Deep Dark Secret (Secret McQueen #3) 3

Decades earlier, a pretty-boy con artist named Jack Murphy, or Murph the Surf, had used those windows as an access point to the museum and managed to steal the priceless Star of India sapphire. I had no interest in fencing precious gems, but if someone had broken into the museum tonight, those windows were their most likely point of entrance.

Doing a visual assessment of each window, I was about ready to admit I was wrong when I noticed one on the third floor open a tiny crack more than the others. Being that it was February, I somehow doubted a curator had left it ajar for the fresh air.

So now came the fun part—I got to scale a fucking building.

Call it dumb luck—my favorite kind—but I’d had the inadvertent foresight to wear boots without a heel tonight. They also had a sturdy grip, because the city streets were remarkably icy of late, and I wasn’t immune to wipeouts no matter how good my reflexes were. A slick sidewalk had a way of making anybody its bitch.

With my bag slung across my chest, I marched up the outer stairwell and looked for the path of least resistance. Ten minutes later I was precariously balanced on a teensy stone outcropping under the open window. My jeans were torn at the knee, and I’d invented a fun new string of profanities I hoped I’d be able to recall later.

Let me be the first to say, I will never make a good cat burglar.

The window squealed at me with exaggerated protest as I pushed it open. Inside, I found myself in someone’s cluttered office. Judging by the skeletons behind glass and all the books jammed haphazardly on the shelves, this particular curator studied reptiles. Or tiny dragons. It was hard to tell. The room smelled of Old Spice and leather.

I’d expected to hear more commotion from the inside of the museum, but the silence was so complete it felt thick and suffocating. In the hallway outside the office it was more of the same, just a quietness so complete it made my ears ring. That was more worrisome than the crashing glass, because it meant there were no usual human night watch noises. I didn’t spend much time breaking and entering in city landmarks, but I was a night person, and I knew the way places like this operated.

To minimize the sound of my footfalls on the slick stairs, I did something school children everywhere would have killed to do and slid down the marble banister from the third floor to the second. I had to do it in two parts thanks to the midlevel landing, and it wasn’t nearly as fun as I’d hoped. The thrill was ruined by the expectation I might find a dead body any second.

On the second floor I paused and listened. I was braced for more silence, but instead I was rewarded with a muffled creaking, then a loud crash. Someone swore, and for once it wasn’t me.

Entering the Hall of Marine Life from the second-floor doors, I caught my breath when I saw the massive blue whale suspended from the ceiling grinning at me with its huge, passive mouth. For a moment I forgot my purpose in being here and was struck dumb by the giant creature that appeared to be floating in the dimmed light of the hall. My life was so clouded with ugly, evil, unpleasant things it was easy to forget what real beauty looked like.

A sigh eased from my lips.

On the topic of evil, unpleasant things, the pitter-patter of fleeing footsteps sounded from behind the doors on the other end of the hall.

“Son of a bitch.” I slammed my palm against the metal railing meant to keep visitors from tumbling into the viewing room below.

Once I reached the corridor, the echoing footfalls were not going towards a traditional exit, as I’d expected, but had moved up to the third floor. I took off at a run, taking the stairs two at a time since I couldn’t exactly slide back up the railings. I passed several now-open office doors that had definitely been closed when I’d broken in less than half an hour earlier.

At first I didn’t see a trend to which doors had been opened. They seemed to be selected at random. A geologist. A gemologist. Another geo—oh, so they weren’t so random after all. Could this be as simple as a jewel heist? Sure, the museum was lousy with priceless gemstones, but wouldn’t stealing a shipment from the diamond district be way less risky than trying to get away with something out of the museum’s collection?

And if the haul was all that mattered, why check the offices? The good stuff was in the exhibit halls and overflow storage.

At the end of the hall, where the next corner led back to the main visitor corridors, another door clicked open. I hadn’t heard anyone in the hall, or seen anyone move, and yet there was someone up ahead of me I shouldn’t have been able to miss. More scuffling noises and another cuss. I was close enough now I could tell my quarry was female.

A girl cat burglar? I couldn’t decide if I was impressed by her moxie or disgusted by the cliche.

I crept towards the office with my back to the wall. The shuffling sounds gave way to the distinctive rustle of papers and another bout of breaking glass. What the hell was this girl after? When I was right next to the door, I finally drew my gun, which I’d picked up at home to replace the katana. Up until then I was only chasing ghostly noises. Now that I was about to come face-to-face with whatever was in the office, I wanted to be prepared.

Just having the SIG 9mm in my hands made me feel calmer, dulling the anxious excitement of potential violence. Loading a bullet might be too obvious given how quiet the museum was, so I’d have to wait until I knew who I was facing before I went ahead and chambered a round.

I sucked in a breath, then nudged the door wide open with the toe of my boot, raising my gun at the same time. The stink of rotten eggs wafted out. The curator must have left an egg-salad sandwich in his desk a little too long. With senses as heightened as mine, the smell was so noxious I gagged.

Shifting my weight so it was balanced between both feet, I rested my thumbs parallel on the butt of the gun, fingers staying light so I could quickly load a bullet and fire if the need arose.

When I stepped into the room I started to say something, but I was so startled my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and refused to form words. A young woman stood behind a big wooden desk with her back to me, smashing the panes in a display case that had been built on the wall in between two large bookshelves. She was riffling around, oblivious to the shards of glass scraping up her hands, and judging by her swearing, she wasn’t finding what she was looking for.

She didn’t look like any burglar I’d ever seen. I couldn’t make out the finer details through the darkness, but she was one of the most unassuming criminals to ever cross my path. Slightly pudgy, with a boring shoulder-length haircut and a wardrobe that screamed dorm, this girl would have been more at home in a classroom than breaking into a museum.

She hadn’t noticed me when I toed the door open, but when I stepped closer, my boots crunched on fallen debris from the desk, and she spun around, still clutching bits of rock from the display case.

My snide remarks froze in their tracks.

Her eyes, which I should not have been able to see so well in the dark, were glowing like stoked coals, orangered and getting brighter. The pupils seemed wrong too, but I was so alarmed by the fiery irises focused on me I couldn’t spare a thought for much else.

The girl snarled, and it didn’t sound like anything I’d heard in all my years chasing monsters. The rumbling growl sent a warning signal to my stomach, making my guts twitch nervously. My hands stayed level and steady though.

“Put the rocks down,” I instructed. Whatever she was looking for, I was certain I didn’t want her to have it. Maybe I should have been more specific about how she put the rocks down, however, because she decided to hurl them at my head with shocking force.

I had to raise my hands, gun and all, to block the assault, but even so one of the stones caught my forehead over my eyebrow before I could deflect all the projectiles. The whole incident lasted only two or three seconds, but when I looked up again she was already in motion.

She moved with the eerie speed of something supernatural. I chambered a bullet and steadied the gun, attempting to predict where she would be in the second it would take for the bullet to find her, then I fired. Her howl told me I’d landed a hit. When she stopped moving, there were three feet between us, and she was holding her bloody shoulder. But the wound seemed to be her secondary concern. She was glaring at me with murderous intent, her red eyes glowing like a raging fire.

The girl snarled again, then stumbled backwards. “I won’t forget this,” she promised before she threw herself into the window. An explosion of glass and wood framing burst outward, and she seemed to move in slow motion, flying out into the night sky. Cold wind rushed in to fill the vacuum, slapping my loose curls against my cheeks and dragging them over my eyes as an all-too-effective blindfold. Shaking the tendrils out of my line of sight, I dashed over to the window, keeping my gun up and ready when I peered out the broken hole.

The ground was littered with glass, gleaming on par with the frozen atmosphere, but there was no sign of the girl.

“What the f—”

The sound of the shattering window had barely left my ears when the museum alarm finally went off.

Chapter Seven

My knees were bouncing excitedly, and I couldn’t stop wringing my hands together. I was sitting in a red leather wingback chair, and I was only staying seated because I’d been threatened with the wrath of God if I didn’t stop pacing.

More specifically I’d been threatened with the wrath of a half-fairy, half-god Oracle who was running out of patience with my anxiousness.

Calliope was crouched in front of me, trying to still my hands while she dabbed the cut on my forehead with a damp cloth. I can’t imagine what a maniac I must have looked like when I stepped into the doorway of the Starbucks on West 52nd and 8th with a bleeding head wound.

I also hadn’t stopped talking since I’d been transported into Calliope’s waiting room, but I had no idea if what I was saying made any sense. I just kept talking because she hadn’t said anything to interrupt me, and I didn’t have the common sense to stop on my own.

She folded the cloth and placed it on the arm of the chair, then put one hand on each of my knees and squeezed them, too hard for me to mistake it as a gesture of comfort. My restless bouncing ceased immediately, and the words I’d been spewing turned into a raspy sigh. I really looked at her for the first time since I’d arrived.