Bitter Bite (Elemental Assassin #14)(79)

sputtered up another hill, then died completely.

“Dammit!” I snarled, and slapped my hands against the steering wheel.

There was nothing else to do but get out of the vehicle and start hoofing it

toward the museum. I pulled out my phone and dialed Silvio, hoping that he

might be able to pick me up, but the call went straight to voice mail. Weird.

I didn’t think I’d ever gotten his voice mail before. Maybe he was busy

talking to someone else. I left him a message.

I thought about calling Bria again, but she was probably too busy to leave the

museum, so I trudged on. I’d only gone about a quarter-mile when I crested

another hill and spotted a familiar sign: Blue Ridge Cemetery.

I stopped on the side of the road, remembering my last trip to the cemetery.

It had been more than a week now, but I wondered if the van was still there.

Not likely, but it was the best option I had right now.

So I picked up my pace, jogging around a sharp curve, and there it was, an

old, battered white van sitting on the side of the road, right where the

grave-robbing Don and Ethel had left it. The vehicle looked untouched, and

even that white plastic trash bag was still stuck in the driver’s-side

window, fluttering like a trapped butterfly. I supposed the van had looked too

much like a junker for anyone to bother messing with it.

I grinned. “No good deed.”

*

The van had a full tank of gas, but it was still after ten by the time I

reached Briartop.

It looked like every cop in Ashland was at the museum. Blue and white lights

flashed on more than a dozen patrol cars on this side of the covered bridge,

with even more cars over on the island and clustered around the museum itself.

Uniformed officers and suited detectives swarmed over everything, talking and

texting on their phones or calling out to one another through their walkie-

talkies.

I parked the van behind one of the patrol cars. My black clothes hid most of

the blood that had soaked into them from the warehouse fight, but my face was

a bruised, blood-caked mess. I couldn’t exactly waltz over to the museum

looking like this, so I started rustling around in the van, looking for

supplies.

The grave robbers had stuffed a variety of junk into the door pockets,

including a bottle of water, which I poured over an old white undershirt. It

wasn’t much of a washcloth, but it scrubbed the blood off my face. I couldn’

t do anything about the goose egg, but this was as respectable as I was going

to look, so I got out of the van and headed for the covered bridge.

A cop who barely looked old enough to shave stepped in front of me. “Sorry,

ma’am, but you can’t be here. This is an active crime scene.”

I had opened my mouth to make up some excuse to try to get past him when heavy

footsteps sounded, and Xavier stepped out of the bridge opening.

“She’s with me,” he called out. “Let her through, Larry.”

Larry gave me a suspicious look, but I just smiled sweetly at him, and he

reluctantly stepped aside. It was good to have friends.

“Here,” Xavier said, passing me a pair of black crime-scene gloves. “Put

these on, and try to look official. Bria’s up at the museum. She asked me to

come down here and keep an eye out for you.”

I did as he asked, and the giant led me through the covered bridge, up the

hill, and into the museum. Cops looked at us, wondering why I was here, but

Xavier nodded at them, and no one stopped us from entering the main exhibit

space.

The rotunda was a disaster. It looked like a bomb had exploded, blowing blood,

glass, bullets, and bodies everywhere. Men dressed in khakis and cheap gray

suit jackets were sprawled across the marble floor, guns lying next to them

and blood pooled underneath their bodies from where they had been shot so many

times. Bullets had smashed through and shattered the glass cases housing the

jewelry, and the resulting shards glinted like diamonds underfoot, mixed in

with the brass bullet casings. More holes blackened the walls, and I could

hear the marble whimpering about all the violence that had occurred here

today.

Bria broke away from a cluster of cops and came over to Xavier and me. She

hugged me tight before pulling back and giving me a quick once-over, eyeing

the knot on my head.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine. Just a little banged up. What happened?”

Bria pointed at the dead men on the floor. “These guys walked in here as soon

as the museum opened at nine o’clock this morning, pulled out guns, and

started shooting. But given the amount of jewels, the museum’s guards and the

cops on duty were already on high alert. They took cover and returned fire.

All the robbers were killed, and only one of our guys was hit in return.

Shoulder wound. He’s with an Air elemental healer, and he’s going to be

fine.”

I frowned. From the way Deirdre had talked and the obvious planning that