The Judas Relic: An Evangeline Heart Holiday Adventure (6 page)

“You’re kidding, right?” I ran faster and pointed at the oiled canvas beneath his arm as he balanced with one leg out the window. “You’re stealing a fifteen … million … dollar… painting and I can’t take a stone?”
 

From the darkness, a silenced shot split the air. I saw the light of the report too late to warn Clay. He took the bullet high on his shoulder, his face registering the shock and alarm as he reached for the gun and tossed it toward me. He dropped the canvas.

I tucked and rolled, grabbing two knives from between my legs and throwing them across the room where the light had come. One hit the shooter low in the stomach, but he charged me without hesitation, shooting at Clay’s disappearing form as he tumbled from the window sill and into the waiting ground below.

That didn’t make any sense. Why not shoot me? I was a clear target.

Then the niggling thought that had bugged me since Clay first told me the details cleared like a fog lifting off the bay. This heist hadn’t been a way for Clay’s buyer to get a painting that was a complete outlier to his collection.

It had been a ruse, probably from the beginning. This entire heist had been nothing more than a way to kill Clay for letting me get the relic.

Screw that.

I wasn’t about to let them take out my partner.

My gun had landed half a dozen feet to my left and I slid on my side, not caring that the dress tangled high around my hips. My fingers brushed the gun’s grip and I rolled upright, pinpointing the attacker’s location and firing as I hurried toward the window.

Clay had to be okay. Our escape counted on him being able to walk out of here. Though if I didn’t take this guy out, neither one of us would make it out alive.

The assailant ducked behind a massive pedestal and I took two more shots. I paused at the window, back to the darkness and waited, finally in my element.

Every noise, movement, color, and smell faded away, leaving nothing but my target and the bullet I’d use to eliminate him. I held my breath, sighted on the pedestal, and let the air spill slowly from my nostrils, one eye unblinking.

He moved quickly, leaping up, but he was no match for me.

I shot twice, catching him under the eye and in the throat. Blood splattered across three paintings behind him and he fell forward. I dove out the window, escaping before he hit the ground.

Landing in the deep snowbank, I spilled forward and scurried toward Clay’s prone form. He’d hit his head hard and blood colored the snow beneath him. The shot had barely grazed him, thankfully, so he was moving. But not fast enough. I needed to get us out of there fast. If they’d sent a shooter, they’d damn sure have the exits covered and I wanted to kill as few people as possible. Maybe they’d assume the ambush had worked, but that meant our window was closing fast.
 

I holstered the gun with the knives, at my thigh, and grabbed the front of his jacket. “You okay?”

He grimaced and pushed my hands away. “No.” He shook his head, pressing his hand to the back of it with a scowl. “I didn’t see that guy at all. Total ambush.”

“We have to go. Now.”

He groaned and tried to sit up, and I pushed him onto his feet, pulling his arm around my shoulders, but he straightened and took a wobbling step away, cradling his injured arm. “Oh, sure.
I
say that and it means take your damn time and pick up more stuff.”

We didn’t have time to argue. I took off, needing him to follow. “Can you make it to the car?”

“I’d rather wait here and let you pull it around.” He walked stiffly behind me.

“That was a rhetorical question, dammit. If you can’t take a fucking bullet then I’m not bringing you anymore.” I threw his words back at him, more to get him moving than really meaning them.
 

He mumbled a retort but I ignored him as we hurried through the chaos and cover of darkness, skirting the huge mound of snow in which we’d landed and crossing to the brick walkway that led to the back delivery entrance. We’d stashed the catering van on the back quadrant of the property, and we had less than five minutes to get there and off the property before being spotted.

We made it to the van. “You drive,” Clay said, rounding the back and getting in the passenger side. His shoulder was hurting him, and I had to give him credit for not being a baby. Getting shot sucked and even the best of us got pulled out of our game when it happened. I started the engine and eased toward the gate—unmanned, thanks to the commotion inside. Moving the high-profile guests out of the building would be the guards’ top priority. It was possible that no had discovered our shooter yet.
 

I was worried now about who Clay’s buyer still had coming after us. Nobody at the party, including Sir and Mrs. Jeffries, had any reason to suspect us of anything at this point.

Even as I fretted, I kind of had to admit that other than the ambush, and Clay getting shot, I liked these heists. They were a lot more exciting than assassinations. They were boring in comparison; I didn’t ever get to use distraction and misdirection. Tonight had been exhilarating, and doing it with a partner hadn’t sucked.

Said partner moaned as the van hit a bump. “Sorry. I have to get us off the property before they get it enough together to start stopping vehicles and searching them.”

“Yeah … fine.” He shrugged out of his jacket and pressed the cloth of it into his shoulder.

I downshifted and pulled onto the main road, then let out a heavy breath. “We made it,” I said.

“Don’t stop for anything. Leave the luggage in the Rover. Go straight to Ralph’s.” His voice held none of his normal humor, which made me think the ambush bothered him far worse than the pain of the wound.

We’d need to talk about what happened and assess the threat level of whoever had ordered the hit on him. But right now I needed to get us to safe ground, and that included picking up our stuff that we’d stashed in the Range Rover. “Are you sure? What about our stuff?” I hated leaving a trail, but at least they were stashed where they’d be contained by the agency until I could get to them. Better than leaving them in the castle.

He shook his head and I glanced over at him. He was pale, and lines creased the skin at the corners of his mouth. Maybe his shoulder was worse than I thought. Or maybe he had a concussion. “Clay?”

“Ralph’s. Do it.”

It would take me almost an hour to get there and I couldn’t let him bleed out. I watched the road for a turnoff and took the first one I could find. We were more than three miles from the castle and that gave me enough time to get him to a point we could at least travel without me having to worry about him. I’d clean and dress it when we got to Ralph’s.
 

Damn, that had been a disaster.

I jammed the truck into park and dug through the smattering of items in the back of the van. The stone pressed into my breast as I found a box of cleaning towels and hurriedly worked on him. The bullet had carved a neat line through the curve of his shoulder. It hadn’t gone too deep, but he still needed stitches.

“Never been shot?” I tried to distract him while I mopped up the blood.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Not my thing. So, no.”

I met his gaze and shook my head. “
That
I can handle. Dresses, parties, rich jackasses, not so much. Give me people shooting at me any day.”

“I shouldn’t have taken the job. You shouldn’t have been there.”

Neither of us should have been there, but now was not the time to chastise him. That was the second time that I’d written off my instincts and if I wasn’t careful, we weren’t going to make it through a third. I tied off the makeshift bandage and made a sling. “Good thing I was.”

He closed his eyes and I didn’t like the beads of sweat that covered his top lip. “Hang in there,” I whispered, brushing my fingertips across his cheek.

He tried to make a joke, but it fell flat. His fingers brushed my thigh. “Some party.”

I climbed into the driver’s seat and pulled us back onto the road, pushing the speed limit as much as I dared.

Lina

With every mile, Clay grew more sullen and silent. By the time I pulled up in front of Ralph’s flat I was seriously worried about him. And considering the lengths and layers the buyer had put in place for this hit, we were in danger until Clay was dead or we eliminated the threat. Until I knew more about the buyer, I had to proceed under the assumption that he would not stop until Clay paid for what he’d done during our first heist.

Clay opened his eyes. “Can’t park here.”

“I have to get you inside. Shut up.”

He shook his head and grabbed my arm. “Do it now. We can’t risk it.”

I searched his face, rescinding my earlier glee at having a partner. This anxiety was going to kill me. I grabbed his hand and held it while I moved the van to the far end of the street and on the other side of it.

I hurried around to his side and hoped that for anyone watching, we’d look like two drunk revelers home from our holiday fun. The cold bit through my bare feet and I helped him get the jacket around his shoulders so the sling and the blood weren’t visible. We had a couple hundred yards, and then I had to hope that Anna wouldn’t leave us standing on the stoop for too long.

His body grew heavier as he leaned on me. “We’re almost there. You can do this.” I was terrible at encouragement and hoped that he didn’t pass out on me before we got the door and inside. The stairs kicked his ass and he gripped the stone railing as he climbed each of the steps. “Couple more feet.”

His breathing was labored, and he’d gone from pale to green and he’d started shaking at the bottom of the stairs. I knocked rapidly on the door.

“Do they know we’re coming?” His voice was thready and my muscles burned from holding him up.

“Yeah, but not for another couple hours. I thought we’d have time to change, clean up, and then come over.”

Thankfully, the door opened to Anna’s sweet grin, which quickly changed to concern. She stepped outside to help me bring Clay inside. “Take him to the living room and lay him on the sofa.”

I struggled under the weight of him but I couldn’t quit on him now. I dug my fingers into his ribs to keep him upright. “Come on, Clay. Don’t be such a baby.” I looked back at Anna. “You, don’t want him on the sofa. He’s bleeding. I need to stitch him up.”

“Dining room. The bench,” she said.

He growled and straightened a few inches, picking his feet up as we moved closer to the kitchen. I didn’t remember seeing a bench in the dining room when I’d been here last, but as we came out of the long hallway into the room at the back of the house, I was pleasantly surprised to see it looking normal and not crammed to the ceiling with boxes and papers.

“I did a little cleaning up once you said you were coming,” Anna said from behind us.

Thank god. Stitching Clay and giving him a place to rest his head in a narrow trench of Ralph’s life would have been tough. This improved my outlook drastically. She helped me get him onto the bench and I held his head as he swiveled around and lay back. “I’ve got you.”

His fingers reached for me and I let him settle them around the back of my knee. Anna hurried off toward the sink to get cloths.
 

“I’ll need something to sew him up too.”

“I have just the thing.” She tossed me a stack of towels and I set them on the floor next to him.
 

“Okay,” I said, “this is going to suck. A lot.”

He grimaced and tried to shift and sit up but I put three fingers on his forehead and held him down. “Stay put.”

“Either kill me or fix me. Can you get me a shot of something?” His eyes focused on Anna.”

“I have just the thing.” She went to the cupboard and took out a bottle of brandy and started to fill a shot glass.

“Just bring me the bottle,” Clay said.

She did and he took a big swig. “Okay.” He sighed and looked at me.

I unraveled the makeshift dressing I’d put on him.

“Make it look pretty,” he said.

He still had his sense of humor, and that was good. Once he lost that, I was in deep shit. But I also knew that if I could get him stitched up, we’d be fine. He hadn’t lost much blood before I’d gotten him patched, but the pain was not helping and I needed to get him stitched.

Anna brought me a full military medical kit and I grasped both her arms and kissed her cheek. “Bless you.”

“Tell me what to do and I’ll help, dear.”

Ralph announce his entrance into the room as he tapped his cane on the wood floor and grinned, his white hair flying wildly around his head with wiry eyebrows to match. “How was your trip?” he asked. “Good I hope. Supposed to get a nor’easter in through tomorrow, but not for a day or two. Glad you made it. Christmas in two days! I love Christmas!” He crossed the room until his failing eyesight figured out what was going on.
 

I patted his arm. “Hey, Ralph. We’ve got a situation here.”

“I say.” He peered closer to Clay’s face. “I told you not to piss her off.”

Clay laughed and it turned into a guttural growl. I let Ralph distract him while I ordered Anna around and cut away Clay’s tuxedo shirt. The blood had dried and crusted, which was good, but as I peeled away the fabric, it reopened most of the wound. Anna was a doll and took away all the mess as I got it off him, cleaned it up, and stitched him closed.

More than a few strings of curses flew from him, interrupting Ralph’s storytelling, but Clay handled it like a champ. At the end, I shot him with morphine that I’d found in the kit and wiped my hands on one of the damp, clean towels Anna had brought over. He could use the rest for his head—both from the worrying and the concussion.
 

“You could have found the morphine before you sewed me up!”

I straightened and stretched, then looked at the war zone we’d made of Anna’s clean kitchen. “I’m so sorry,” I said sheepishly, but I was speaking to Anna.

“Don’t be sorry,” Anna said. “I would always prefer that you come here with such situations.” She glanced at Ralph. “We’ve seen our share of things, and I can usually fix near anything.” She took the dirty towel from me, laid a clean warm one on Clay’s forehead, and took a load of mess outside to the trash.