Deadly Sting

didn’t fit into my plans.

Maybe Owen was right to keep his distance from me. Maybe it would be better for both of us if I went ahead and ended our relationship for good. That way, at least maybe he could move on, even if I couldn’t—

The door erupted open with such force that it almost banged against the marble wall before a hand reached out and stopped it at the last second. My head snapped to the right. Thoughts of Salina still filled my mind, and for a crazy moment, I thought the water elemental was coming after me again, or at least her ghost was.

But it wasn’t Salina who stepped into the bathroom—it was the giant waiter who’d spoken to me earlier. Curly auburn hair, hazel eyes, nice features. The same waiter who’d been hovering nearby while McAllister and I had been insulting each other.

The giant realized that I was watching her. Maybe it was the hard, flat stare I gave her, but she hesitated a moment before stepping into the bathroom and letting the door swing shut behind her.

“Sorry about the door,” she said, a slightly sheepish tone in her twangy voice. “It got away from me.”

I didn’t respond. All giants were strong, but she’d practically ripped the door out of its frame in her haste to get in here. And she’d pulled at least one of the hinges loose, since the door didn’t quite line up with the wall anymore.

Given her seeming urgency, I expected the giant to scurry into a stall, but instead, she meandered over to one of the sinks and turned on the faucet. For a moment, the only sound was the steady hiss of water streaming over her hands.

“Lovely night, isn’t it?” she said.

“Just gorgeous,” I muttered.

The giant quickly washed her hands and dried them, before throwing her used paper towel into the silver trash container. I’d thought she’d go back out to the party, but instead, she turned to look at me again. She stared at me for another second before smiling and leaving the bathroom. The door shut behind her, once again not quite closing the way it should.

Well, that had certainly been odd. But since the giant hadn’t pulled a gun out of her pants pocket, come at me with clenched fists, or otherwise tried to end my existence, I put her out of my mind and turned back to the mirror.

I was staring at my reflection and brooding once more when the door opened again a few seconds later. Only this time, it wasn’t the giant who stepped through—it was Jillian Delancey. Of course. Because that was just my kind of luck.

Jillian stopped when she saw me standing in front of the mirrors. I wondered if she was as offended by the fact that we were both wearing the same dress as Finn was, but I decided not to be rude and ask.

“Oh,” she said. “Hello again . . .”

“Gin,” I said, when it became apparent that she didn’t remember my name. “Like the liquor.”

“Gin. Right.”

Jillian walked over and put her small black beaded clutch down on the counter. Even though Finn had made me buy a purse to match my dress, I hadn’t bothered bringing it inside the museum. I had my knives. That was all I needed.

Jillian opened up her clutch and pulled out a tube of scarlet lipstick, along with a small compact so she could touch up her face.

I washed my hands again, just to have something to do, and I took my sweet time drying them off. Finally, Jillian finished with her makeup. She put everything back into her bag, snapped the top shut, and headed toward the door. But just before she reached it, she turned around and faced me.

“So,” she said. “Do I need to be worried about you and Owen?”

“Me and Owen?”

She hesitated. “When I came over to the two of you earlier, it looked like you were both . . . involved in something.”

I didn’t know that we were involved, so much as feeling awkward with each other, but I could imagine how we must have looked to her, each one of us staring at the other, pain and tension glinting in our eyes.

“No,” I said. “We weren’t involved in anything except a nice little chat. Owen and I are old friends.”

That’s what I’d introduced myself as to her before, and that’s what I was going with now, since it was far less complicated than the truth. I’d hoped that would be enough to satisfy her, but Jillian kept staring at me, her brown eyes dark and thoughtful.

“So I’m not encroaching on your territory, then?” she asked in a blunt tone. “Because I’m not the kind of woman who goes around trying to poach men who are already involved with someone else. And I especially don’t like being anybody’s rebound fling.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Well, that’s a colorful way of putting things.”

She shrugged, but she lifted her chin and kept her eyes steady on mine. I admired her for that—I admired her a lot for that. It took moxy to confront your date’s ex, or whatever I was these days, and ask her point-blank what was going on. So I decided to be polite about things.

“Owen’s a big boy,” I said. “His actions are his own—and so are mine.”

Jillian frowned, clearly not understanding my words, but I didn’t feel like explaining them to her. I wasn’t quite sure what I meant myself. But if she wanted to make a play for Owen and he decided to move on with her, I wasn’t going to stand in their way. I owed Owen that much—her too. No matter how much it hurt.

“What I’m trying to say is that I hope you have a nice night,” I said. “With or without Owen.”

She nodded, accepting my words. What she really thought about them and me, I couldn’t tell, but they seemed to ease her mind.

“Well, I guess I should be getting back to the party,” she said. “I believe Mr. McAllister is about to start his speech.”

“Oh,” I drawled. “You certainly wouldn’t want to miss that.”

Finn had told me that sometime during the evening McAllister and a few of the muckety-mucks who were on the Briartop board were going to talk about what a wonderful benefactor of the arts Mab had been, how much she’d supported the museum throughout the years, and how generous it was of her to endow Briartop with her art collection postmortem. Lies, lies, and more lies, all the way around. The only things Mab had ever generously dished out had been pain, misery, and suffering, courtesy of her Fire magic.

If that was what was next on the agenda, I’d be quite happy staying in the bathroom until all the pretty speeches were over with. I’d rather scrub my hands until they were red, raw, cracked, and bleeding than listen to people prattle on about how damn noble the Fire elemental had supposedly been. And I certainly wasn’t going to raise a glass of champagne and toast Mab with it. Especially not now, when I’d discovered that she’d had my mother’s and Annabella’s rune necklaces all these years—

“Anyway, it was nice seeing you again, Gin,” Jillian said, cutting into my dark thoughts. “You have excellent taste in clothes. And men.”

She was trying to make a joke and lighten the mood, so I forced myself to laugh, hoping she wouldn’t notice how tight and hollow the sound really was. “You too.”

Jillian smiled at me a final time, then opened the bathroom door and headed out into the powder room. But the door didn’t quite shut behind her, and I watched her through the wide gap. Jillian walked through the powder room, opened the exterior door, and stepped through to the other side. That door was just swinging shut behind her when she jerked and let out a small, startled gasp, then—

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!

The sounds were soft, no more than harsh whispers, but they made me reach for one of my knives all the same.

Because unless I was mistaken, someone had just been shot with a silenced gun.

6

The first thing I did was toe off my shoes so the heels wouldn’t clack against the marble floor. At the same