The Gap Mind by Christopher Golden & Tim Lebbon

Author:Christopher Golden & Tim Lebbon [Golden, Christopher & Lebbon, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-03-31T02:08:43+00:00

The moment went on for several beats and then the doors closed again. They sat side by side in silence. When the train pulled* into Covent Garden station the thief rose, threaded through commuters, and stepped off onto the platform. He started walking away, then paused and looked back.

Jazz got off the train and followed.

****

When he'd said the cafe was in Covent Garden, Jazz had as-sumed he meant on the piazza. She'd only been there a few times and, to her, the restaurants and shops and the street performers entertaining the crowds on a summer day on the, piazza was Covent Garden. But the Augusta Cafe was nestled away amid the trees and flowers of Embankment Gardens, away from the crowds.

"Would you like the patio or the terrace?" asked the host-ess, a girl not much older than Jazz. Her accent revealed her as a northerner, likely in London for university. "The patio's lovely today, but you can see the river from the terrace."

The thief looked quite at home in the midst of the fancy cafe, and he charmed the hostess with his roguish smile. "Not sure I want to look at the Thames. Never quite makes me want to go for a swim." The dark-haired girl wrinkled her nose, grinning. "Can you imagine? It's pretty to look at, but you'd catch some-thing dreadful. So it's the patio, then?"

Jazz had felt invisible to them, but then the thief looked at her as though they shared some grand jest.

"What do you think, love?"

"It sounds perfect," Jazz found herself saying, as though they'd rehearsed these lines. That was what it felt like --a performance.

The hostess led them on a winding path among the ta-bles on the patio. Several were occupied by men and women who were obviously there on business, with clients or associates. At one sat a burly bearded man in a T-shirt and jeans with an attractive dark-complexioned woman who held his hand across the tabletop. From their clothes and the relaxed air about them, she marked them as Americans. From an-other table came a steady stream of French spoken by a pair of fiftyish women holidaying together. Jazz observed them all, careful not to let them notice her attention. When the thief pulled out a chair for her, she sat down. The hostess left them with menus and then hurried back to her post, where a white-haired gentleman with a newspaper under one arm awaited her.

In a tank top and cotton trousers, Jazz soaked up the warmth of the sun. She had deprived herself of it for so much of the time since she had gone on the run that she could not help relishing it now. The tables all had umbrellas that provided shade, but she wanted to feel the heat on her skin. The breeze that blew across the patio and rustled in the leaves of the trees was redolent with the scents of a dozen different flowers.

"You approve," the thief said.

Jazz had been avoiding his blue eyes. Now she forced herself to look at him.

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