Page 81 of The Twilight Theft

With only the fountain’s pale illumination lighting the cavernous room, the telltale signs of construction loomed around us—tables covered with drop cloths, radial saws, piles of lumber, and chairs stacked against the wall.

As we crept forward, Jayce showed me her phone again.

I squinted around the room. We’d all done a walk-through of the to-be whiskey bar and the office floors above, so I was familiar with the layout. The kitchen was behind us, sitting underneath the Mosaic banquet room. Ahead, midway along the restaurant, a long, unfinished bar dominated the space.

And the thief was hiding behind the bar.

Chapter 32

Drew

Itappedthreetimeson Jayce’s back, and she froze. Instead of speaking, I pulled out my phone and typed into a note-taking app,Why would they have stopped?

She shook her head and looked heavenward, the light from my phone gently illuminating her face. She took the phone, stacking it on top of her own, and typed,We can ask when we catch them.

This was always the problem with her. Move first, think later.

If ever.

What if they were armed with more than a chunk of metal? I hadn’t brought a gun and we didn’t have any security backup. If I tried to get ahead of her, she’d insist on going first. If I tried to stop her, she’d forge on, anyway.

The best way to keep her safe? Go along with her plan until we got close enough and take over at the last minute.

Two figures emerged from the shadows at the other end—Scarlett and Malcolm. We may not have had security with us, but we had backup.

Jayce steered me toward the wall, and we inched our way closer to the bar.

The thief hadn’t moved. Didn’t make any noise.

What if they stashed the head and were gone? What if all the sneaking was nothing more than killing time? What if they’d already gotten away with the chip?

Five feet away from the end of the bar, I prepared to make my move: to haul Jayce, unsuspecting, out of the way and tackle the thief before he realized what was happening.

In the dark ahead of us, there was a loud thud, like a piece of lumber hitting the ground and bouncing. Sudden, frantic, scraping across the floor followed it.

I grabbed Jayce, propelled her backward, and turned on my phone flashlight as I rushed to the bar.

A hissing blur of black fur shot at me from the counter. I dodged to the side and lost my grip on my phone, sending it clattering to the floor. Something sliced my temple as I rammed into the bar and a piece of flooring—or the lumber—slipped out from underneath me.

I landed hard, my head slamming off something vertical before hitting the ground.

“What the hell, Drew?” Jayce shoved me with her foot.

I sat up, the world spinning, and touched the back of my head. No blood, but a lump was already forming. I hadn’t seen the thief, but since Jayce was speaking at a normal volume, someone must have caught him. “Did you get him?”

“Seriously! What was that bonehead move?” Jayce cradled a thin black cat in her arms.

Malcolm helped me up. “You okay?”

“All I saw was the cat!” I straightened my tuxedo jacket, shoving my ego into my mental locker along with everything else. “Where’s the thief?”

“Freaking Noah.” Jayce pointed at the cat’s collar. “No one’s here.”

Scarlett said, “The tracker?”

A small tag hung from the cat’s collar. I flipped it over to read the animal’s name. “Chaos?”

Jayce rolled her eyes and groaned theatrically. “Look closer.”

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