“Took you two long enough,” he says, scowling. “Didn’t I say to come meet me in my workshop?” He bangs a hammer against something, glaring. “And now you’ve interrupted my work.”

  “What are you doing?” Baptist asks. “Your house is totally empty. You’re standing in an empty attic hammering what looks like a bunch of random pieces of wood.”

  “You seem to have it all figured out.” Cowan grins at me and winks. “Lovely seeing you again, suit.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask, exasperated.

  “I’m moving,” he says. “Got sick of the raccoons. But my workspace is still here, and I want to finish before we get going on the film in earnest.” He holds up a small, brass object, glinting slightly in the low light as it seeps in through the roof vents. It takes a moment to understand it’s a key.

  “Is that to your new place?” I ask, trying not to scream at him. This is weird, even by his standards.

  “This is for you.” He tosses it over. I yelp and Baptist snatches it from the air before it can slam into my face. Cowan glares at him and shrugs. “Either one of you can hold it, I suppose it doesn’t matter. But keep that key safe. You’ll need it.”

  “Need it for what?” Baptist asks, looking angry and on the verge of losing his cool.

  “Now, it’s perfect you’re both here,” Cowan says, clapping hard once and changing the subject. I flinch at the sudden noise and again Baptist moves closer to me. “We have some paperwork to sign and I have some things I need you to procure for me.” He roots around in a drawer on his bench until he pulls out a crumpled piece of yellowed paper. “Here you go.”

  Baptist takes it from him. “What’s this?”

  “Items I need for the film. Did the suit fill you in?”

  “Webb told me the film’s about an addict.” He squints at the paper. “Lionfish? Is that a real animal?”

  “It’s about more than an addict,” Cowan says and sweeps past us. He disappears down the steps, yelling back at us as he does. “It’s about wanting. It’s about pure existential need divorced of image. It’s about the truth, the real truth!”

  I exchange a look with Baptist and roll my eyes before we hurry after him.

  “Truth or not, we have paperwork,” I say, catching up with him down in the foyer.

  “Take it to my lawyers.”

  “We already did that. You have to sign.”

  “I do not have to do anything.” He hurries down the stairs. When he reaches the bottom, he stops and turns around, hands on his hips, grinning. “But I will if you fetch something for me.”

  I exchange a look with Baptist. He doesn’t seem happy, but I’m not even a little bit surprised. I head down and join Cowan in the foyer, and Baptist places himself slightly between us like he’s purposefully putting me behind him.

  “Why can’t you have your assistant pick up your laundry?” Baptist asks.

  “I suppose I could give him a producer’s credit as well.” Cowan looks disgusted as he turns away.

  “We’ll do it. Whatever it is.” I give Baptist a sharp look. He’s about to contradict me but his mouth snaps shut and he looks annoyed, but not about to blow this up in my face. “Just tell me what you need.”

  Cowan turns back, grinning sharply. “I knew you were a shark, suit. I saw it the second you walked into my life.”

  “What do you need, Cowan?”

  “There’s a safe in the basement of a home I own up in the Poconos. Inside is a very old, very important mask from the Roman Republic era. I want it for one of the scenes I have planned. Go find the mask and bring it back.”

  “Easy,” I say then hesitate. “What’s the safe’s combination?”

  “No combination, just a key.” Cowan nods at the brass key in my hand. “Which you already have.”

  I hold it up and take a deep breath. “You set this up.”

  “I did. Now get going, it’s a long drive.” He turns and strides out.

  “Where’s he going?” Baptist asks softly before shaking his head. He walks to the window, looks out, and tenses. “We can’t keep running his errands, Webb.”

  “You want to lose this movie because you’re too good to pick up a mask?”

  “It’s not that.” He looks back at me, his face serious. “Cowan’s playing a game. If we let him dictate the terms, we’re never going to get out from under his control. This whole thing will be a nightmare at best and we won’t have any say in what happens.”

  “I don’t think we’ll have any say no matter what we do.”

  He grunts in response. We linger in the empty foyer looking at each other, and I remember the darkened stairwell when we kissed, and the feeling of his mouth against mine in the back room, and my hands twitch toward my abdomen.

  “Let’s get going then,” he says finally as my phone chimes.

  It’s an address and a note from Cowan. Don’t fuck up. The mask is priceless.

  Chapter 7

  Baptist

  I drive. Blair sits shotgun. It’s a couple hours to the house, according to my phone’s GPS, and we kill the first half listening to music and discussing our personal preferences in film and TV. Shockingly, we align on most things, although there are a few key differences.

  “Godard was a total fucking hack,” I say, shaking my head. “I can’t believe you buy into that French bullshit.”

  “It was groundbreaking and genre defining. Godard changed the way we think about narrative and film.”

  “He was a cranky old man that made purposefully difficult movies nobody actually likes.”

  “You’re just mad you can’t make them like he can.”

  I roll my eyes. “The last thing I’d want to make is some pretentious Godard film, thanks.”

  Blair sighs and looks out her window. The landscape hasn’t changed much as we’ve barreled up Route 33, alternating from small town to rural farms to woodland. “Like him or not, at least Godard knew what he wanted. He had a vision and he stuck to it for years.”

  I grunt in response. “I can agree with that.”

  “What is it about Cowan you like, anyway? He’s pretty artsy too, you know.”

  “True, but he doesn’t leave character and narrative behind. That’s what I love about him. His movies are so beautiful and raw, but they’re about people wanting things when you get past all the artful framing.”

  She’s quiet for a moment. Then: “What he said to me about wanting. It hit something in me.”

  “Yeah? Cowan’s already getting to you?”

  She shakes her head and changes the radio. “Not like that.”

  “Like what, then?”

  Another long pause as she studies the road. I’m not sure what she’s thinking, but I want to admit that Cowan’s gotten to me, too. Except where he managed to suck her into his little world, I’ve been repelled. I came into this thinking he’d be difficult and depressing, but not that he’d be actively dangerous and outright insane. Now I’m beginning to wonder why I thought I could be the one to pull another movie from that psychopath director when everyone in the industry I talked to about him told me to run the hell away.

  Blair drums her nails on the dash. “He talked about wanting things. You just mentioned it too. And I’ve been thinking, what do I really want? I mean, what do I actually want that isn’t what I’m supposed to want? Because there’s a difference.”

  “I think you want a lot.”

  “I have ambitions maybe, but isn’t a lot of that stuff that I’m supposed to need? Good job, lots of money, all that?”

  “You have your brother. How’s Max doing, anyway?”

  She smiles tightly. “He’s good, but having a tough time. Being a teenager isn’t easy.”

  “Nothing’s easy, but you’re right.”

  “I want to take care of Max. I want to feel fulfilled and happy. I want my father to stop being a prick and my mother to come back from London. But those things are all about other people. I’m struggling to figure out what I really want.”

  I try to absorb what she’s saying, but I have a hard time pinning down what she means. Mostly because there are so many things I want: money, power, love, respect, joy. Cars and clothes and jewelry and nice vintage records. I want to travel and laugh and feel things, feel them deeply, in such a way that I’m pockmarked by all my experiences, scarred and grooved with all the moments of my life.

  But something resonates. Something deep and primal. What do I want? What do I really want? I look sideways at her and her hair’s framed by the window, the sunlight making her glow with early evening purples and blues, and she’s breathtaking in a way I can’t describe. The way she smells, the way she moves and laughs. The way she thinks and cares so damn deeply about everyone in her life.

  What do I want? Maybe better to ask, who do I want?

  She changes the subject and we stick to easy topics until we roll into a town deep in the mountainous hilly region of the Poconos. It’s dark now, just after twilight, and the street signs are hard to read but eventually we navigate to a nice cottage set back half a mile from the main road alone in a wooded area. There are no lights, no cars, nothing to suggest it’s ever been occupied.

  “You sure this is the place?” Blair asks, frowning out the window.

  “I’m sure. Look, right next to the door. Three-twelve. That’s the right address.”

  She sighs and kicks open her door. “Let’s get this over with.”

  I follow her out. We approach the front door and look all over for a key: on top of the frame, under the mat, along the railing. Eventually I just try it, and the knob turns easily. “Bastard didn’t bother to lock his freaking door.”

  “And he’s apparently got a priceless Roman mask in his basement.” Blair slips in after me.

  The floorboards creak. I hit a light and the living room is bathed in an orange glow. The place is upscale, must’ve been renovated in the last few years, with designer furniture and oil paintings on the walls. It’s glamping, mountain-chic, and doesn’t seem like the sort of place Cowan would live in.

  “Over here,” Blair says, staring into an open door. Stairs descend into a concrete basement, but we both hesitate.

  “You’re thinking about how we’re about to walk into a creepy basement in some weird mountain house, right?”

  “I wasn’t, but now I am, you asshole.” She glares at me. “Are you trying to freak me out?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you from the ghosts.”

  “You prick.”

  I hit the light and descend. The basement is unfinished with a bare floor and walls. There’s so much stuff it’s piled floor to ceiling, and we have to follow a narrow path around the boxes.

  “Careful,” I say quietly, frowning at the way it’s all precariously stacked. “If we knock something, it’ll all topple.”

  “How does he have so much stuff?”

  “Maybe it’s all prop crap from his old movies.”

  “God, can you imagine? There must be a fortune in this place.”

  “Either that or he’s a hoarder.”

  “Probably a hoarder.”

  I smile to myself as we reach the far end of the room. It smells like old cardboard and musty dirt, and it takes a minute to locate the old safe. The thing looks ancient with a rusty facade and antique scrollwork around the edges and it’s smaller than I thought it would be, but when Blair kneels down to try the key, it clicks open.

  “Okay then,” she says, rooting around inside. “Let’s see what we have.”

  As she’s moving things aside, there’s a noise upstairs. I freeze, listening intently, but Blair doesn’t seem to have noticed. “Hey. Webb.”

  “Hold on. I think—Shit, okay, that’s a spider. But all right, I think this is it.” She comes up with a green jade mask, simply carved, with snake motifs around the head like Medusa’s hair. She turns it over, frowning at it. “Think this is real?”

  “Cowan said so. Webb, get up.”

  “Why, what’s wrong?”

  The noise comes again, this time louder, and I’m positive now.

  “Someone’s upstairs.”

  “Shit,” she says and slams the safe door shut. It thunks closed like it’s made of stone and she jumps to her feet. “What do we do? Is it Cowan? Nobody’s here, right?”

  “I don’t know.” I walk away from her, straining to hear. The floor above creaks again, and again, getting closer to the door— “They’re coming down.”

  “Should we run? Hide? Baptist, I’m freaking out.”

  “Stay behind me.” I start back through the maze of boxes, trying to find the stairs, but I’m totally lost in the crazy overflow of junk. Blair keeps grabbing at my hands and pulling at my shirt, crowding my heels, and I’m straining to listen as the stairs creak once, twice, three times.

  “Someone’s coming down,” Blair hisses. “Baptist! What do we do!”

  I press her back against some boxes and put a hand over her mouth. She’s breathing hard and her heart’s racing like crazy and all I can think about is that night in the supply closet, my hand between her legs, but fuck, someone’s wading through the mess. I hear another person breathing, labored and loud, almost grunting. Blair’s eyes are wild, and I give her a hard look as I take her wrist and move my hand from her mouth.

  I pull her along behind me. She stays quiet as we sneak along another snaking path through the mess. It turns to the left, heading toward the stairs, and whoever’s down here with us must’ve found the safe still unlocked because there’s a ragged curse, like the rasp of ancient leaves crumbling in the wind.

  We slip into the other path and move onto the stairs. I nod for her to go first and put a finger to my lips. She’s shaking and sweating, but she creeps up as silently as she can. I follow, trying not to make any noise, but I’m not a light man or a small one either, and the wood warps under my weight, making a groaning, creaking noise.

  “I hear you!” The voice is female, raspy, like she’s an old smoker. “Thieving fucks!”

  A blast roars from somewhere in the back of the basement. Pages scatter all over, exploding from the boxes, and I shove Blair up. Another blast and more stuffing and plastic bits rain all over the place. “Go! Run!”

  Blair sprints up the steps with me on her tail. “I’m coming, you thieving bastard! Don’t you fucking run!”

  I reach the top and throw myself forward as another shotgun blast roars from down below, scattering into the hallway wall where I’d been just a second before. Blair turns and helps me up as the old lady comes barreling up the stairs, holding this ridiculously large gun in both hands. Her hair’s wizened and thinning, and she’s wearing a dark blue nightgown that hangs from her emaciated frame.

  “Gotcha, fuckers!”

  I shove Blair aside and dive as the old lady shoots. The gun kicks back and she nearly loses control of it, and a hole the size of a football is blasted into a painting nearby.

  Blair hits the floor hard and something cracks under her.

  I leap to my feet and drag her up as the old lady curses and fumbles with shells, trying to reload them. “Come on, run.”

  I yank Blair to the door. She’s cursing and shouting nonsense and I’m thinking only about getting her to safety. We hurry outside as the old lady screams something incomprehensible and shoots again, but her aim is wild. I reach the car, get Blair’s door open, and shove her in before jumping behind the wheel.

  “Fuckers! Thieves!” The old lady takes one more pot shot and shatters one of the rear windows into a thousand little glass pebbles. I peel out, throw the car around, and drive away from that hell as fast as I can.

  My heart’s racing wildly and I’m so hopped up on adrenaline I can barely think. I fly out onto the main road and floor it back toward town, laughing the whole time. I feel so fucking terrified and alive, but when I look at Blair and the look of pure horror in her eyes, all my excitement slowly dies.

  “The mask,” she says and holds up what’s left of it in her hands.

  The thing’s broken into four large shards.

  “Ah, shit,” I say with a long sigh. “We survived one old psychopath only to have to go back and face another.”

  “We’re screwed. We’re completely ruined.”

  I shake my head, thinking rapidly. “It’ll be fine. We can fix it. Or maybe—”

  “Or maybe we’ll tell him that we got assaulted by some absolutely insane lady and nearly got killed.”

  “That might work.”

  “Fuck.” She leans back, cradling the destroyed mask in her lap. “All that for nothing.”

  “We’ll work it out. We’ll go to him together—”

  “No, I’ll do it alone.”

  My jaw tenses. “Blair. We made a deal.”

  “Somewhere public. He likes me, Baptist.”

  “Funny. I’m not sure that man likes anyone.”

  She shakes her head. “He does. Just let me talk to him.” She goes silent after that and I drive faster, anger rolling down my spine, replacing the excitement with rage.

  That fucker nearly got us killed, again, and she thinks she can reason with a madman.

  Chapter 8

  Blair

  Cowan throws a handful of bread out to a group of pigeons. He stares at them intently like he’s trying to learn something important from the way they mill around in a tight group. I remain a few feet away, arms crossed, the mask shards in a bag at my hip. I’m terrified of showing him what happened, but he’s more interested in bread and birds right now, and I’m in no hurry to break the news.

  “I find these creatures fascinating,” he says, gesturing at the pigeons. “They are ubiquitous in this city. Disgusting animals, really. They’re flying rats, and yet they’re resilient. They survive in an environment so deeply divorced from the environment they were supposed to live within. A lot like people.”

  “Yes, Cowan. People are giant pigeons. Got it. Is that another movie?”

  He smiles and shakes his head like I’m an idiot. “No, suit, it’s not another movie. Where’s my mask?”