I frowned. Why would Clementine want to meet way out there? Why not in the rotunda? Or out by the moving trucks? At least, that way, if things went badly, she could always order her giants to kill me or hop into one of the trucks and make good on her getaway—

Getaway.

The word, the thought, the idea, echoed through my mind, along with everything I’d seen and heard this evening. Clementine boldly announcing herself to the hostages. Opal taking such care sorting through the jewelry. Dixon saying they wouldn’t have to share their loot. The bomb under the moving truck.

Clementine’s getaway plan—that’s what this was all about.

I’d wondered before why the giant and her crew hadn’t worn masks. I’d thought it had been because they were going to kill all of the hostages. But now I knew the real reason: Clementine planned to fake her own death. She was going to blow up the first moving truck, and no doubt all the other ones too, with all of the art and all of the giants inside them . . . probably right as the vehicles were crossing the covered bridge. The wooden structure would collapse from the force of the blasts, plunging the trucks and everything and everyone inside them into the Aneirin River. The currents ran deep, swift, and sure around Briartop Island. They’d carry the blasted remains of the art and the robbers downstream and muddy the waters of the subsequent investigation, so to speak.

That’s why the jewelry was so important. It was the only thing Clementine planned on taking with her. Well, that and the tube that held Mab’s will. I still didn’t know exactly what she wanted with that, but it didn’t much matter at the moment.

What did matter was the fact that Clementine was going to sacrifice her own men and millions in art so that she, Opal, and Dixon could get away clean. No one would come looking for them after the fact, because everyone would think that they were as dead as the other giants. And by the time the bodies were sorted out and folks realized what had happened, well, Clementine would be ensconced on some tropical island far, far away from Ashland.

And to do all this, Clementine had to have a boat stashed at the dock. That’s why she wanted to meet down there.

No doubt, the giant thought she could go kill me, take the tube, and drift on down the river with Opal, Dixon, and all the jewels they’d stolen before any of the other giants realized that she’d left them behind. Not a bad idea, considering how much I’d already screwed up her original plans. She could definitely improvise in a pinch—but so could I.