shaft, following the twists and turns to the elevator shaft.
The car was going down, which was great. He hopped lightly onto it and coasted to the second floor, then pulled himself through the first ventilation shaft to the right.
“Grace,” Josh murmured over the sound of heavy breathing and scuffling that was also going on in the coms. “What’s wrong?”
“That Sergei Kadjic guy,” Grace muttered, pulling himself out of the ventilation shaft and going to the two still figures on the floor. “Big guy, big chest, old-fashioned mustache like that detective guy—”
“Poirot?” Josh asked, because he knew Grace. “Where are you?”
“Dead rock room. Do you see me?”
“Oh hell—did that just happen?”
“Yeah. He’s dead. And so’s his bodyguard. Both cold as fish.”
The blood pooling under their bodies even looked sticky.
“Fuck! Stirling, we need more monitors in the goddamned van!”
“Noted,” Stirling said, as though he was making a list.
“Do you see the gem or a package anywhere?” Josh demanded.
“Nope. Just bullet holes and blood.”
“Motherfucker!” Josh swore. “Grace, get the fuck out of there!”
Grace shuddered as he looked at the two bodies, and as he pulled the cover of the ventilation shaft closed, Josh spoke up again.
“Guys, I’m calling the cops. Nick Denning. Uncle Danny, is that all right?”
Danny sighed. “It’s necessary, Josh. Murder is above our ken. Tell him there’s a gala going on, and he’ll get all the cooperation in the world if he comes in through the back and lets us show him where the bodies are.” He let out a humorless laugh. “But perhaps, Josh, you should send him to the room with all the people who are waiting to buy a stolen piece of espionage first. We can’t prove they’re up to no good, but it sure would be fun to hear them swear.”
“Deal, Uncle Danny,” Josh murmured.
In the ensuing silence, Grace heard Chuck and Hunter swearing some more, and he made a keening noise. Hunter had gone after Chuck because he’d seen bad guys, and now it sounded like the bad guys were winning.
“Josh!” Danny said in alarm.
“We need Soderburgh to lead the cops to the dead guys!” Josh rasped. “He can’t bail Hunter and Chuck out. They’re somewhere between the Institute and the van. I’ll go check on the—”
“No!”
The cry was universal, and Grace had been one of the people yelling.
“We’re fine!” Chuck barked, and Grace felt relief wash over him. “We’re cornered near the first floor of the structure. Do your thing, people. Don’t look at the violence in the parking garage.”
Grace let out a growl, and before he could try to time the trip to the roof, down the side of the building, and then the three blocks to the garage, he realized he’d already gotten back into the ventilation shaft and was heading for the hallway with the stairs.
“Grace, stay put,” Hunter snapped. “Soderburgh is going to need you.”
“But—”
“The whole crew depends on you not getting caught, you understand? Put on your party clothes and go be the museum employee copping a break. Do it now!”
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
“And you’ve got to unlock the room too,” Soderburgh said over coms. “By all means make me look like an asshole if you have to, but there needs to be a way to explain how you found them.”
“Fuck!” he snarled, and for a moment, he thought of completely disregarding everybody in his ear and just fucking off and going to help Hunter.
Help Hunter how?
What was Grace going to do in the middle of a fight with punching and guns?
How would he be helping Hunter by distracting him in the middle of violence, which was Hunter’s oxygen?
“Grace,” Josh said sotto voce, “please. I know you love Hunter, but the team needs you here.”
“Yeah, yeah, got it,” Grace muttered, changing directions. “I’m finding a closet so I can change. Whatever. You all suck. Hunter?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Don’t get fucking shot.”
“THAT,” SAID Chuck as they both dodged around a corner in the parking garage and crouched behind a minivan, “was the most fucking romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Yeah, well, my boy knows me,” Hunter muttered. “Where did you pick these guys up again?” Chancellor and Creighton—looking just like their security photos and Hunter’s nightmares of the day Paulie had died—had Chuck cornered as Hunter entered the first floor of the garage. Hunter had no idea how this happened, but he could damn their luck.
“I tell you, I was entering the garage, they were coming out, and I noticed the damn gift bag.”
Hunter scowled. “They had the gift bag on them?”
“They were