Page 24 of Cozen

Checking her watch, Cozen noted the time as she tried to pretend like her ass wasn’t frozen to the fucking bench.

Two minutes to go.

Four days of watching Jett Griffin told Cozen the man kept a firm schedule, and ran a tight ship. Maybe it was because the man was anal about his days, and spent the time wisely. Or maybe it was something else entirely. Like the fact he was so busy between his legal, illegal, and other ventures that he didn’t have time to mess around.

Cozen counted down the seconds while she pretended to read her book. The large, black sunglasses she wore kept her eyes and more hidden from view. She was just another fashionably dressed, brown-haired New Yorker, as far as anyone else was concerned.

Easily looked over.

Sure enough, at twelve-thirty sharp, Jett Griffin stepped out of The Kingdom with his entourage in tow. A tail of four men, one of which opened the door of the restaurant for him so that his hands never had to touch the handle, and another who rushed to the still running town car on the side of the street to open the back door.

The two other men flanked Jett.

As fast as Cozen had gotten her eyes on the target, he and his men were gone. They never wasted any time between leaving a business, and getting the hell out of dodge. The longest she had ever seen Jett take from exit to entrance into a vehicle was, at most, fifteen seconds.

For some reason, he did not like to linger.

Safety, perhaps.

Who knew?

She filed that information away, too.

Cozen waited a few more minutes, and watched people begin to flood the restaurant for the afternoon rush. Done with her pretense of doing nothing, she tossed the paperback aside on the bench as she stood.

Someone else could find it and enjoy.

Thrillers weren’t her thing.

Her whole life was a thrill.

Crossing the street when she had a chance, Cozen took the steps to the restaurant two at a time. She pulled the sunglasses from her face as she stepped inside to get a better look at the joint. While she had been watching it for a while, this was the first time she actually went as far as to come inside and look around.

She bypassed the woman chatting at a podium to people waiting to be seated. High-class, and upscale, the restaurant catered to those with deep pockets. Rich colors filled the business, and gleaming hardwood floors made her boots clack as she made a beeline for the bar. Patrons took comfort between tables with silk coverings and modern lights overhead, or tucked in booths closest to the walls.

She recognized the man standing behind the cherry oak, built-in bar with inverted lights shining down on a wall of top shelf liquor bottles. He was the same man who regularly was the last to leave the business at night, and lock the doors.

Either a manager, or the owner.

It didn’t matter.

He had the say so.

That’s what Cozen figured, anyway.

The closer she came to the bar, the more voices filtered in from the kitchen just to the left.

“He wants what?”

“Listen, Rowena, he’s not asking for a lot. So you have to smile a little more, and be pleasant.”

“I am fucking pleasant!”

“Could you say that without the cussing, too?”

Seemed not all was well in The Kingdom.

The man behind the bar sighed as his gaze drifted toward the kitchen, and then narrowed with irritation. As quickly as his frustration came on, it bled away when the girl working behind the bar handed him over a sheet to peruse.