“Where’d he go?” I jerk away, scanning the area.
Tolliver shakes his head. “He didn’t come this way.”
“No, I just saw him.”
Tolliver and I stare at each other for a moment and then look up. Thirty feet above us, the thief is hanging off the side of some scaffolding. He jumps across to the nearby building, grasping the sill of an open window. He heaves himself up, turns to give us a wink, and climbs in.
I lean my hands on my knees and breathe. Sometimes corporealbodies suck. Chasing people through the Afterlife is never this tiring.
I look up at Tolliver, who’s watching me carefully. Everything shows on his face, but right now he has an expression I’ve never seen before, his brow furrowed, mouth slightly curved up in a smile, and oh god, I think this is pity. He feelspityfor me, and you know what, I can’t blame him.
Dante never had a job go wrong. When my parents disappeared, he fell into their role as easily as breathing. There was no adjustment period, no learning curve. Over the past year, I’ve failed at as many jobs as I’ve succeeded, and I told myself it was because I didn’t have a crew. But maybe it’s justme. And based on the look on Tolliver’s face, maybe the crew knows it.
Maybe they’ve just been humoring me.
Screw it. This is not how this job ends.
(Rule #17: Know when to walk away.)
(Sorry, Dante.)
I square my shoulder and start taking stock of the exits on this side of the building.
Tolliver clears his throat. “Elle?”
“Shush!” I demand, running through my options.
The window the thief disappeared into is probably on the third floor, so we’re most likely looking at office space or condos. I’m guessing condos, since the windows can open. Scaffolding on the side of the building means construction, which can be loud and dangerous. No one would leave a window open to scaffolding. And the thief moved so quickly. Almost like he knew it was there.
I pull the note out of my pocket. There’s a stylized, metallic letterPin the corner. Some company’s swag that must have been easy to grab.
I take out my phone and text the group chat.
he’s squatting this block 3rd floor nw corner
Tolliver’s phone buzzes, and he looks at it, then looks at me. I grin.
It is a hunch. Intuition. I can’t explain how I know, and honestly, there’s a good chance I’m wrong, but I’ve run out of options.
Thirty seconds later, we get a text from CJ.
Palladium Towers gimme a min
CJ is The Best™ at Googling. Two minutes later, we have the specs for the building, plus the address of the condo facing the scaffolding, and the locations of the building entrances.
Tolliver and I choose one and don’t have to wait long for someone to use their code to open the door. I catch it with my foot before it can fully close, and just that easy, we have access.
The specific condo is not hard to find. We take the stairs to the third floor and check the numbers until we’re standing in front of a black door with 3D in gold right above the peephole.
The plan is to flush him out the window, where CJ and Poppy are waiting below. We’re stunned, then, when the thief opens the door and stares at us.
He’s still in his navy T-shirt and jeans, his curly hair mussed. He tugs at his ear. “Look, this has been fun. But whatever the job is, the answer’s no. I don’t do the wholeteamthing.”
I look past him into the condo. I expect quiet luxury, or, hell, even loud luxury, but while the space is large for a Manhattan apartment, it’s pretty bland. My guess is the owner has too many properties to keep track of and this one fell through the cracks. Maybe the thief fudged some paperwork to keep people from asking questions. At any rate, this place isn’t a home.
I pull out the sticky note he left in my pocket and uncap my pen with my teeth.
“Oh, we’re doing the write-a-number-down thing?” he asks, unimpressed.