattling together in my dress pockets. I winced and kept going, hoping that the giants wouldn’t notice the sounds. My gaze locked on the elevators up ahead, and I started counting off the distance in my head.

  Ten feet away from safety . . . seven feet . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .

  “Hey,” one of the giants called out, “let me ask you something.”

  My finger hovered over the elevator call button. I discreetly punched it, then turned to face the giants, raising my eyebrows. “Yes?”

  “Did they give you a good tip?” that same giant called out. “Because I certainly would have with you in that dress.”

  He leered at me again and let out a low wolf whistle. His two buddies joined in with his hearty chuckles.

  I put a hand on my hip and struck a pose, giving him another little thrill. A wide, genuine smile spread across my face at the thought of the millions of dollars’ worth of jewels stuffed into my pockets.

  “Oh,” I drawled, “it was a great tip. One of the best I’ve ever gotten.”

  21

  The elevator arrived, thankfully putting an end to my forced flirting with the guard, and I stepped inside and rode it back down to the lobby. I glanced around, but I didn’t see Tucker, Roxy, or Brody anywhere, although several giants were stationed along the walls, studying everyone who came and went, and comparing them to my Wanted posters in their hands.

  Still carrying my empty serving tray, I left the lobby behind, went back into the kitchen, and put the platter down on the first table I came to. One of the cooks gave me an odd look, but I walked right on by him and jerked my thumb over my shoulder.

  “Taking my break now.”

  He nodded and went back to slicing tomatoes for the pasta dish he was whipping up.

  I slipped out the back door of the kitchen, which opened onto a small stone patio. A couple of saloon-girl waitresses were standing outside, huddled together against the cold, and smoking cigarettes, despite the large red No Smoking sign hanging on the wall. Their eyes narrowed in suspicion, wondering who I was and if I would rat them out to Roxy, but I simply nodded at them, stepped onto a path, and headed away from the hotel, back down the hill to the theme park.

  Since it was Saturday afternoon, the park was more crowded than ever before, with throngs of tourists meandering along the paths, getting junk food from the concession carts, and standing in lines for the rides. I also passed several costumed characters, all of whom seemed to be holding a copy of my Wanted poster and scanning the crowd for little ole me. Add that to the gems weighing down my pockets, and I felt like every single eye was firmly fixed on me. My spider rune scars itched and burned, and I had to force myself to walk at a regular pace, even though all I wanted to do was run, run, run away from all the people searching for me.

  Actually, I couldn’t have run away from anyone right now, given how the old-fashioned high heels were pinching my toes. More torture devices, along with the stupid corset. I plastered a bland smile on my face and clomped on through the park.

  People stopped me and asked me to pose for pictures, just as they had on my way up to the hotel, and I obliged them because too many other workers were around for me not to. I didn’t want to do anything suspicious to attract anyone’s attention, much less have one of the performers text Roxy or Brody and complain about the saloon girl who was giving the guests the cold shoulder.

  Finally, I slipped off Main Street and made it back to the staging area behind the saloon. A few folks were milling around under the pavilions, talking, laughing, and texting, but they were all just regular workers, instead of being part of Brody’s giant outlaw gang, and I didn’t see anyone holding a copy of my Wanted poster. Once again, I smiled and nodded at everyone I passed. They all gave me cursory smiles and nods in return, then went back to their conversations, although the costumed cowboys went the extra step of tipping their hats at me. How gentlemanly.

  I wandered through the pavilions, looking at all the costumes, fake weapons, tools, barrels full of lassos, and other supplies. As I roamed around, I made a mental inventory of things that might be useful to me later on tonight, and I also picked up the one item that I needed right now—a pair of sturdy-looking tweezers. Not exactly the precision tool I wanted, but it would have to do.

  When I’d finished with my examination, I left the staging area and went back onto Main Street. I wandered along the wooden sidewalks, peering into the storefronts, and searching for a shop that was crowded enough that the workers would be focused on the customers, but not so busy that I couldn’t roam around freely inside. The Silver Spur, the clothing shop, fit the bill, and I went inside.

  Yet again, I smiled and nodded at everyone I passed, but the tourists in here were too busy shopping to want me to pose for pictures. Lucky for me, the restrooms were in the very back of the store, well past the dressing rooms, where the majority of the foot traffic was. I headed into the women’s restroom, which was empty, slipped into one of the stalls, and locked the door behind me. I closed the toilet lid, sat down on it, and let out a deep breath.

  Then, finally, at last, I was able to pull the snow globes out of my dress pockets and examine them.

  Up close, they were cheap, flimsy things, not the expensive, heavy ones like my mother had had all those years ago. And Deirdre hadn’t done a good job of securing the gems inside either, since more and more of them started coming loose as I turned the Main Street globe upside down in my hands.

  The globe was like a mason jar, with the wooden base screwing down into the glass. I quickly took off the base, set it aside, and got down on my knees on the bathroom floor. A drain was embedded in the tile between my stall and the next one, so I held my palm up like a sieve, carefully tipped the globe over, and poured all the water out of the glass, letting it trickle out of my hand and fall away into the drain below.

  I went slowly, only pouring out a little of the water at a time, and making sure not to lose any of the precious stones. Once all the water was gone, and the gems were drying on a wad of toilet paper, I picked up the wooden base, which had the Main Street scene screwed into it, and used my stolen tweezers to gently pry the rest of the jewels out of the Bullet Pointe sign and other places where Deirdre had glued them down.

  Five minutes later, I had an impressive pile of diamonds, along with several other stones. I dropped them all into one of my black velvet bags, then repeated the process on the other two globes.

  When I was finished, I hefted the velvet bag in my hands. Without the glass and the water around them, I could clearly hear the gemstones’ murmurs, which were loud, vain, and proud enough to let me estimate their value. At least ten million dollars, if not more. Nice. While that was only a drop in the bucket compared to the tens of millions that Deirdre had owed the Circle, every little bit helped.

  Even more important, now I had something that Tucker wanted, and he was going to give me my friends in return.

  Oh, I wasn’t stupid enough to think that the vampire would honor any trade agreement we might make. I fully e
xpected him to double-cross me at the least and kill me at the worst. But I would be ready for Tucker, Roxy, Brody, and all the others. I might be stuck in their theme park, but this Spider could spin her own traps and webs.

  I had more work to do, so I put the bag of gemstones aside, drew out some of the other things I’d swiped from Deirdre’s jewelry wall, and went to work with the tweezers again. Once I was finished with that second project, I got to my feet, opened the stall door, and threw the empty snow globes into the trash. Then I went over to one of the sinks to wash all the glitter off my hands.

  I’d just finished drying my hands when my phone beeped. I pulled it out of my dress pocket and checked the message. It was from Silvio, naturally. He’d made good time driving down here, since it wasn’t quite five o’clock yet.

  At the restaurant. Wearing a gray hat.

  Well, that was interesting. Looked like my assistant had taken my suggestion to disguise himself to heart. I texted him back.

  On my way.

  I grabbed the black velvet bag off the sink, making sure that the strings on the top were drawn tight so that I wouldn’t lose any of the jewels inside, then stuffed the whole thing down into my corset, right next to my spider rune necklace.

  It was a tight fit, and it certainly didn’t make the corset any more comfortable, but it was the most secure place I had right now. Once I was sure that everything was going to stay put, I opened the door and left the restroom.

  * * *

  The Silver Spur clothing store wasn’t all that far from the Feeding Trough barbecue restaurant, but it still took me twenty minutes to get over there, mostly because I had to stop, smile, and simper for more stupid pictures. Was I the only saloon girl in the entire theme park that people wanted to pose with? Maybe it was the bloodred dress, making me stand out in a sea of pale pinks, greens, and blues. I was sick of smiling for the camera, so I ducked into the restaurant before anyone else could waylay me.

  Since it was late afternoon, the dinner crowd hadn’t ramped up yet, and only a few folks were inside. Even better, most of them were in costume, with the cowboys, gamblers, and gold miners chowing down on barbecue sandwiches, cheeseburgers, onion rings, and fries before going back to their stations.

  The only costumed folks out of place were the three truckers.

  They all had on brown work boots, dark jeans, and puffy red vests over red plaid shirts. Gray trucker hats with the words Cypress Mountain Shipping stitched across the tops in red were pulled down low on their foreheads, and all three of them had their noses buried in their menus. Despite their disguises, I still recognized them.

  I sashayed over to their table. “Y’all care if a poor, simple, hardworking saloon girl joins you?” I simpered in the same syrupy-sweet drawl I’d used on Brody earlier.

  “Get lost, toots,” one of the truckers growled. “We’re waiting on someone.”

  “Why, Silvio,” I chided, “is that any way to talk to your boss?”

  The trucker who’d spoken looked up. My assistant had gone all out with his disguise. In addition to his trucker outfit, he was also wearing a shaggy gray wig, and an equally shaggy gray mustache covered his upper lip. It looked like a woolly worm had crawled up there and died.

  Silvio squinted. “Is that you—”

  A waitress was walking by on her way to another table, so I pulled out a chair and sat down next to Silvio. “It sure is, sweetheart. Sassy Scarlet at your service.”

  I batted my lashes at him, then turned and looked at the two other people sitting at the table—Lorelei Parker, also sporting a trucker’s hat, and Phillip Kincaid, with a hat and a bad fake dirty-blond mustache.

  Phillip’s blue gaze swept over my blond wig, the black beauty mark, and the bloodred saloon-girl dress. He pulled out his phone, held it up, and pointed it at me. “Say cheese, Scarlet.”

  It would have looked suspicious if I didn’t, so I leaned in next to Silvio, put my arm around his shoulders, and smiled. “You know, I was going to graciously thank you all for coming, for wanting to help, for risking your lives for our friends. The whole nine yards. I had a speech prepared and everything. It was beautiful.”

  “And now?” Phillip murmured, angling his phone for a better shot.

  “And now, I want to stab you with my fork,” I said through gritted teeth.

  He snickered and took two more pictures.

  “Send me those,” Lorelei said.

  Phillip nodded and hit some buttons on his phone. “Done.”

  I glared at Lorelei too, but she gave me a sweet smile in return.

  “And just think, those suckers are in the cloud now, Gin,” Phillip said in a gleeful tone. “Where they will stay and be seen forever.”

  I rolled my eyes, then glanced around the restaurant. “Where’s Ira?” I asked in a low voice.

  “Mr. Morris was waiting for us at the main park entrance,” Silvio said. “He took care of getting our supplies into the park and told all the guards that we were friends of his. They looked Lorelei up and down pretty good, thinking that she might be you, but they finally let us in. Mr. Morris was going to come here with us, but he got a text from Roxy, saying that she was at his cabin, searching for you. So he went to deal with her, while we came here as planned.”

  I nodded. Ira had said that Roxy would get around to checking his cabin sooner or later. I was glad that it was later, and I wasn’t there to cause him any more problems.

  “So what’s the latest?” Silvio asked.

  I started to answer him, but a waitress chose that moment to come over and take our order. The others requested sweet iced teas, along with bacon cheeseburgers with all the fixings, while I opted for a strawberry lemonade, barbecue-chicken sandwich, coleslaw, baked beans, fries, and onion rings.

  “Hungry?” Phillip asked after the waitress had scribbled down my order and walked away.

  I shrugged. “Just building up my strength for tonight. Besides, it’s not like I had a very satisfying lunch.”

  While we waited for our food, I told Silvio, Phillip, and Lorelei everything that had happened while I’d been skulking around.

  “So Hugh Tucker set this whole thing up and lured you all down here to do his dirty work for him,” Phillip mused. “He went to a lot of trouble for some pretty rocks.”

  Even though they were stuffed down into my corset, I could still hear the gemstones proudly singing about their own beauty. “Not just some pretty rocks,” I said. “Millions of sparkling carats’ worth.”

  The waitress returned with our food, and we all dug in. The grub was much better than it had been the last time I’d eaten here a few hours ago. The fries and onion rings were golden and crispy, while the coleslaw had a nice vinegary bite to it. The barbecue-chicken sandwich and the baked beans were disappointing, though, since the sauce on both of them didn’t have the spicy cumin and black pepper kick that Fletcher’s secret sauce did back at the Pork Pit. And best of all, my lemonade wasn’t laced with sedatives.

  While we ate, I kept an eye on the windows, watching the ebb and flow of people out on the sidewalks. Every few minutes, a couple of giants would walk by, clutching my Wanted posters in their hands and scanning the crowds for me. They even stopped and looked through the windows several times, peering into the barbecue restaurant. But I was just another lowly saloon girl, chowing down on my dinner before I went back to work. Yep, hiding in plain sight was still one of the best tricks around. Thanks for the reminder, Mama Dee.

  My friends noticed the giants as well, and they acted casual and concentrated on their food, just like I did, until the guards moved away from the restaurant windows.

  Silvio eyed me a moment, then sighed, crumpled up his napkin, and pushed his plate away. “Uh-oh. I know that look.”

  “What look?”

  He stabbed his finger at me. “That look. The one that says that you’ve already though
t of some plan to save Finn, Bria, and Owen, at considerable danger to yourself.”

  I frowned. “Is there any other kind of plan? I’m certainly not going to put you guys in danger.” I paused. “Well, no more danger than I absolutely have to.”

  Silvio sighed again. “And that’s exactly what that look means.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Lorelei asked.

  I waited until the waitress had refilled our drinks a final time, left the check, and moved on to the next table. “It’s simple, really. I’m going to give Hugh Tucker exactly what he wants.”

  Phillip tilted his head. “And what would that be?”

  I grinned. “A grand ole time in the Wild, Wild West, Spider-style.”

  22

  I didn’t want to get into the specifics of my plan here, so Silvio paid the bill, and the four of us left the restaurant.

  “I want to check on Ira,” I told the others. “Get our supplies, and make sure that he’s okay and that Roxy didn’t cause him any problems. His cabin is that way.”

  Silvio, Phillip, and Lorelei ambled along the wooden sidewalks, pretending to window-shop like all the other tourists, while I strolled along behind them, keeping them in sight, even as I smiled and posed for yet more stupid photos. Slowly, the four of us made our way from Main Street, down one of the alleys, and over to the curving, wooded path that led to Ira’s cabin.

  Once we’d left the crowds behind, we moved much quicker, although I made my friends step off the path and creep through the trees when we got close to the cabin. I sidled up to a large maple and peered around the thick trunk.

  In the clearing beyond, Ira sat in a rocking chair on the front porch of his cabin, the lights on his snowflake sweater flashing and making the shotgun laid across his lap gleam. I carefully examined the area around the cabin and the woods beyond, but I didn’t see Roxy, Brody, or any giants lurking around. They must have come and gone already, when they realized that I wasn’t here. I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d been worried about Ira.