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“What happened?” I asked.
“My roommate had a last-minute rager in the apartment last night. I barely got any sleep. And then the hot water was out this morning, so I couldn’t shower. Oh, and the snake-way was delayed by fifteen minutes, to top it all off.”
“Damn,” I said, feeling bad for him. I could tell he was feeling the lack of sleep, heavy bags under his eyes giving it away. And yet he still looked great, hair freshly buzzed, his beard coming in just enough to give his face dimension, his pearly white teeth flashing behind his weak smile. “Do you want to rain check this, then? We can come back tomorrow?”
Caleb shook his head and straightened his back. Determination clenched his jaw. “No, I want to get this done. The sooner I find those paintings, the sooner I can get this job finished.”
A stab of guilt sliced through my chest. Paintings. He still had no idea I already had two of the paintings he was after. I hated keeping secrets, but I also hated placing my trust in people only to have that trust thrown into a pool of vicious sharks, tearing it to shreds. I’d been betrayed before—badly—and it left me scarred and wary. It took me a long time to trust someone, if I ever even fully did, so giving up my two biggest secrets to a man I only just met didn’t seem like the brightest idea to me. No matter how badly I wanted to keep that smile on Caleb’s face, I just didn’t know him well enough. I didn’t know his true intentions. I could be honest with him, but what if he demanded the two paintings before I could show all three to Amelia?
And I’d fallen for his kind of trap before.
He was a quiet and broody guy with lips I wanted to devour and a body I wanted to wrap myself around like a pretzel; basically, he was exactly my type, and that meant he held a lot of power over me without even knowing it. He wasn’t the first guy I’d come across who ticked plenty of boxes for me, and each one of those had broken my heart.
He’d need to prove to me that we really were working this case together, and then I’d consider telling him the truth.
Secrets. Dragons hated keeping them. Our instincts pushed us to be noble and valiant, laying all the facts out on the table so they could be dealt with appropriately. But this world ran on secrets, and it was a valuable currency that I was low on. Maybe it wasn’t so on the other side of the Tears, if there even was another side, but here, on Earth, it was crucial to keep some cards to your chest, or you could end up outplayed with your dick in your hand and a knife in your back instead.
Caleb took out his phone and pulled up his ticket on his cracked screen. I did the same, following him to the entrance, where the large glass doors slid open as the attendant scanned our tickets. Fresh air-conditioning blasted us as we walked into the grand lobby. It was all glass and chrome and silver, feeling almost as if we were walking into the control room of a sleek spaceship. A fox shifter behind the circular desk provided us with a map.
“We’re looking for the room where the Moriarty exhibition was held?” I asked, looking down at the older woman’s bright green eyes. Her ears, red like fall leaves, flicked back and forth underneath her curly gray hair. She offered me a pleasant smile and a shake of her head.
“Oh, honey, that room is locked off. Has been for the past three weeks, ever since the painting was stolen.”
Caleb stepped forward. He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and took out his wallet, producing an official-looking seal. “Ma’am, I’m an investigator at Forrester and Grant Detective Agency. We’re here to figure out who’s behind the theft.” His voice dropped a couple of octaves. The skinny lamppost of a man puffed up his chest as he tried wearing authority the same way he wore that dark blue shirt of his.
She looked over the badge and picked up the phone on her desk. She called her supervisor and spoke in a hushed tone before setting the phone back down.
“You have fifteen minutes in there. Security will escort you.” She motioned to a burly man dressed in a tight-fitted suit and pants, hands at his waist, where two long blades were sheathed at either side. His eyes, glittering like two polished emeralds, gave him away as the emotion-feasting fae. I offered him a smile and received a stone-cold expression in return.
We followed him through the lobby, past the din of the crowd, and into a quieter hallway lined with windows that looked out to a peaceful garden dotted with koi ponds. On the other side of the hall was a row of watercolor paintings by a famous vampire artist, depicting shadowy scenes that slowly turned brighter and more colorful the further we walked down the hall.
