Page 95 of The Twilight Theft

“The men who delivered it are here somewhere.” She snapped her fingers over her shoulder, and a dark-skinned woman appeared at her side with a cell phone. Liana dialed a number and wandered off, with her assistant and the man holding the statue behind her.

“I don’t like this.” Craig stared after them.

No kidding.

“The crisis plan will need significant revisions.” Craig looked me up and down, then turned to Drew. “Call me when you’re ready. It’ll be a long night.”

“I will.”

Craig nodded and left, following Liana.

Drew’s thumb rubbed small circles on my side, coaxing the army of ants into their skittering march over my skin. “Do you think it’s related to the chip?”

The chip? What about the scarab? Did Scarlett want its murky provenance kept quiet? Did she already tell Gideon or Liana one of their pieces had been stolen from a museum?I needed my earpiece. Needed to be in touch with my team. I didn’t know the plan, and I wasn’t as clever as Scarlett.

Just like Drew wrote in his report.

“I need to tell Scarlett about this.”Well done, Jayce. Prove to him you don’t know what you’re doing.“She’ll get Brie searching through footage if she can. Maybe someone…”

“Someone what?”

I blinked up at him. “What if someone replaced the bird while everything was going on? When the lights were out?”

“That would be quite the coincidence.”

“Or that was Noah’s plan all along.” Would Fenix steal it for the gold? And if they did, did that tie in to the scarab? “Or it’s another element of chaos.”

I took my phone out of my clutch and called Scarlett, updating her on my theories. Not that there was much point. One, Craig had contacted her before I did. Two, he’d told her that Liana confirmed the heavy bird was there at the start of the evening.

And three, the team at HQ was already on it.

They didn’t need me.

Chapter 37

Drew

ThelongerJaycetalkedto Scarlett, the more her shoulders fell and the more she leaned on me for support. Part of me wanted to solve the mystery of the fake bird, but I shoved that into the emotional locker.

What I couldn’t shove in there anymore was her. From the moment she woke up on the roof, she’d been collapsing further and further in on herself. Something happened up there, and it was destroying her.

Once she hung up, I said, “We should get you to the hotel. The sooner we take care of that knee, the better.”

“Thought you said I was like Wolverine?” She stuffed the phone into her clutch and placed her hand on my upper back.

I began the slow and steady walk to the patio doors. It would cause an uproar from those wanting to leave, but Emmett and Malcolm would let us through. “Then you tore off and leaped at an ancient Persian statue.”

She shrugged.

Dozens of eyes followed us as I excused our way through the crowd. Some smiled at me, some frowned when we passed them, and even more gave Jayce blatant once-overs. Too many people were judging her for the condition of her dress and her messed hair.

“Good thing you caught that thief.” I didn’t have the details from Craig about his crisis plan. Maybe he wanted to conceal the theft, maybe he wanted to play it up. Either way, I kept my words loud enough that everyone around us heard. “You single-handedly saved Gideon’s data chip.”

Jayce rolled her eyes, saying nothing.

“Not to mention the golden statue.”

Still nothing.

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