Finn drew an electronic key card out of his jacket pocket, slid it through the reader, and opened the door. He stepped inside, and Owen shut the door behind us. The room was empty, but that was to be expected.
Because we weren’t in Mr. Smith’s room—we were in the one next door.
I’d told Finn and Silvio that I didn’t want to question Smith. Not just yet. Instead, I wanted to watch him first and get a sense of what he was like. And, more important, who he was working for. Dead men tell few tales, and I wanted as much information as I could get before I went into the next room and put the squeeze on Smith in person.
So, wearing his disguise, Finn had come over to the hotel earlier today and lifted a master key card off one of the housekeepers. Making sure that Smith was out, he’d let himself into the other man’s room and made a few, well, adjustments to certain items inside.
Finn and Owen took off their jackets and threw them onto the bed, but I kept mine on, to hide the knives up my sleeves and just in case I had to leave the room in a hurry. Three chairs had been arranged in front of the TV, and we all sat down, with me in the seat closest to the door. If Smith realized that someone had been in his room, he might bolt, and I wanted to be able to run him down.
Finn picked up the remote and clicked on the flat-screen TV. A mirror image of our room popped up onto the screen, thanks to the bug that he had planted in the TV next door.
“And now, allow me to proudly present our newest viewing channel,” Finn pronounced, giving an elegant flourish of his hand. “And it won’t even cost you extra.”
“Cost me extra? It already costs five hundred bucks a night, which you put on one of my credit cards,” I grumbled. “For that much money, they should have real, live people come to your room and act out the movies.”
“You mean on the credit card of one of your many aliases,” Finn chirped back. “It’s not like you actually have to pay for it.”
“I do if I want to keep using this alias.”
Finn waved away my concerns, hopped to his feet, and strolled over to the minibar. “Who’s thirsty? I certainly am.”
He pulled out several small bottles and tossed one over to Owen, keeping the rest for himself. Twenty dollars a bottle times three, four, five . . . I sighed and stopped counting. I was not looking forward to getting the bill for tonight.
Finn and Owen cracked open their overpriced, undersized bottles of booze, but I stared at the TV screen.
The room on the other side of the wall was a mess. Tangled sheets trailed off the king-size bed, pillows had been strewn everywhere, silver room-service platters crowded together on the desk, and several pairs of silk leopard-print boxers had been draped over the tops of the lampshades, as if to dry.
“What a slob,” Owen said.
“You don’t have to be neat to plant a bomb. Just sneaky. When is he supposed to be back in his room?”
Finn glanced at his watch. “According to the info that the lovely Ms. Jamison texted me earlier tonight, Smith’s date with her employee was supposed to wrap up fifteen minutes ago. They were meeting at a hotel a block over, so he should be back here any time now.”
Sure enough, out in the hallway, I heard the loud bang of a door slamming shut. On the screen, a shadow moved across the floor in the other room, indicating that someone had opened the door. A second later, a man stepped within view of the TV. Sandy hair, dark eyes, plain features, modest suit, with a garish leopard-print tie. Hello, Mr. Smith.
“That’s him,” I said. “That’s the fake waiter from the riverboat.”
Finn hit another button on the remote. “Did I mention that we have picture and sound? So let’s sit back and watch the show.”
Smith must have enjoyed his paid date, because he was grinning from ear to ear and whistling a jaunty, happy tune. He even went over to the mirror and winked at himself, as if he was proud of his stud-muffin ways. Smith was far too busy basking in his own prowess to suspect that he was in trouble—or that someone was watching him.
Finn, Owen, and I settled in for our evening’s viewing, but Smith didn’t do anything remotely interesting. All he did was plop down on the unmade bed, pull out his cell phone, and start scrolling through his messages, texting several folks and chuckling at some silly cat video, judging from the meows streaming out of his phone.
Finally, he got tired of that and threw his phone down on top of the nightstand, not noticing that it slipped off the side and fell into the crack between the nightstand and the wall. Smith scooted down into the center of the bed and picked up the remote.
Click.
Click-click.
Click.
He jabbed and jabbed at the buttons, but nothing happened, thanks to the rewiring job Finn had done on his TV.
“Aw, nuts,” Smith muttered. “Stupid TV’s broken.”
I tensed, wondering if he might call the front desk to have someone from maintenance come up and look at the TV. If that happened, our spy mission was over, and I’d have to grab Smith and get him out of his room before one of the hotel staff showed up.
But instead of calling for help, Smith stripped off his suit in full view of the TV, revealing zebra-stripe boxers. At least he was consistent with his jungle theme.
“Woot, woot. Take it off, baby!” Finn called out. “Bow-chicka-wow-wow!”
“I didn’t think he was your type.” Owen chuckled. “Especially considering that conversation we had earlier about you being a one-woman man now.”
“Oh, he’s not.” Finn grinned. “But somebody had to say it.”
I glared at him, but he cracked open another miniature bottle of booze and saluted me with it.
Smith finished stripping, leaving his suit and silk boxers on the floor, then headed into the bathroom. Through the TV, I could hear the squeaking of the faucets turning on, then the steady hissing of water running in the shower.
Owen looked at me. “Now would be the perfect time to slip into his room.”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
“What are you waiting for? An invitation?” Finn asked. “We’ve been here thirty minutes already, and he hasn’t done anything entertaining, much less incriminating. I don’t think that Smith is going to get out of the shower, call up his comrades in crime, and ask them to come over for poker night so you can kill them all in one fell swoop.”
“I know that,” I snapped. “But Fletcher always said that there was no harm in waiting if you weren’t sure about things. So that’s what we’re going to do.”
“Wait? Until you feel sure about things? With your paranoia, Christmas will come sooner,” Finn groused.
“And you never could sit still for more than five minutes without fidgeting,” I shot back.
My foster brother huffed, got up from his chair, and propped some pillows up against the headboard before launching himself ass-first onto the bed. He punched the pillows several times to flatten them into submission and made a big show of positioning them just so, before he finally settled back against them, stretched out his legs, and crossed his ankles.
“Well, if we have to wait, then I’m going to be comfortable while I do it,” Finn said, leaning over and plucking a room-service menu off the nightstand. “I wonder if they have popcorn in this joint. Since we’re here to watch a show, we totally need some popcorn to go along with it. Don’t you think?”
“I think the only thing corny in here is you,” I muttered.
Owen snickered. “Maybe Finn would like some cheese to go along with his whine.”
“Nice,” I said.
I held out my hand, and Owen high-fived me.
Finn shot us both a dirty look, but he contented himself with the minibar liquor. We all settled back down and sat there in silence while Smith took his shower.
I hadn’t lied. I didn’t really know what I was waiting for. Maybe for the bomber to
make a personal appearance. Because if my minion had been going around town trashing hotel rooms, having a good time, and attracting attention, then I would have made it a point to come and tell him to knock it off. That discretion was the better part of valor—and the only thing that would keep me from killing him. Besides, guys like Smith always squealed the second anyone put any kind of pressure on them. And I was betting that the bomber didn’t want anyone knowing who he was—before he killed me, anyway.
So I would wait and watch and hope that I got a lucky break.
But of course, the bomber could already be long gone, and Smith could be on his own now, blowing through whatever money he’d made by planting the bomb on the riverboat—
Another shadow moved across the floor of Smith’s room.
I leaned forward, peering at the screen. I hadn’t heard a door click shut in the hallway, indicating that someone had entered the room. I wondered if my eyes were playing tricks on me.
But they weren’t.
A second later, a man stepped within view of the TV. Smith was still in the shower, so he was oblivious to the guy’s arrival.
Black hair, blue eyes, handsome face, snazzy suit. Lo and behold, it was the same guy I’d noticed in the cigar bar. I might be paranoid, but more often than not, my hunches paid off.
Still, the longer I looked at him, the more my stomach tightened with tension. Something about this guy seriously worried me, something beyond the suspicion that he was the bomber. Once again, I felt some sort of vague memory swimming around and around in the bottom of my brain, but the more I tried to pull it up, the deeper it sank. In an instant, it had vanished completely. But the tension, the worry, the dread remained.
The mystery man glanced around the room, his mouth twisting with disgust at the mess Smith had made. But he shoved several pairs of socks off the desk chair and sat down in it. Waiting, just like we were.
Owen frowned. “Hey, isn’t that . . .”
“The guy from downstairs.” Finn finished his thought. “Who the hell is he?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “But your TV channel just got a lot more interesting.”
10
The mystery man watched the bathroom door, waiting for Smith to finish his shower, so I took the opportunity to study him.
I had a better view now than I’d had in the cigar bar, and the man was even more handsome than I’d originally thought. Add in his suit, expensive watch, and silverstone signet ring, and you had an exceptionally attractive package. But his perfect features couldn’t quite hide the coldness lurking in his eyes, and I thought of the flat glare he’d given the woman who’d tried to pick him up downstairs. Pretty polish aside, I knew a predator when I saw one.
The guy leaned back in the chair, put his arm on the desk, and started drumming his fingers on the wooden surface. His eyes narrowed as he stared at the bathroom door, and his mouth puckered with annoyance at having to wait for Smith, who was taking what felt like the world’s longest shower. At first, his finger tapping seemed harmless enough.
Then I noticed the spoon.
A few inches from his hand, a spoon laid across an empty saucer trembled, then started to shake violently, as though it were being rattled around by an earthquake. I could hear the silverware clanging around, even through the TV screen. There was no way that the guy simply drumming his fingers would cause the spoon to move around like that. He’d have to repeatedly bang his fist against the desk to get that kind of result . . . unless he had some sort of magic.
Some elementals constantly leaked magic, their power rippling off their bodies in invisible waves and affecting their surroundings in small ways even when they weren’t doing anything other than blinking and breathing. Or, say, tapping their fingers on a desktop. It was worrisome enough that the guy was an elemental, but what really troubled me was the fact that there was only one kind of power that would affect a simple spoon that way.
Metal magic.
Which meant I’d just found the bomber.
I pointed at the screen. “Do you guys see that? What he’s doing to that spoon?”
Finn sat up on the bed. “He’s a metal elemental.”
“Yeah,” Owen said, his face creasing with worry. “And I can feel his magic, even in here. Can’t you, Gin? The guy’s strong. Certainly stronger than I am. Stronger than any other metal elemental I’ve ever met.”
Owen was right. Not only could I sense the guy’s cold, hard power, but I could feel it pulsing through the wall that separated us, which meant that he had some serious juice, especially since he wasn’t actively using his magic. Oh, I didn’t think he had as much raw power as Madeline Monroe, but he had enough to do some serious damage—and enough to make even me think twice about taking him on face-to-face.
The squeaking of the faucets sounded again, and the water stopped running. A minute later, Smith stepped back out into the main part of his room, wearing a fluffy white robe and toweling off his face and hair. He was still whistling, and it took him several seconds to spot the mystery man sitting at the desk. But when he did, he dropped his towel and let out a surprised, high-pitched shriek that made Finn, Owen, and me all wince.
“Pike!” Smith said, clutching a hand to his heart. “You scared the shit out of me!”
“I really hope not,” the mystery man, Pike, drawled in a cool voice. “That would be very unpleasant for both of us.”
Smith paused, as if he wasn’t sure whether or not Pike was making a joke. He decided to play if off as a joke, because he grinned. “Anyway, Pike, dude, I’m glad you got my message,” Smith said. “And I really appreciate you putting me up in these swanky digs these past few days. It’s been primo all the way around. I just wish that I had been able to help you kill that chick like you wanted.”
Kill that chick? Maybe this was just about murdering me after all.
I took another look at Pike, examining his face, clothes, and posture. I even tried to see what, if anything, might be engraved on his silverstone signet ring, but his hand was turned the wrong way. But I just couldn’t place him. As far as I knew, I’d never even met the man. Granted, lots of people had tried to kill me over the past few months whom I’d never met before, but I at least knew about their or their bosses’ reputations and that they all wanted to take over the Ashland underworld.
But Pike? I didn’t get that greedy, jealous, kill Gin Blanco to get to the top vibe from him at all. Instead, he struck me as the sort who would hold a grudge at the smallest perceived slight, take it very, very personally, and spend a great deal of time plotting how to exact maximum retribution for it.
But try as I might, I couldn’t imagine what I could have possibly done to piss him off enough to plant a bomb on the Delta Queen. Pike was a total mystery to me—a fact that I didn’t like and definitely one that I couldn’t afford. Not if I wanted to keep on breathing and, more important, keep my friends safe from whatever plots he might have hatched.
“No, you didn’t manage to kill that chick,” Pike murmured. “Things took an unexpected turn. I didn’t think that my plan would be uncovered—or that you would abandon your post at the first sign of trouble.”
His face was calm, but clear menace rippled through his voice, and he never stopped drumming his fingers on the desk. Smith eyed the spoon, which was still rattling around on that saucer, but he swallowed his nervousness. Fool. He was already dead. He just didn’t know it yet.
Smith held up his hands and gave an apologetic shrug. “What was I supposed to do? That chick has a serious reputation, and she came at me like she wanted to tear my head off with her bare hands. I wasn’t going to stick around to let her make it a reality. Know what I mean?”
“Hmm,” Pike replied. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. It was better to run away and live to fight another day. I actually think that this will work out better. Now I can regroup. Refocus my efforts and really make
the statement that I want.”
Smith perked up. “See? I knew that you’d see things my way. That’s why I texted and asked you to come over. So we could clear the air.”
Pike gave the other man a flat look, but Smith didn’t notice it. Then again, it was obvious that he wasn’t the brains of this operation.
“So are you here to give me the rest of my payment, like we agreed?” Smith asked, a wheedling tone creeping into his voice. “Because I want double what you promised me.”
Pike’s fingers stilled. “And why should I pay you double?”
“Because you didn’t tell me that I was planting an actual bomb on that tub. You said that it was just a smoke grenade that would add to the confusion after you shot that chick in the head.” Smith threw up his hands in indignation. “I could have been killed!”
So Pike hadn’t told Smith the truth about the bomb, which meant that he’d probably planned for his hired hand to stay right by that champagne bucket and die in the explosion. Well, that would have been a neat, effective way of tying up any loose ends that might lead back to him.
“That was the idea,” Pike said. “But since you let that chick, as you call her, spook you into running, I guess I’ll just have to take care of things myself.”
Smith swallowed again, his face suddenly pale, despite his hot shower. He stepped back and dropped his hand down into the pocket of his white robe. “Now, Pike, there’s no need to be hasty. Just because I didn’t finish the job is no reason for this to turn ugly.”
“Oh,” Pike said. “I think that it is every reason for it to turn ugly. I pay for results . . . not disappointments like you.”
Smith huffed, then yanked his hand up out of the pocket of his robe, revealing a small black pistol.
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