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"He looks like some kind of wannabe white trash gangbanger," I said.
"That's the look that all the petty thieves in Ashland are rocking these days," Finn replied.
I frowned. "Well, if Jenkins is so small-time, then why is he claiming to have big-time information about whatever's going down in Ashland?"
"Every squirrel finds an acorn sooner or later," he said. "Even a low-life hood like Jenkins. "
Finn kept watching Jenkins, but I looked past the thief, examining the thicket of trees that he'd left behind, the shadows that stretched out around the parking lot, and the street beyond with its two SUVs. It all looked innocent enough, but something about this whole thing felt wrong to me-seriously wrong.
Lincoln Jenkins sidled up to Bria. My sister glared at him.
"You're late," she snapped. "You said you'd be here ten minutes ago. I don't like standing out here in the cold, Lincoln. "
"Aw, now, don't be like that. You wouldn't want me to slip and fall in the snow, now would ya?" Despite his gangbanger clothes, Jenkins's voice rasped with a twang that was pure country.
Jenkins might have been talking to Bria, but he wasn't really paying attention to her. Instead, his eyes flicked from side to side, as if he was trying to determine if Bria was alone. After a moment, a sly smile curled his lips. My thumb traced back and forth over the hilt of the knife in my hand. I didn't like the look of his smile. Not one damn bit.
"So what's this information that you have? The thing that you couldn't dare tell me over the phone? What's going on in the Ashland underworld that has everybody so stirred up?" Bria asked, her voice as chilly as the night air.
"Aw, you want to get down to business already? You don't want to ask me how I've been or nothing?"
She sighed. "I know how you've been, Lincoln. Stealing whatever you can get your hands on, despite the straight jobs that you've been offered. The ones that I got for you. The ones that you worked at a few days before quitting and cleaning out the cash register on your way out the door. "
Jenkins shrugged, but he didn't deny her claim. "So where's your partner at tonight? You know, the big guy, the giant?"
Bria's face tightened. "He's around. "
"Around?" Jenkins cocked his head to one side. "That's funny because I just saw him working the front door of the club. "
The thief backed up a step and took his hands out of the pockets of his puffy jacket. Bria tensed, and Finn and I did the same. But instead of coming up with a gun, Jenkins's hands were empty.
"Cold tonight, ain't it?" he said in a cheerful tone.
Jenkins brought his hands up to his face and blew on them three times, before briskly rubbing them together and repeating the whole sequence.
My eyes narrowed.
Finn had spotted the particular movement too, because he stabbed his finger through the gap between the two Dumpsters.
"Did you see that? That thing that he did with his hands?" Finn asked. "That looked like some kind of signal-"
And that's when the SUVs roared into the parking lot.
Chapter 10
The lights and engines on the two SUVs that I'd noticed earlier immediately cranked to life at Jenkins's signal. The vehicles roared down the icy street before the drivers turned the wheels, bouncing the SUVs up over the curb, through the snow-covered grass, and into the parking lot. For a second, I thought the lead vehicle was going to plow into Bria, but the driver slammed on the brakes, coming to a stop just a few feet in front of her. The other SUV slid in and stopped at an angle as well, trapping Bria and Jenkins between the two vehicles and the Dumpsters that Finn and I were still hiding behind.
"Fuck," I muttered, my bad feeling now confirmed. "It was a setup all along. "
"Yeah," Finn whispered, reaching for the gun in his coat pocket. "But for whom? Bria? Or Jenkins? Somebody could want him dead for deciding to spill his guts to her. "
"Doesn't much matter," I said. "Because if they so much as touch Bria, then they're all going to get dead. You stay here and cover Bria. If one of them makes a move toward her, you put a bullet in his brain. I'm going around behind them. Maybe they'll talk a little about what they want and who they're working for before we end them. "
Finn nodded and moved into a shooting stance. I tightened my grip on my silverstone knife and stepped into the shadows.
The doors of the SUVs opened, and five dwarves spilled out-two from one car and three from the other. Bria stepped away from the men, putting her back to the Dumpsters, and yanked the gun from her pocket. Jenkins stayed where he was, the smirk on his face even wider than before. Yeah, the thief was definitely in on whatever was happening.
The men spread out and formed a semicircle around my sister. Each one carried a gun, but they were too focused on Bria to do the really smart thing-like check and see if she had any backup. Or perhaps Jenkins had already ruled out that possibility for them by making sure Xavier was by the front door of the nightclub, instead of back here with Bria. With the giant out of the picture, the men probably thought that Bria would be easy pickings. Fools. They didn't realize how tough she really was-or that her big sister, Genevieve, was here and would do anything to protect her. Anything.
