Текст книги "Inked Armour"

Автор книги: Helena Hunting

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It was eerily familiar, I realized. In some vague way, it reminded me of the original version of the tattoo I was putting on Tenley. Except I’d changed most of the red to gold and silvers, so it was more a reflection of life, not death.

Tenley leaned in closer, inspecting the painting. Her leather-clad fingers hovered over the surface, never touching.

Even from where I was standing, I could make out the maroon dots scattered over the canvas and the frame. Ones that didn’t match the brushstrokes.

“I’m right—I have to be. That painting was there when I found my parents.” My legs went watery and I leaned against the wall in case they decided they weren’t all that interested in supporting my weight any longer.

“We should call Officer Miller.”

There were so many unanswered questions. It didn’t make sense that this painting hadn’t made it into evidence. Maybe if it had, the case wouldn’t have been closed. I didn’t want to speculate, but I had a pretty good fucking idea whom I wanted to point the finger at. The question was why.

“Do you see all those marks on it? What if it’s blood?” I asked.

“It could be, but the only way you can get any answers is if we call Officer Miller.”

“Right. Yeah. Okay.” I rooted around in my pocket and found my phone. I couldn’t manage punching in my pass code because my hands were shaking so badly.

“Can I help?” Tenley asked.

I passed her the phone and she keyed in the code. Miller’s number was in my contact list already, so Tenley pulled it up and hit call. I didn’t track the conversation that followed.

Tenley passed back my phone. “She’s on her way. Why don’t we wait in the car?” Tenley took my hand and tugged.

“What about the painting? I don’t want you to touch it again.” As irrational as it might be, I worried about its tainting her as it had me.

“It’s fine where it is. Officer Miller will be here in a few minutes to take care of it.” Tenley used the same tone she did when she talked to TK, all lilting and calm.

“Right. Yeah.” I shivered. “It’s fucking cold out here.”

I let her lead me to the car and open the door. She came around the driver’s side and started the engine. As I stared out the windshield, watching it unfog, I recognized that I was in shock. I kept replaying the night I found my parents’ dead bodies: the climb up the stairs, the smell of blood and brain matter, the horrifying visual accompaniment, and the painting on the floor where it didn’t belong.

My pocket buzzed but I didn’t think to answer it. Tenley’s phone went off almost as soon as mine stopped. It was Lisa. She probably wanted to talk about New Year’s, which wasn’t on my radar, considering the shit that was going down.

I watched Tenley’s mouth move, forming words I didn’t hear as she pushed her fingers through my hair over and over. Her attention remained fixed on me the entire time. She hung up after what could have been minutes or hours. I wasn’t tracking enough to know.

“I really fucking love you.” It came out sounding as if I’d been gargling with gravel.

“I love you, too,” she said, her smile sad.

My vision did that blurry shit again, so I rubbed my eyes. My palms came away damp. I stared at them, not sure what was going on. My skin felt wrong, my chest tight.

“It’s okay, baby. I’m right here with you. I know this is hard.” Tenley climbed over the center console and into my lap.

Mindful of the new ink, I buried my face in her hair and tried to fight the rising tide of fear. She whispered soft words of reassurance until I was no longer at risk of losing it completely.

A police cruiser turned the corner and came down the narrow stretch of asphalt. Tenley slid back over to her seat as the vehicle came to a stop a few feet away. I opened my door at the same time as Officer Miller got out of the cruiser, along with another cop I didn’t recognize. Tenley met me at the front of the car and linked our hands as Miller and her partner approached. Introductions were made, none of which I retained. Tenley did all the explaining as she brought them over to the painting.

Officer Miller and her partner snapped on rubber gloves as they looked it over.

“Have either of you touched this?” Miller asked.

“I took it out of the box, but I was wearing gloves,” Tenley replied.

Miller nodded and turned back to the framed art. She and her partner inspected the piece. “Are you seeing this?” Miller asked.

There were nods and more murmuring, lots of gestures.

“That painting used to scare the shit out of me as a kid.” When the male officer turned to look at me, I went on, as though it required further explanation, “I think it’s because the color is incongruous with the subject matter.”

He gave me a funny look. “Are you an art teacher or something?”

I pried my eyes away from the angel to meet his inquisitive stare. “Tattooist.”

His eyes moved from my feet to my face. “Huh. I never would have guessed.”

“I’m calling this in,” Miller said. “We need to get it to the lab.”

Tenley put me back in the car. I watched as Miller paced around, making calls, conferring with her partner. The painting went back in its box. Tenley handed over the key to the storage unit. Miller locked it up and came over to the car. I stared at her through the glass when she tapped on the window. She opened the door and crouched down.

“You all right?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

“You did the right thing by calling me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Tenley’s going to bring you to the station. We’ve got a few questions for you.”

“Okay.”

“Hang tight, there.”

Miller shut the door. She and Tenley had a conversation. Based on the number of times they looked my way, I could guess what it was about.

When we arrived at the station, Officer Miller met us at the front doors and ushered us quickly through the lobby. There weren’t any suspicious stares this time. Their eyes slid over Tenley and me, pausing briefly before moving away. One of the receptionists even smiled when we passed.

I froze when we reached the hallway. I’d been down there before, and the memories associated with it were not pleasant. “Where are we going?”

“To my office.” When I didn’t move, Officer Miller’s features softened. “This isn’t an interrogation, Hayden.”

I sucked in a deep breath, squeezed the shit out of Tenley’s hand, and followed them down the hall. The fluorescent lights above hummed and flickered, giving it an ominous feel. In spite of Miller’s reassurance, the farther we went, the greater my sense of disassociation became. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop from being sucked back into the past.

We were led into a small office with an old, beat-up fake-leather chair behind an equally beat-up desk. Two plastic chairs sat on the opposite side. When I was offered one, I quickly dropped into it. I was light-headed. Tenley sat down beside me and I slid my chair across the floor to close the space between us. The metal against linoleum made a horrible screech.

“Sorry,” I mumbled when everyone in the room flinched.

My knee was going a mile a minute. I shrugged out of my coat and draped it over the back of the chair. I yanked at the collar of my shirt; my tie felt like a noose around my neck. The office was cramped, with shit strewn all over the desk. The lack of order stressed me out even more than I already was. It was too hot, and I couldn’t seem to drag enough oxygen into my lungs. I wanted to roll up my sleeves, but then everyone would know I was faking civilized in my dress shirt and tie.

“Can we get Hayden a glass of water?” Tenley asked.

“Of course. Duggan?” Miller looked to the male officer.

He nodded once and left. It was a little less claustrophobic with one fewer in the room, but not much. Tenley started up with the slow circles on my back, but it didn’t help calm the anxiety. Duggan came back with a bottle of water. I drained it and immediately wanted to hurl.

Then the questions started, which didn’t help the nausea. I recounted the events of the night my parents were murdered, from the moment my parents walked out the door, to the moment I came home. The more of the story I relayed, the clearer the details became. I told them about Damen picking me up, about the kids I remembered being with us, about the girls I later found out were dancers from The Dollhouse.

“There was a guy there, I can’t remember his name.” I rubbed my temple, the headache cropping up behind my eyes making it hard to think. “Brant or Brett? I’d only seen him once before. He was around the same age as me, I think? Is this even important?” I glanced over at Miller, who was recording everything I said.

“Anything you can remember, no matter how insignificant, could be helpful.”

“Okay. This kid, I’m pretty sure his name was Brett. Anyway, I didn’t talk to him because he was a loser. All annoying and shit. I remember him being way too loud, like he wanted to fit in. He pretty much attached himself to Damen both times I met him. I thought he was a creep because he kept watching me. I was with this girl—” I glanced at Tenley, mortified that I had to relay this in front of her.

She gave me a smile that held no judgment, so I continued.

“I was already messed up at that point because Damen had brought out a boatload of weed and I’d been pounding beers. That night, that Brett kid and Damen kept having these side conversations. Damen kept blowing him off. He got pretty pissed at one point and then the kid left. I never saw him again after that.”

“What about this Damen person, did you ever see him again?” Officer Miller asked.

“Yeah. A few months after my parents died, I started apprenticing for him. I worked for him for almost three years. He runs this seedy tattoo shop, Art Addicts. I’m pretty sure he was questioned about the whole thing since he was my alibi.”

“You got a last name for this Damen character?” Duggan asked.

“Martin. His last name is Martin.”

Miller and Duggan exchanged a look.

“What’s going on? Do you guys know him?”

“The name might be familiar,” Duggan said. “Can you tell me a little more about your relationship with him?”

I stared down at my shoes. The toe of the right one had a scuff. “He was my employer and my dealer for a number of years. He introduced me to a lifestyle I didn’t want any part of, after I got my head out of my ass.” I looked up at Miller. “I made some regrettable choices when I was kid, especially after my parents died.”

“I’ve seen the crime scene photos. You witnessed some pretty horrific stuff.”

“That painting you took? It wasn’t in those photos. I remember being confused about that. I know I was messed up at the time and I wasn’t thinking clearly, but that’s one thing I couldn’t forget. When I walked into my parents’ room”—the images in my head were so vivid, my stomach clenched—“that painting was on the floor. I remembered thinking if my dad had seen it like that, he would have freaked out. But in the photos, it wasn’t there at all.”

“You’re sure about this?” Miller asked, leafing through the file on her desk, searching for something.

“Positive.” I kept telling Cross something was wrong when I was being interrogated, but he made it seem as if I were losing it.

Miller made a call. More people came into the office, more questions were asked, but it was nothing like the night of my parents’ murder, or the last time I’d been in the precinct. Cross wasn’t there to needle me, and no one treated me like a deviant loser. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my adult life.

I was wiped out by the time the questioning was through.

Miller said she’d call after the painting had been to the lab. Since we couldn’t do anything else, Tenley and I headed home. She drove. My phone buzzed in my pocket, but it took me too long to get it out so I missed the call. There were fourteen of them—several from Lisa and Jamie, a few from Chris, one from Sarah. The rest were from Cassie. I didn’t have the energy to call them all, so I shut off my phone instead. I let my head drop back against the seat and closed my eyes to try to relax. But all I could see was that goddamn painting and all the blood.

“What can I do for you?” Tenley asked as she pulled into her parking spot behind Serendipity.

I had no idea how to answer that. I stared blankly out the windshield. Snow was starting to fall again, little flakes sticking to the glass before they melted into tiny crystal tears.

“I should get you a spot in my underground parking. I’m allowed two.”

“You don’t need to do that.” She didn’t press for an answer to her previous question.

“You don’t even stay at your place. The parking garage is heated. You wouldn’t have to clean off your car when the weather gets bad.”

“That would be convenient. Why don’t we go up to your place? I’ll make you a sandwich or something. You haven’t eaten all day.”

It wasn’t a no, but it wasn’t exactly a resounding yes. Even though I was strung out and my decision-making skills were questionable, the parking spot was my testing the waters. I wanted her permanence, and this was one way to achieve it. If she parked her car at my place, she might as well move her stuff in, too.

I didn’t go there, though. I knew if she said anything but yes, I wouldn’t be able to handle the rejection.

29
TENLEY

My phone rang and I snatched it up off the comforter. It was Cassie. For the twentieth time in the past four days.

“Hi,” I whispered.

“Is now a good time to talk?”

I rolled off the bed. “Hold on.”

The water was running, but that didn’t necessarily mean Hayden was still standing under it. Before I tiptoed to the bathroom I ran a hand over the comforter, smoothing out the wrinkles. It was pointless. Hayden was likely to remake the bed once he was done with the shower. He’d be able to tell I had lain on it, waiting for him.

Hayden was far from okay. Ever since he turned over the painting to Officer Miller, things had gotten worse. She called yesterday to inform him several sets of prints had been identified, and they had a few promising leads. They also confirmed blood spatter on the painting. Hayden had been asked to provide a blood sample to check if the spatter belonged to his parents, but we hadn’t heard anything about the results yet. I thought the progress would be a turning point for him. It was, but not a good one.

I hid the phone in my back pocket and peeked through the gap in the door. I didn’t want him to know I was talking to Cassie again. He’d grown suspicious of the number of calls I received from her. I told him she was worried, which wasn’t a lie. We all were. Lisa and Chris called almost as often, but no one could do anything to help.

Hayden’s back was to the spray, hands at his sides, head hanging low. He’d stay there until the water ran cold, sometimes longer. I’d had to forcibly remove him more than once over the past few days when his lips went blue from standing under the frigid water. After he was finished, he’d clean the bathroom. Again. He’d been like that with everything since we’d come home from the police station—cleaning and reorganizing to the point of obsession.

Nothing was good enough. Not the hospital corners on the sheets, not the line of pillows on the bed, or the shoes in the front hall closet. Yesterday he sat cross-legged on the floor for a good half hour, spacing and respacing the shoes until there was an inch between every pair and the heels lined up perfectly with each other. His compulsive tendencies had ratcheted up to frightening heights. I was reluctant to admit how severe it had become, for fear of what it meant.

“Hayden?”

His head snapped up and the glass door slid open. Water sluiced down his back and over his chest. My eyes followed the path. His hand went to cover himself. He hadn’t had an erection since the morning we went to the storage unit. I met his exhausted, anxious gaze. His eyes were bloodshot with dark circles under them.

“Is everything okay?” It came out a hoarse croak.

“Everything’s fine. I’m going to the kitchen to get a drink. I’ll only be a minute or two.”

After a long pause he replied, “Okay.”

I couldn’t leave the room without telling him. If he got out of the shower and I wasn’t there, he was liable to have a meltdown. It had happened yesterday.

“He’s in the shower,” I said once I was in the hall.

“Again? How many times is that today?”

“This is number three.”

He’d been taking upward of four showers a day. I didn’t know what to make of it.

“This isn’t good,” Cassie said.

“It’s getting worse.”

“You sound like you’re on the verge of tears.”

I had to put my hand over the receiver so I could clear my throat. “I’m okay. I’m just worried.”

Cassie sighed. “Tenley, this reminds me of what happened when his parents first died. I’m afraid it isn’t going to get better if we don’t intervene.”

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, though I suspected she was right. I dropped onto the couch. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Nate and I have been talking. He’s called in a favor and set up an appointment for Hayden this afternoon. It’s a little short notice, but we can come over and persuade him to go.”

“When’s the appointment?”

“Four.”

“That soon?” That was less than three hours from now. It didn’t give us much time for acts of persuasion.

“Do you think you can keep this up much longer?” Her tone was gentle but prompting.

I surveyed the living room. It was spotless. I was terrified to touch anything because Hayden knew immediately when I had. His quest for order was draining. I understood the reason behind it. His world and his mind were in utter chaos; he could control his environment.

“Let me see if I can convince him first. I don’t want him to feel ambushed.”

“Okay. But if you haven’t called back within the hour, Nate and I will come.”

I took down the details and hung up, shoving the paper in my back pocket. I wasn’t sure how I was going to broach the subject with Hayden, but he needed more help than I could give him.

TK jumped up on the couch and head-butted my hand. She’d been as jumpy as me over the past few days, unsure of Hayden’s unpredictable moods. One minute he was fixated on a task; the next he exploded out of frustration because he couldn’t get it right. I picked her up and pressed my nose into her fur, listening to her motor run.

“Tenley?” The high tenor reflected Hayden’s anxiety, as did the heavy thud of his feet coming down the hall.

“I’m in the living room,” I called out.

“I thought you were just getting something to drink—” He stopped short when he entered the room.

He had on boxer briefs and nothing else. His chest and shoulders were sprinkled with droplets of water, his wet hair standing on end. His hands sank into it and tugged hard, the concern switching to irritation.

“This place is a sty. There’s shit everywhere,” he barked, his accusatory glare on me.

My phone and the pen were on the coffee table. Nothing else was out of place as far as I could see. But based on Hayden’s current rigid standards, those two items constituted a mess.

“I’ll put it away—”

“I’ve got it.”

He grabbed the pen and put it back in the drawer, slamming it shut. I pocketed my phone and stayed put. Waiting. His hands went to his hips as his eyes traveled the room in search of misplaced items. The tension in his shoulders didn’t ease in the slightest.

“Where’s your glass?”

“I got distracted by TK.”

It was a partial truth. If I told him I put it in the dishwasher, he would check and know I was lying. He zoned in on TK, nuzzling my chin. His paranoia was painful to witness. Cassie was right.

“Why don’t you get dressed and I’ll make you something to eat,” I said gently, hoping if I did something nice I could smooth the transition to a conversation I didn’t want to have.

“I’m not hungry.”

“But you haven’t eaten today.”

“Because I’m not hungry,” he snapped.

His volume startled TK. She launched out of my lap and bolted down the hall, likely seeking refuge under the bed. I wished I could join her.

“Well, I am.” I gave him a wide berth when I passed him on my way to the fridge.

I collected the items necessary to make a sandwich and dumped them on the counter. My method of sandwich assembly was likely going to give him an aneurysm, but I needed to stay occupied while I figured out how to approach the topic. His hand went back to his hair as he watched me. I was glad it was too short to rip out at the roots.

I took four slices of bread out of the bag. Even if he wasn’t planning to eat, I was going to make him something.

“You should let me do that.” Hayden moved in, prepared to take over.

“I can manage.”

“It’s my kitchen.”

I bit back a comment about going back to my place to make food. He would freak out over the possibility of my being more than ten feet away from him.

“I think I can handle making a sandwich.”

“But you’ll make a mess.”

“Which I’ll clean up.”

He snorted with derision.

I slapped the Black Forest ham down on the cutting board and turned to face him. “Hayden, I love you, and I know you’re particular, but this is too much. Do you even realize what you’re doing?”

“It’s not my fault you can’t remember where to put things when you’re done with them.”

“Excuse me?”

“We both know you’re not very tidy.” He made it sound like a felony.

My cool slipped a little. “For Christ sake, Hayden, compared to you, Martha Stewart is a slob! I can deal with your compulsive organization. Most of the time I like that about you. But I can’t even make a sandwich without you crawling up my ass now!”

He blinked, taken aback that I’d raised my voice. “I’m not that bad.”

I clenched my fists to keep my hands from flailing. “You’ve been two steps behind me fixing my so-called mistakes for the last few days. It’s giving me a complex.”

His rigid stance deflated. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the counter, eyes on the floor. He bit down on the spot where the viper bites used to be.

“I can’t keep waiting for the bomb to drop, Hayden. You’re on edge all the time,” I said softly.

When he stalked across the kitchen, I put my hands up to fend him off. He walked right into my palms. He brushed my hair over my shoulders, fingers skimming my collarbone. “I don’t want to be up your ass like this. I’m sorry for being a dick.”

“You’re under a lot of stress.”

“I’d like to apologize.”

“Apology accepted. This week has been hard on you.” I wasn’t sure if I should trust his sudden shift in mood.

“I could do a better job, though.” His hand came around my backside. He pulled my phone out of my pocket and dropped it on the counter so he could grab my ass and squeezed.

Gone was the dissonant hostility, replaced with something altogether needy. Apparently, Hayden responded better to frustration than coddling.

“Sex isn’t going to make this go away,” I said.

“But it will make me feel better.”

I grabbed his forearms. His fingers were perilously close to places they shouldn’t be if I was to have any hope of finishing this conversation. “We need to talk first.”

“We can talk after.” His hands went down the back of my jeans.

“You’re evading.”

“I know. And you’re going to let me.” His lips parted against my neck, his tongue swept out, and his teeth followed. I closed my eyes and reveled in the sensation for a fleeting moment.

“You need to talk to someone,” I said, amazed my voice stayed steady considering his wandering hands and mouth.

“I’ll talk to you, after I’m done using my tongue for other things.”

“I mean a professional.”

He retracted his hands. His lips left my skin. I’d definitely gotten his attention.

“I can handle my own shit,” he bit out.

“Hayden, I love you more than anything, and I know this is bringing up a lot of things you’d rather not deal with—but I feel like a target, not an anchor. You’re not acting like yourself, and it’s frightening me.” Pretending everything was fine wasn’t an option anymore. “I can’t stay here if things don’t change.”

“You can’t– What do you mean?”

“I can’t walk on eggshells all the time.”

His eyes flared with panic. “So you’d fucking leave me?”

“No, Hayden—I won’t leave you. But I can’t stay here when you’re like this. It’s not good for either of us.”

“You’d go back to your apartment?”

“If this continues, I’ll have to.” My chest ached at the possibility, but I needed him to see what this was doing to us.

With more lip biting he mulled it over. “I don’t want to screw up this relationship. Not when I’ve just gotten you back.”

“So you’ll talk to someone?” I smoothed my hands over his shoulders.

“What if I don’t like it?”

If he agreed, he was going to sit down with a perfect stranger and talk about his past and his perceived shortcomings. He was not going to like it. But if I could get him to go once, I wasn’t above bribing him for subsequent visits.

“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to go back.” I didn’t say anything about finding a potential alternative. I’d worry about that later, if I needed to.

He sighed. “Fine.”

“You’ll go?”

“Yeah. I’m only committing to one session. We’ll see what happens after that.”

“That’s all I’m asking for. I’ll call Nate to confirm the appointment.”

“Wait. What?” His expression hardened.

The room suddenly felt small, and he was way too close. “Nate scheduled a tentative appointment. He said he had someone he thought you might like.”

“You talked to Nate about this?”

“I talked to Cassie. She talked to Nate. He suggested it and I agreed—for the reason we’ve just talked about.”

I was fully prepared for him to lose it on me, and for a moment I worried that was exactly what would happen. He glared at me, teeth grinding as his nostrils flared. I could sense his panic. I was sure he was mentally searching for a way to get out of this. The idea of confronting his past terrified him for obvious reasons.

“Please, Hayden. I love you. I want to stay, but it can’t be like this.” I put my hand on his chest.

He looked down to where my palm rested over his heart. He was silent for a minute. I started to drop my hand, but his came up to cover mine. “What time’s the appointment?”

“Four this afternoon.”

He was silent again. His fingers wrapped around mine and squeezed. Then, finally: “Okay. I’ll go.”