The Thief and the Globetrotter

Chapter Four: The Kidnapping

It had been an easy choice to make at the time. He was never going to wear a tuxedo again if he could help it and leaving behind those specks of evidence never seemed consequential. No one at that party knew who he was, not even Gwen. They may have been able to give a description of him, but where would they start looking?

Would there even be an investigation for a box? It wasn't old enough to be a relic of historical relevance. Knock-offs were available in the Japanese market, in gift shops even.

A kidnapping, though... A kidnapping of a daughter from a prominent family would definitely be investigated. It wasn't a good night to get sloppy.

"This one's on you," Jasper said.

"Excuse me?" Baz said.

"If the police find traces of you there, who do you think will be their prime suspect? If you don't find her first, they'll find you."

Baz was not awake enough to comprehend.

"I'm not a private investigator. I'm pretty much the opposite, actually," Baz protested, but it was too weak to be persuasive. Jasper was right. It would be easy to lump any evidence of him together into the leads on Rei's disappearance. Her family would put the pressure on. The cops could easily jump to conclusions.

"Do you have a better solution?" Jasper asked.

"No," Baz said. Finding Rei Collingwood sounded like an impossible task, but Baz was supposedly a master of impossible tasks. He could find his way through this one. He could ensure it wouldn't be his neck on the chopping block. It would not be Baz enduring hours of low-key police brutality while they asked him over and over again a question he wouldn't be able to answer: where is she?

Easy solution. Learn the answer before anyone asked him in particular.

"Fix this," Jasper said. He hung up. That was the end of that.

#

Every once in a while, Baz regretted not having a car. It was one of those days. Each push of the pedals came hard and painful. On the plus side, it at least got his body working again, a little looser than he'd woke up.

He hopped off in front of a gym in a neighborhood Baz liked to describe as 'up and coming' instead of... any of the other words people used to describe it. Baz's sliver of Temperance was more renovated industrial property than shiny custom mansions and he liked it that way.

Baz punched the door code to get in, but even he wasn't intense enough to consider getting a workout.

"Baz! The hell you do, man?" Barely a step in the door and Diego Vega was already pulling him into a back-slapping half-hug that tried to knock him over and succeeded in knocking the wind out of him.

Diego's physique was advertisement enough for the gym he worked at. He was bigger than Baz in all ways immediately obvious, but not necessarily stronger than him. Diego was tall, broad, and muscular. Both his hair and beard stayed neatly trimmed and well-kept.

"Take it easy on me. My bruises have bruises," Baz gave Diego a miserable look. Most of the damage was out in the open. Not all of the evidence of the party could be washed away. A lot of it mottled ugly colors under his skin.

Diego's face twisted. He would indeed take pity.

"Fix me, D."

Baz wasn't above begging, but it didn't come to that. Over the years, Baz pointed many people in Diego's direction, mostly people who preferred parkour gyms to get training in. For the most part, Baz did too, but there was no one better at fixing him when he broke himself.