“What? Blaming Marcus?”
“No, your…” Will gestured at his own face. “That whole act. It’s like… if you had a customer service voice, but you were also holding a knife.”
Cole laughed. “Oh, come on. It is not. It’s just?—”
“No, no, he’s not wrong,” Desiree said. “You sound like a serial killer waiting to get off his shift at the call center.”
“Jesus Christ. Would you two focus?”
“Fine, as long as you drop…that.” Will shuddered.
Cole huffed and rolled his eyes again. He was getting a headache from these two.
“Psycho call center persona aside,” Desiree said, “Cole’s right. Marcus did put all of us up to going to that party to get the Puffin.”
Will worked his jaw. “You’re not wrong. But if he’s made nicey-nice with Alders, he’s got a major head start on manipulating him. Which means I guarantee he’s convinced him he had nothing to do with us being there. And that’s to say nothing of whatever poison he’s dripped in the guy’s ear about the two of us.” He gestured at himself and Will.
“And me, honestly,” Desiree said. “Even if I hadn’t been there, he probably would’ve talked shit about me just for spite.”
“You think he hates you more than he hates us?” Will asked. “We’re his exes. And we had the audacity to dump him.”
“Mmhmm. And he would gleefully hire pig farmers to dispose of your bodies. But I got into an art program he was convinced he deserved,andI outed him as not just a counterfeiter but a laughablyterriblecounterfeiter.” Shesnickered. “You boys may have broken his heart, but I hurt his ego.”
“Fair point,” Will conceded.
“I think he’d be thrilled to feed all three of us to pigs,” Cole mused. “As far as convincing Alders he put us up to stealing the Puffin…” He paused as a few pieces clicked into place in his head. “None of us can prove he sent us because God knows he doesn’t leave paper trails.” He turned to Will. “But does your buddy still have the footage he accessed from the police station? With the CCTV clip of Marcus in Alders’s vault?”
Will was instantly ramrod straight. “Oh, shit. I almost forgot about that.” He got up and went around the bed to the opposite nightstand. “It was on the burner phone I destroyed, but my guy never deletes anything. Let me text him.”
“Wait, you guys have video footage of him in the vault?” Desiree asked.
Cole nodded. “Alders submitted everything from his CCTV to the cops, and Will’s buddy hacked in.”
“Huh.” Her eyes lost focus. “Makes you wonder how Alders hasn’t seen the clip.”
That gave Cole pause. “Do you think he watched it himself?”
“Not necessarily. He probably just dumped the cameras and had his goons pass them off to the cops. But if there’s footage of Marcus, you’d think someone would’ve shown it to him by now.”
Will rejoined Cole, turning his phone between his hands as he furrowed his brow. “Unless someone got to it first. Got rid of that clip or told Alders the cameras didn’t show anything useful.”
“He’d probably believe the police,” Cole said, thinking out loud.
“Exactly,” Desiree said. “Which means he might dismiss anything we have as fake.” She scoffed and shook her head. “You can fake damn near anything these days, so he’ll just convince Alders it’s a deepfake.”
Cole groaned. “Ironic, isn’t it? He’ll take Marcus at his slimy, bullshit word that we have the Puffin, but he’ll dismiss actual footage of Marcus in his vault as fake.”
“I mean, it’s possible he’ll buy it,” Desiree said with a half-shrug. “I just wouldn’t bet on it. Especially if losing that bet means taking a journey through a pig’s digestive tract.”
The grossed-out face Will made was a lot cuter than it should’ve been.
Cole chuckled. “I think we can avoid that.”
“God, I hope so,” Will croaked. “So I’ll get the footage from my guy ready to share. Who’s getting the fake Puffin?”
“Not it,” Desiree said.
Cole huffed and flipped her off, earning him a devilish giggle. “Fine. I’ll talk to Lilith. She’s got an incredible fake of the Puffin, so she can tell us where it came from. Assuming she doesn’t sell it to us.”
