Infinityglass (Hourglass 3)

“I don’t care how hot you are. I’m not going to lower my prices because you’re coming on to me,” Danny said in a monotone. Definitely not distracted. More like bored.

Damn. I’d hoped my fierce comics knowledge would work in my favor in case my flirting didn’t. “I’m not coming—”

“I know how women are,” he said in a Cajun drawl. “And I could smell you angling for a deal when you walked in the door.”

He could smell me? Jackass. I hated to use my sexuality for evil, and here he was, trivializing my effort.

“I happen to like Batman, and I told you, I want a ring. Show me the blue one.”

He dropped his reading material with a sigh and slammed the side of his fist into the register drawer. It popped open, and he fished a set of keys from underneath a stack of twenties. If he could open the register with nothing less than a punch and wasn’t afraid to let a customer know it, he wasn’t worried about what was in the cash drawer. This confirmed his main concern was for whatever lurked behind the vaulted door on the far wall.

It was certainly mine.

“Is that a blue topaz?” I asked.

He squinted at the ring in question. “Aquamarine.”

I checked my phone again as Danny leaned over to open the case. Nothing from Poe. An uneasy feeling stirred in the pit of my stomach.

Danny cleared his throat, and I realized he was holding out the ring for me. I dropped my phone into my bag. “How much?”

“Three hundred and fifty.”

Broke College Me had let it go for a hundred.

I took the ring and held it up to the light. “Do you have an appraisal?”

He snorted. “Hello. You’re in a pawnshop.”

“Who sold it to you?” I asked.

“We have a privacy policy.”

I didn’t budge.

He looked from me to the ring and back again. “Two hundred.”

“Is that how much you paid for it?”

“Two. That’s the price.”

“Fine.” I dug around in my bag under the pretense of looking for my wallet so I could check my phone again. My heart did a flip when I saw Poe’s name on my screen.

I opened the message.

Help.

You knew you were in deep when someone who could teleport needed an escape plan.

“Uh-oh.”

Danny raised his eyebrows.

“My … my date cancelled.” I fought to keep my voice from shaking.

I flipped through my mental catalog, and recalled the details of the building schematic I’d stolen, trying to think of all the places Poe could be.

Danny took the ring out of my hand. “You were meeting your date at a pawnshop?”