I shrugged. “I don’t know, but she must want it something fierce to go to all this trouble—”

The walkie-talkie on my belt crackled. I’d turned the volume down while Owen and I had been hiding, although I’d made sure it was loud enough for me still to hear the giants’ squawks to one another as they searched for us. But this voice sounded louder and far more forceful than the others, the cadence of the words different, so I adjusted the volume so that we could all hear what was being said. I didn’t catch all the words, but I didn’t have to, since she apparently decided to repeat herself.

Clementine’s voice came through loud and clear. “I’ll say it again. This message is for whoever’s been going around killing my boys. We need to talk.”

I raised my eyebrows, mildly surprised it had taken her this long to reach out to me. I grabbed the walkie-talkie, brought the speaker up to my mouth, and hit the button on the side.

“Why, hello, Clementine,” I drawled. “I was wondering when you might call.”

Chapter 20

20

“Who the hell are you?” Clementine demanded.

Well, she was blunt, I’d give her that.

“I’m the person who took what you were after in the vault. That’s all you need to know.”

Clementine had heard my voice before in the rotunda and bathroom, so I made my tone low, throaty, and raspy, as though I’d spent my life chain-smoking and chugging down mountain moonshine—sort of like Sophia’s voice.

“Who are you?” she asked again. “Some sort of thief?”

Tension eased out of my shoulders. I’d thought she might put two and two together and realize that Gin Blanco, the Spider, was alive and well, especially given that I’d used my knives to kill some of her men. But apparently, she was still under the impression that Dixon had murdered me outside the bathroom. Good. That was good. Because if she didn’t realize who I really was, then she also wouldn’t realize that she had all the leverage she needed—Finn, Roslyn, Eva, and Phillip—to get me to do exactly what she wanted.

“Something like that,” I replied. “You didn’t think you were the only one who had the bright idea of hitting the big gala, now, did you? All that art on display here tonight, all those jewels, all the publicity surrounding the event. Why, the Briartop staff practically begged me to show up and take something.”

“You bitch,” she snarled. “You piggybacked onto my heist.”