Will wobbled a hand in the air. “Little from column A, little from column B…”
Cole grunted. He probably wasn’t wrong. Not that Marcus was even a little bit competent as an art thief, but he was the only one who didn’t know that. And Cole hadn’t seen him at the party—he could usually sense Marcus’s presence the way he could sense a lingering fart in the air. So maybe he’d had another crony on the premises? Maybe someone stealing another of Alders’s pieces while the room was in chaos? That sounded like Marcus. “So the question is, where was he and was anything else was stolen?”
“Besides the Puffin?”
“Besides the Puffin.
“Don’t know,” Will said. “But I think I know who might have those answers.”
Cole didn’t even need to ask.
Lilith Gowan operated a massive gallery on the Upper East Side’s Madison Avenue. It was one of the most prestigious and respected galleries in the Western Hemisphere, featuring the most elite artists from around the world. The woman knew more about art than every artist, art seller, and art historian in New York—combined; Mother couldn’tstand“that mousy little know-it-all.”
Lilith also had her finger on the pulse of the less scrupulous branches of the art world. She’d helped the FBI and Interpol locate stolen pieces in every corner of the globe. She knew who was laundering money, who was hiding famous pieces in intensely private collections, and the whereabouts of at least a dozen priceless antiquities others believed had been lost to time.
If anyone knew what was being stolen and sold and for whom, or where the real Iberian Puffin had gone, who had it, and why Harry James Alders had put out a fake while (almost) everything else he’d displayed was authentic… it was Lilith Gowan.
Lucky for Cole, she was currently in town and was willing to carve out some time for him today. Well…them, since he’d unhappily come into possession of a sidekick.
After a sleepless night—it was impossible to sleep knowing that slutty dumbass was on his couch—Cole stepped into the elevator with a giant travel mug of coffee. The slutty dumbass in question joined him.
Halfway to the ground floor, Will mused, “Wow, do you have a button that makes the elevator go all the way down without stopping?”
Cole eyed him. “Huh?”
Will gestured at the descending numbers above the door. “Nobody else in the building uses the elevator at this time of day?”
Oh. Oh, that.
Cole chuckled as he brought up his coffee for a sip. “Something like that.”
Tweedledum stared at him for a moment, probably wondering what he was missing. Cole didn’t fill him in.
Truth was, no one lived in this building but Cole. The addresses were used by aliases and front businesses; as far as the Borough of Brooklyn, the state of New York, and the IRS knew, this place housed numerous thriving businesses, entrepreneurs, and individuals living normal lives. Under a shell company, he posted rentals at far below the market rate specifically to drive down rent in his neighborhood. It was working, too—landlords were constantly complaining about how they couldn’t charge their exorbitant rates when they had to compete with Dalton Tower.
And on top of that, Will Yarmouth now had something to scratch his head about, which Cole found amusing. He’d take what he could get.
The elevator let them out in the parking garage, which was mostly full, with everyday cars occupying spaces beneath numbers that corresponded to apartments. Cole took out his keys and pressed the button, and beneath the spot marked30C, the lights flashed on a dusty blue Subaru. He had to bite back a laugh as Will eyed the vehicle.
“This…Thisis your car?”
“No, Mr. Yarmouth,” Cole said sweetly. “It’s my horse. His name is Applejack.”
Will flipped him off, never taking his eyes off the car. His gaze landed on the dented fender, then theHonk if you eat pizzawith a knife and forkbumper sticker. When he finally looked at Cole again, his eyebrows were in his hair.
“What?” Cole shrugged. “You don’t like it?”
Will pursed his lips, probably ready to say that, no, hedidn’tlike it. Cole hoped he did—that would be his cue to tell him where the nearest subway station was, and he’d meet him at the gallery.
Unfortunately, much like he’d done multiple times last night, Will kept his opinion to himself. Without a word, he got in the car.
Cole whispered a curse, then joined him. For a hot second, he debated tossing Will the keys and taking the train himself. That sounded a hell of a lot more appealing than crawling through traffic with Will in his car. If he made it into the city without hurling himself out of the driver seat, it would be a genuine miracle.
But there were bigger fish to fry than his relentless distaste for Will Yarmouth.
On the bright side,he thought on the way out of the garage,he probably won’t spend the whole drive bending my ear about cubism.
In fact, Will was quiet for quite a while. He alternately scrolled on his phone and texted with someone. That was usually a pet peeve of Cole’s; he despised when people focused on their phones and ignored those around them. Both Mother and his younger sister did that a lot, sometimes dropping out mid-conversation to get their dopamine hits or send a text. It annoyed the fuck out of him.
