Baz shouldn't have been surprised. Maybe he truly had plateaued. Nothing could shake him more than the day already had.
"What did the police have to say?" Jasper asked.
"Well, they're absolutely convinced that the man I saw this evening is behind the rash of break-ins," Cheng said, "if only they knew who that was."
Jasper shifted. "I'm working on it."
"You said the same about finding Rei," Cheng said, "and all you've managed to do is lose your spy."
Jasper had lost him. Jasper didn't know where Baz was. In the flurry of unwelcome realizations, that one was a relief.
"Jasper, I'm starting to believe that you never had a proper exit strategy for this scheme of yours. Tell me, did you really concoct it to boost our sales, or were you simply more interested in seeking revenge? Your partner tricked you into selling out of the business, didn't he?"
Jasper bristled. Even from Baz's view he could see the tension in Jasper's body, his shoulders shrugging defensively.
"Both," Jasper replied, "and I did have an exit strategy, but then your sister disappeared. I can't plan for everything."
Baz's head whirled. In a roundabout way, he'd been working for Cheng the entire time. It hadn't occurred to Baz to concern himself with what security system he cracked into. He didn't pay attention to the little stickers that announced it in windows.
It also hadn't occurred to Baz to consider any other motivations for the crimes. It was a linear equation as far as Baz was concerned. He stole the artifacts because someone wanted the artifacts. Why would he consider anything else?
"I've been patient. I've let you have your fun—"
"It worked, didn't it?" Jasper interrupted. "Profits are up this quarter."
"None of that matters if you don't fix this. Rei will ruin it. I know she will. Everything I've done and everything you've done to become a success will be for nothing if she doesn't cooperate," Cheng said, "and she'd rather go down on a sinking ship than do what it takes to stay afloat."
"You make us sound like pirates," Jasper said.
"Maybe we are."
The silence hung uneasily between them as Jasper considered what he might say next. Baz had always thought of himself as an outsider next to Jasper. They belonged to different worlds, but next to Cheng, it was obvious that Jasper wasn't born into it either. Cheng carried the nobility of birth. He was expectant and, watching him demand results, Baz honestly believed that Cheng thought that enough money would solve any problems. If he just glowered at Jasper long and hard enough, the other man would be inspired to produce results.
Had Cheng ever truly worked at something? Or did he just outsource to others, letting people like Jasper come up with solutions to somehow outsmart and underhand the competition with schemes instead of genuine superiority? He had people like Baz slip into houses, defeat security systems and prove them inept instead.
"If we can't destroy the will, we'll have to convince her to see things our way," Jasper said.
Cheng laughed, a sharp, humorless sound in the otherwise silent evening. "If you can find her, I welcome you to try. There is no one as stubborn as my sister." He opened his car door. "Find my sister. See to it your man takes the fall for all of this. Get it done quickly. You're running out of time." He got back into his car. Jasper stood even as Cheng peeled out of the stall and drove off to a much nicer, more expensive neighborhood.
Baz almost forgave Jasper for his brusque demeanor whenever they occupied the back of a car together. Almost. Jasper still lied to him, still dressed up like him, and still planned to get rid of him in the end. Baz had never gone as far as to think he mattered at all in Jasper's long game, but he hadn't exactly expected this.
If only he'd had a little foresight.
Jasper got back into the car, sulking. In another moment, the red tail lights glowed and the car navigated out and away from Faraday Park. The neighborhood settled back into a quiet pocket of university life on the fringe of downtown.
Faraday marked his downfall twice over. Once, as a student. Now again as a thief. The university loomed ominously in the distance, casting deeper shadows in its wake.
Baz pulled himself into a sitting position.
He was somehow the answer to Cheng Collingwood's problems. Great. What a wonderful position to be in. It was one thing to be a part of a conspiracy to rob the wealthy of their artifacts, but it was another for that conspiracy to involve a major corporation.
Baz blinked out at the solemn dark shape of the university across the length of the park, dazed both from sitting up too fast and from finding himself in a delicate situation.
It had been naïve to think he could fix everything in the span of one night. How much of his ignorance had been willful? How much had he avoided thinking about his night gig? He never scoured the newspapers for what they might know about the crimes. He never questioned why Jasper had him on the hunt for statuettes and codices. He never questioned how Jasper could provide codes that lulled the security systems into neutrality.
The sun would eventually rise over the university. Baz considered lying on the fire escape, uncomfortable and cold, until daylight broke. He had so little motivation to move, to find his way back to Diego's house... It had to be a little better than stretching out across the park benches below...
The park... something stretched to work itself out in the back of Baz's mind. The view was too familiar. He'd seen it before, just slightly different, in a photo taken at the magical moment between dusk and twilight. He had seen this image.
His heart struck up again, as quick as if he'd sprinted another length of the city. Baz clambered to his feet, the epiphany too great to leave him sullen on the metal grating.
This was the side of the park Rei looked out on, the view she picked to hang above her bed when she had the entire cityscape right outside her floor-to-ceiling window. When Gwen had said Rei's Hillside living room was for entertaining, she hadn't just implied that the room, with its fireplace and sunken sofas, was for entertaining. The entire apartment wasn't the place that drew Rei in. She hung Faraday University in her room, a reminder of where she could be instead.
Monroe said Rei kept an apartment nearby, where she wrote most of her Master's thesis. Close to the university, where she could visit the library and speak to her professors.
The key to finding Rei had been in front of him the entire time. It had been in front of Cheng and Gwen. Baz was so sure of it now, and all of them had ignored it.
Baz swung himself around, climbing the metal stairs, higher and higher up the switchback fire escape.
The view wasn't quite right. The angle was a little off. It was likely a building over, squaring up to the university instead of looking at it from an angle. Baz reached the highest platform of the fire escape, meant to serve the top floor residence. The end of the stairs didn't stop him. Baz jumped, reaching for the finger holds that gave the building its historic look. God, he loved Temperance and its penchant for old aesthetics.
He hauled himself up higher, climbing the wall like it was a rock face instead of a building. One last pull brought him up to the roof.
Elation momentarily overrode anxiety. If Baz was the supposed answer to Cheng's problems, then Rei was the answer to Baz's. If there was nothing else, he could still find her first. While Cheng and Jasper concerned themselves with keeping up appearances, with concocting excuses for why they had failed to locate a missing archaeologist, Baz would actually find her.
Lights glowed in distant apartments, the young crowd that Faraday attracted still stirring behind closed doors and drawn sheers. It felt livelier than it had from his position lurking in the alleys.
The next complex over was not dissimilar to the first. The bricks were a little more whitewashed, the ironwork around the balconies twisted a slightly different way. Most relevant, it was about ten feet from the roof Baz stood upon.
Fine. If he didn't about it in terms of distance and falling, he would be fine. He didn't think about it, taking the running start off the roof to make the mad leap between the two.
His fingertips caught the tasteful molding, gloves curling around the ridges to make the most of the hold, the rest of his body smashing unceremoniously into the hard exterior. His heart pounded. It might've been the only muscle in his body that hadn't come to accept that Baz did things that bodies were not meant to do.
He shifted, sliding over inch by inch to hang over the top floor balcony. The molding gave him a strong hold, enough to cup his hand around, but it was his body he doubted. The leap of faith tempted fate enough. Baz wanted something underneath him before he attempted pulling himself up to the roof.
Baz reminded himself how to breath, how to inhale and exhale to optimize his movement as he prepared to pull himself up by the decorations.
His hold didn't falter, but the plaster under his fingers did. Before Baz could reach for a better handhold, a better grip, he was falling.
His vision blurred before he really realized he'd dropped, flat on his back on the balcony, trying desperately to regain the air that had been knocked right out of his lungs.
Gasping, he sat up, half-expecting to find himself somewhere else. A parkour gym. Under the rings at a competition. In his bed, waking up in a cold sweat. His mind swam, reaching for logic. He always woke up at the sensation of falling, long before he hit the dream's bottom.
The stars faded gradually out of his vision. The view. It was perfect. High enough, angled enough. It almost knocked the air out of him again. For all his certainty, he didn't dare hope he was actually right. The disappointment could cripple him.
Baz looked to the sliding glass door that led out to the balcony that broke his fall. The room was dark. Eyes long adjusted to the night, Baz could make out the white bookshelves and rough shape of furniture on the other side of the glass.
No figures moved beyond it. The lights didn't flicker on at the sudden thud just outside. Maybe no one was home? Maybe it wasn't Rei's at all. Maybe the image above her head was just a photographer capturing Rei's love of academia.
But he was there and would it hurt to be sure?
Tentatively, Baz reached for the sliding door. It shifted at his touch. Why not? What reason was there to lock a patio door on the top floor of an apartment building? Baz held his breath, the whisper of the sliding door unbearably loud in the stillness. He only pushed it open enough to slip through, happy to be using the skills he'd honed in his time doing Jasper's errands.
Then, from his right, a heavy thwack and darkness.