inside—like police or more magic or just an armed and smirking sociopath—and partly because I heard voices in taunting tones that raised more questions than they answered.
“Have you figured it out yet, Maguire?”
The voice was McSlackerson’s. He was breathing hard, like he’d paused in running, but it was the name that made me stop outside the door and press against the wall to listen.
“Don’t call me that,” Carson snapped, as discomposed as I’d ever heard him. There was something very personal about his anger that made it sound like they’d argued before. “I just work for him.”
“Does he know you’ve gone rogue, you and little Miss Ghost Whisperer?”
Had we gone rogue? This was news to me. Or maybe not. There was Carson turning off his phone, using cash at the Walmart, refusing to call Maguire for a car. Another one of those things more clear in retrospect.
“If anything happens to Daisy,” Carson said, so low I strained to hear, “if she’s not all right when she wakes up, I am going to stake you like you did that guard.”
I believed him. There was an unshakable vow in his voice. Hearing a guy threaten to kill someone—or at least maim him—for my sake shouldn’t make me feel a rush of warmth around my heart. But it did, just a little.
“Hey,” said the thief, in a tone that made me loathe him even more, “if she’s not all right when she wakes up, it’s your fault. And you know it, or you wouldn’t be so—”
Wait. Did Carson care or did he just feel guilty? I leaned forward to hear, but a crack of fist hitting bone cut him off. I really was missing the exciting stuff.
I burst into the room in time to see McSlackerson reeling back, his hand clamped to his jaw, Carson going for the follow-through punch to the gut. His fist landed with an awful, dull thud, and it looked terribly effective and efficient.
Cleo had appeared beside me, delighted by Carson’s show of force. “Oh, look. He’s going to kill him with his hands. Very satisfactory.”
I echoed with a bloodthirsty “Very.”
20
THEY BOTH TURNED at the sound of my voice, McSlackerson with shock and dismay, and Carson—his gaze lit with undiluted relief that brought a totally inappropriate flush to my face.
McSlackerson was easy to read. He must have realized the attempt to grab me had gone wrong and stalling Carson—why else would the thief still be there?—was no longer necessary. His hand tightened on his messenger bag and he raised it up high. “If you come any closer, I’ll drop this, and the jackal will break.”
Would it? Would he, after all this trouble to get it?
“What would the Brotherhood say?” I asked, drawing his attention.
His brows shot up. “Oh, you know about that?” He glanced from me to Carson. “You two do work fast.”
“Shut up,” growled Carson.
Cleo was studying the situation, walking freely around us, invisible to the guys. “I don’t think the statue will break. He wrapped it most carefully.”
“He wrapped the artifact up,” I relayed, relishing the flare of alarm in McSlackerson’s eyes and the complete lack of smirk on his face. “It might take a bump or two.”
Anticipation made Carson almost smile. Yeah, that looked personal, all right. We would be quite a team if one of us stopped keeping secrets from the other.
He launched himself after McSlackerson, who had started running. Carson caught up with him in a few long strides and took him down in a flying tackle. The bag fell out of the thief’s hand just a few inches off the floor.
The two guys, however, hit the ground with a bone-jarring crack and slid across the tile to crash against a pillar holding a Meissen vase. The pillar rocked, and I held my breath. This could be a bad day for vases.
“This is the most exciting thing that’s happened since I woke up in this place,” said Cleo.
McSlackerson heaved Carson off him, flipping him with an abruptness that smacked Carson’s head against the floor. It stunned him and gave the thief time to struggle to his feet.
He was going for the messenger bag, and I moved to head him off. But Carson was on it. He grabbed the wires leading to the alarm on the pedestal where they’d crashed, then, with a huge stretch, he just barely got a finger on the thief. But it was enough. McSlackerson stiffened and dropped to the floor.
“What did you do?” I gasped, staring at the guy as