Opal seemed to be one of the folks in charge, judging from the way the other giants deferred to her and how they raced up to whisper questions in her ear and draw her attention in this or that direction. Finally, she managed to look at Finn's invitation, hand it back to him, and check him off the guest list. She glanced at me, ready to mark me off as his plus-one, and froze.
Opal's eyes widened, her breath puffed out of her mouth, and her body completely stilled. While it only took her a second to recover, blink away her surprise, and plaster a bland smile on her face, her reaction ratcheted up my unease.
"Please proceed into the main exhibit area," she said in a low, smooth voice. "Everything's been set up in there."
"Thank you, Opal," Finn replied, and gave her one of his patented charming smiles.
She tipped her head at him and gave me a polite nod, although her sharp gaze lingered on my face a few seconds longer than it should have.
Finn pouted a little when he realized that he didn't have her full attention and that she wasn't going to fawn all over him like most women did, but he tucked his invitation back into his tuxedo jacket. I took his arm again, and we headed toward the entrance. All the while, though, I was aware of the giant at my back. I didn't like having people behind me, and my palms began to burn with the desire to reach for one of my knives, put it up against her throat, and demand to know what she was staring at.
Instead, I turned and smiled at Finn, as though he had said something amusing, allowing my eyes to slide past him to Opal.
"She's watching me," I murmured. "There's a line of people in front of her waiting to get inside, and she's watching me walk away instead of dealing with them."
Finn shrugged. "Maybe she likes women instead of men. You do look rather fetching tonight. Or maybe she recognized you as the mighty Spider. Infamy, thy name is Gin Blanco."
I grimaced at his flippant tone, but he had a point. Opal wouldn't be the first person to freeze up upon realizing who I was. So I put her out of my mind and looked ahead once more.
Still, I couldn't quite ignore the itching sensation between my shoulders - like someone was going to bury a knife in my back before the night was through.
* * *
Finn and I walked up the shallow steps and entered the museum. High, vaulted ceilings, crystal vases full of roses, lilies, and other greenery perched here and there, stone planters bristling with bonsai trees tucked into the corners, slick marble floors and walls: Briartop was just as opulent inside as it was on the outside. Everywhere you turned there was another piece of art to look at, whether it was a series of soft, floral watercolors, a silver etching of a waterfall tumbling over a rocky ridge, or a woodcut of a bear ambling through a field of wildflowers.
We reached the main exhibit area and stood to one side of the entrance, scanning the scene. The enormous room was actually a rotunda topped by a high, domed ceiling inlaid with a starlike mosaic pattern made out of bright blue stained glass. The same pattern could be found on the floor directly below in alternating shades of gray, white, and blue marble. Small white lights had been wrapped around the columns ringing the round room, and the glowing strands stretched from the ground floor all the way up to the second-level balcony. Still more spotlights rose from the floor, dropped from the ceiling, or jutted from the walls, angled to highlight certain displays.
Finn had been right when he'd said that the exhibit of Mab's loot would be the social event of the summer. I spotted several well-known, legitimate businessmen and businesswomen wading their way through the crowd, along with all of the big movers and shakers in the Ashland underworld. Folks like Beauregard Benson, Ron Donaldson, Lorelei Parker . . .
And Jonah McAllister.
McAllister had been Mab Monroe's lawyer for years, and his star hadn't fallen so much as been snuffed out completely since I'd killed the Fire elemental. Without Mab, Jonah was just another smarmy lawyer, desperately searching for a new crime boss to serve before he was chewed up and spit out by the rest of the underworld sharks. McAllister and I had plenty of history - and reasons to hate each other. I'd killed his son, Jake, last year for trying to rob the Pork Pit and then threatening me. For his part, the lawyer had tried to have me murdered more than once.
I eyed McAllister. Like all the other men, he was dressed in a tuxedo, although his was more impeccable than most, and his wing tips were as shiny as ink. His silvery mane of hair gleamed underneath the lights, and his face was smooth and unlined, despite his sixty-some years. Jonah kept his boyish complexion intact with the help of a strict regimen of Air elemental facials. A plastic doll would show more emotion than his tight, sandblasted features.
"What's he doing here?" I asked Finn, jerking my head in the lawyer's direction.
"McAllister? He's one of the executors of Mab's estate, along with the museum director, and helped put the exhibit together," he replied. "The show was in the works even before Mab died. According to the rumors I've heard, Mab stipulated that her entire art collection be put on display here for at least one year before the museum can take ownership of it and do whatever they want to with it."
"That's sort of strange, don't you think?"
He shrugged. "It just sounds like Mab to me. She probably thought that if she put her collection on view, they'd rename the museum after her. Or one of the wings, at the very least. Although I doubt she realized just how soon she'd be requesting that honor."
I grinned. "I was more than happy to help her with that."
"I know you were." Finn returned my evil grin. "Either way, I still want to know what's going to happen to the rest of her estate. Mab had to leave all of her stuff to somebody, didn't she?"
It was a conversation we'd had more than once since Mab's death - wondering what was going to become of all of her earthly possessions. Oh, most of her business interests - especially the illegal ones - had already been snapped up by the other crime bosses. But her Northtown mansion was just sitting there, with all of her things still inside it. I was mildly surprised that no one had gotten it into his or her head to loot the mansion yet, but I supposed the specter of Mab still loomed too large for that.
Mab didn't have any family that I was aware of, but that didn't mean much. For all I knew, there might be a cousin or two lurking around somewhere, maybe even another, closer relative. But so far, Finn hadn't been able to find out anything about what was going to become of her things.
"But we might not have to wait too much longer to learn who Mab left what to," Finn continued. "Rumor has it that the museum director is going to read a statement that Mab had written about the exhibit - along with her will."