Unraveled (26 page)

“Hungry?” Phillip asked after the waitress had scribbled down my order and walked away.

I shrugged. “Just building up my strength for tonight. Besides, it's not like I had a very satisfying lunch.”

While we waited for our food, I told Silvio, Phillip, and Lorelei everything that had happened while I'd been skulking around.

“So Hugh Tucker set this whole thing up and lured you all down here to do his dirty work for him,” Phillip mused. “He went to a lot of trouble for some pretty rocks.”

Even though they were stuffed down into my corset, I could still hear the gemstones proudly singing about their own beauty. “Not just some pretty rocks,” I said. “Millions of sparkling carats' worth.”

The waitress returned with our food, and we all dug in. The grub was much better than it had been the last time I'd eaten here a few hours ago. The fries and onion rings were golden and crispy, while the coleslaw had a nice vinegary bite to it. The barbecue-chicken sandwich and the baked beans were disappointing, though, since the sauce on both of them didn't have the spicy cumin and black pepper kick that Fletcher's secret sauce did back at the Pork Pit. And best of all, my lemonade wasn't laced with sedatives.

While we ate, I kept an eye on the windows, watching the ebb and flow of people out on the sidewalks. Every few minutes, a couple of giants would walk by, clutching my
Wanted
posters in their hands and scanning the crowds for me. They even stopped and looked through the windows several times, peering into the barbecue restaurant. But I was just another lowly saloon girl, chowing down on my dinner before I went back to work. Yep, hiding in plain sight was still one of the best tricks around. Thanks for the reminder, Mama Dee.

My friends noticed the giants as well, and they acted casual and concentrated on their food, just like I did, until the guards moved away from the restaurant windows.

Silvio eyed me a moment, then sighed, crumpled up his napkin, and pushed his plate away. “Uh-oh. I know that look.”

“What look?”

He stabbed his finger at me. “
That
look. The one that says that you've already thought of some plan to save Finn, Bria, and Owen, at considerable danger to yourself.”

I frowned. “Is there any other kind of plan? I'm certainly not going to put you guys in danger.” I paused. “Well, no more danger than I absolutely have to.”

Silvio sighed again. “And that's exactly what that look means.”

“What do you have in mind?” Lorelei asked.

I waited until the waitress had refilled our drinks a final time, left the check, and moved on to the next table. “It's simple, really. I'm going to give Hugh Tucker exactly what he wants.”

Phillip tilted his head. “And what would that be?”

I grinned. “A grand ole time in the Wild, Wild West, Spider-style.”

 22 

I didn't want to get into the specifics of my plan here, so Silvio paid the bill, and the four of us left the restaurant.

“I want to check on Ira,” I told the others. “Get our supplies, and make sure that he's okay and that Roxy didn't cause him any problems. His cabin is that way.”

Silvio, Phillip, and Lorelei ambled along the wooden sidewalks, pretending to window-shop like all the other tourists, while I strolled along behind them, keeping them in sight, even as I smiled and posed for yet more stupid photos. Slowly, the four of us made our way from Main Street, down one of the alleys, and over to the curving, wooded path that led to Ira's cabin.

Once we'd left the crowds behind, we moved much quicker, although I made my friends step off the path and creep through the trees when we got close to the cabin. I sidled up to a large maple and peered around the thick trunk.

In the clearing beyond, Ira sat in a rocking chair on the front porch of his cabin, the lights on his snowflake sweater flashing and making the shotgun laid across his lap gleam. I carefully examined the area around the cabin and the woods beyond, but I didn't see Roxy, Brody, or any giants lurking around. They must have come and gone already, when they realized that I wasn't here. I breathed a sigh of relief. I'd been worried about Ira.

Still, I gestured for my friends to stay back as I stepped out of the trees and slowly approached the dwarf, still looking around for any sign that he wasn't alone. Ira stopped rocking and got to his feet at my approach, his shotgun dangling from his hand.

“Don't worry,” he said, patting the barrel of his weapon. “They're gone. And they won't be back. I told Roxy and Brody that if I ever spotted them on my land again, that I would put a load of buckshot in both of their hides.”

I laughed. “You should do that anyway.”

He thought about it a second, then grinned back at me. “You're right. I should.”

I waved my friends over, and we stepped into the cabin. Ira locked the door behind us, while Phillip moved over to one of the windows, keeping watch on the off chance that Roxy and Brody decided to come back after all.

Ira jerked his thumb at a large black steamer trunk that sat in front of the fireplace. “It wasn't easy, but I managed to bring in those supplies that your friends brought along with them. Lots of guns for just the four of you.”

“Believe me,” I said, “we'll need them.”

Ira opened the trunk, and Silvio started sorting through all the items inside, complaining that the dwarf had just thrown everything into the trunk and had ruined Silvio's careful organization. Ira slapped his hands on his hips, ready to snark right back at the vampire, and Lorelei went over to mediate between them.

That left me to get the ball rolling with Tucker, so I pulled out my phone and dialed the main number for the hotel.

“Hello, this is the Bullet Pointe resort hotel. How may I assist you today?” a cheery feminine voice chirped in my ear.

“This is Gin Blanco. Tell Roxy Wyatt that I want to speak to Hugh Tucker. Don't worry, I'll hold.”

“Um, okay. Just a second. Let me see if I can find her.”

“Oh, I'm sure that she'll come running once she realizes that I'm on the line.”

“Um, okay,” the clerk said again, obviously having no idea who I was or what was going on.

She put me on hold, and I leaned against the fireplace, listening to the same sort of
plinka-plinka
piano music that they played incessantly in the Good Tyme Saloon.

Five minutes and endless off keys later, my phone clicked. I put it on speaker and waved at my friends, who all fell silent. A few seconds later, someone picked up on the other end of the line. He didn't say anything, though, so I decided to start the conversation.

“Why, hello there, Tuck,” I drawled. “Bet you can't guess who this is.”

“Blanco,” the vampire's voice filled my ear. “How disappointing. I was holding out a faint hope that you'd crawled up into a hole somewhere and died.”

“We both know that you could never be that lucky.”

“No, I suppose not.” His voice was calm and emotionless. “What do you want?”

“I want my friends back. And I'm going to get them back. How much bloodshed there is in the meantime depends on you.”

Tucker let out a low, sinister laugh. “As if I care about bloodshed. Besides, why would I give your friends back when I went to all the trouble to get them down here in the first place?”

“Oh, I don't know. Maybe several million dollars' worth of shiny gemstones? Surely, that's worth a life or three, even to a coldhearted son of a bitch like you.”

Silence, although I could almost hear the gears grinding in Tucker's mind as he debated whether I was telling the truth.

“You're bluffing. My people have been searching for weeks now and haven't seen any trace of the jewels. There's no way you've found them in a single afternoon.”

“Oh, sugar. I never bluff.”

He snorted.

“Besides, the very reason that you lured me and my friends down here was so we could find those shiny stones for you. And now you're saying that I haven't delivered?” I clucked my tongue. “You can't have it both ways, Tuck.”

“I still don't believe you.”

“Well, I could take a picture and send that to you, but you probably wouldn't believe that either. You'd just claim that I had a handful of fakes. So why don't you go ask the giants you have guarding my friends about the dashing saloon girl in the bloodred dress who moseyed into Deirdre's suite a little while ago.”

“What—”

“Don't worry,” I said, cutting him off. “I'm in a generous mood, so I'll give you some time to confirm everything. I'll call the main hotel line again in ten minutes. If I were you, I'd tell the clerk to put me right on through. Better get a move on now, ya hear?”

“Wait—”

I hung up on him.

“You enjoyed that,” Lorelei said.

I grinned. “It's the small things that make life truly worth living.”

By this point, she and Silvio had cleared the papers and photography equipment off Ira's dining-room table, pulled all the supplies out of the steamer trunk, and had laid the gear on the surface. Guns, ammo, knives, tins of Jo-Jo's healing ointment. All the usual suspects.

Silvio had also gotten a map of the theme park, which he spread out on top of the weapons, and he went into full-fledged assistant mode, comparing the paper map to some aerial photos he called up on his tablet.

“This place is like a maze,” he said. “Look at all those paths circling around and around and going nowhere.”

I nodded. “I know. And that's what's going to give me the advantage.”

Silvio looked at me out of the corner of his eye, clearly wondering what kind of advantage I was talking about.

The ten minutes went by quickly, although I waited five more, just to make Tucker sweat a little bit. He'd gone to a lot of trouble to set this whole thing up, and I knew that he would do whatever it took to get those gems back, even wait on my call. I wondered just how much pressure the other members of his precious Circle had put on him to recoup at least some of their money that Deirdre had squandered. It must have been a considerable amount, since it seemed like he was more afraid of them than he was of me.

Tucker was a fool that way.

Finally, I dialed the main number for the hotel again. As soon as I told the clerk my name, she sputtered and put me on hold. Tucker picked up less than thirty seconds later.

“What do you want?” he growled.

“So you believe me now. Excellent,” I purred. “And I want what I've always wanted—the safe return of my friends. Them for the jewels. A simple swap. Even you can do that math, Tuck. Of course, I want to talk to them first. Make sure that they're still alive. So why don't you get this call transferred up to Finn's suite. Don't worry. I'll wait.”

“You don't give the orders around here, Blanco—”

I cut him off. “Or I could always mosey on down to the lake, get into a boat, and drop this lovely bag of sparkling stones in the middle of the water. Your choice, Tuck.”

“Fine,” the vampire growled again. “Hold on.”

Phillip was still standing by the windows, keeping watch, but he glanced at me, respect shining in his eyes. “Making him run around and do your bidding? That's got to be driving Tucker crazy.”

I grinned again. “That's the point.”

While we waited for Tucker to come back on the line, Silvio pulled a red highlighter out of the pocket of his red plaid shirt and started marking all the park entrances.

“I don't like this,” he said, shaking his head. “I don't like this at all.”

“I don't like it either,” I replied. “But it is what it is. We have to make the best of it—for Finn, Bria, and Owen's sake.”

Silvio nodded, but his face pinched tight with worry.

Finally, my phone clicked, and a faint buzz sounded, telling me that someone was on the line. I waited, my fingers curling tight around the phone, and my breath caught in my throat.

“Gin?” Finn's voice finally sounded.

My entire body sagged, and I held the phone away from my face so that no one on the other end would hear my sigh of relief. Then I brought the device back up to my lips again. “How are you?”

“A little groggy.” His words slurred a bit. “You found the jewels?”

“I found them, and I'm going to get you guys out of there. Just hold on. Okay?”

“Okay.” Finn paused. “And watch out for the June bugs. They're everywhere this time of year. I can see them now, flying around in here. . . .”

His voice drifted off, and he let out a little giggle, as though he were still under the influence of that sedative. But
June bugs
was a code phrase that Fletcher had coined for us long ago, and I recognized the words as the warning they were. Finn was telling me that whatever meeting Tucker set would be a trap and that the vampire had lots of men with him. I already knew all of that, but my heart still lifted at the fact that Finn was in good enough shape to try to help me.

“Are you satisfied now?” Tucker snapped, coming back on the line. “All your precious little friends are still alive. But they won't stay that way for long unless you give me those jewels.”

“And if you hurt any of them, you'll never get the stones. So I'd say that we have ourselves a good old-­fashioned standoff.”

Silence. Tucker cleared his throat. “Well, then, if you'll just bring the jewels up to the hotel, we can resolve this whole messy situation—”

I laughed, cutting him off again. “So you can have Roxy, Brody, and all those giants surround and kill me? Forget it. You'll meet me in the theme park, outside the saloon, right in the middle of Main Street. Midnight. Just you and my friends. Nobody else.”

“Or?”

“Or I'll forget about the lake and flush every single one of these rocks down the first toilet I come to. Believe me when I tell you that there's one close by.”

“You wouldn't do that. Not while I still have your friends.”

I laughed again. “Oh, yes, I would. Just for spite. Especially if you hurt them in any way. But let's be honest. That's not a chance you're going to take.”

“Fine,” Tucker said. “I'll meet you in the middle of Main Street with your friends in tow. And Blanco—don't even think that you can double-cross me and escape. I've got this place surrounded. No one goes in or out—­including your friends—until I have those jewels.”

“That's—”

I was going to hurl another insult at him, but the bastard beat me to the punch and hung up.

*   *   *

With the exchange set, my friends and I started getting ready for tonight.

The first thing I did was go into the bedroom and get rid of my torturous disguise. I shimmied out of the saloon-girl dress with no problem, although I had to get Lorelei to help me unlace the corset. She snickered the whole time. I also stripped off the old-fashioned heels, blond wig, and beauty mark that I'd stuck on my face.