Chapter 10 #2
Cole rolled his eyes. “After you sold Campeau the Puffin—where were you going to meet him to give him the money?”
Justin stared at him. There was the immediate fear, of course, but also some dawning horror. The blood-turning-cold expression of someone who just realized that Nigerian prince wasn’t who he said he was and now had the person’s banking information.
“Christ.” Cole’s arms were getting as tired as his patience, so he hauled Justin upright, then shoved him down onto his knees on the pavement. Justin whimpered, probably from hitting the hard ground with his kneecaps, not to mention bending his already injured leg.
“Please don’t kill me,” he begged.
Cole rolled his eyes again as he shook out his arms. “I’m not going to kill you. I’m just tired of fighting gravity.” Rubbing his burning biceps, he said, “Where were you going to leave the cash?”
“I…” Justin wavered a little on his knees, as if still reeling from no longer dangling over the river. “Campeau was going to wire him the money. After I showed him the penguin, he’d wire it to Ekstrom, and once I saw the confirmation, I’d hand it over.”
“Fuck!” Will shouted, startling both Cole and Justin. “Are you fucking—Goddammit.” He threw up his hands. “Please tell me we did not lose his goddamned scent.”
Justin’s eyes widened with renewed fear.
Cole exhaled. “Yeah. I think we did.” He glared down at Justin. “Word to the wise, dumbass—if there isn’t a cash exchange happening, and the person paying you isn’t going to see you in person again, you’re getting fucked over.”
Justin looked thoroughly chastened.
“How was he going to pay you? Huh?” Cole scoffed. “Did you think any of this through?”
“I brought a parachute,” the idiot said meekly.
Cole did pinch the bridge of his nose this time.
Then he showed his palms and stepped away.
“You deal with him, Will. Or else he’s going for a swim.
” With that, he brushed past Will and walked a few paces, counting to ten as he tried not to blow a fucking gasket.
How did anyone this devoid of survival instincts stay alive this long?
How? How? Even if they weren’t involved in dangerous things like crime or BASE jumping, it just didn’t make sense that people like Justin didn’t walk into traffic or look up during a rainstorm and drown.
Jesus H. Christ. What the hell. How did—
Justin was suddenly limp-running away as fast as he possibly could, which was surprisingly quick all things considered.
“Wait, where is—”
“Let him go,” Will said.
“Let him—”
“We got all we’re gonna get out of him.” Will scowled as he watched Justin make his stupid escape. “And if we kept him around another minute, one of us was gonna toss him in the river.”
Cole couldn’t even argue with that. He glared at Justin’s back. “Fucking dumbass.”
“I know, right?” Will sighed. “I guess now we’re back to square one.”
“I guess we are. Fuck.”
In silence, they watched Justin hurrying down the Quai. At one point, he tripped, windmilling before hitting the ground, stumbling back to his feet, and continuing with even less dignity than before. It should’ve been hilarious, but Cole was too annoyed to even enjoy the schadenfreude.
Apparently he wasn’t the only one, either.
“What do we do now?” Will asked, still watching Justin without a hint of amusement.
Cole shook his head. “Let’s get back to the hotel.” He paused. “I should call Lilith. She might’ve heard something or another by now.”
He braced, fully expecting Will to snark at him for not being sure or for running to their fairy godmother for advice.
What he got was harsh exhalation, a shrug, and a resigned, “I don’t have any better ideas.”
Well, hell. That was depressing.
Cole gestured for Will to start walking, and they headed up the Quai. Neither of them spoke for a long time.
When Will finally broke the silence, his tone was more serious than Cole liked, and he lowered his voice a little even though there was no one around. “Okay, now that it’s just me and you, I want to know something.”
Cole cringed inwardly. Oh God. This was about him saving Will earlier.
He was going to ask Cole to explain why he did it, and Cole was going to have to say…
shit. He didn’t even know what to say. But he also wasn’t going to escape this conversation, so…
fine. Whatever. Might as well get it out of the way now instead of letting it fester.
Especially letting it fester long enough that Cole actually came up with a truthful answer instead of whatever bullshit he needed to feed him.
Shoving his hands into his pockets, he sighed. “Okay. What do you want to know?”
Silence hung between them for a moment, punctuated by their footsteps and the water sloshing against the pier.
After an excruciating eternity during which Cole seriously considered throwing himself into the St. Lawrence, Will spoke:
“Are you a Swifty?”
“Am I a—” Cole stopped. “What?”
“Honeybee,” Will drawled, his smirk as annoying as that goddamned nickname. “You had that song queued up”—he snapped his fingers—“like that. Which means it was already on your phone, on a playlist, and—oh, come on! Don’t be like that!”
Cole rolled his eyes, striding away as the idiot jogged to catch up. “Fuck off.”
“What? I’m just asking!” He slung his arm around Cole, nearly knocking him off his feet. “I just think it’s adorable that Cole Dalton is a Swifty.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” He paused, arm still around Cole’s shoulders. “Do you think Taylor Swift likes cubism?”
Cole shoved Will away, though unfortunately not into the St. Lawrence. Will just cackled with glee and fell into step with him again.
Fucking hell.
I should’ve yeeted him off the tower myself.
“Someone’s been a busy boy,” Lilith mused when she answered the FaceTime call.
Cole furrowed his brow. “What? Have you heard something?”
She barked an uncharacteristically loud laugh. “Darling, don’t you doomscroll? Check social media?” She paused. “Read a good old-fashioned newspaper?”
His stomach slithered down into his feet. “Please tell me we didn’t make the news.”
There was no response.
He muttered something under his breath, then pulled up his browser.
“Look up Port of Montreal Tower,” she supplied, grinning in the picture-in-picture frame.
Scowling, he did exactly that. And…
“Oh, fuck my life…”
Lilith laughed like this truly was the funniest thing in the world. And to her, maybe it was. After all, she wouldn’t be the one fielding fifty-eleven texts and calls from Mother, not to mention slightly less from the rest of the family.
Strange Encounter at Port of Montreal Tower
Police looking for three men involved in bizarre incident
Beneath that, there were four photos. One showed Will and Justin dangling precariously over the side, and Cole pretended not to notice the familiar lurch of his heart at the sight of them.
Even though he knew how it ended, his adrenaline spiked with oh shit as if he were watching it happen in real time.
The second picture showed Justin limping away from his rumpled parachute as onlookers gaped and gasped. The third—Justin pinned to the pavement beneath Will, his face contorted in agony as Will sneered at him and Cole tried to placate the gathered crowd.
The last image was a still from CCTV—Will and Cole striding toward their car.
Cole didn’t like how close he was walking to Will.
How protective he still felt just looking at that photo.
How viscerally aware he was of how easily Will could’ve been splattered on the pavement just feet away from where they were walking.
I should be so lucky, a voice tried to say, but it sounded toothless. Probably because it was a lie and Cole knew it; as much as he wanted to backhand Will into next week, he was still relieved the clown had survived.
“Christ,” Cole muttered. “It’s only been like an hour.”
“News travels fast in today’s world, darling.”
He grunted. Then renewed horror settled in like a bad case of indigestion. Grimacing, he asked, “How long do you think it’ll take Mother to see this?”
“Well, there was a very pointed op ed this morning about how cubism is dead and anyone who thinks it should be revived needs to see themselves out of the art world.” Lilith shrugged. “So I think she’ll be preoccupied for a little while.”
Cole groaned. Yeah, Mother would be busy with that for the time being, likely taking it as a personal attack by someone who was too cowardly to call her out by name.
But sooner or later, someone would bring the Montreal article to her attention.
Dad, he guessed, or maybe Cole’s younger sister if she felt like stirring shit up, which she usually did.
Or maybe it would come from whomever had written the takedown on cubism, just to see how apoplectic Mother could get. Just what Cole needed.
“Okay, as long as I’m not doing damage control with the family,” Cole said, “let’s focus on the bird, okay? Because we’re now up to two art thieves who’ve had their hands on the bird, only to have it shatter like cheap ceramics.”
Lilith frowned. “That’s certainly strange.”
“It is. I mean, who the hell is manufacturing these replicas, and where the hell is the real one? How are we going to find this thing when there’s copies everywhere?” He hated how helpless and discouraged he sounded. “There’s a billion replicas. Hell, you have one!”
Lilith hefted the replica in question in her free hand, the fake flamingo diamond in the center of its chest showering her with shards of pink light.
“It won’t be easy, that’s for sure.” She shook her head as she peered at the little bird.
With a heavy sigh, she put the bird down somewhere outside the frame and looked at Cole.
“We know Marcus stole the original. Find him, you’ll find the Iberian Puffin. ”