Unraveled

by Jennifer Estep

  Still, I gestured for my friends to stay back as I stepped out of the trees and slowly approached the dwarf, still looking around for any sign that he wasn’t alone. Ira stopped rocking and got to his feet at my approach, his shotgun dangling from his hand.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, patting the barrel of his weapon. “They’re gone. And they won’t be back. I told Roxy and Brody that if I ever spotted them on my land again, that I would put a load of buckshot in both of their hides.”

  I laughed. “You should do that anyway.”

  He thought about it a second, then grinned back at me. “You’re right. I should.”

  I waved my friends over, and we stepped into the cabin. Ira locked the door behind us, while Phillip moved over to one of the windows, keeping watch on the off chance that Roxy and Brody decided to come back after all.

  Ira jerked his thumb at a large black steamer trunk that sat in front of the fireplace. “It wasn’t easy, but I managed to bring in those supplies that your friends brought along with them. Lots of guns for just the four of you.”

  “Believe me,” I said, “we’ll need them.”

  Ira opened the trunk, and Silvio started sorting through all the items inside, complaining that the dwarf had just thrown everything into the trunk and had ruined Silvio’s careful organization. Ira slapped his hands on his hips, ready to snark right back at the vampire, and Lorelei went over to mediate between them.

  That left me to get the ball rolling with Tucker, so I pulled out my phone and dialed the main number for the hotel.

  “Hello, this is the Bullet Pointe resort hotel. How may I assist you today?” a cheery feminine voice chirped in my ear.

  “This is Gin Blanco. Tell Roxy Wyatt that I want to speak to Hugh Tucker. Don’t worry, I’ll hold.”

  “Um, okay. Just a second. Let me see if I can find her.”

  “Oh, I’m sure that she’ll come running once she realizes that I’m on the line.”

  “Um, okay,” the clerk said again, obviously having no idea who I was or what was going on.

  She put me on hold, and I leaned against the fireplace, listening to the same sort of plinka-plinka piano music that they played incessantly in the Good Tyme Saloon.

  Five minutes and endless off keys later, my phone clicked. I put it on speaker and waved at my friends, who all fell silent. A few seconds later, someone picked up on the other end of the line. He didn’t say anything, though, so I decided to start the conversation.

  “Why, hello there, Tuck,” I drawled. “Bet you can’t guess who this is.”

  “Blanco,” the vampire’s voice filled my ear. “How disappointing. I was holding out a faint hope that you’d crawled up into a hole somewhere and died.”

  “We both know that you could never be that lucky.”

  “No, I suppose not.” His voice was calm and emotionless. “What do you want?”

  “I want my friends back. And I’m going to get them back. How much bloodshed there is in the meantime depends on you.”

  Tucker let out a low, sinister laugh. “As if I care about bloodshed. Besides, why would I give your friends back when I went to all the trouble to get them down here in the first place?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe several million dollars’ worth of shiny gemstones? Surely, that’s worth a life or three, even to a coldhearted son of a bitch like you.”

  Silence, although I could almost hear the gears grinding in Tucker’s mind as he debated whether I was telling the truth.

  “You’re bluffing. My people have been searching for weeks now and haven’t seen any trace of the jewels. There’s no way you’ve found them in a single afternoon.”

  “Oh, sugar. I never bluff.”

  He snorted.

  “Besides, the very reason that you lured me and my friends down here was so we could find those shiny stones for you. And now you’re saying that I haven’t delivered?” I clucked my tongue. “You can’t have it both ways, Tuck.”

  “I still don’t believe you.”

  “Well, I could take a picture and send that to you, but you probably wouldn’t believe that either. You’d just claim that I had a handful of fakes. So why don’t you go ask the giants you have guarding my friends about the dashing saloon girl in the bloodred dress who moseyed into Deirdre’s suite a little while ago.”

  “What—”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, cutting him off. “I’m in a generous mood, so I’ll give you some time to confirm everything. I’ll call the main hotel line again in ten minutes. If I were you, I’d tell the clerk to put me right on through. Better get a move on now, ya hear?”

  “Wait—”

  I hung up on him.

  “You enjoyed that,” Lorelei said.

  I grinned. “It’s the small things that make life truly worth living.”

  By this point, she and Silvio had cleared the papers and photography equipment off Ira’s dining-room table, pulled all the supplies out of the steamer trunk, and had laid the gear on the surface. Guns, ammo, knives, tins of Jo-Jo’s healing ointment. All the usual suspects.

  Silvio had also gotten a map of the theme park, which he spread out on top of the weapons, and he went into full-fledged assistant mode, comparing the paper map to some aerial photos he called up on his tablet.

  “This place is like a maze,” he said. “Look at all those paths circling around and around and going nowhere.”

  I nodded. “I know. And that’s what’s going to give me the advantage.”

  Silvio looked at me out of the corner of his eye, clearly wondering what kind of advantage I was talking about.

  The ten minutes went by quickly, although I waited five more, just to make Tucker sweat a little bit. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to set this whole thing up, and I knew that he would do whatever it took to get those gems back, even wait on my call. I wondered just how much pressure the other members of his precious Circle had put on him to recoup at least some of their money that Deirdre had squandered. It must have been a considerable amount, since it seemed like he was more afraid of them than he was of me.

  Tucker was a fool that way.

  Finally, I dialed the main number for the hotel again. As soon as I told the clerk my name, she sputtered and put me on hold. Tucker picked up less than thirty seconds later.

  “What do you want?” he growled.

  “So you believe me now. Excellent,” I purred. “And I want what I’ve always wanted—the safe return of my friends. Them for the jewels. A simple swap. Even you can do that math, Tuck. Of course, I want to talk to them first. Make sure that they’re still alive. So why don’t you get this call transferred up to Finn’s suite. Don’t worry. I’ll wait.”

  “You don’t give the orders around here, Blanco—”

  I cut him off. “Or I could always mosey on down to the lake, get into a boat, and drop this lovely bag of sparkling stones in the middle of the water. Your choice, Tuck.”

  “Fine,” the vampire growled again. “Hold on.”

  Phillip was still standing by the windows, keeping watch, but he glanced at me, respect shining in his eyes. “Making him run around and do your bidding? That’s got to be driving Tucker crazy.”

  I grinned again. “That’s the point.”

  While we waited for Tucker to come back on the line, Silvio pulled a red highlighter out of the pocket of his red plaid shirt and started marking all the park entrances.

  “I don’t like this,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t like this at all.”

  “I don’t like it either,” I replied. “But it is what it is. We have to make the best of it—for Finn, Bria, and Owen’s sake.”

  Silvio nodded, but his face pinched tight with worry.

  Finally, my phone clicked, and a faint buzz sounded, telling me that someone was on the line. I waited, my fingers curling
tight around the phone, and my breath caught in my throat.

  “Gin?” Finn’s voice finally sounded.

  My entire body sagged, and I held the phone away from my face so that no one on the other end would hear my sigh of relief. Then I brought the device back up to my lips again. “How are you?”

  “A little groggy.” His words slurred a bit. “You found the jewels?”

  “I found them, and I’m going to get you guys out of there. Just hold on. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Finn paused. “And watch out for the June bugs. They’re everywhere this time of year. I can see them now, flying around in here. . . .”

  His voice drifted off, and he let out a little giggle, as though he were still under the influence of that sedative. But June bugs was a code phrase that Fletcher had coined for us long ago, and I recognized the words as the warning they were. Finn was telling me that whatever meeting Tucker set would be a trap and that the vampire had lots of men with him. I already knew all of that, but my heart still lifted at the fact that Finn was in good enough shape to try to help me.

  “Are you satisfied now?” Tucker snapped, coming back on the line. “All your precious little friends are still alive. But they won’t stay that way for long unless you give me those jewels.”

  “And if you hurt any of them, you’ll never get the stones. So I’d say that we have ourselves a good old-­fashioned standoff.”

  Silence. Tucker cleared his throat. “Well, then, if you’ll just bring the jewels up to the hotel, we can resolve this whole messy situation—”

  I laughed, cutting him off again. “So you can have Roxy, Brody, and all those giants surround and kill me? Forget it. You’ll meet me in the theme park, outside the saloon, right in the middle of Main Street. Midnight. Just you and my friends. Nobody else.”

  “Or?”

  “Or I’ll forget about the lake and flush every single one of these rocks down the first toilet I come to. Believe me when I tell you that there’s one close by.”

  “You wouldn’t do that. Not while I still have your friends.”

  I laughed again. “Oh, yes, I would. Just for spite. Especially if you hurt them in any way. But let’s be honest. That’s not a chance you’re going to take.”

  “Fine,” Tucker said. “I’ll meet you in the middle of Main Street with your friends in tow. And Blanco—don’t even think that you can double-cross me and escape. I’ve got this place surrounded. No one goes in or out—­including your friends—until I have those jewels.”

  “That’s—”

  I was going to hurl another insult at him, but the bastard beat me to the punch and hung up.

  * * *

  With the exchange set, my friends and I started getting ready for tonight.

  The first thing I did was go into the bedroom and get rid of my torturous disguise. I shimmied out of the saloon-girl dress with no problem, although I had to get Lorelei to help me unlace the corset. She snickered the whole time. I also stripped off the old-fashioned heels, blond wig, and beauty mark that I’d stuck on my face.

  Thankfully, Silvio had brought me some extra clothes, so I was able to put on my usual assassin attire—black boots, socks, jeans, turtleneck, and a vest lined with silverstone, which would stop any bullets coming my way. I fingered the edge of the vest and thought of how easily Roxy had shot me in the arm earlier today and how much her Fire-coated bullets had hurt. I’d have to invest in a silverstone jacket when I got back to Ashland.

  If I got back to Ashland.

  I still had all five of my knives, which I slid into their usual spots. I also stuffed an extra knife into one of the pockets on my vest, along with a couple of tins of Jo-Jo’s healing ointment. As a final touch, I borrowed a black leather belt from Ira and slid two guns outfitted with silencers into the attached holsters. Guns ran out of ammo far too quickly for my liking, but I’d need all the firepower I could get tonight.

  I put one final thing into my vest pocket—a black velvet bag full of jewels. Couldn’t forget that.

  Once I was ready, I smoothed the wrinkles out of Sweet Sally Sue’s dress as best I could and hung it back up on the hanger. I stared at the dress a moment, thinking, then picked up an item from my spread of supplies on the bed and slipped it into one of the dress pockets. Satisfied, I smiled, grabbed the hanger, and took the dress back out to the main room where the others were.

  “Here you go.” I handed the dress over to Ira. “I didn’t get any blood on it, which, let me tell you, is something of a miracle for me. But you should still check it later. Make sure that there aren’t any rips or tears or especially holes in the pockets.”

  He gave me a strange look, wondering why I would care so much about the dress, but he nodded and hung the garment on a knob on the wall to help the rest of the wrinkles fall out of it.

  Once that was done, Ira went over to the dining-room table, where Silvio, Phillip, and Lorelei were still looking at the park map, memorizing the locations of everything from the concession stands and food carts to the water fountains and restrooms. I joined them, studying the map as well, just as I’d studied the park when I’d been exploring with Finn, Bria, and Owen earlier today. You never knew what might be important when you were fighting for your life, and tonight I would need every advantage I could get.

  “So are you finally going to fill us in on your plan?” Phillip asked.

  I pointed at the theme-park map. “That—that’s my plan.”

  Lorelei frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Silvio realized what I was up to, and he started shaking his head. “I knew it,” he said. “I knew you were going to do something like this.”

  “Something like what?” Ira asked.

  I tapped my finger on the map. “Tucker thinks that he has me trapped in the theme park. No matter what he told me on the phone, he won’t come and face me himself, and he certainly won’t wait around until midnight to get his hands on those gems. Once the park closes for the night, and all the workers and tourists are gone, he’ll send in Roxy, Brody, and their giants, hoping that they can find and kill me and bring him the jewels.”

  That’s what I would do in his situation, and I knew that Roxy would be eager to confront me. After all, she was a hunter, and Gin Blanco was big game, baby.

  “Tucker wants those stones more than anything else,” I continued. “So he’ll probably send the majority of his giants into the theme park after me. Hopefully, he’ll only leave a few men behind to guard Finn, Bria, and Owen at the hotel. Either way, I doubt that Tucker’s realized that I’ve called for backup. So while I’m running around the theme park being the distraction, the three of you can keep an eye on the hotel. Tucker will have to bring Finn, Bria, and Owen out of that suite and down to the lobby at some point, if only to take them over to Main Street for our meeting. No matter what happens to me, I want you guys to grab the three of them the second you have the chance.”

  Silvio sighed, still not liking my plan, but he realized that there was no talking me out of it, and he nodded. So did Phillip and Lorelei.

  Ira cleared his throat. “Four. There will be four of us.” He crossed his arms over his chest, daring me to argue.

  I knew when I was beat, and I gave him a grateful smile. “Four of you then.”

  He nodded back at me.

  We hashed out a few more things, but after that, there was nothing to do but wait for the theme park to close. I ended up sitting on the couch, my head resting back against a large, fluffy pillow, and my feet stretched out on a small ottoman. Maybe it was the pleasant heat from the fire or the last dregs of the sedative in my system, but my eyes slowly slid shut, and I started to dream. . . .

  The gunman loomed over me, his finger curling back on the trigger, and I knew that I was going to die, right here in my own home.

  I’d always felt so safe, so secure here. I’d always thought that no
thing bad could ever happen as long as I was within these walls, where the stones softly sang me to sleep every night.

  It made me sick to my stomach to realize how wrong I’d been.

  The man stepped forward and adjusted his aim. I put my hands down, but I’d landed on a thick Persian rug, instead of the slick stone floor, and I wasn’t going to be able to lurch out of the way before he shot me point-blank in the head—

  A blue-white ball of magic blasted through the air, slamming straight into the guy’s gun. He screamed and staggered back, trying to drop the weapon.

  Only he couldn’t, since his entire hand was now encased in a thick block of elemental Ice, along with his gun. The man screamed again, reached around with his free hand, and pulled another gun out from against the small of his back, but his movements were slow and awkward, and I knew what was going to happen next.

  Sure enough, another blue-white flash of magic filled the office, cold enough to make my breath frost in the air. Only this time, the light separated into a deadly spray of Ice daggers, all of which punched into the gunman’s chest. Blood sprayed out in all directions from the jagged puncture wounds, the warm drops stinging my face like bees. His second gun fell from his hand, and he screamed and clutched at his chest, as though he could pull out all those long, glittering shards of Ice.

  But it was too late for that.

  The man staggered back, hitting the wall across from me, and his legs slid out from under him. A second later, he was down on the floor, facing me. My gaze locked with his. Even though the ski mask still covered his face, I could tell that he looked surprised, as if he’d never thought that he might end up shish-kebabed like the appetizers at the holiday party earlier.

  He opened his mouth to say something, but only a thin trickle of blood came out through the wool, although more and more of it oozed down his chest, soaking into his black clothes. His dark gaze locked with mine again, but his body went slack, and I could tell that he wasn’t seeing me. Not anymore.