Текст книги "Surviving Ice "

Автор книги: K. A. Tucker

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

TWENTY-SIX

SEBASTIAN

I go for the latest records first, because I know that Ivy’s clients will be in there.

And because I’m hoping that Royce has a file in here, too. I need his address.

I need to find out more about him.

Ivy’s worked on a lot of customers in her seven months at the shop. I’m no longer wondering how she has a chunk of money saved. It’s not on account of any criminal side jobs. She just works really hard, and at two hundred bucks an hour, she’s earning a solid living for herself.

After twenty minutes of digging, I find the original paperwork Royce filled out. I fold it and tuck it into my back pocket just as Ivy passes by, tossing in two more box flats and several trash bags on her way. “You don’t have to do this, you know. I wouldn’t do it if I were you.”

I level her with a look. I don’t normally hold a grudge but I’m still pissed at her, even though she’s apologized.

I can’t help it. Bentley has the videotape now, so Alliance has no more use for Ivy, alive or otherwise. But Scalero, he has reason not to want her alive, a thought that’s been pricking at my mind since I pulled out of Bentley’s driveway this morning. An hour and a half later, that little prickle had grown into something more difficult to ignore.

And then I showed up at Dakota’s to find Ivy’s car gone.

I nearly came straight here, but I’m glad I went to the door first. Dakota told me she had left only ten minutes before, and where she was heading.

It’s one thing to have Ivy believing that a biker gang is somehow behind all this.

It’s an entirely different thing to have her confronting them about it. By the time I arrived at that auto shop, it was obvious Ivy and that big guy, Bobby, were well into it. The only other time I’ve had any direct experience with bikers in the past was in San Diego, and the shithead was waling on his woman outside a bar.

I wasn’t going to stand back and watch that happen again.

Ivy ducks out without another word, leaving me to this nightmare.

I could easily make my excuses and leave now.

I grab a trash bag.

I’ve survived eighteen months of intensive SEAL training.

I’ve survived two tours in Afghanistan.

I’ve survived thirteen assignments for Bentley that no one will ever talk about, or know about.

I’ve been shot, stabbed, blown up, and beaten.

But it’s the dozen paper cuts on my fingers that may finally break me.

“Fuck!” I curse as another page slices across my knuckle. I toss the bag aside and suck my knuckle to relieve the sting, just as Ivy speeds past. I expect a glance, a derisive snort, some mocking.

When she doesn’t even lift her head, I know that something’s wrong. She’s been on edge all day. When I got to the auto shop, it was clear by the look in her eyes that she was happy to see me. That didn’t stop her from punishing me for leaving so abruptly last night by giving me attitude. But this must be different.

Forgetting my personal woes, I make my way to her bedroom to find her crouching over her dresser, trying to lift it back to its upright position.

“That’s heavy. Let me help you with—”

“I’m fine!” she snaps, but her voice doesn’t carry its normal sharpness. It’s shaky and higher pitched. When I step closer, she hides her face behind a curtain of hair, turning away from me.

That’s when I know.

She doesn’t resist me when I scoop her up and settle onto the foam mattress—still basically intact—with her in my arms. She rests her head against my chest and my shirt grows damp with her tears, her entire little body shaking as she cries. But she barely makes a sound.

Ivy’s hard shell has finally cracked.

TWENTY-SEVEN

IVY

I didn’t cry the night of the robbery.

I didn’t shed a single tear at the funeral.

And now I can’t seem to stop.

I wasn’t even doing anything particularly nostalgic. Tossing Ned’s underwear and socks into a trash bag. Dumping his buttondown shirts and jeans into a box for Goodwill. Deciding what to do with his white wedding day suit that he’s kept all these years, insisting that he’d be buried in it when his time came, because the day he married Jun was the happiest day of his life, and he wanted to relive it for all eternity. His day came too early and forty pounds too heavy, unfortunately.

Then I started to think about how maybe none of this would have happened if he just hadn’t been gambling, and how I can’t believe I didn’t know about this mess with him and that guy Sullivan trying to take Black Rabbit from him. It was happening right under my nose and I didn’t have a clue, too busy poking fun at him for being old, while I lived in his house and ate his food and worked out of his shop.

And then the tears started to roll and wouldn’t stop, no matter how furiously I wiped at them.

I hate letting anyone see me cry, but I don’t have it in me—physically or emotionally—to push Sebastian away right now, and if I stop lying to myself for a minute, I’ll admit that it feels good to have him just hold me.

It actually helps.

“Thanks,” I mutter, wiping my cheeks. I pull away from my little nest against his chest and cringe, streaks of black mascara and eyeliner smeared all over the front of his white T-shirt. I can only imagine what my face looks like.

He doesn’t even flinch, though, his jaw working against itself, taut. The short beard that’s normally so well kept shows signs of disarray, like he didn’t have time to trim and edge it today.

“You look like you didn’t sleep last night,” I say.

“I didn’t. But I’ll be fine.”

What kind of errands would keep him up all night?

“Don’t look so worried.” He sighs and stretches his long legs out in front of him. We’re practically sitting on the floor, him on my mattress; me, on him. The muscles in his arms are cording, probably after holding me in this position for so long.

I try to move, to relieve him of that, but he squeezes, trapping me.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I warn him.

“Neither do I,” he fires back with a smirk. “But do you feel a bit better now?”

I nod slowly, because I do.

He opens his mouth but hesitates. “I told you about those three good friends I lost in the war?”

“Yeah.” The ones he watched die.

His Adam’s apple bobs with a hard swallow. “It doesn’t really sink in for a while. Weeks, sometimes months.”

Is that what this is? Is it finally sinking in? I thought it already had, back in the shop the day I finished Bobby’s tattoo. It would make sense, this utterly wretched sadness taking over. But then there’s that news from Bobby today.

I fill Sebastian in on everything I learned before he got there. He simply listens, his thumb rubbing back and forth over my thigh casually. Affectionately.

“What do you think it means?” Can Sebastian hear the shake in my voice? The twinge of fear?

He sighs, pushing my hair off my face, his gaze drifting along my features. “I think it means your uncle got involved with people you want nothing to do with.”

“I just wish I could remember something useful about that night. I keep hoping I’m just going to be hit with a detail that I somehow overlooked. Something that will help catch them.”

“You can’t put that pressure on yourself. You aren’t responsible for what happened. It had nothing to do with you.”

“But what if they come back? What if—”

He cuts my question off with a deep kiss, surprising me. With a slow roll, I suddenly find myself lying on the mattress, with Sebastian’s arm crooked beneath my neck and his mouth on my neck, his scruff scratching my skin but in the most seductive way—half ticklish, half torturous.

“I won’t let anything happen to you. Just listen to me next time.” His voice is low and gravelly, much like last night. I can feel him growing hard against my thigh.

And I’m overcome with relief that he’s not mad at me anymore. That I haven’t completely screwed everything up with him today, being so mule-headed.

“Because you’re a ninja?” My fingers tug at his soft T-shirt until it bunches in my hands.

I catch the smirk on his face as he lifts himself up enough to pull it over his head, uncovering that body I’ve come to love so much. “No, because I know how to keep people alive.”

“Don’t forget that I’m not paying you.”

His smirk widens into a full smile, watching me as I slide my own shirt up over my head. “Don’t worry, I haven’t.” He’s already zoned in on the front clasp of my bra. He pushes the button and the material springs off.

He’s resting on an elbow now, peering down at my bare upper half, his index finger trailing over my arm. “What do these mean?”

“A lot of things.”

Dark eyes flash to me. “Like what?”

“Like . . .” Do I want to tell him? I’ve been asked that question by many people before, including Amber, and I’ve never given the complete truth to anyone.

He looms over me, waiting.

“Like that one there.” I nod to the one he has his finger on—a classic weight scale with a tiny woman perched on one side, raised high while the empty side hangs low. “It means I’m nobody’s burden. I can take care of myself.”

A flicker of softness catches his eyes. “That’s important to you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. And this one”—I tap the mask that Ian did for me last year in Ireland—“is my mask, that I like to wear to keep people from seeing how I’m feeling.”

“And this one?” One by one, I describe each and every piece of ink on my arm. It’s been a seven-year process beginning on my eighteenth birthday. Well planned out, each component my own design that I handed to a trusted artist—there are very few of them—to etch into my skin.

Each piece deeply personal to me.

“This one?” Sebastian’s strong, large hands sweep over the beautiful woodland fairy that dances along my rib cage on my right side.

“That’s Iridessa, my fairy godmother. Ned used to tell me that she’d watch over me while I was sleeping. For years, I believed him.” That was one of my first pieces. Ned did it for me.

Sebastian’s long fingers trail along the bramble of ivy and sharp thorns that runs along my pelvis. “And this?”

That anyone who wants past it is going to have to work for it and accept a few wounds. “What do you think it means?” I say instead.

His hand slides past it, down the front of my leggings and into my panties. “That it doesn’t apply to me.”

Completely unabashed by how wet I am right now, I close my eyes and turn toward Sebastian, finding a corner of that thick, strong neck of his to lay my mouth on, tasting just a hint of salt on his skin. I love the taste of Sebastian, I decide, as I fumble over his belt buckle and zipper, quickly unfastening them so I can wrap my fist around him.

I groan in protest when his hand suddenly disappears, but I soon realize it’s only so he can pull my leggings down, over my hips and thighs. I help him, kicking my legs until they work their way down to my boots. They won’t get past those.

“I’m stuck,” I whisper.

“Are you?” He lifts his head to assess the situation, smiling a touch, before his gaze rakes over me and his hand lands between my legs once again.

I reach up to pull his face back to mine, but he’s already on the move, leaving a wet, ticklish trail across my nipples and down the center of my body with his tongue and his scratchy beard, all the way down until my thighs are resting on his shoulders and his hot breath is skating over me. Torturing me.

I lift my pelvis until I feel his mouth against me. He’s smiling, I can tell. I don’t care if he knows how much I want this. I am needy right now.

And with the first swipe of his tongue, I know that this isn’t going to take long at all.

The doorbell rings.

Sebastian pulls away.

“Ignore it,” I growl, reaching to pull his face back down.

He complies, his hands squeezing my thighs tight. I weave my fingers around the back of his head, relaxing as he keeps going.

Until my phone begins to ring. It’s Fez’s ringtone. He’s outside, with the truck.

I forgot about the truck.

“Dammit,” I curse. “Stop. This isn’t going to happen now.” Fez is doing me a huge favor, but he’s not the most patient guy out there. He’ll leave.

Sebastian lays a few kisses on the insides of my thighs and then climbs off the bed, tucking that impressive dick that I pulled out back into his pants. “I’ll be down . . . in a minute.” He leaves me to get dressed and ducks into the bathroom. To pee, to wash me off his face, to jerk off. Probably all three.

And I want to be in there to help him.

Throwing my clothes on, I storm down the stairs and throw open the door, chanting to myself, “Fez is helping me, Fez is helping me, Fez is . . .” so I don’t bite his head off the second I see him like the frustrated bitch I now am.

“Yo! I’m turning gray out here!” Fez exclaims.

“Sorry. Got caught up with something,” I mumble.

“We’re ready. Called up my homies, figured you could use the halp.” True to his word, the cube van is parked outside and open. Joker and Weazy are tossing the trash bags already on the curb in.

“Seriously?” Suddenly, I can deal with Fez’s weird obsession with slang. Three extra sets of hands and this place may be all cleaned up by tonight. “This is huge. I don’t know what to say.” I back up and let all three of them in.

“That face, though.” Fez cringes at me and the black mascara that I’m sure is streaking across my cheeks. “Channeling your inner Cruella de Vil?”

“Shut up.” He deserved it for that one.

Weazy and Joker step into the kitchen and let out a low whistle.

“It’s better than it was,” I say, reaching for another full trash bag to pass to them.

“Then it must have been a fucking wreck because damn . . . half the places in Mission look better than this,” Joker says, scratching his shaved head.

“Well, then I guess I’m lucky to have you three to help me, right?” I toss the broom to Fez. “Here. You’re good with one of these, right?” I give him a wink to soften the blow, as the guys start throwing jeers at him.

Sebastian’s heavy footfalls down the stairs quiet them.

“Oh, I see how it is. ‘Got caught up’?” Fez stares at me.

I just shrug. I don’t need to answer to any of these guys. “Hey, guys, this is Sebastian. Sebastian, these are the guys. You already know Fez.”

“The bro with the sick work, yeah.” Fez reaches out with a fist and, to my surprise, Sebastian responds with one of his own. If Fez knew that the “bro with the sick work” was really an ex–Navy SEAL and bodyguard, he’d have a full-on man crush in under ten minutes. And then trail Sebastian around, driving him nuts.

“Dude, I thought she wasn’t into dick?” I hear Weazy whisper to Joker from behind me.

“Seriously? She’s just not into yours.”

I shake my head at Sebastian, but he’s smirking. Speaking of dick . . . I drop my gaze.

Yeah, I know what he was doing in the bathroom.

“What time is dinner?” Sebastian asks from the edge of my bed at Dakota’s, kicking off his shoes.

“Dakota should be home in an hour.” I dry my hands at the bathroom sink and peer over to get a good look at him. He looks like hell. “You need to sleep.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “I’ll be fine.”

“Seriously, you were up all night, weren’t you? You can lie down for an hour.” I will, too, gladly. Beside him . . .

On top of him . . .

I guess we’ll see. Maybe I should actually let him sleep.

He sighs, but he’s smiling. “I was trained to stay awake for a lot longer than twenty-four hours.”

“Oh, yeah?” I wander over to help him lift his T-shirt off his body. It’s covered in drywall dust and dirt from hours of cleaning up. He could probably use a shower. Something else I’d like to try out with him, but maybe later. “What else were you trained to do?”

He eases back onto the bed, the springs creaking under his weight, to give me a good look at my work. It’s healing nicely. “All kinds of things,” he murmurs through a giant yawn.

I duck back into the bathroom to clean the smeared makeup off my face and brush my teeth, then decide that I really do need to hop into the shower to wash the day’s grime from my skin, with or without him. Ideally, with him.

“Hey, did you want to . . .” My voice drifts off. Sebastian is stretched out on his back, his arm beneath his head, snoring softly.

After my shower, I tiptoe to the other side and ease onto the bed in my towel, expecting him to wake up with the dip of the mattress. I mean, he was a Navy SEAL. Don’t they sleep light?

He doesn’t so much as twitch; he’s out cold, his normally taut jaw relaxed, his features almost boyish. So I simply lie there and watch him sleep for more than an hour as I fail at drifting off myself, until I hear the front door creak open and Dakota’s welcoming hum.

I duck out to the living room and let Sebastian rest.

TWENTY-EIGHT

SEBASTIAN

I wake with a start, my body jerking enough to shake the bed.

A soft moan beside me instantly brings me back to reality. I laid down in Ivy’s bed. It was close to four in the afternoon. I was going to just grab an hour, at most.

I glance at the window. It’s dark out now, the streetlight casting a dim light into the bedroom.

It’s . . . Holy shit. I’ve been asleep for almost eleven hours? I can’t remember the last time I slept this long without drugging myself with Ambien. And to not even stir when Ivy came around . . . No one’s ever been able to step into a room without my waking up before.

“You’re alive,” Ivy mumbles, tucked under the covers, her eyes still closed, her jet-black hair fanning across the pillow. “You missed dinner. I thought you might have died in your sleep.”

I can’t help but smile. “And you willingly crawled into bed with a corpse?”

“Corpses are quiet, and I was tired.”

“Did you even try to wake me?”

“Of course I did . . .” The words drag out in that tired, half-asleep way. “Then I stripped you down and took nude pictures of you with me, then with Dakota and with the bearded lady. Going to ask Fez to post them all over the Internet in the morning. You and Gerti are going to be famous.”

I frown. She seems coherent but she’s not making any sense. “Gerti?”

“The bearded lady from the circus. Dakota’s dinner guest tonight.”

“You’re kidding, right?” She says it all so deadpan, I’m beginning to wonder.

She sighs. “Not about the beard.”

I smile. But check my belt buckle all the same. “You’re cute when you’re half-asleep.”

“Half-asleep and naked,” she points out.

Just the thought of Ivy naked stirs my blood. Yesterday at the house, having to stop partway through was torture for me. By the looks she cast my way all afternoon, I left her just as frustrated. And then I fell asleep the moment we got here.

I reach under the bedsheet to find nothing but her warm flesh beneath. She rolls onto her back, letting the sheet fall away.

To entice me, I’m sure.

It works.

Ivy peers up at me through hazy, satisfied eyes. “I still can’t believe you slept that long. You must have been a shitty SEAL.”

“The worst.” I place a kiss on her forehead, and another one on the tip of her nose. “I’m going to duck out now.”

“Now? It’s five in the morning.”

“Do me a favor and stay put. I’ll call you.” When she doesn’t agree, I press. “I mean it, Ivy.”

“Fine,” she grumbles, rolling away from me, curling into her sheet.

The doorbell makes a low buzzing sound when I press the button. I wait, and a few minutes later I hear the footfalls coming from the other side. Whoever it is, they walk on their heels.

The door to the small pink house flies open and a disheveled woman appears, midway through pulling a short pink silk robe over her rumpled boxers and a white tank top—no bra, her small tits sagging in different directions. A waft of incense floats out the door with her movements.

I guess eight-thirty in the morning is a little early to be paying house calls. “Hi, is Dylan around?” I ask.

She looks me up and down, tucking her yellow-blond hair behind an ear and then folding her arms self-consciously over her chest. “Who are you?”

“My name’s John. I was in Afghanistan with him.” I know enough about the Marine Corps to get by. I just hope she doesn’t know enough to ask too many questions.

“How’d you get this address?” she asks, her eyes pinched with suspicion.

This must be the cheating girlfriend that Dylan was talking about in the video. She’s not particularly friendly, but that could just be the situation. Either way, she may have useful information about her ex. “Dylan gave it to me awhile back. Told me to stop by when I was in town again. I tried emailing him but never got an answer, so I figured I’d just surprise him.” I have no idea how long Royce was living here, but thanks to Bentley’s recon, I do know that he wasn’t living here when he died.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Dylan was shot and killed a couple weeks ago.” Her voice wobbles. Bad breakup or not, she’s obviously upset by it.

I slide my glasses off because that’s the appropriate thing to do, though I’d rather keep my eyes hidden. “Seriously?” Luckily I can pull off a compelling cool, shocked reaction very easily. “What happened?”

She gives me the basic rundown—nothing that anyone who read the newspaper article wouldn’t know about.

“Man, I’m just so . . . this is crazy.”

“I know, right?” She swallows, blinks back the glossiness in her eyes. “I mean . . . we actually broke up a few weeks before that and then this happens. Shocking, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. I hadn’t talked to him in at least five months. Maybe longer. He was still over in Kabul with Alliance.”

“Oh.” She sneers. “Those assholes. They didn’t even send flowers to his funeral. I know he wasn’t working for them anymore, but—”

“He wasn’t?”

She shakes her head. “They fired him.”

“They fired him? He’s earned a damn Medal of Honor! Why the hell would they do that?”

She shrugs. “Dylan changed a lot after he started working for those guys. You know how he was.” She waves a hand my way. “He used to laugh and clown around. He was so happy and helpful. Just a genuinely good guy. But after he went back with them . . . he wasn’t the same guy anymore. He was angry. He started doing drugs. Something there changed him.”

I wish she had told me something different. That he was an abusive drunk, that he had always been a dick. Something that might suggest he was no better than Mario when it came to those poor girls, that he deserved the bullet.

“This is awful news.”

“I know. I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you.”

I pause. “I’d love to go see his mother and offer her my condolences. Would you happen to have her address?”

She studies my face—I twitch against the urge to reach up and touch my jaw; I shaved the beard off this morning, and it feels strange to be clean shaven after so many years under shadow. But if I’m going to be showing my face around San Francisco, digging for information, I need to make a small effort to camouflage my usual self.

A small smile touches her pale lips. She’s pretty enough, in a boring, average way. Not an exotic Ivy way. “Sure. Hold on a sec.” She disappears, leaving the door open a crack. I could slip in there now, end her life and stroll out, no one the wiser. It never ceases to amaze me how easily people trust strangers, how many simple mistakes they make that allow the wrong person into their homes, into their lives. Even Ivy, as street smart and suspicious as she is, has allowed me into her bed.

That’s not to say she’s oblivious, that she isn’t quietly wondering about me.

Ivy didn’t say much more about what the biker told her about her uncle, his gambling issues, and the sizable debt he accrued. I’m sure it’s still percolating, but she won’t show it. That’s the way she operates. And that mind of hers, it’s a sharp, dangerous thing because she’s already figured out all on her own the gist of her uncle’s fuckup: He had something he was trying to sell, and it got him killed.

“Here.” Royce’s ex-girlfriend hands me a Post-it note with an address in Sunset scribbled on it in blue pen. “If you don’t mind, could you also pass this bag of Dylan’s things along? Just a few things that he left behind.”

I take the bag, silently thanking her. This will make my next stop easier. “And, again, I’m sorry for your loss.” I feel her eyes on my back as I march down the steps and head down the street to where I parked.

Dylan’s mom lives in a small bungalow in one of San Francisco’s biggest neighborhoods. I used to hang out here a lot in my teenage years. It’s close to the beach and lots of college kids rent out places. I woke up in more than one random bed around here, back in the day.

Now that I’m walking up the street, I’m rethinking the wisdom of speaking with these people. I’ve always followed the rule that I don’t make contact unless absolutely necessary. That’s how I remain an effective ghost.

But my need to know more about Royce overrides my common sense at this point.

I’m just about to turn from the sidewalk onto the path that leads to his mom’s mint-green door when I hear a whimper coming from behind the fence that wraps around the side of the house. A small black snout pokes out.

I smile.

The woman’s eyes widen as soon as she opens the door and sees the golden hairball—a Pekingese, or some version of it—squirming in my grip.

“Ma’am. She was running along the street. Her collar says that she belongs here.”

Her hands go to her chest with shock. “But how did she get out of the backyard?” She looks from the dog—Fefe, from the tag—to her left, to the yard beyond the house. “I just let her out to do her business.”

“The gate is open.”

She frowns. “No. It can’t be. I remember latching it last night. Unless . . .” I watch closely as the poor woman—in her late sixties, by the level of wrinkles around her jaw and eyes—doubts her memory. Deep bags hang beneath her eyes. The dazed eyes of a woman who just lost her son and hasn’t wrapped her head around it yet.

Fefe finally twists her body enough that I can’t hold on any longer without hurting her. So I bend down and gently herd her into the house.

“Oh, goodness. Thank you so much, young man. She could have been hit by a car,” she says, silently accepting that maybe she did forget to latch it. I feel only slightly bad for deceiving her, but rescuing a dog is a surefire way to earn a senior citizen’s instant trust.

“Are you by any chance Dylan Royce’s mother?”

She pauses, frowns. “Yes.”

“I was on my way here anyway. I wanted to offer my condolences. My name’s John. Dylan was a friend of mine. I’m very sorry for your loss, ma’am.”

Her eyes begin to water as her head bobs up and down in silent thanks. “It was terrible. He survived so many years in the war and then he was shot in a tattoo parlor, right here in his own city.” She produces a tissue from a pocket and blows her nose. “Would you like to come in for coffee?”

That was even easier than I had expected.

“Here he is, receiving his medal.” She taps on the picture of her son, shaking hands with the president. “I never saw his father more proud of Dylan than on that day. When he passed away six months later, it was as a happy man.”

“I can understand why.” An hour after sitting down to a pot of hot coffee, listening patiently as a devastated mother showcases his local hero medals, and his time as a volunteer firefighter, with letters from little girls and boys who thanked him for saving their kittens from trees and dogs from house fires; a picture of a baby he delivered on the side of the freeway. To top it all off, the highest medal that anyone can receive.

I’m now all but convinced that Royce was not the troublemaker that Bentley painted him as. And if he was, it’s probably because he didn’t agree with what he was seeing over there.

And that is what got him killed.

And no one will ever know the truth, thanks to me.

I’m not sure what I expected to feel after I confirmed this hunch, but it’s not this sickly pain in the pit of my stomach.

His mom sniffles. “As much as I hated what happened to Dylan and Jasmine, I was so happy to have him back home for a while, to help me with cutting the grass and taking out the trash, all those house things. Taking care of this house is a lot of work for just me.”

I glance around at the small tidy house, in need of a good purge that I’m guessing won’t happen until after she’s gone. “Do you have any family in the area?”

She shakes her head. “My sister lives near Syracuse with her kids. They asked me to move there, but I can’t handle the snow. So it’s just me and Fefe now.” At the sound of her name, the little dog runs up to paw at her thigh. Royce’s mom leans over and scoops her up, giving the top of her head a kiss. “I can’t thank you enough. Had I lost her, too, I don’t know that I could handle it.”

“My pleasure, ma’am. Glad I could help.” This woman has helped—and burdened—me so much more.

“Isn’t that right, Fefe? You should say thank you to this man.” Royce’s mother looks up at me and smiles. “She just loves company. The detective on the case has been over a few times and she’s always at his ankles.”

I fight to keep my face calm, curious. So Fields has been here? “Have they told you whether they have any leads?”

She shakes her head through a sip of coffee. “They don’t seem to know anything. At first they said it was a robbery. Then they said it was likely a disagreement between the shop owner and someone. And then, just a few days ago, that Detective Fields started asking questions about Dylan’s old job at that company.”

“Alliance.”

“Yes. Them.”

“Are they thinking this is related to his old job?” This could just be routine questioning. This detective may just be doing his job thoroughly.

“They’re looking at all possibilities, he told me.” She shrugs. “He took my album, though. The one I made with all the pictures Dylan sent me over the years while on deployment. He promised he’d give it back to me when he’s done. It’s all I really have left of my son.”

A sinking feeling hits my stomach. “Pictures of him with the Marines?”

“Yes.” She smiles sadly. “He knew I loved getting pictures from him, seeing him safe and sound. Most times he’d just email them over, but I’d print them out and put them in this big square scrapbook. He kept doing it while he was at Alliance, though he wasn’t sending nearly as many pictures by the end.”

Which means there’s a chance that Fields now has an album with pictures of both Mario and Ricky.

Fuck. If he puts two and two together, then Ivy’s eyewitness testimony is all the more important.