I turned my head to face him immediately, making it clear who I was here for right off the bat, and the table went deathly quiet. Four pairs of eyes snapped to me with varying degrees of confusion and offense splashed across their prim features.
Thomas frowned. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah, I hope so.” I smiled, as easy as if we were old friends catching up over brunch. I stuck out my hand. “Jesse Westwood.”
The faint tightening around his eyes and the glances his colleagues exchanged before they suddenly became a lot more interested in their coffee told me that they recognized my name. Thomas didn’t take my hand, so I shrugged and let it drop.
“You’re Thomas, right?”
“I am,” he said slowly, suspicion clearly creeping in. “Are you sure you were looking for me, Thomas Germain?”
“Yep. It’s great to have found you. It’ll make this a lot easier.”
His eyebrows drew together sharply. “What will be easier?”
I tilted my head, still smiling as I locked my eyes on his extremely flat hazels. “Do you know someone named Jacqueline?”
His shoulders stiffened and his colleagues suddenly looked like they desperately wished they were anywhere else. Thomas narrowed his eyes. “Why do you ask?”
I glanced around the table before bringing my gaze back to his and letting my smile widen. Let him think I was unhinged. If he didn’t heed my warning, he might learn that I could be. “That’s a great question. Would you like to have this conversation in private or with an audience?”
One of his colleagues coughed into her coffee. Another stared very intently at a croissant, like it held the secrets of the universe. Thomas’s jaw tightened, but he pushed his chair back. “Excuse me.”
I stood with him and gestured politely for him to lead the way. We walked a few feet away, coming to a standstill near a sad little juice station that looked like it had given up on life sometime in the late nineties.
He turned to me then, scowling. Perhaps even hoping he’d scare me off. “What do you want?”
I slipped my hands into my pockets, cheerfully rocking back on my heels. “Honestly? Just a quick chat.”
“About Jacqueline?”
I shrugged. “Among other things.”
His eyes narrowed. “What is she to you?”
I almost laughed.At this point, the more accurate question is, whatisn’tshe to me?
“That’s irrelevant,” I said, keeping my tone conversational, but I felt my smile turn cold. “I’ll keep this simple for you, shall I? Where’s the dog, Thomas?”
He tried to look completely blank, but instead, I saw him blanch a little bit. “What dog?”
“The dog. Hubert. Big, lovable, and probably better than both of us combined. You know what I’m talking about. Jacqueline’s dog.”
Sharp defensiveness slid into place across his features and then, like a switch had flipped, he started speaking in rapid-fire French.
“Seriously?” I said, deadpan.
He kept going, gesturing like this was a perfectly normal response to being asked about a stolen dog. I stared at him for a second, then let out a short laugh and shook my head.
“Okay, we’re really doing this,” I muttered. “TheI suddenly don’t speak Englishthing.”
He didn’t stop and I nodded slowly, my lips pressing together. I looked up at the ceiling for a brief moment. “Alright, then. That’s fine. We can do French.”
I couldn’t do French. Not well, anyway, but I could do persistence and I had all day. Obviously, I’d rather get back to Jacqueline, but I knew how important this was to her, so it would definitely be worth it.
In the end, I let him go on in French for a solid ten seconds longer, wanting him to feel like he was getting away with it, but then I let out a long, exaggerated sigh and held up a hand. “Okay, buddy. Look, I can see that you’re enjoying this international man of mystery bit, but I’m bored. Let’s try this again.”
I injected an edge into my voice, just to help me make the point. “Where. Is. The. Dog?”
