Lucky for Cole and Will, the locked doors wouldn’t keep them out. Of course they were both adept at lock-picking, but even that wasn’t necessary today—they had Cheyenne’s key. Afterthey’d met up with her and Desiree this morning, Cheyenne had given them the key as well as the code for the security system.
She hadn’t come with them, though. After both of her studios had been burned and she’d nearly been killed herself, she was in “low-goddamned-profile” mode and wanted to be as far from everything as possible. Cole honestly couldn’t blame her.
Inside, everything seemed normal, if unusually quiet. Not that a high-end art gallery was ever particularly noisy outside of an opening or event, but it was eerily silent today. Empty and devoid of life. The click of Cole’s crutches seemed to echo through the cavernous facility.
They moved from the backroom into the showroom, which was also dark except for the fading daylight coming in through the front windows. All the showroom lights were off, removing the warm, brilliant glow that usually made every painting and sculpture stand out. In the absence of that light, they all appeared subdued and cold and even drab. An enormous cubist painting that had seemed almost fluorescent beneath the lights was muted now, its colors less obnoxious and its contrasts less jarring.
The hair on Cole’s neck stood on end. Something wasn’t right. It wasn’t right at all.
“Lilith?” he called out as he walked past the darkened cubism display. “Are you here?”
No sound. No movement.
“Should we check her office?” Will asked, whispering as if someone might hear them.
Cole nodded.
The office door was… unlocked. In fact, it was ajar. No signs of forced entry, though. It was just partly open as if someone had neglected to close it all the way as they were leaving.
Cole nudged it all the way open with his crutch. It creaked on its ancient hinges like something out of a haunted house.When he switched on the light, he scanned the office. Nothing had changed since the last time he was here. Stacks of papers remained. Brown-paper-wrapped paintings still leaned against the wall.
But Lilith was gone.
And so was her Iberian Puffin paperweight.
The stack of papers was there, a small indentation in the middle where the Puffin had been sitting, but the figurine itself was gone. Cole could almost see it there like a transparent apparition, but no… it was gone.
“The paperweight,” Cole whispered. “It’s…”
Will craned his neck to look past him at the desk, and he swore. “Why would she take a paperweight with her?”
The pieces desperately wanted to click together in Cole’s mind, but he tried to keep them apart.
“You don’t think…” Will shifted, and ancient floorboard creaking beneath him. “You don’t think that was therealIberian Puffin, do you?”
Cole closed his eyes. Slumping over his crutches, he sighed heavily. “Fuck’s sake.”
“It was…” Will dropped into one of the chairs they’d sat in the first time they’d come here together, and he stared at the vacant spot where the paperweight had been. “It was right here? Right in front of our faces?” He looked up at Cole. “Why would she… What’s…” He shook his head slowly. “What the hell?”
“Yeah. What the hell is right.” Cole chewed the inside of his cheek. He’d always known Lilith was not above shady dealings, but he’d never imagine she’d lie to his face like that. That she’d hand him the very thing he was searching for—that people wanted tokillhim for—and pretend it was just a replica.
God. He’d held the real Puffin in his hands. Will had almost dropped it, and Cole suddenly wished he had, because when it didn’t shatter, they’d have known it was the real deal.
“Fuck,” he whispered, because what else could he say?
He’d been chased and shot at. He’d fucked up his knee. He’d nearly burned to death.
All in the pursuit of his longtime friend’sfucking paperweight.
Now he had no idea where Lilith was. No idea where the Puffin was.
And no fucking idea what to do next.
CHAPTER 21
Everybody had a breaking point. Will had seen it hit people before—sometimes in a life-or-death situation, but sometimes it was as simple as seeing something awful on television, or even just having an unexpected conversation. He’d gone through it himself when he was separated from his brother and sister as a kid, and come close more than once on the job. But he’d never seen someone riven quite the same way as Cole.
He just sat and stared at Lilith’s desk, his head bobbing a bit like it was almost too heavy to hold up. His bad leg was carefully straightened in front of him, hands gripping his crutches too tight. He might’ve looked all right to anyone else, but Will knew him better than that now. This was Cole driven past what he could take. This was a man who was experiencing a betrayal so intense, he didn’t know where to put everything he was feeling. Shit, he probably didn’t knowwhathe was feeling right now, other than in a lot of pain thanks to his fucking knee.
