Chapter 4
The good thing was, they knew Marcus had the Puffin.
The bad thing was, they had no idea where to find Marcus.
Some thieves had home bases—places they could retreat to for planning, for relaxing, for looking over their pretty haul or licking their wounds.
Hell, Will had one of them. It was a little risky, but that was what cover identities were for.
His home was wherever Baby Boy and his family were; the one place he knew he’d never be kicked out of or turned away from.
Didn’t mean he went there much—especially after a job went south and people were feeling stabby—but he knew it was there.
Marcus was the other type of thief—the free spirit, or so he liked to think of himself. “A zephyr on the wind,” he’d said in a moment of poetic pathos one night not long after Will had first met him.
“I thought the zephyr was the wind.”
Marcus had peered at him like he was something to be scraped off the bottom of a boot. “You’re such a Philistine.”
Yeah, he probably was. Will only put on airs he didn’t have for marks. For his fellow professionals, he preferred to play up the country hick version of the truth. Nothing got you underestimated faster than a pair of cowboy boots and a “Howdy, y’all.”
The point was, Marcus didn’t have a home base.
He was very good at inveigling himself into other people’s lives, taking up space and time—and money, usually—until a job was done or he was bored, then moving on.
He was easy to lose track of but hated to be forgotten, so the next step was talking to someone with more information than they had and seeing if they could point them in the right direction.
Check that: the next step was convincing Cole not to ditch him and go do that on his own, which judging by his brisk stride and straightforward gaze as they left Lilith’s gallery was what he intended. “Slow down, partner.”
“Not your partner, not in any way, shape, or form.”
“Baby.” Will pressed a hand to his chest as they marched past the neo-cubists on the wall. “After everything we’ve been through together!”
“Exactly.”
“All I’m saying is—hey there, it was great to see you again, darlin’,” he said in a diversion to Cheyenne. “Take care, a’right?”
“You too, Will,” she said, watching with interest as he trotted for a second to catch up to Cole, who was already outside.
Will fell in beside Cole again. “You’re were the champion of ding-dong-dash as a kid, weren’t you?”
“I never played that game.”
Will smirked. “Right, because it’s only really fun if you’re playing with friends.”
He couldn’t be sure, but Will was almost positive Cole had just rolled his eyes behind his pricey shades. “I had friends.”
“Butlers don’t count.”
“You can fuck off now.”
“Mm, no can do, honeybee. You’re not the only one who got rolled by Marcus. Hell, you didn’t even end up covered in swampy water, so you got away easier than most of us.”
Cole glanced his way. “It’s not my fault your man on the inside didn’t do his job well enough.”
Will frowned. “Okay, you know what? Fuck you. My guy got us CCTV footage from a fucking police station in record time. He’s damn good at what he does.”
“Then I guess you’re the weak link in that particular chain.”
Oof. Mr. Dalton was really pulling out all the stops today.
Will had thought they’d reached an equilibrium; not necessarily a genuine sense of camaraderie but a “we’re in the same boat” kind of thing.
Apparently having Marcus revealed as even more of a scumbag than they already knew he was had tipped Cole right over from “grumpy” into “douchebag.” Will could meet fire with fire, or…
“Look at this logically,” he said, falling into perfect step beside Cole.
“We’re working on a limited timetable. Marcus is a magpie but he never holds on to anything for long.
” Lovers included. How someone like Marcus had pulled Cole in the first place was a puzzle; what was the allure for either of them?
Did Marcus just want to have a billionaire on a string for a while, or did Cole like the challenge that came from going after someone who was always going to be more impressed with himself than with anything Cole could bring to the table, wealth included?
Jesus, mating dances were complicated. One more reason to stick with one-nighters. That was the mistake Will had made with Marcus.
“If he isn’t found fast, he’s going to sell or pass on the Puffin and it might disappear forever.
” For a guy who was so interested in his own artistic legacy, he wasn’t very concerned about preserving the legacies of others.
“So speed is of the essence, and I don’t know how you usually like to track people down,”—bribes, probably, or maybe he found a sucker who didn’t know about his personality and smiled at them just right— “but I do it via conversation.”
Cole finally stopped. “Conversation.”
Will smiled. “Yep.”
“And that works for you?”
“Hey.” Will pressed an affronted hand to his chest. “People like talking to me. I have the best intel, not to mention the best gossip.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Will you let me finish making my point?”
“Oh, did you have a point?”
No jury in the world would convict me for driving my boot up this guy’s ass so far he’s got to use a fishing pole to get it out.
“My point is,” Will ground out, “you think you’re gonna get farther on your own, but I’m telling you right now you’re not. The fastest way to find Marcus is by working together.”
“Hm.” Cole tilted his sunglasses down to look at Will for a moment. He smiled his best smile and waited for inevitable capitulation. “No.” Then Cole unlocked his cheap-as-shit-mobile and got into the front seat.
Motherfu—fine.
“All right,” Will said, taking the nuclear option. “Then I guess I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon callin’ on your folks.”
Cole, in the process of turning the key, paused. “You’ll never get into their place,” he said after a moment, but Will knew he’d caught him.
“Oh, I think your mom’ll open the door for me when I start broadcasting details of our sordid affair through the intercom at their place. Or maybe at the country club she likes to visit on Sundays.”
Will could practically see the gears turning in Cole’s head.
He was a cool glass of water, no mistake, but he did have a modicum of concern for his mother despite rumors of a major rift between him and his parents.
The fact that he’d chivvied her out of the party last night before she could get drenched confirmed it.
And no WASPy woman like Lucille Dalton could be entirely sanguine about her son failing to follow in his father’s footsteps, preference for men included.
If Cole wanted to save himself the trouble of dodging his mother’s calls for the next several weeks, he’d—
The passenger door opened. “Get the fuck in,” Cole said with a sigh.
“So sweet to me, honeybee.” Will got in beside him and blew a sarcastic kiss at his companion. “Now will you let me finish my damn point?”
“I assume you want to talk to one of the other guests Marcus invited to the party last night.”
“Mm, yeah. I’m thinking Nessie.”
Cole’s lips thinned. “Vanessa…dislikes me.”
“I know.”
Everybody knew. Nessie had made a bet with Cole five years ago about who could lift the most expensive thing from a guest at the Met Gala.
Will hadn’t been around for that one, but from the way he’d heard it Nessie had gone after a historical Cartier diamond necklace worth over ten million dollars and had only managed to get it thanks to a strategic fountain dunking.
When she’d presented herself in damp triumph at the afterparty, though, Cole had showed her the phone he’d lifted from a tech mogul that was directly connected to his crypto wallet.
He’d drained the man’s account of almost three hundred million dollars that night, right in front of Nessie’s face.
Needless to say, she’d never forgiven him for showing her up so comprehensively.
Will got it. Crypto was imaginary money that rich people had made up to make themselves even richer, and it was bullshit that it counted for more in this world than a physical, tangible object.
Nessie and Will were cut from the same cloth, and feeling more and more old-school in a world where hacking skills were a requirement for pulling off big jobs.
Cole was the kind of savant who could do both, and Will would be lying if he said he wasn’t at all jealous.
He’d never tell him that, though.
“She likes me well enough,” he continued. “And she lives close to here, so we don’t even have to travel out of state.” That was another way they were alike; Nessie very firmly believed in having a home base.
“Why does she like you?” Cole asked reluctantly.
Will batted his eyelashes at the other man. “Baby, the only person who dislikes me in our circles is you.”
Cole laughed. “Bullshit.”
Okay, maybe that was a sliiight exaggeration, but…
“We went on a double date once and both the guys ended up being assholes. She helped me, I helped her, it worked out.” It was as detailed as Will was going to get—that particular story wasn’t his to tell, but he knew Cole could read between the lines.
Cole sighed and took off his sunglasses.
He glared at Will and for a moment, Will couldn’t quite breathe right.
Cole looked tired, cranky, and unfairly gorgeous even sitting in a battered Subaru.
“You get that this is a perfect example of why we’d work better on our own, right?
Vanessa won’t even let me past her front door. ”
Will smiled again. “I’ve spent an unholy amount of time working on ranches, honeybee, and if there’s one thing I know how to do by now it’s mend fences. I’ll have you two on a brunch-bitch basis before sundown.”
“Good luck with that.”
Challenge accepted.
“Go away.”