Reluctant thief Baz Barret is tasked with stealing from the formidable archaeologist Rei Collingwood--who happens to also be his college crush and rival--but when Rei goes missing after the burglary, Baz must find her before he's blamed for her disa...
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As always, Baz beat Gwen to the diner. Curious how that kept happening, despite the fact Baz had to call an Uber to get there. Was it a deliberate power play or just a side effect of an utter lack of concern for anyone else? Did it matter either way?
Baz carefully stacked another coffee creamer onto his pyramid, a teetering tower of anxiety kept waiting. It gave his agitation something to do, a productive show for the nervous itch in his fingers.
It also got him concerned glances from the waitress, a clear reminder that he'd been waiting twenty minutes, sipping orange juice by himself. His smile grew weaker and weaker each time he had to insist to the uniformed woman that he was waiting for someone.
The more time he waited, the more he wasted. The duffle bag sat at his feet and Baz was as painfully aware of that as he was of his waitress looking at him like he might be a sad puppy in a window. She wouldn't be so sympathetic if a swath of police officers came in and tackled him to the ground, confiscating his bag of priceless stolen artifacts.
Funny how he never worried so much when he was actually stealing them. That was before he had a motive or an identity. Who would catch him when he had no personal stake in the crime?
Funny how he'd gone from faceless man-in-black to disgruntled employee and accomplice of Rei Collingwood.
A bell jangled above the door and Baz looked up, his nerves fraying a little more each time it tolled. The creamer pyramid collapsed on itself. Baz drained his orange juice.
The second he considered getting up and walking out, Gwen strutted in. It was as if she could sense it. She could probably smell fear, too. Unfortunate.
As always, she was too well-dressed for the venue, for the time of day. Even in a high-collared dress, a plunging keyhole revealed the kind of cleavage that belonged on a red carpet and was jarringly unexpected in a breakfast diner.
She slid into the booth, facing him across the table. "I thought I better check up on you," Gwen said, "make sure that hangover didn't kill you."
"I lived," Baz said, using the scattered coffee creamers as an excuse to avoid eye contact, putting them all back in their metal rack.
"I see that."
Maybe she did care about his well-being, but only because he could still be useful. He could be very useful, which only served to frazzle him more. Half-truths couldn't serve him against Gwen and he didn't trust himself to lie. Not well, at least.
"You look good," Baz reached for the words, immediately finding them obtuse to say out loud to a model, "considering..."
"Paparazzi would love me disheveled." Gwen waved a dismissive hand. She always looked good, even while her father was dying and her supposed friend was supposedly missing. "I want to talk about our manhunt."
