Deadly Sting

32

Click.

Click-click-click.

Click.

McAllister pulled and pulled the trigger, cursing louder and louder when the gun didn’t fire.

I reached into another pocket on my vest, pulled out the clip that went into the weapon, and waggled it at him. “Looking for this? I took the liberty of removing it from your gun, along with the round in the chamber. In fact, I went through the whole house and took all the ammunition out of every single one of your guns. You have quite the collection, Jonah. Revolvers, handguns, even a good ole-fashioned shotgun under your bed. Why, you’ve got enough firepower in here to start a small war, even by Ashland standards. Consider me impressed.”

He looked at me a moment before his gaze dropped to the useless gun in his hand. “Dammit!”

He reared back and threw the weapon at me as hard as he could. His aim was lousy, and I didn’t even have to duck as the weapon sailed on by me, hit one of the glass doors to my left, bounced off, and clattered to the floor. The fact that he’d missed me so badly only fueled his rage. McAllister slapped his snifter off the bar, not caring which direction it went or where it landed. A second later, the bottle of brandy shattered against the wall closest to him. One by one, he grabbed and threw and smashed everything he could get his hands on. Another bottle of booze from underneath the bar. A crystal paperweight on an end table. Even the photo of his son.

I grinned, laced my hands behind my head, and watched the show.

As suddenly as it had come, all of the rage went out of him, like a balloon that had popped under pressure. His entire body deflated, and he sagged against the bar, breathing hard, tiny drops of blood oozing out of the shallow cuts that dotted his knuckles. He looked at me again, his brown eyes dull and tired.

“All right,” he mumbled. “Go ahead. Get it over with. Do your worst. I know you want to, and honestly, I just don’t care anymore.”

I removed my boots from the top of his desk, set them on the floor, and got to my feet. McAllister tensed as I walked toward him, and his gaze flicked to the doorway, like he was still thinking about making a break for it. No matter what he said, he wasn’t ready to die. No one ever really was in the end. We all thought we had all the time in the world, and when we realized that wasn’t the case, we did whatever we could to prolong the inevitable, if only for a few more precious seconds.

I reached the bar and stopped. I was directly in front of McAllister, with him on one side and me on the other, just like it had always been. I stared at him for a moment, then palmed one of my knives. He sucked in a breath at the flash of silverstone in my hand, and his body swayed from side to side like his legs were about to go out from under him. But I had to hand it to the lawyer. He bucked up, lifted his chin, and stared me straight in the eye.

The seconds passed. Ten . . . twenty . . . thirty . . . forty-five . . .

McAllister’s breaths grew shorter and raspier, his left eye twitching in time to the rapid rise and fall of his chest. His body trembled, and his lips quivered, as he prepared himself to let out one final scream.

I stood there and let him sweat for a good three minutes. Then I tucked my knife back up my sleeve, crossed my arms over my chest, and leaned one hip against the bar.

“Relax, Jonah. I’m not going to kill you.”

He blinked. “You’re not?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

His whole body crumpled, and he barely managed to grab the edge of the bar to keep himself from doing a header onto the floor. For once, even his tight, smooth face had a bit of emotion in it: relief. Pure, sweet, unadulterated relief that he was going to get to keep on breathing.

His relief was going to be short-lived, though. I’d seen to that.

It took him a few moments, but McAllister pulled himself together. He straightened back up and regarded me with cold eyes once more.

“What do you want?” he asked. “The money I stole from Mab?”

I laughed in his face. Laughed and laughed. And then I laughed some more.

McAllister’s lips pinched together at my hearty chuckles, and more of that murderous rage glinted in his eyes, but he didn’t say anything.

“Oh, Jonah, you are entertaining, I’ll give you that,” I said. “But no. I don’t want Mab’s money. Not one single cent of it.”

“Then what? What do you want?”

I smiled at him. “Nothing—nothing at all.”

I pushed away from the bar, walked out of the office, and headed toward the front door. My steps were light, and I whistled a soft, cheery tune, idly wondering how long it would take McAllister to come after me—

Ten seconds later, footsteps smacked into the floor behind me. I glanced over my shoulder. The lawyer had left the office and stopped in the middle of the hallway.

“What are you doing?” he called out, his voice high with surprise and puzzlement.

“What does it look like?” I said. “I’m leaving.”

Silence. Then—

“You—you’re just leaving? You’re not going to kill me?”

I reached the front door, threw back the lock, and put my hand on the knob. I looked over my shoulder at him once again. “No, Jonah. I’m not going to kill you. Not tonight, not tomorrow, I’ll even be generous and say not even this month.”

His eyes narrowed. “Why? What are you up to?”

I gave him my most innocent grin. “I’m not up to anything, Jonah. You’re the one who’s been plotting, scheming, and embezzling this whole time. Not me. I think we can both agree that you’ve been a bad, bad boy. And now you’re going to be punished for it.”

His eyes narrowed some more. “What did you do?”

I shrugged. “Nothing much. Just told the cops all about your little scheme to rob the museum. Well, really just two cops, but they’re good ones. Why, with all the information I gave them, I imagine that they’re waiting right outside this very door, as eager as can be to come on in and arrest you. Shall we see?”

Before he could protest, I turned the knob and opened the door. Bria and Xavier stood outside. Behind them, their sedan sat in the driveway, the blue and white lights winking on and off in the darkness. I nodded at them and stepped to one side so they could enter.

“Why, look. Here they are. Right on time.”

“The police? Please.” McAllister sneered. “Do you know how many of those crooked bastards I’ve bribed over the years?”

“Of course I do,” I replied. “So that’s why I sent the information to all the local news media too. Anonymously, of course. Just for kicks.”

“But—but why would you . . .” His voice trailed off as he thought about things. After a few seconds, shock and surprise filled his eyes, along with horror.

I walked back over to him so that we were standing face-to-face. “You see, Jonah, I could have killed you easily. But sticking my knife in your gut would have been a quick death—and far too good for the likes of you. So, in the end, I decided on a different punishment.”

“And what would that be?” he asked in a wavering voice.

“To watch you suffer,” I snarled. “You’ve spent the last few months planning how to take me out. You started back at Mab’s funeral, when you hired those dwarves to try to kill me at her coffin. They failed, but you still managed to set me up as a target for every wannabe criminal in town. You painted a great big bull’s-eye on my back, so I decided to return the favor and paint one on yours. What do you think will happen when all the crime bosses realize that you tried to rob them? Do you really think they’ll let something like that just slide?”

I clucked my tongue in false sympathy. “Really, Jonah. You should know the answer to that as well as I do.”

“They’ll come after me,” he whispered. “All of them. They’ll all come after me.”

I leaned forward, so he could see just how cold and wintry my gray eyes were. “Every . . . last . . . one.”

McAllister kept staring at me, that horrified expression still on his face. Such a lovely, lovely sight.

“Now you know how I’ve felt these past few months. But you’re exactly right. All the crime bosses will come after you—or send some of their goons to do the job for them.” I paused. “Of course, this is assuming that Mab’s mysterious heir doesn’t get you first for cheating him or her. Either way, you’re dead, Jonah. The only question is how long you can keep your head above water before one of the underworld sharks drags you under and gobbles you up. You know, it’s probably a good thing you embezzled all of that money from Mab. You’re going to need it. That might keep the sharks at bay, for a while.”

McAllister choked, coughed, and sputtered for a few seconds before he finally got his voice back. “You won’t get away with this. I’m Jonah McAllister! Nobody messes with me! Nobody!”

I shook my head. “Good luck with that. If I were you, I’d start working on your obituary. I’m looking forward to reading it in the newspaper real soon. Good-bye, Jonah.”

Bria stepped forward, a pair of silverstone handcuffs in her hands. “Jonah McAllister, you’re under arrest for the murder of Jillian Delancey, the attempted robbery of the Briartop museum and its visitors, and many, many other things. You have the right to remain silent . . .”

Xavier put a hand on McAllister’s shoulder, holding him in place while Bria read the lawyer his rights, pulled his hands behind his back, and clinked the cuffs on his wrists. But McAllister ignored them and glared at me.

“You won’t get away with this!” he hissed. “I’m the best lawyer this town has ever seen! I’ll find a way to beat the charges! You know I will!”

“You’re exactly right. I have no doubt that you’ll find some way to wiggle out from underneath the long arm of the law,” I said. “But I don’t think even you can weasel away from every bad guy in town who’ll be screaming for your blood. Enjoy the rest of your short, short life, Jonah.”

I turned and headed toward the front door once again.

“Blanco! You can’t do this to me! Blanco! Blanco!”

I grinned and walked outside, McAllister’s screams ringing in my ears like the sweetest symphony.

I ambled down the driveway, through the open gate, and across the street. I opened the door on an Aston Martin parked at the curb and slid into the passenger’s seat.

“How did it go?” Finn asked. “Did he cry? Please, please, please tell me that he cried. Or at least begged for his life.”

“You should know,” I replied. “You were listening.”

I reached into a pocket on my vest and pulled out the digital recorder and microphone than Finn had outfitted me with. He took the device and plugged it into his laptop.

“Of course I was listening—and watching too, thanks to that spy camera we added to your vest,” he said. “But I wanted to get your eye-witness take on things.”

I rolled my eyes, but I watched as Finn checked that both the sound and the video recordings were okay and made several backup copies of them.

“I wonder if McAllister realized that you were getting him to confess for Bria,” Finn said.

I shrugged. “Doesn’t much matter now, since he sang his heart out.”

That had been the plan I’d worked out with Finn, my sister, and Xavier. I’d told the two cops all about my suspicions that McAllister had hired Clementine and her crew and the information that Finn had dug up on the lawyer’s embezzlement. But Bria had pointed out that she couldn’t use any of the information—not legally—so I’d decided to get McAllister to confess to the whole scheme for her. That’s why I’d broken into his house and confronted him tonight, and it had worked like a charm. Bria got to close the museum case, and I got to feed McAllister to the wolves. Win-win and then some.

Finn looked at me. “Are you sure you don’t want to change your mind? Maybe you should have just killed him after all.”

“Maybe,” I said, leaning forward so I could stare past him out the driver’s-side window.

Across the street, Bria perp-walked McAllister out of his fancy house and handed him off to Xavier, who stuffed the lawyer into the back of their sedan. McAllister was still screaming, although his voice was muffled at this distance.

Finn turned his head to watch the show. His grin matched the one that stretched across my face. We sat there until Bria started the sedan, and she and Xavier steered out of the driveway. Finn cranked the engine on his car and fell in line behind them. It was after one in the morning now, and the streets were quiet as we cruised over to the station.

“Well, that was certainly satisfying to watch,” Finn admitted. “But I still think you should have just gone ahead and killed him. He’s certainly caused you enough trouble.”

“I know. But there’s still a chance McAllister could be useful.”

“Because of this mystery person Mab left everything to?” he said. “McAllister said he didn’t know who it was, not even if it was a he or a she.”

“I know. And I actually think he was telling the truth about that.”

“But?”

“But if Mab actually had some family left, why weren’t they here with her in Ashland?” I asked. “Why didn’t they live with her? Or in some other mansion in Northtown?”

Finn shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t get along. Maybe this other person hated her. I certainly wouldn’t want to claim Mab Monroe as any sort of kin. Would you?”

“No,” I replied. “But I would think that Mab would want to keep an eye on her family. There are only a few reasons I can think of for her not to have kept this person close. One, they are either too young or too old to be of any use to her. Then there’s the other, more troubling reason.”

“And that would be?”

“That this person was simply too dangerous to have around—too much of a threat to Mab herself.”

Finn eyed me. “You think there’s another Mab out there running around? Someone with the same sort of Fire magic she had? Someone as strong as her?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. Or at least strong enough to make Mab think twice about having them hanging around in Ashland, scheming to take her out, to have everything all to himself or herself.”

He let out a low whistle. “Another Mab. Imagine that.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t tell him that I’d imagined that in my dreams—in my nightmares—a thousand times. That the thought—the sheer possibility—kept me awake for hours on end, worrying in the darkness. That I’d even started scouring through Fletcher’s files, going through every single one, every single photo and piece of paper, to see if there was any mention of Mab’s mysterious relative and any clue to what kind of magic, if any, he or she might have.

Maybe there was another reason, a perfectly innocent reason, that Mab had kept this relative a secret from everyone, even McAllister. Maybe they just didn’t get along, like Finn said.

Or maybe there was a whole new generation of trouble headed my way.

“We could speculate forever about Mab’s relative,” I said. “But if this person is anything like Mab, he or she will be plenty pissed to find out that McAllister was stealing from Mab—from them both—all these years. Maybe even pissed enough to come to Ashland and take care of him.”

That was my hope anyway. I couldn’t deal with a danger I didn’t know about, and I was hoping that by using McAllister as bait—as another stalking horse—I could lure Mab’s heir to the city. Maybe this person would just take Mab’s money and run—or maybe he or she would be just as dangerous as the Fire elemental had been. Maybe the heir would thank me for killing her—or maybe he or she would come after me, wanting to avenge her death. Either way, I was going to get out in front of this person, instead of sitting around and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I’m on it,” Finn said. “I’ve already spread money around to all the right people. We’ll know everyone McAllister talks to, everyone he calls, even everyone he bends over for in the shower.”

“I don’t think we need to be quite that detailed,” I drawled.

He smirked. “Anything worth doing is worth doing right. Don’t you remember Dad telling us that?”

I snorted. “Sure, I remember that particular pearl of wisdom. But I don’t think Fletcher intended that to mean getting the lowdown on McAllister’s prison lovers.”

Finn laughed.

We rode the rest of the way to the police station in silence, although I was still thinking about McAllister, Mab, and her long-lost heir. But there was nothing I could do about any of that tonight, so I pushed my worries aside and decided to make the best of the situation. After all, you usually only got to see your nemesis carted off to jail once.

Finn parked in front of the police station in a primo spot that gave us a clear view of the entrance. He’d tipped off his contacts at the local newspaper, TV stations, and radio stations, so there was already a passel of reporters waiting on the steps. The cameras started clicking and flashing before Bria even got the sedan parked. The media feeding frenzy reached a fever pitch as Xavier hauled McAllister out of the back of the sedan and led him toward the steps. Finn rolled down the car windows so we could hear the reporters’ barrage of questions.

“Jonah! Jonah! Are the charges true?”

“Did you arrange the attempted robbery at the Briartop museum?”

“Why was Mab Monroe’s will among the contents taken from the vault?”

McAllister winced and ducked his head, cringing against the sudden onslaught of light, noise, sound, and fury, but he clenched his jaw and kept his mouth shut. He knew that the court of public opinion could be the most damning. No doubt, he was already thinking about how he could spin things to his advantage. Let him try. It wouldn’t save him. Not this time.

Finn pulled out his phone. “The newspaper’s already posted it as breaking news on its website. It’ll go viral in a few minutes. Come morning, this place will be swarming with press from all over.”

“Good,” I said. “So unless Mab’s heir is hiding under a rock, he or she should see the story sometime in the next few days.”

“That’s the plan,” he said. “Your plan. I would have just gone ahead and killed him.”

“I know, I know. But I can always kill him later. This way, at least we get to humiliate him first.”

Finn eyed me. “Sometimes I think you’re even more devious, twisted, and vicious than I am.”

I grinned. “You only wish you could be as ruthless as me.”

“Absolutely.”

We sat there and watched the flashes and lights of the cameras explode in McAllister’s face over and over again, brighter than fireworks on the Fourth of July. Xavier got halfway up the steps, then dramatically paused and turned so that he and the lawyer were facing out toward the crowd of reporters. Bria stepped to one side, making sure that all of the reporters, photographers, and camera people got a good, long look at the lawyer. For his part, McAllister kept squinting into the glare. He seemed more shocked and frozen than a possum caught by a pair of headlights on a dark country road. I’d waited a long, long time to see that cringing, beaten, vulnerable look on his face, and I savored every single second of it.

After another minute, Bria grabbed McAllister’s arm and led him up the rest of the steps and into the police station. Xavier stayed on the steps, holding his hands out wide and keeping the media vultures from storming inside.

“Now what?” Finn asked.

“Now we wait for Bria to take McAllister to booking,” I said. “Maybe if we ask nicely, Bria will send us a copy of McAllister’s mug shot. I think that would look marvelous matted, framed, and mounted on one of the walls in Fletcher’s office or maybe even at the Pork Pit. Don’t you?”