Cozen

by Bethany-Kris

Another fragment.

  Another answer.

  More questions.

  “Why—where?”

  “Shhh,” Cozen told him, looking back over her shoulder.

  His hand was firmly in hers. She wouldn’t let him go as she navigated the upstairs hallways of the Griffin mansion. Her hold on him was the only thing propelling him to keep moving on unsteady feet, and follow her. He didn’t know where she was taking him, or why his head felt like he was living in the fucking clouds.

  “You have to be quiet, Sargon. Soon, you’ll be able to sleep. Okay? They can’t find you in Jett’s office tomorrow morning.”

  Sargon came out of that memory with a wheeze leaving his chest. He moved forward just a little too much on the bed, and toppled right fucking off it. His entire head was spinning, now. His balance was all but gone.

  He wasn’t quite sure how long he stayed on the floor like that—trying to make sense of the fragments of memories, and the shitty way he felt, but nothing really came.

  Eventually, he forced himself up from the floor and onto unsteady feet. He still wasn’t quite sure where exactly he was as he stared at a thick oak door leading out of the bedroom, but he assumed somewhere in the Griffin mansion.

  Sargon stayed like that for a long while, too. Unsteady, and half leaning on the bed with two hands to keep him from toppling over again.

  A few more deep breaths.

  A long few minutes.

  He finally felt like maybe he could walk without feeling like a baby deer on new legs. He headed for the door, and was surprised to find that his usual strength was all but gone as he tried to pull the heavy oak open.

  Or maybe that was just him.

  Eventually, he got out.

  Sargon peered down the quiet hall—he recognized the things and space staring back at him. He was downstairs in the guest rooms. She had taken him downstairs.

  He blinked again.

  Memories filtered in again.

  “You have to go down there by yourself,” Cozen whispered.

  Sargon’s mouth felt dry—words wouldn’t form when he tried to speak. Why wouldn’t she come with him?

  He wanted her with him.

  “There’s cameras in this hall,” she told him. “If I go further, they’ll catch me on them with you. You have to go by yourself.”

  Sargon nodded.

  He went.

  By the time he came out of that memory, Sargon was down the hall, and coming into the grand entrance. He felt slightly better. It seemed like the longer he was awake, the more steady on his feet that he became.

  Everything started to clear.

  His mind.

  His heart.

  His voice.

  “Sarg, where’s Jett?”

  He glanced to the side, and found a handful of Jett’s men waiting there. They all stood around in a semi-circle like a bunch of limp pricks that couldn’t do fuck all without their boss’s say so.

  Which wasn’t all that far from the truth.

  “What?” Sargon asked.

  “Jett—the boss. He’s not down this morning. It’s Saturday.”

  “And almost noon,” another one added. “He should have been at his breakfast meeting hours ago.”

  Nobody thought to go check on Jett?

  Sargon didn’t even bother to ask the useless fuckers that question. Instead, he headed for the staircase that would lead into Jett’s private wings. Soon, although it felt like it took hours to climb those stairs, Sargon was just outside of Jett’s office.

  The door was open.

  He peered in.

  Nothing looked amiss.

  The desk was clean—buffed to shine. The painting behind the desk, and the safe it kept hidden, were both shut like no one had ever touched them. The wood around the painting looked like it had been buffed, too.

  No fingerprints left behind.

  A good thief gets out clean.

  Sargon’s feet moved him forward down the hall, and further away from the scene of the crime. Only down to the next room, though.

  Jett’s bedroom.

  He knocked once.

  Then, twice.

  Silence answered back.

  “Jett?” Sargon called.

  Silence.

  “Jett.”

  Louder the second time.

  Nothing.

  Sargon pushed open the bedroom door, and stuck his head into the darkness of the space just enough to listen for his boss. Through the silence, he heard almost nothing.

  And then there it was.

  Shallow breathing.

  Too many seconds between breaths.

  Struggling for air.

  Sargon shoved the door open, and struggled to find a light switch. Once he did, the panic he felt was quickly replaced by a need to act.

  The man was blue.

  Or … quickly getting there.

  “Call for an ambulance!”

  Sargon’s shout echoed into the hall. He didn’t even know if any of them downstairs heard him, or not. It didn’t even matter.

  He was already on the bed, and straddling over Jett as he forced the man’s head back, and tried to give the man more room in his airways to breathe. Jett was cold—not deathly so, but cold enough—and clammy.

  Around his slack lips, a blue tint was starting to form. A telltale sign that the man was going without any decent amount of oxygen. The rest of his skin had taken on a rather gray pallor. Every breath Jett did take was not nearly enough, he struggled for it, and his chest rattled.

  “Call for a fucking ambulance!”

  Sargon stayed back in the hallway as the doctor entered Jett Griffin’s hospital room. Both of Jett’s sons were waiting inside—one on each side of their father’s bed. The tube down Jett’s throat was keeping him breathing because his lungs could no longer do the job.

  None of the men in the room thought to close the door, and Sargon couldn’t make himself move to give them privacy.

  He needed to know.

  He needed to hear it.

  “The blood tests came back in, and it confirmed my suspicions,” the doctor explained.

  Silas let out a hard breath. “He was drugged, then?”

  “Quaaludes by the looks of it—genuine Quaaludes, too, not the fake kind they sell on the streets.”

  Dash’s hands tightened around the rails on the side of his father’s bed. “So, people take drugs all the fucking time. Why—”

  “Your father has a weak heart,” the doctor murmured. “It couldn’t handle the stress this caused on his system, and thus, the heart attack he was suffering from this morning.”

  “So … I don’t understand,” Dash mumbled.

  “He’s dying, you stupid fuck,” Silas snarled.

  “I know that!”

  “Then quit—”

  A sudden explosion of beeps and flashing monitors interrupted the Griffin brother’s argument. The doctor didn’t wait around before he moved into action by running to the door, and shouting for the nurses.

  “Code Blue! Code Blue!”

  Sargon stayed where he was—pressed against the wall, and entirely out of the way. He didn’t need to be getting into this mess, and his time here was nearly over.

  Nurses rushed past him.

  One had a crash cart.

  They filed orderly—yet still quite quickly—without panic into the hospital room, and shoved the Griffin brothers aside. By this point, the doctor had already climbed on top of Jett to begin chest compressions.

  Apparently, the man’s heart was giving out.

  Even if he did live through this—the flat line on the screen said he wouldn’t—the Do Not Resuscitate form Silas wanted to sign earlier promised the man would be dead before the evening.

  Sargon knew it.

  The doctor already said Jett’s heart was too weak. Without intervention, it was going to keep failing.

  Sargon stayed.

  He watched.

  He waited.

  It took thirty
minutes before the doctor called it.

  Time of death: June 8th, 2013 at 6:32 PM.

  Sargon left the hospital without a look back. He no longer had a boss to answer to, and he was ready to go home.

  “We are now boarding first class passengers of flight …”

  Sargon glanced up from the ring he was spinning around on the leather cord hanging from his neck. Standing from the seat, he grabbed his jacket off the back and headed for the gate’s check-in desk.

  He stood behind a line of another ten or so first class passengers. The attendant chatted with each one as she scanned their tickets, and smiled all the while.

  One step closer …

  Sargon was up next, and already pulling the ticket from his pocket before handing it over to the woman with her hair in a bun. Blue eyes, blonde hair, and peach and cream skin. She was pretty, but she was not Cozen.

  No one could ever be Cozen to Sargon.

  The attendant glanced down at his ticket as she said, “I think that’s the first time I have ever seen this name.”

  Sargon was used to that. “Oh?”

  “Owen Sargon Jones.”

  “Owen was a family friend, according to my father,” Sargon said.

  And Jones was the name his mother and father adopted after they faked their death. Despite the fact their accents and features made it clear they were not born and raised Americans, they adopted common American names to blend in better.

  At least on paper.

  They even gave Sargon the given name Owen under his forged documents—it helped at times like these to use a different name when he didn’t want to leave a trail behind for Sargon Makri.

  “Oh, not the given name—the Sargon, I mean. Is that a family name?”

  “Something like that.”

  More like … his parents way of holding onto the past they had given up because they had to run from it, and stay hidden.

  “Ah. Have you been to California before, sir?”

  “Born and raised,” Sargon replied.

  Not a lie.

  “Returning home, then?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, finally.”

  She raised a brow at the lack of carry-on in his hands. “It’s a long flight, sir. You didn’t bring anything to keep you entertained?”

  Chuckling, Sargon tapped his temple and replied, “It’s all up here.”

  He took very little with him when he went.

  He left it all at home.

  Home was with his heart, after all.

  The attendant smiled again, and handed his freshly-stamped ticked back over. “I see. Well, enjoy your flight, Mr. Jones.”

  “I certainly will.”

  Pearl Astor was sitting when Cozen entered the grand dining room of the Astor mansion. The old woman barely looked away from the tea she was sipping as Fourth continued to read to his great-grandmother from a newspaper.

  “You’re looking well,” Cozen said.

  Pearl smiled, and her aging face cracked with deep lines around her mouth and eyes. “Oh, it takes more than a little sickness to keep me down, darling. Sit.”

  Cozen eyed the angry Persian cat sitting in the chair closest to Pearl. She didn’t think moving the cat would be in her best interests considering it looked ready to fucking kill the first person who touched it.

  “Do you want me to read you the review of the opera, or not?” Fourth asked. “It’s got some … well, prose you don’t have patience for, Great-Grandmamma.”

  Cozen took a seat next to the cat.

  Pearl peered over top the rim of her cup at Fourth. “Oh, is he all flowery with his descriptions?”

  “A bit.”

  “Fuck him,” Pearl muttered. “I will go watch it without the review, then. I am getting damn tired of that man—what do I pay him for if he can’t write reviews without all that embellished nonsense? Complete garbage. I am going to fire him, and then sell the newspaper. Watch me.”

  Cozen burst out with a laugh, but quickly clapped her hand over her mouth to stop more from bubbling out. Across the table, Fourth cocked an eyebrow at her.

  Pearl only smiled.

  “Sorry,” Cozen said. “It’s been a long day.”

  “I bet,” Pearl replied.

  And a long night.

  She didn’t bother to explain that bit, though.

  “I have something for you,” Cozen said.

  Instantly, Pearl’s gaze lit up. Her dark brown eyes were warm with excitement and anticipation as her smile grew impossibly wider. It was as though fifty years dropped from the woman’s age just like that.

  Amazing, really.

  Cozen smiled, too.

  It was hard not to.

  “Do you have something for me?” Pearl asked. “Really?”

  Nodding, Cozen put her clutch to the table, and opened it up. She pulled out the tissue she had grabbed to wrap the Astor Queen’s ruby ring in to keep it safe, and hidden during her travel to their home.

  Silently, Cozen passed the tissue over.

  For a long while, Pearl simply held the tissue in her hands, and stared down at it. Fourth set the newspaper aside, and leaned back in the dining chair as his gaze drifted between his great-grandmother, and Cozen.

  “Down to the wire, weren’t you?” he asked.

  Cozen shrugged. “I got the job done.”

  “Barely.”

  “Never barely, Fourth. I never even need to use a backup plan … but this time, the backup was there whether I needed it or not. It never usually works out that way, but life has a way of surprising me.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Or maybe it’s just luck,” Cozen added, shooting Fourth a look. “Someone once told me I was the luckiest woman they had ever met. So lucky, that he never wanted to let me get very far out of his sight for fear the luck he got from being near me would wear off.”

  “And who is this someone?”

  Cozen didn’t answer.

  Her attention was on Pearl.

  “Leave her be, Fourth,” Pearl murmured softly.

  The old woman carefully unwrapped the ruby from the tissue, and lifted it high in the air as she peered at it. She turned it over, and inspected the cursive A on the underside of the gem, and then twisted it around and around in her fingers.

  For a brief second, she even slipped the ring down her forefinger before she quickly took it off, and set it on top of the tissue paper on the table.

  Pearl looked at Cozen, and nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Never mention it,” Cozen replied in kind.

  “I take it this wasn’t an easy job for you, all things considered.”

  “One of the most unusual jobs of my life.”

  “Really—the most unusual?”

  Cozen laughed. “A mark I hadn’t seen, and wasn’t easily found. A man in my way who knew better. Another man obsessed with me to a dangerous point. A contractor threatening my life, and shortening my deadline … yes, most unusual.”

  Pearl gave Fourth a pointed stare as she said, “Did you do that?”

  “Well—”

  “Fourth,” Pearl admonished.

  “I got your ring back, didn’t I?” Fourth leaned over, and grabbed his great-grandmother’s hand before pressing a kiss to her weathered knuckles. “Just like I promised I would, Great-Grandmamma.”

  Pearl’s severe expression melted into one of happiness. “You did. Astor men always keep their word, don’t they?”

  “We do,” Fourth said.

  Pearl’s attention came back to Cozen for a quick second. “You’ll have to forgive him. He’s terribly impatient. I blame it on his father—his raising.”

  “You helped raise me,” Fourth muttered. “You forget that.”

  His great-grandmother paid him no mind.

  Cozen shrugged, and waved the whole thing off. “I think this heist was a good end for me. Or rather, a good way to leave this … world of ours. The job I should have refused because of circumstance, and the job that finally gave me enough of a
thrill that I don’t have to keep chasing after the next one.”

  “This one was enough, hmm?” Pearl asked.

  “Eventually, all thieves find the job where they know it’s the last one. It’s a part of the business. We all get out eventually.”

  Pearl lifted a single white eyebrow high. “And was it satisfactory, Cozen?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Ending it here. Is it a satisfactory end for you?”

  “Almost. I have to tell someone else, too.”

  Pearl gave a nod like she understood, and then gestured at Fourth. The man was quick to stand from the table, and leave the room. A minute or so later, he was back with a file in his hands that he handed over to Cozen.

  “All the details of the transfer are in there,” Fourth said, taking his seat again. “The rest of your money will be in the Swiss bank account of Grace Cozen Jones by this evening. I just approved them.”

  “Where does the Jones come from, anyway?” Pearl asked. “I thought you were a Taylor.”

  “A Taylor when I need to be—a Jones because I want to be.”

  “A revolving door of identities, I know. I am sure it does you well when you need documents to back up a story. I asked where the Jones came from, child.”

  Cozen stood from the table, and twisted the gold band on her thumb. “My husband. It comes from my husband.”

  “You’re married?”

  “Five beautiful years,” Cozen whispered. “And he never lets me down.”

  Cozen let her bare feet drag through the warm sand as she strolled down the beach. The sandals dangled from her fingertips—she liked to walk with nothing on when she was here. Her flimsy summer dress blew wildly with the breeze, and cold water came up to wash over her feet with the tide.

  The sky was a pretty color.

  Reds and purples.

  Yellows and oranges.

  It reminded her of that day … that evening … all those years ago.

  Cozen tucked her legs up to her chest on the wicker chair, and stared out at the ocean. As long as the shopkeeper didn’t notice her before he closed up for the evening, she had probably found a place to sleep for the night.

  Her last boss fired her when he realized she was sixteen. Apparently, it would have been okay for her to strip on a pole, but not be serving liquor.

  Something like that …