Sure. Hold off. Will could do that. But…there was nothing wrong with getting a closer look at the Puffin in the meantime, right? He sidled into the next gallery, this one lit with more purpose, each display in its own little circle of light. Every piecewas gorgeous, the sort of thing millions of people might come to gaze at in a museum.
Instead, fewer than a hundred people got to see them before they were locked up again.
Well, not tonight. Will stepped around an awkward couple in surprisingly cheap clothes—country cousins like him, maybe—and glanced over at the Puffin. Damn, it was pretty. Heavy too, from what he’d been told.
All he needed to do now was deploy his direction. Just a few more minutes and…
“Oh shit,” Reed hissed. “Mayday, mayday!”
Uh-oh.Will turned just in time to come face-to-face with Cole. The urge to take a step back was profound, but he picked his spine up from where it had dropped down to his feet and grinned instead. “Well hey there, darlin’. Miss me?”
“Like a shark misses a remora.” His expression was completely flat, but Will could see the irritation lurking in the back of those ice blue eyes. That was the equivalent of a red cape to a bull for Will; he had to have more.
He slid his free arm around Cole’s waist and leaned in. “Aw, baby, you know I didn’t go to a fancy finishing school like you did. I don’t know them big words.”
Cole looked about half a second away from pulling a knife on Will.Ha, wouldn’t be the first time. “How about parasite. Do you know that word?” he asked as he began to steer them away from the Puffin.
Shit.
“You know, I think I might have heard that one before. Hard not to know it, when you’re surrounded by ‘em.”
Cole rolled his eyes, but Will knew that was the equivalent oftouché, motherfucker.
“Um… Will… you’re going the wrong way,” Reed whispered.
“Ah,” Cole said. He plucked the glasses off Will’s face a moment later and stuck them into his own pocket.
Fuck.
“A word to the wise,” Cole continued as he moved Will out of the small gallery and back into the bigger room. “Thick-rimmed glasses like that are very last season. They make you stand out as a second-tier hick even more than the rest of you does. I understand that you need a fairy godfather to walk you through your jobs, but you give all of us a bad name by being sloppy.”
Son of a goddamn bitch. And I know she is, she’s right over there.
“I was told you liked it sloppy,” Will replied, then found himself abruptly pushed back against the wall between two priceless paintings. There was anger in Cole’s face now, and it thrilled Will in a way that he knew was dangerous. Pushing Cole Dalton was like poking a bear; stupid at the best of times, suicidal at the worst, but there was something irresistible about aggravating him.
“If you know what’s good for you,” Cole murmured, leaning into his space and staring him down, “you’ll stay here for the next sixty seconds and not make a fucking sound. Otherwise, it’s your funeral.” His cologne filled the air between them, cedarwood and Calabrian bergamot blending into something cool and subtle that made Will want to lick Cole’s neck to see if he tasted as good as he smelled. Will stared at a thin gray hair on the man’s shirt, resisting the urge to reach up and pluck it off, maybe run his hand beneath the collar of his jacket at the same time.
Then Cole was gone, vanishing back into the crowd like a gorgeous ghost—and taking Will’s glasses with him.
Shit, shit, shit…
Follow him, get them back! You need Reed to finish the job!
But something in Will balked at the idea of moving. Fuck being told what to do, but Cole had piqued his curiosity. Sixty seconds… more like fifty now. He could give the man that.
Now that he was stationary, Will noticed a lot of other people seemed to be on the move. There were still the knots of conversation going on, Alders himself holding court in the center of the room now that Cole and his mother were leaving… and his mother, why his mother? Why leave now? And Alders seemed uncomfortable, his eyes darting this way and that as the people with the worst clothes in the room converged on the smaller gallery, and?—
The sprinklers suddenly went off overhead. Foul, stagnant water sputtered out of them, drenching the beautiful people and causing an outcry. At the same time, there was shouting in the small gallery.
Will pried his back off the wall and got close enough to glance inside, where Jansen Mortimer had the Puffin in one hand and was using the other football-style to block the undercover cops as he darted for the back door. It looked like he had help—oh, that was Eli, what the hell?
Jansen’s break failed. He was tackled by a redhead in a Lycra dress two feet from the exit. The Puffin flew out of his hands, bounced off the wall, hit the marble floor… and smashed into a thousand pieces.
Oh damn.
What felt like hours later, his ruined tuxedo stashed in a dumpster and the smell of mildew still clinging to him a bit despite the fresh jeans and T-shirt he’d changed into, Will came to a stop outside of Cole Dalton’s apartment building. It hadbeen a bit of a bear to find it, but only because Will had to play telephone to get back in touch with Reed after Cole so rudely stole his glasses. Baby Boy kept up with Reed, though, and was able to give Will a good number for him.
Davey
