Chapter Seven: The Letter

'A criminal always returns to the scene of the crime' was not an idiom Baz ever thought he would prove right. Yet, there he was, peddling away like an idiot to meet beautiful bad news.

He was always meeting her places. She always emerged from thin air, stepping out of cars that bore leather and chrome interiors, stepping down from Mount Olympus to grant mortals her presence once more.

For once, Baz got to ride his bike, dressed plainly enough that he wasn't concerned about rumpling clothes. The bite of coastal air was a welcome departure from the questioning looks from an Uber driver who picked him up in front of his warehouse while he wore a tuxedos. Baz whipped through parks and down bike lanes, pretending he was headed anywhere but a penthouse apartment in a glossy new development, pretending his life still belonged to him instead of somehow becoming the property of Jasper's organization.

The Temperance Baz knew flew by him, the colorful city by the sea where the smell of Indian curry drifted in the air and buskers played in front of their fiddle cases. There was life in Temperance. There was life at ground level. The city may have been beautiful from Rei Collingwood's immense windows at the top of a building at the top of a hill, but it was livelier up close.

Baz hopped off his bike at the shopping center that made up the base of Hillside, locking it at the rack outside fair out of sight from the residence entrance where the doorman might see him.

If the doorman didn't approve of Baz dressed up in a tuxedo, Baz suspected the doorman would have only more distaste if he rode up on his well-kept, but well-used bike.

Had Gwen ever ridden anywhere or taken public transit? Was it possible that someone could go their entire life living in cities around the world and only ever know what it was like to be chauffeured place to place? Was that what it was like to grow up rich?

There was something about the simple idea of it that left Baz feeling empty and blank. It was hard to imagine a life that wasn't spiced by thrill of wind in his hair or the texture of brick under his fingers, pavement under his feet. Maybe that was why rich people loved polished granite and marble so much. The grit of every day was too much for them. The sensation of actually interacting with what was around them was too overwhelming on a sensory level.

Brilliant things to be thinking as Baz rounded the corner to the front of the building. The doorman awaited, gatekeeper to the sleek minimalism of Rei Collingwood's Temperance residence.

Baz lingered outside the doors, fiddling on his phone to kill the time before Gwen's ride arrived. Even through the windows, Baz swore he could feel the doorman's glare needling into him. If the police questioned him, there was no doubt the doorman would happily sit down with a criminal sketch artist to describe the interloper wearing a tux without socks, trying to act like he belonged.

"Shall we?" Gwen said, smoothing her figure-hugging dress that was already smooth in the first place.

Well, smooth aside from the way it had hiked up her thighs from sitting in the car. She notably did not tug it back down.

"We shall," Baz said. He let Gwen lead the way through the door, past the doorman's post. Baz resisted the urge to flash him the smuggest look he had in him to give. That would just be petty. It was good enough that the doorman knew that Baz was following Gwen Ferrero's lead.

Gwen walked the lobby like she had been there a hundred times before, off to meet Rei for breakfast.

As far as Baz knew, Gwen had, between whatever traveling they both did for work.

They stepped into the elevator, now attendant free, and Gwen swiped the fob over the sensor and selected Rei's floor.

"Where does a master of art history learn to check coats so well?" Gwen asked as she pressed the key into the slot it was made for. The doors slid closed and the button for the top floor glowed at her fingertip.

"One has to pay for an education in art history one way or another," Baz replied. He leaned against the mirrored wall, putting as much distance between himself and Gwen as was possible in a confined space. Did he succeed in looking casual about it, or just threatened by her presence? "My attempt at modelling my way through school didn't pan out."

Gwen's eyes roved over him, looking him top to bottom. Baz resisted the urge to squirm, suddenly feeling a lot of empathy for amoebas examined under a microscope. "Really? The only complaint I can imagine is you being a little too short."

Baz pursed his lips, trying to decide whether to take that as an insult or a compliment. There was a possibility that Gwen simply didn't know how to give a compliment.

"Were you always drawn to a life full of old things?" Gwen asked, but in a way that convinced Baz she was only half interested, like her investment in the conversation depended solely on his answer.

"No," he said, "I was going to be a gymnast."

That was the gritty, chalky truth. Gwen considered it, eyes on him like she might be trying to undress him and fit him into the tight spandex he once wore on the mat, on the rings, and the bars.

"What happened there?" she asked.

"Too short for that, too," Baz quipped. He rubbed his hands, feeling the calluses that came from a parkour gym instead of hours and hours of practicing technique and form and still not being good enough. Never good enough. Never perfect.

The elevator pinged and the doors slid open to Rei's landing. Gwen took back the key and they stepped out.

Gwen opened Rei's door, the penthouse eerie and empty without the mass of fundraiser attendees. No bartender, no banners, no evening gowns. Just Gwen and Baz. She took him by the arm, the only reminiscence of the night Rei Collingwood vanished.

Baz found his eye drawn to the mountain painting above the fireplace, following the ink lines all the way to the peak, running over the characters he couldn't read.

"Cheng's likely already been here," Gwen said, "and the police have already been here. We're not looking for the same things they are."

"What are we looking for?" Baz asked.

"I don't know yet, but I know it'll be upstairs," Gwen replied. She released him, strutting ahead of him to the stairs while Baz took his time absorbing the space for a second time.

The emptiness was so cold and lonely. There was a distinct melancholy to it that Gwen either didn't notice, or didn't show, but it sent goosebumps rising up Baz's arms. It was so lavish to be so impersonal. The mountain rising above it all was the only thing in the space that had any personality, and its personality was regal and confident, as if to make up for the character everything else lacked.

Baz tore his gaze off the peak, heading up the stairs after Gwen, who'd already disappeared into one of the rooms upstairs.

He already knew what he'd find in Rei's bedroom, but the library beckoned him back. The library was the only thing he could recognize in a wealthy home. An S curve around the thriving green walls brought him back into the shelves. It made sense. In a lottery-winning fantasy, Baz could imagine buying thousands of books, ordering the construction of shelves higher than he could reach, ladders on tracks.

It was her space. Baz could feel it. Her butterflies and walk-in closet were one thing. The library was another and if there was something worth finding, it would be in the there.

There wasn't just the chaise Gwen had pulled him onto. There were wingback chairs and side tables to accommodate stacks of books and reading lights. He wanted to touch everything. He wanted to run his hand over the upholstery, shiny brass nailheads under his fingertips, but that would mean leaving traces of himself everywhere. As much as he wanted to leave his impression, it wouldn't do any good for his public image as not-the-guy-who-kidnapped-Rei-Collingwood-at-her-own-party.

There was something under the wingback, though. He bent to take the cardstock from the floor, the paper heavy, formal, and tri-folded. Personal. It was letter stationary, the kind of thing someone only sent to people who meant something to them. Baz flipped open the fold, shrugging off the sensation of perversity.

My Dearest Rei,

I hope this book finds you well and that it shall inform you on the necklace. Once, it was the family jewel, but to keep it in my family is to let it become one more bauble among diamonds. I trust you can make a sounds decision on where it belongs.

I suspect it won't be long until you'll have to make that decision. I regret putting you in this difficult position, but I know that you will execute my will as I intended it. You were always the voice of fairness and justice in our corner of the world and I have utter faith that you will not fail me in my death.

It has been my utmost pleasure seeing you grow from girl to accomplished woman. Only a fool would consider your career a failure.

I do hope you keep the apartment, even if you decide not to keep the shares. I leave you those things so you can decide for yourself how to proceed.

If this is the last thing I am able to say to you, I want you to know I have had a good life. I regret little, I enjoyed more, and death comes for us all.

Until we meet again, hopefully in the far distant future,

Your honored Godfather,

Angelo Ferrero

Baz read it twice before slipping it into his pocket. Relevant, yes. Personal, also yes. Appropriate for Gwen to see?

That was where Baz faltered. He didn't have enough information to make an informed decision. Was it wise to show a daughter the heartfelt letter her father wrote to another daughter figure? Especially when that father figure appeared to be dying and had named an executor for his will?

No, Baz could keep that to himself, even while he wavered on whether or not it was helpful to him.

He finished searching the library, fingers never quite finding the gold gilded titles embossed into leather spines. There were so many books. So many old ones and new ones, books written in different languages.

"Baz?" Gwen called.

"Coming," he replied, willing himself to leave the sanctuary. The best use of money in the whole penthouse.

He wove around the corner, finding Gwen in Rei's upended bedroom.

The nightstand from which Baz took the puzzle box lay on its side. The mattress was pulled askew from its platform. Clothes littered the floor outside the closet, including the jackets and blouses Baz hid behind the night of the party. Cracks drew themselves through the mirror he watched Rei and Cheng argue in. The gashes sliced through Baz's reflection as he stepped farther into the room. The fissures ran through his face, breaking apart the facade if only to himself.

Rei and Gwen were so complex, graceful in the roles they were born into. Figures of wealth and privilege complicated by strained relationships and family expectation. The more he learned about them, the more he doubted the simplicity of tabloid rumors. Who did Gwen Ferrero sleep with? Who cared? What did it matter? What was a clickbait article of her relationships worth compared to the fact her father was dying and her childhood friend was missing?

By comparison, Baz wasn't anyone.

"I don't think Rei was kidnapped," Gwen said, "the question isn't where would someone take her. The question is where would she go?"

"What makes you say that?" Baz asked, examining the wall of butterflies for the cracks in their glass cases. Broken shards from a fallen case crunched under his shoes. One wing was torn free of its Swallowtail body, still pinned in place, but unattached.

Whoever did the damage was not the same sort of would-be thief that Baz was. It looked more like desperation and anger than professionalism. Baz hadn't touched anything he didn't need to. The goal was always to leave as little sign that he'd been there as possible. The only trace of his presence was the missing artifact.

His version of the search was impersonal.

Flipping furniture in the middle of a party was not impersonal.

"Her passport's gone. There's no suitcase in the closet, no purse or wallet," Gwen said, "things you don't really need as a kidnapper, but you do if you're disappearing."

"Unless you're planning on taking your victim over a border," Baz offered in alternative, but between the two options, finding a voluntarily vanishing Rei Collingwood was much easier than finding a Rei that wasn't in the country.

"Someone would know if she turned up on a flight to Kathmandu," Gwen dismissed the idea, "she's in Temperance. She wouldn't leave. Not right now."

Great. If Rei left of her own free will, Baz could go back to not being a future suspect in her disappearance. If there was no kidnapping at all, there was no reason to find anyone guilty of it.

Yet, there was still something unsettled in him, something wary that it wasn't that simple.

"Then who would tear her room apart?" Baz asked, "why would someone tear her room apart?"

It was a dangerous question to ask, tempting fate a little more than Baz was entirely comfortable with. It toed the boundary of professional and personal curiosity. The thing that should have mattered was that Baz got the box, passed it along, and the police wouldn't be looking for him.

Right?

Gwen shrugged. Even when she shrugged, it was somehow a sensual gesture. Her hair slipped over her shoulder. "Maybe Rei has something to hide."

Gwen's answer only begged more questions, ones that Baz didn't know how to ask. He swallowed.

"If she wouldn't leave Temperance, why disappear?" Baz asked. What the hell was in the box? Who wanted it enough to tear her room apart? Why leave and let everyone believe the circumstances were sinister? Gwen may not have cared, but Baz did.

It was a job he should've turned down the moment Jasper said 'go buy yourself a tuxedo.'

He should've let Jasper keep his damn money and his damn blackmail and disappeared himself, separate from all the drama of rich people.

"Nothing you need to worry about." Gwen smiled.

If only she knew. Baz pursed his lips. The right words to persuade her into sharing wouldn't come to mind.

"We should leave before someone notices," Gwen said, turning on her heels. She twisted her face away too quickly to see, her hair falling in a curtain around her.

Baz's stomach twisted. Before who noticed? The police? The doorman? If he asked, Gwen would brush him off again. It was easier to pretend he didn't care, that he didn't question anything.

He stepped back, out of Rei's bedroom, away from the cracked mirror and broken butterflies.