Bitter Bite (Elemental Assassin #14)(80)

Santos had put into this, I would have thought the robbery would have been

successful. Or at least not such a total, epic failure.

“I don’t know what these guys were thinking.” Xavier shook his head. “They

never had a chance.”

He was right. All the robbers’ bodies were clustered at the front of the

rotunda. They hadn’t gotten twenty feet into the room before they were all

killed. Maybe Deirdre and Santos hadn’t been as smart as I’d thought.

One of the cops called out to Bria and Xavier, and they went over to see what

she wanted. I looked over the dead men on the floor, expecting to see Santos’

s mug somewhere in the mess of bodies, his face frozen in pain and death.

But he wasn’t here.

I frowned and walked closer to the bodies, going around the pile of them and

staring at each robber’s face in turn, but none of them was Santos. I hadn’t

expected Deirdre to be here, to do the dirty work of actually robbing the

museum herself, but this was Santos’s gig, his crew, his plan. He should have

been here, leading the charge. So where was he? Had he managed to escape from

the museum?

No. The cops would have checked the security footage to make sure that none of

the robbers had escaped. Even if Santos had gotten away, they would have been

combing the surrounding area for him, not camped out here at the museum

collecting evidence.

And then I noticed something else missing: the jewelry.

Many of the exhibit cases had been shattered by the flying bullets, but no

jewelry littered the rotunda, and I didn’t see so much as a single diamond

knocked loose from its setting, glittering on the floor. And all the cases

that were still intact were also empty. No rings, no bracelets, no necklaces.

All the jewelry was gone. The cops must have removed it and taken it to the

museum’s shiny new vault for safekeeping.

I stared out over the blood, bodies, and destruction, turning things over and

over in my mind. The longer I studied the scene, the more cold worry pooled in

the pit of my stomach. Deirdre wasn’t done yet. She hadn’t gone to all this

trouble for an unsuccessful heist. And why worm her way back into Finn’s life

if she’d been planning to hit the museum all along? He didn’t have any real

connection to the museum. From what I could tell, Finn hadn’t been anywhere

near Briartop when the robbery attempt had gone down. Bria would have told me

if he’d been here.

While I was waiting for Bria and Xavier to finish their conversation with the

other cop, I took off my black gloves, pulled out my phone, and called Finn

again, but he still didn’t answer. Another brick of worry piled onto the

growing stack in my stomach.

Something was wrong.

Bria left Xavier and the other cop and walked back over to me.

“Sorry that took so long,” she said. “Debbie was telling us that the

security company has transported the jewelry to the secondary location.”

“Secondary location? Why didn’t you guys just leave it here and stick it in

the museum’s vault?”

Bria shrugged. “Since Clementine Barker managed to crack the museum vault

back during the summer, the company insuring the exhibit insisted on it. That

in case of a robbery attempt, all the jewelry would immediately be taken to a

more secure location for safekeeping. At least until everything could be

reassessed and the museum and exhibit reopened. They briefed Xavier, me, and

all the detectives on it several times and even did a couple of dry runs.”

And just like that, everything made sense.

Deirdre coming back to Ashland, cozying up to Finn, putting the jewelry

exhibit together. Part of me marveled at her plan. It was far more clever,

devious, and intricate than I’d expected. Fletcher had been right all along.

Deirdre Shaw was definitely one of the most dangerous people I’d ever met.

Even worse, she’d been absolutely right when she’d mocked me about not

seeing the big picture until it was too late.

An icy fist of dread clenched tightly around my heart. “Where’s the

secondary location? Where did they take the jewelry?” I already knew the

answer, but I needed her to confirm it.

“First Trust bank. It’s one of the most secure facilities in Ashland.” She

frowned. “Why do you care so much about where the jewelry went—”

Bria’s eyes widened, and her face paled.

“That’s Finn’s bank.”





23

“That’s Finn’s bank,” Bria whispered again, her mind stuck on that one

terrible, horrifying fact.

I nodded, my mouth set into a grim slash. This had been Deirdre’s master plan

all along. Santos must have told her that there was no way to heist the

jewelry from Briartop, that there were too many guards and too many cops at

the museum. So the two of them had sent those men in to die, all with the

ulterior motive of getting the jewelry moved somewhere else—somewhere better.