Baz should've known that for all his usefulness, he would always make a better scapegoat than anything else. In any appearance he made in security footage, he was nothing but a black silhouette, darting through dim light. He never suspected his anonymity would be his downfall, yet there was Jasper, just enriching the lie that Baz had kidnapped Rei Collingwood.

He lay flat against the boat deck, listening to the exchange take place just a few yards away. His heart pounded, as if pumping blood faster and harder to his brain would help him think more clearly. It did not.

"I said no police, didn't I?" Cheng said.

Baz had followed the cop car from Sundial. How far away was it now? How closely were they monitoring the situation? Did they have Cheng bugged? Were they only listening at a distance?

Baz raised his head again, practicality fighting off the flood of panic surging its way through him. He needed all the information he could get. Everyone knew more than him and it was getting tiresome to be out of the loop.

Cheng unbuttoned his jacket, splaying it wide to silently show Jasper something. He let the bag slip from his shoulder, kicking it in Jasper's direction.

"There's the money," Cheng said. He raised his hands up in surrender, his suit bunching at his shoulders.

There was a pause before Jasper crouched to unzip it, rifling through the money inside. The rustling carried easily in the quiet, the only other sound the ocean beating against boat hulls.

It was uncanny to watch Jasper move, somehow awkward in his Baz-disguise. Jasper was made for stiff suits, not the athletic wear Baz lived in. It was like watching a poorly made copy of himself.

"This isn't enough," Jasper said, speaking pointedly close to Cheng.

"What?" Cheng asked.

Jasper adjusted the cowl, leaning even farther in. "I asked for more."

"I didn't have time," Cheng protested stiffly. He sounded more indignant than afraid, too much of that argumentative tone in his voice that Baz was getting used to overhearing. Baz wallowed in the tension in Cheng's voice, skin prickling in the cold.

There was something very wrong about the whole thing.

"I suppose it's alright to only receive part of your sister back, then," Jasper replied. Baz gritted his teeth.

"No..." Cheng said, but Jasper was already swinging the duffle bag over his shoulder.

"No deal," Jasper said, backing away. Cheng kept his hands high.

No sign of Rei. There was no indication of any other people. There had never really been a plan for a trade. How could there be, when Jasper didn't know where she was?

Jasper stepped backward calmly, keeping his eyes on Cheng, one hand lingering by his hip. Did he want Cheng to believe he had a gun? There wasn't room for it in his silhouette. The clothes that were meant to be sleek. That was the whole point. They didn't hide very much. The whole charade was becoming more and more ridiculous. Was this how Jasper thought Baz acted?

Cheng backed out himself, walking in an entirely too-unaffected manner for a man who had lost an entire duffle bag full of money without regaining his sister. The longer Baz spent in the marina, the more uneasy he found himself. Nothing quite added up.

Baz evened his breathing and Cheng Collingwood disappeared, back to find the police to review what just happened, most likely. The rendezvous didn't solve the issue of where Rei was. What else was there left to do?

Baz mulled over the answer, but he didn't like it.

Follow Jasper.

Baz hauled himself out of the boat, his movements less finessed than when he'd stalked Cheng there. There was ground to make up and less concern for making noise, no time for the slow, measured movements of stalking someone through the pier. Baz sprung up to the harbor shack, pulling himself up to the roof and balancing the peaked top of it. He leapt from the building to the railing of the overlooking level. He caught it, gripping the metal bar tightly. Baz had a hard time imagining Jasper attempting anything similar. He had a hard time imagining Jasper being that willing to bruise himself.

He sprinted, not caring who might hear him in the still waterfront district. Jasper had the advantage of a head start, but Baz was faster and had the endurance and wasn't hauling around an awkward duffle bag of cash over his shoulder.

Ahead of him, there was the second staircase that Jasper would most likely take back up to street level.

Baz caught his breath, leaning up against a crab shack, awaiting the figure that looked a little too much like him.

Jasper did as expected, climbing the stairs at exactly the pace Baz would've expected from his taskmaster. He climbed into a waiting car that immediately drove off, turning right into an alley.

Hadn't Baz followed the same routine so many times? Get the payload, jump into a black car, drive off.

If he'd thought the evening could culminate in a second chase, Baz would've kept his bike closer. Instead, he ran, heading off the car where the alley would spit it out on the next block. They were at the liberty of the traffic laws Baz chose to ignore.

Any sirens carried on the night air were too far away to be following the car. No one was after Jasper and Cheng Collingwood's money. Not directly.

What would Cheng tell the police? Would he give them a succinct description that perfectly matched the art thief of upper class Temperance? How soon before they came knocking on Baz's door?

He didn't want to think about it, so he ran faster, taking shortcuts a car couldn't, slipping into an alley just to find the tail light glow again at the other end.

It was becoming more and more obvious where Jasper was heading. Baz didn't dare get ahead of himself, no matter how sure he suddenly was of where he was going.

Traffic lights stopped the car and Baz kept going, gaining ground on the vehicle while the toll of the evening started to make itself known on his body. Knees were averse to running on concrete. His shoes were meant more for stealth than for sprinting.

The sky opened up, the stretch of buildings broken by the expanse of Faraday Park, and the black sedan cut around the perimeter of it.

The car stopped, parking in between the lines outside a darkened bakery. Baz dared breathe, waiting for Jasper to climb out again, off somewhere else, but the car didn't move. The lights flicked off, but the engine hummed.

Baz leapt for the window ledge of the adjacent brick building, following the decorative features of the walls to reach the sturdy fire escape. He half-collapsed onto it, flattening out onto his back.

He'd hurt tomorrow, but it didn't compare to the sprawling fear of what would happen to him next. The dealer of this poker game had pretended to deal him in, only to give him a handful of Uno cards instead. There was no winning. The best he could do was not lose everything when he lost.

Both Baz and the car below him waited what felt like hours. The longer Baz had a chance to rest, the more his exhaustion snuck up on him. The whole week had been entirely too long. Pretending to be someone he was not expended more energy than the time he would've spent at the gym if he wasn't running around to museums and theatre shows.

Waking up hungover hadn't helped. The repeated swells of panic hadn't helped. Every hour of the day brought something new to lurch him into a state of unrest. Maybe he'd just plateau, reaching the point where things couldn't get any worse. So what if Jasper dressed up alarmingly like him to fake a ransom trade off? Was it that much worse than the police already linking a thread between Rei's disappearance and all the crimes Baz really had committed?

They were rhetorical questions. If Baz truly weighed the terribleness of each new discovery, he'd just dip into a downward spiral of worst-case scenarios.

Something needed to happen, if just to distract him. The adrenaline rush of racing cars through the city had worn off. It left him too much time to think. His version of waiting had to be worse than Jasper's. Baz knew undoubtedly that something was coming, but he didn't know what it was. Jasper at least had the luxury of expectation.

Baz rolled over, watching the still car below him. No one got out. No one got in. The neighborhood was quiet except for the small throngs of students stumbling from local dive bars back to their dorms and apartments for the night. They didn't pay attention to one lone car lingering in an empty parking lot.

Faraday Park was a striking sight from his vantage point, high enough above street level to see well over the trees. The park stretched out toward the regal shape of the university. The façade looked toothy and pointed against the inky backdrop of the sky. It was close enough to see the character in the district. The little family-owned bakery Jasper parked at, the homemade ice cream shop, the cozy cafes made for studying.

Somehow, Baz doubted Jasper stopped in just to admire gothic spires and gables or the Mom and Pop shops.

Finally, a second car pulled in next to Jasper's, just as sleek and forgettable as the getaway vehicle.

He held his breath, disregarding the fact no one would hear him from the fire escape. No one looked up. It was a fact Baz often took advantage of.

Jasper climbed out of the car, stripped of his get-up and donning a suit that made him look much more like himself. He straightened his tie.

The driver's door of the second door cracked open.

Cheng Collingwood stepped out.