I slipped inside, and everyone kept right on working, except for Finn. He immediately perked up and sniffed the air a couple of times, just like Rosco did, then turned in my direction, his eyes even bigger and more eager than the basset hound’s.
“Do I smell grilled-cheese sandwiches? With cookies? And lemonade?”
I laughed, and we all gathered around to nosh on my postfuneral feast, as it were. While we ate, Finn and Silvio updated the rest of us on everything they’d been able to find out so far about Madeline’s party.
“Looks like Madeline has invited everyone who’s anyone in the underworld,” Finn said, stuffing two triangles of the apple-and-pear grilled cheese into his mouth at once.
“No, really?” Phillip snarked. “And here I thought that we were calling out and writing down the names of Ashland’s most dangerous criminals just for kicks.”
“I agree with Finn,” Silvio added, nibbling on one of the chocolate chip cookies. “And we all know why Madeline went with this specific guest list. It’s not so much a party as it is a coronation, just like McAllister said.”
“At least until someone shows up to assassinate the queen,” I chimed in. “A role that I am more than happy to play.”
We all chuckled, but our laughter quickly died down. We all knew how dangerous my plan was, but it was the only way to protect my loved ones from Madeline, as well as hopefully get the one other thing I wanted—a little peace and quiet.
So we spent the rest of the afternoon working, dividing up the parts of my master plan into small, manageable sections and tasks, just like Madeline had done when she was targeting us.
Once Bria, Xavier, Roslyn, Owen, and Phillip had finished with the guest list, Finn took over, standing in front of the dry-erase board like a professor, telling us about all the rumors he’d heard about who was moving up in the underworld, who was getting pushed aside, and how many bodyguards they might bring with them to Madeline’s party. He even produced a laser pointer from somewhere to help with his lecture. Show-off.
When we had a good idea of how many people were going to be attending the party, Silvio took over, since he’d gotten his hands on the most useful things of all—blueprints of the newly remodeled Monroe mansion, along with the guard rotations.
Jo-Jo cleared off one of the tables, and Silvio unrolled the blueprints with a slight flourish, then bowed his head to me and stepped back so we could all crowd around them.
Finn pouted. “I’ve been trying to get my hands on this info ever since Gin fake-died. How did you manage it?”
“A good assistant never reveals his sources.” Silvio gave him a small, satisfied smile. “Perhaps people just like me more than they do you.”
Finn glared at the vampire, but Silvio kept smiling. He liked needling Finn. Couldn’t blame him for that. It was certainly one of my favorite sports, so much so that I thought it should be an official national pastime.
“Madeline doesn’t have as many guards as I thought she would,” Xavier rumbled, running his finger down a list of names. “Looks like about three dozen total, split three ways—guarding the perimeter, roaming through the mansion, and then at the party itself.”
“Yeah, but you’re forgetting that she has Emery as the head of them,” Bria pointed out. “She’s worth at least three giants just by herself.”
“Heh,” Sophia rasped, cracking her knuckles. “She’s not so tough.”
We all looked at each other, but nobody argued with the Goth dwarf.
After we’d reviewed the guard rotations and the blueprints, we moved on to the next phase—weapons.
Finn got Xavier to help him carry several large, heavy duffel bags into the salon. A gleeful grin spread across my foster brother’s face, as though he were opening up presents on Christmas morning, instead of unzipping bags full of guns, silencers, and ammunition.
“Where did you get all these on such short notice?” Phillip asked, hefting a revolver in his hand.
“Why, they were a gift from Madeline,” Finn drawled. “The only good thing she’s ever done for us.”
“They were the weapons she was going to buy from Harley Grimes to outfit her guards,” Owen added. “The ones we intercepted when Sophia and Jo-Jo killed him that night at Gin’s.”
“They were just gathering dust and cobwebs in that tunnel under Dad’s house, so I figured that we might as well bring these babies out of storage and give them a spin.” Finn struck a pose with a particularly large rifle. “What do you think? Is gunmetal gray my color?”
We all groaned.
While Finn continued to show off with the weapons, Silvio drifted over and handed me a small sheet of paper.
“What’s this?” I asked.
He frowned. “I’m not quite sure, but I thought you should see it, since it’s part of the work that Madeline ordered done on the mansion. Most of the renovations were fairly standard stuff. New paint, new ceilings, new floors. But this is different.”
“How so?”
He tapped the paper. “From what I can tell, it’s a single suite of rooms that she’s had remodeled. A bedroom, a bathroom, and some sort of living room.”
“What’s so unusual about that?”
“This suite is on the bottom floor of the mansion, tucked away in one of the back corners, well away from the rest of the construction.” Silvio hesitated. “It almost seems like she’s been fixing up a place for someone to stay.”
A chill ran through me at his words. “Madeline is going to have a houseguest?”
“That’s my speculation.”
“Who?”
Silvio shrugged. “Unfortunately, that’s something I haven’t been able to find out.”
He didn’t say anything else, but he could see the concern on my face. We were going to have enough problems dealing with Madeline, Emery, and their giant guards. We didn’t need to worry about anyone unexpected popping up to throw a wrench in our plans.
“If it helps, the remodeling was only finished this morning,” he said. “Madeline’s guest probably hasn’t arrived yet and might not until after the party.”
He was trying to reassure me, but it didn’t work. Silvio touched my shoulder, then moved back over to talk to Jo-Jo.
I kept staring at the paper in my hand, not really seeing all the lines, squiggles, and other marks. I wasn’t an Air elemental, so I never got glimpses of the future like Jo-Jo did. But for some reason, I felt more concerned about Madeline’s mysterious houseguest than I did about anything else.