Текст книги "Inked Armour"

Автор книги: Helena Hunting

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

“That doesn’t sound good.” I didn’t like the prospect of her having to endure something like that again.

“It won’t be for a long time, though.”

I wondered if we would still be together by then. I couldn’t imagine my world without her, but I hadn’t anticipated losing my parents the way I did, either. Heart attacks I understood; car accidents; even freak plane crashes. But murder . . .

That was the fear that had petrified me into distancing myself from even the most important people in my life. It was why I hadn’t pursued Tenley initially. I’d had a feeling that getting close to her wouldn’t stop at sex, and I’d been right. She’d found a way between the cracks in my armor and blew it apart. I wanted to have the same effect on her.

27
TENLEY

As unconventional as it was to spend Christmas Day in Inked Armor, the tattoo session was what I needed. The soothing buzz of the machine and the sting of the needle distracted me from the pain of the memories I shared with Hayden.

“Do you think we could go to the storage unit tomorrow?” he asked as he made another pass with a damp cloth.

“Of course.” I hadn’t expected he would want to go so soon.

“I haven’t been there since I first moved into my condo. I was going to take some of my parent’s furniture, but I couldn’t do it. It all reminded me of what I’d lost.”

“Did you go alone?”

“Yeah. But you’ll be with me this time, so maybe it won’t be so hard.”

I hoped that would be true.

Eventually we found our way back to the topic of last night, and Hayden tentatively raised the subject of New Year’s. Lisa had called him several times today. The first time, she mentioned Times Square. The second call was about keeping it local. Hayden said they could talk about it tomorrow. My vote was for local, but I could handle a road trip if everyone was driving.

“What do you usually do on Christmas Day?” I asked.

I could see him shrug in my peripheral vision. “Not much. Sometimes we stay at Cassie’s and have brunch in the morning. Mostly we just sit around and get shitfaced. Usually I’m too hammered to drive my ass home and I have to stay another night.”

I read between the lines. The holidays at Cassie’s were a way for the people who cared about him to keep an eye on him.

“We could have gone back there today. We still can, if you want to.” I didn’t want to take him away from the people who cared so much about him.

“Nah. As selfish as it is, I want you to myself today. Besides, if we end up going somewhere for New Year’s with everyone else, we won’t get much time alone.”

“We need to take your car to the body shop.” I felt bad about the damage to the hood.

“I have a guy I deal with. He can fix her up no problem.”

“That means we have to take my car if we go on a road trip.”

Hayden made a face. “I guess. I’d rather drive your car than the douche mobile.”

“I’m selling the BMW,” I replied, my focus on his tapping foot.

“I can help with that,” he said quickly, apparently as eager to get rid of it as I was.

“That would be good.” I was done taking care of everything on my own.

“We’ll get on it next week.”

“The sooner the better.”

Hayden lifted the needle from my skin and wiped my shoulder with a damp cloth. “Is it because of what you found in there?”

“That’s part of it.” Every time I looked at the car now, I recalled what Trey had said while I was in Arden Hills. Even if it was said out of spite, I’d never know the truth and I didn’t want the lingering reminder.

“What are your other reasons for selling it?”

“You’re not a fan of the car.” Hayden loathed the BMW, and it wasn’t just because he believed they belonged to pretentious jerk-offs.

“You don’t have to get rid of it because I don’t like it.”

“Connor and I took a break during the last semester of my undergrad,” I blurted.

The buzz of the tattoo machine ceased. “You broke up?”

“For a while.”

This was one thing I hadn’t talked about; not with my girlfriends or my mom. I’d made the decision and pretended it was no big deal. In reality, it had been painful. I’d hated the separation, mostly because I was scared of the unknown.

“Did you date other people?” His voice had an edge.

“A bit. Mostly, I just needed space. Connor backed out of a trip home because he was overloaded with work. He got shitty about it. His program was rigorous and so was mine. I couldn’t afford the distraction. The added stress was affecting my marks, and the only way I could manage tuition at Northwestern was with a scholarship, so I suggested we take some time off from each other.”

“And he was okay with that?” The tattoo machine started up again, thankfully. I needed Hayden’s focus away from my face.

“No, not at all. It became this huge fight. He hung up on me and I didn’t call him back. I figured when he calmed down, he’d understand my logic and see it made sense.” That hadn’t been the case.

“So you worked it out?”

“Eventually. When Connor got mad, he was stubborn and impossible to reason with. I knew he’d call when he was ready.”

“How long did that take?”

“A month.” It had seemed like forever then; now it was just a scene in a life I felt completely disconnected from. I’d put all my energy and focus into my studies and my friends during that time, determined not to fixate on Connor’s silence. It hadn’t worked all that well.

“And then you got back together?” Hayden asked.

“No. It was another month before that happened.”

“I’d go fucking mental without you for that long.”

I thought of those weeks without Hayden while I was in Arden Hills. It had been indescribably painful. The month without Connor had been hard, but I was used to the distance since he’d been at Cornell the entire time we were dating. His anger and my fear had been the hardest part to deal with.

“I thought we’d work things out when we were both ready. I was so naïve. It never occurred to me he was sleeping with everything with a pulse during that time.”

Hayden looked appalled. “That’s what he told you?”

“No. Trey did.”

Hayden turned off the tattoo machine and set it down on the tray. His gloves came off next.

“You don’t have to stop.”

Even I could hear the waver in my voice. I didn’t want to cry over this, but the uncertainties I’d been holding on to made it hard to keep back the tears.

“Tenley, you can’t believe anything that asshole says.”

“He could be right, though. Even when Connor finally called, it wasn’t the same between us. He was so worried I was going to taint myself by sleeping around. I couldn’t figure out why he was so paranoid about it, but it makes sense if he was doing exactly that.”

“That’s just speculation. Fears fed by the bullshit Trey spews to keep you under his thumb.”

“Maybe.” I could never be sure, though. “I was still on the fence about getting back together until Connor showed up at my convocation. Afterward, he took me away for the weekend and proposed. Everything happened so fast from there. We planned the wedding in less than six months.”

“Which is another reason you have to question whether what Trey said happened. Why would he propose if he wanted to run around and bang skanks?”

“To stake a claim?”

Hayden sighed and pulled me into a sitting position. Despite my state of undress his eyes stayed on mine. “Don’t do this to yourself. I know how easy it is to spin worst-case scenarios.”

“I’ll never know the truth,” I whispered.

“Did it ever occur to you that Trey might have planted those condoms? It’s definitely something he’d do.”

“It’s possible,” I said hesitantly. “But what if what Trey said is true, and all that time I was living a lie? I keep thinking that if things had been different, maybe my family would be alive. I still would have come to Chicago for my master’s. Maybe I would have met you anyway.”

“There are a million possibilities. You could let them consume you for the rest of your life. It’s what I’ve been doing for the past seven years, and it hasn’t done me any good. You have to let it go, Tenley.”

“I don’t know how.”

He cupped my cheek in his palm. His sad understanding touched that place inside my heart reserved for him alone. “I know it’s not easy. But we can’t resurrect the dead to find out the truth.”

Hayden was right. Knowing wouldn’t change the past. Letting go was the only way.

And I didn’t need the answers because the person I loved and wanted was sitting right in front of me. Hayden was my present and my future.

The next morning I stood in front of the bathroom mirror with my robe hanging off my shoulders, peering at my freshly cleaned tattoo.

“You’re going to get a neck crick if you keep that up.” Hayden stepped beside me with a towel slung low around his hips. Water beaded on his chest from the shower, and his hair was slicked back from his forehead. When it wasn’t hanging in his eyes, he looked like a ’50s icon.

“I can’t help it. It’s beautiful.” The addition of color to the top of the wings was incredible. Even though the tattoo was still a little red around the edges, the parts that had been shaded were vividly three-dimensional now.

He kissed my shoulder, right beside the tip of the wing. “I’m glad you like it.”

“I love it. I can’t wait to get back in your chair for another session.”

“Me, neither.” He nipped at the spot his lips had been, then stepped away.

Unlike with some of our previous sessions, I hadn’t broken down after yesterday’s. The tattoo was no longer about punishment for mistakes. Instead, our time in the shop had helped heal some of the wounds I’d created by going to Arden Hills. The intimacy of it made me feel closer to him. We both needed the connection, especially after the past couple of days.

Hayden was anxious today about the storage unit, and I was nervous for him. I wanted him to find what he was looking for, so he could get the answers he needed. He’d been too preoccupied to sleep well last night. I’d woken several times to find him wrapped around me, his hand splayed out on my sternum.

He opened the medicine cabinet and got out his shaving kit. First came the straight-blade razor, next the little bowl and the brush he used to work the shaving lotion into a lather. I pulled my robe over my shoulders, the lavender satin rough against the fresh ink. I knotted it at the waist and hopped up on the counter, crossing my legs. I found watching Hayden shave undeniably sexy, particularly since he used such an old-school method.

“Don’t you have an electric razor? Wouldn’t it be easier?” I’d seen the kit under the counter when I once went in search of cleaning supplies.

Hayden looked at me as if I had two heads. “That’s for cutting my hair, not shaving my face. Your sensitive skin would be chafed to hell otherwise.”

“So this is for my benefit.” I gestured to the collection of items on the counter.

“I would consider it mutually beneficial.” He leaned over the sink, his hair falling in his face as he splashed with water. He ran his wet hands through his hair to keep it off his forehead, but it had gotten so long it had become a constant battle he couldn’t win.

“Speaking of haircuts, how handy are you with a pair of scissors?” he asked.

“Okay, I guess. I used to trim my dad’s hair pretty regularly.”

“Yeah?”

“He had a military cut. It wasn’t like it was a challenge.” Switching out a number four for the fade-out was easy.

“Usually I get Lisa to do it, but there hasn’t been time lately. You want to give mine a go?”

“What if I mess it up?”

“Then I shave my head. It’ll grow back.”

“I don’t know.” I loved his hair. I would feel awful if he ended up having to sheer it off.

He leaned against the counter, twirling the scissors around his finger. “If we find something in the storage unit, I’ll want to take it in to the cops.” He glanced up at me, transparent in his anxiety. “I don’t want to go to the precinct looking like this. I’ve already acted like an asshole there. I don’t need any more cards stacked against me.”

“Is this about Officer Cross?”

“No. Miller made the suggestion. She’s right. It would be easier if I looked less . . . like me.”

“I love the way you look.” It made me resistant to the change, even though it was only physical.

“Yeah, but you’re not a judgmental cop, are you?”

I could see his point. Hayden projected danger and menace; it kept most people out. I was among the privileged few who truly knew him.

“Let me see what I can do. I can’t re-create what you had when I first met you,” I said as he dropped down onto the edge of the tub.

“That’s fine. I just want to look normal.” He passed me the scissors.

“I’ll try my best.” I pushed his hair back from his face. “But just so we’re clear, how you look won’t change the way I feel about you.”

I kissed him and got to work.

It didn’t turn out too bad in the end; I left enough length at the top that Lisa could fix it at a later date. I ran my fingers through the short hair at his nape.

“This is good.” He turned his head to check out the sides.

“The facial piercings are the only things that keep you from looking too refined,” I joked.

“About those . . .”

I should have expected what was coming, but I didn’t. Or maybe I just didn’t want to. Why go to all the trouble to cut his hair and then leave in the most obvious signs of difference?

“What are you taking out?” I skimmed the rings in his lip with my fingertips.

“Those for starters, and the eyebrow piercing.”

“Now?”

“I might as well.”

“Will you put them back in?”

“I’m not sure there’s a point. I’m going to have to lose the metal in my face eventually. I don’t want to be one of those forty-year-old douche bags who’s still holding on to their twenties.”

“What about the industrial?” I touched the shell of his ear.

He smiled. “Everything in the ears can stay.”

“And you won’t take out anything below the neck?” I ran my hand down his chest.

“Definitely not.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay. The facial piercings can go.”

“I wasn’t aware I was asking permission,” he teased.

“I thought you might feel less conflicted if I gave it to you anyway.”

Hayden’s lip quirked up. I cupped the back of his neck and drew him down, going for the viper bites. I remembered the feel of that hard, warm steel biting into my lip the first time we kissed. It had been so alien, so alluring.

His arm wound around my waist, pulling me closer, seeking connection or maybe a distraction.

I took advantage of his neediness, which echoed my own, and parted my lips. He responded immediately, his tongue entering my mouth, his other hand tangling in my wet hair. He made a low, impatient sound as he picked me up and deposited me on the counter. His hands went to my thighs, pushing them apart so he could get between them. I had nothing on under the robe. He was still covered with a towel from the waist down.

“Fuck. I shouldn’t be looking to get inside you again so soon.” He gripped the edge of the counter.

Aside from our time at Cassie’s and the tattoo session yesterday, we’d spent an unprecedented amount of time naked over the past several days, christening all manner of locations in his condo. The opportunities for escapism had been endless.

“It’s okay.” I ran my palm down his back, feeling his muscles flex. “You can have me as often as you want.”

He rested his forehead against mine, shoulders rising and falling with his labored breath. “It’s not just about wanting you. It’s this fucking need. No matter what I do, how close I get, it’s like I’m consumed by it.”

“I know how you feel.” I wanted him with the same urgency. I never felt sated. Still starving for his affection; nothing but him would make the ache or the craving go away.

“I don’t know that you do. This feeling”—he swallowed hard—“it terrifies the fuck out of me. And there’s all this other shit happening and I can’t deal with it, and all I want is for you to be mine.”

“I am yours,” I said, his distress heartbreaking.

“Not all of you.” His lips brushed over mine. “Not the part that counts.”

That was it. The emotion I’d been too afraid to express was the problem. The infinite desire was a product of unspoken words. I couldn’t get what I needed from him when I was holding back what he needed from me. It was becoming torturous for both of us.

The towel around his waist dropped to the floor. He freed the tie on my robe, the sides parted, and Hayden pushed it over my shoulders. Then he pulled me forward until I was at the edge of the counter. I hooked a palm around his neck and wrapped my legs around his waist to keep my balance. His eyes were fixed over my shoulder. One hand smoothed up my spine, stopping just shy of the fresh ink.

“I want to be in you everywhere,” he whispered.

“Hayden—”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be pushing. I should stop.”

For so long, I had felt such vast emptiness. Until him. This was what love felt like—this unyielding, overwhelming need for someone that wiped out everything else.

“Hayden, look at me.” He needed the one thing I could give him unconditionally, now more than ever. “You have all of me. I am only yours.”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t. But I’ll deal with it.”

I knew he was referring to my heart. But he’d had it all along.

“I love you, Hayden.”

28
HAYDEN

I blinked, not sure if I imagined it or not. “I’m sorry. What?” Clearly, I was losing my mind. Considering how underslept I was and freaked out about going to the storage unit, it wasn’t unrealistic to come to that conclusion.

“I’m in love with you,” she said again.

“Are you sure?”

“Very sure.” Her hands were on my face, her touch soft, soothing.

If there was anyone who could say anything to me that would get me through this fucked-up morning, Tenley was the person and those were the words. “Really?”

Her knuckles drifted from my temple to my chin. Then she followed the path with her lips until she reached my mouth. “I love you.”

All the pent-up, festering emotion exploded out of me. “I love you so fucking much.” I kissed her hard. “That night you left? That was when I knew. It wasn’t until you were gone that I realized how much I needed you, and after you came back I wasn’t sure if I could tell you, but it’s been killing me not to say it. Shit. I’m ruining this. Why can’t I shut the fuck up?”

Tenley’s hands smoothed over my shoulders, down my arms, and back up. It distracted me from my ranting, which was a fucking embarrassment in the wake of such a declaration.

“I love you,” she whispered, taking my bottom lip between her teeth.

Then she shifted and everything lined up, my cock sliding lower against her.

“We should do this in the bed,” I said.

“Right here is perfectly fine.”

She hooked her ankles around my waist, securing our position. It made arguing difficult. I tried anyway. “The bed seems more appropriate, don’t you think?”

“Fuck appropriate.” Her legs tightened and the piercing breeched the threshold.

“I really do love you. You know that?” It came out more groan than words.

“I know.” Tenley pulled her hair over one shoulder, exposing that glorious fresh ink in the mirror. “Now show me.”

The desperate need leached out of me, replaced by a different desire. I’d fantasized about this exact position, being inside her, having a perfect view of both my art on her body and her face. As much as I would have liked the soft comfort of my bed, the view was incredible.

What started out hot and frantic turned into something much better. It was a controlled glide and retreat, our lips brushing with every gentle thrust. The pad of her thumb swept over my eyebrow, then over my viper bites. She followed with her mouth.

“I can always put them back in if you want me to,” I said.

“I’ll love you just as much with or without them.”

It was exactly what I needed to hear.

Tenley held my gaze as she came, and I could see the truth in the words she’d uttered reflected there. It was the closest I’d ever been to her. I never wanted to lose that feeling.

After my second shower, Tenley finally convinced me to get dressed. I was reluctant to wreck the fantastic start to my day by going to the storage facility; staying naked was a preferable option. But I’d postponed it long enough.

I put on a pair of dress pants while Tenley picked out a shirt and tie. She hung them in the bathroom while I shaved, since I’d gotten waylaid from the task earlier. Next came the steel removal.

“You’re not taking out the one in your tongue, are you?” Tenley asked as she sat on the bathroom counter to watch.

“And miss out on the sounds you make when I go down on you? Fuck, no.”

She flushed and smiled. “Good.”

I removed the eyebrow ring, but I needed a pair of pliers and Tenley’s help to take out the viper bites. I sat on the edge of the tub while Tenley carefully loosened the tiny, silver balls from each ring. She threaded the hoops through my lip and dropped them into my palm. I poked at the spot; the absence of steel felt odd.

She leaned down and kissed the place where the bites used to be. “You’re gorgeous no matter what, Hayden.”

I laughed to hide my discomfort. It was definitely one of the things I worried about. Part of the reason Tenley had been attracted to me was because of my otherness. Take away some of the steel and I looked just like everyone else, aside from the ink.

Tenley passed me my shirt and waited until my arms were through the sleeves before she started fastening the buttons. When she was done, she knotted my tie and took a step back. “Check yourself out.”

I went over to the bathroom mirror, nervous I would end up looking like a douche. The haircut and the lack of facial piercings made the change pretty fucking extreme. Aside from the industrial and the antihelix rings, no one would know about my predilections. They were hidden under clothes and a guise of normalcy.

“You’re still the same person,” Tenley said, her arm coming around my waist, her cheek resting against my biceps. “The way you look doesn’t have an impact on who you are.”

Tenley drove to the storage facility because I was too antsy. It had been a couple of years since I’d been out here, and longer since I’d been inside. It was exactly as I remembered it—creepy as fuck. The location reminded me of the layout for horror-movie gore scenes: rows upon rows of garage-type bays with numbers identifying each one.

Tenley followed my directions until we reached the bay Nate had rented when he and Cassie cleaned out the house. Tenley let the engine idle while I mustered the energy necessary to get out of the car.

After a few minutes, she gave my hand a squeeze. “We don’t have to do this.”

“I’m good. I just need another minute.”

Another minute turned out to be ten, but Tenley didn’t push. She held my hand and waited for me to grow some balls. When I finally opened the car door, she turned off the engine and followed behind. I used the key Nate had given me, followed by the assigned code. The sound of the locking mechanism was reminiscent of gunshots, and I had to remind myself we were perfectly safe. No one was waiting inside to ambush us. I lifted the bay door and the automatic lights flickered on.

Even though my stomach was empty, I felt as if I were going to throw up. I immediately started to chew on the corner of my mouth, but the steel rings weren’t there anymore. I flicked out my tongue ring and made the circuit back and forth over my lips, instead. It was moderately soothing. Tenley’s hand moving in circles on my back helped, too.

Nothing had changed since the last time I was here. The unit was full of boxes and antique furniture wrapped carefully in plastic or protective blankets. I could recall just from the shape of each piece what it looked like underneath. The first seventeen years of my life was packed inside this place. I’d spent the better part of a decade trying to forget it all. It hadn’t worked.

“Cassie did a better job organizing this place than she did in the basement of Serendipity. It was a shit-ton of work,” I said, mostly just to fill the silence.

“She must have had help.”

“She wouldn’t let anyone touch a thing. She went to the house every day for weeks, boxed things up, and then moved them here.”

“Everyone grieves differently, I suppose.” Tenley snuggled into my side; the contact kept me grounded.

“Her way was better than mine.”

Time gave so much in the way of clarity. I could see now how difficult it had been for Cassie when she lost her sister because in many ways she lost me, too. Not forever, but for a long while. We were close, even during the beginning of my rebellious, ass-hole teen phase. She’d been the one person I could go to when I screwed up and needed to find a way to fix things. But I’d been so submerged in guilt and blame afterward, I cut her off along with everyone else.

I exhaled a heavy breath and stepped across the threshold. As organized as it was, the space made me feel panicky—all the stuff just sitting there in boxes with no real place or function. Moving toward an ornate cherry desk, I ran my hand over the plastic-covered surface.

“This used to be in my mom’s office. She always had a stash of twenties in the back of this drawer. I never touched them, though.”

“That would be hard to resist as a teenager.”

I shrugged. “She put a lot of trust in me, even though I didn’t deserve it most of the time. I didn’t want to mess with that. I miss her a lot.”

“You were close?”

I nodded. “She let me get away with too much shit, but she understood me better than my dad. We were a lot the same, me and my mom.”

It had been a long time since I’d let myself feel all the emotions that came with losing them. I’d been quick to don emotional and physical armor after their murders. It had been easier to bury it all than to face the pain.

Tenley gave me space as I moved around, running my fingers over all the things I remembered. Everything was covered in a layer of dust. I didn’t like it. I stopped at a lamp made out of bent silverware.

“That’s really cool,” Tenley said from behind me.

“My mom and I made it when I was a kid. I thought it was cool because I got to use a blowtorch. Dad hated that she put it in our sitting room. He said it didn’t match the antiques. Mom had all these cool ideas that didn’t fit with convention. Dad was different; always looking to climb the social ladder. She couldn’t have cared less. I loved that she didn’t give a shit what people thought most of the time. I mean, she wasn’t exactly thrilled when I came home with an eyebrow piercing on my seventeenth birthday, but she wasn’t bothered by it. It was my dad’s reaction she worried about.”

“Did you get along with your dad?”

“As long as I followed the rules, which wasn’t very often. We argued a lot. He was away on business most of the time, so it was just my mom and me. And Cassie, when she lived with us. Mom was permissive and I took advantage of that. Dad would try and put the hammer down if I’d been a shit while he was gone. It wasn’t very effective.”

“Isn’t that what all teenagers do?”

“I guess. But some of the crap I pulled was pretty awful. I started hanging out in Damen’s tattoo shop during my junior year. I thought he was so cool back then. I came home wasted all the time, fucked up on drugs, with hickeys all over the place. That was when things went downhill. I shouldn’t have been out with Damen and his drugged-up loser friends the night my parents died.”

I stopped at a stack of long, narrow boxes, ones that would hold framed art. I went through them, reading the descriptors scrawled on the front of each one. I recalled every piece by title alone.

“You remember yesterday when I told you that you couldn’t keep going over all the possibilities? That you had to let it go?”

“You were right on both counts. But it’s not easy,” Tenley said softly.

Her arm came around my waist. I looked down at her. No pity was in her eyes, just understanding.

“It was a hypocritical thing to say. I still think about it sometimes—about what might have happened if I’d just stayed home like I was supposed to that night. If I hadn’t started hanging out with Damen in the first place, I wouldn’t have been grounded or pissed my dad off, or gotten all shitfaced. Things might have been different.”

“The what-ifs are so hard to deal with.”

I turned back to the boxes and continued flipping through, still caught up in memories and guilt I couldn’t shake and maybe never would. This whole thing gave me new insight into how resilient Tenley was. Inside of a year, she’d got her life back together and found a way to move on that wasn’t completely self-destructive. I’d taken seven times as long to do the same, and I was still working on it. The paths we took to reach the same end were vastly different.

“Shit. I think it’s here.” I stopped at one of the boxes halfway through the pile.

ELEANOR’S ANGEL was written in big block letters on the top of the box. If the contents matched the description, it was the painting I kept dreaming about. The one I remembered from my childhood, and the first thing I saw when I opened my parents’ bedroom door that night.

I didn’t know what I expected to get from it. I slid the box out from between the others and peeled the tape off. The flaps fell open. It was the right painting. I could tell because of the scuff mark in the corner of the mahogany-colored frame from when I’d dropped it a long time ago.

“I probably shouldn’t touch it.” My voice cracked. “I don’t want to leave fingerprints. Just in case, right?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we should call Officer Miller.”

“What if it’s nothing? What if I’m not remembering right?” I asked, irrationally panicked. My vision went blurry.

“Shh. It’s okay.” Her gloved fingers cupped my face. “If we call Officer Miller, we can ask her what we should do.”

“If you leave your gloves on, you could look at it first. I don’t want to call for nothing.”

“I can do that. What should I be looking for?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe we should just leave it alone.”

“I don’t think it hurts for me to look,” she said reassuringly.

Tenley carefully lifted the painting out of the box. In the garish fluorescent lights, I could make out the details of the art clearly. Seeing it brought back another flood of memories. It was such a strange painting. I’d never asked my mom what compelled her to use that particular color scheme. Seeing it now, with the perspective I had gained, I understood her a lot better. What I couldn’t understand was why in the world my dad had let her keep it in their bedroom. It was as horrifying as it was ethereal, which I suppose was much of the appeal. The angel was painted in various shades of red. The part that freaked me out, though, was the way her wings appeared to be dripping down the canvas, as if they were bleeding feathers.