Inked

by Drew Elyse

  Did she just…

  “You love me?” I couldn’t bring my voice above a whisper. I didn’t fucking have it in me. Hearing her say that, I wasn’t even sure how I was standing.

  “Get out,” she ordered, her voice down low just like mine.

  “Jess—”

  “No,” she cut in. “Go. Now. Until you know what’s important. Until you decide if you’d rather be the you I thought you were, the one that it would mean something when he swore to defend that badge, I don’t want to see you.”

  No. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t leave her now.

  “Goddess,” I tried again.

  “Get out!”

  The raw emotion bleeding from her made my stomach drop. I never wanted to make her feel that way. Especially not now, with everything else going on.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it. I’d fucked up, I could see that plain as day.

  “Just. Go.”

  I felt the presence of Parker at the edge of the room, knew the unspoken message there. His loyalty was to Jess, and he’d remove me if he had to. I could fight him, but that wasn’t doing anything for her. It would only upset her more.

  “Okay,” I agreed, the word like ash in my mouth. “I’ll go. But I’ll be out there, making sure you’re safe.” Her head had dropped, eyes on her feet while her arms wrapped protectively around her middle. The pose was like a knife through the heart. She didn’t respond in any way. “I’m going to fix this. I promise you that.”

  Still, she didn’t acknowledge that I’d spoken.

  Once again, I did the only thing I could. Unfortunately, this time when I walked away, I was the only one at fault.

  When I got back outside, there was a familiar car parked behind mine on the street, and an even more familiar person getting out.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Jack leaned back against the driver’s door. “Honestly? I was concerned you might not be able to call it a night. Didn’t want my partner getting into any shit.”

  Translation: If I got wind of any lead, I’d follow it and possibly kill the fucker if I found him.

  It seemed everyone close to me was seeing that in me tonight. Was that actually what I would have done?

  It scared the fuck out of me that I couldn’t be certain.

  “I don’t have any other leads to follow.”

  “But you’re leaving,” he observed.

  I sighed. “You were right.” He raised an eyebrow, waiting for me. “‘Be careful,’” I echoed his warning back. “She’s fucking pissed.”

  He nodded. “She’s a good woman. She might not have a problem with how those guys do things, but that doesn’t mean she’d want you putting your ass on the line that way.”

  That he’d seen that and I’d been blind to it only chafed more. It was my responsibility to know her mind, to live up to the expectations she had of me since she was the type to only want what she knew I could deliver, and I’d failed.

  “I guess I’m watching from out here tonight.” I wanted to be up there with her, but I’d blown that chance.

  “Go home,” Jack ordered. Seeing I was about to protest, he added, “I’ll stay here, keep watch. You need to go home and figure out what you’re doing from here. Sitting outside her place isn’t the way to do it.”

  This wasn’t her place, I wanted to shoot back. No, since the first night she’d spent in my bed, that had become where she belonged. I wasn’t even sure I could deal with sleeping there alone.

  Still, Jess needed me gone. Being right outside in my car, something she’d probably check for, wasn’t gone.

  “Thanks, man,” I said, agreeing.

  When I was in my car, I took out my phone and shot off a text to her. I knew she needed space, but I needed her to know she was protected, even though I’d left.

  Me: Jack is outside. Dark blue crossover, my usual spot. If you need anything.

  Knowing she was at least safe, if not entirely well, I drove my sorry ass home.

  Hours later, I found I was right. I could barely manage to sleep in that bed knowing she wasn’t there because of my fuck up. Even if I’d just owned up to what I knew I’d been doing at some level, it might have made all the difference. Instead, I’d denied it even when confronted. So my ass got to have a cold, empty bed.

  Pathetic as it was, all I could do when I closed my eyes was smell the bit of her perfume lingering on the sheets. It was enough to send me back into the thoughts of how royally I’d screwed this all up. Eventually, after the fourth time I woke up and was struck by that miserable feeling, it wasn’t worth trying anymore.

  That was how I’d ended up in the living room, the magnified, reprinted shots of the photographs Jess was sent scattered across my coffee table.

  Somewhere in there, there had to be a lead.

  These were images from within his own house. They were a monument to the twisted obsession he had with her, like a window into his fucked up mind. Until I was sure I’d scoured every inch, I wasn’t giving up.

  This was the way I should have been working. With evidence that could hold up, things offered up freely by the perp himself. That shit with the Disciples, hacking, hunting down an innocent civilian, that wasn’t me.

  Jess had been right about that.

  Now my focus was on actual police work, which meant pouring over the evidence to be sure there was nothing I was missing.

  I’d started with the room itself, trying to glean any information I could from it. Since the focus of his images had been to taunt Jess and no doubt everyone involved in looking for him with his sick shrine, there wasn’t much besides it in the image. There were no windows in the frame that could give any view outside. No truly distinctive features. The flooring looked like wood, though a couple too-similar patterns to them made me guess they were laminate. There were no indications from the walls or baseboards that we were looking for a distinctly old building or necessarily something brand new. Any number of homes or apartments in the area could look very much the same inside.

  One thing it did reveal was that he was not someone in her building. The management there had every floorplan type online. None had any bedrooms with a wall of that approximate width without windows. Wherever he was hiding out, he hadn’t been canvased by the units sent to do that.

  All that meant the only hope we had, for now, was in the pictures he’d collected.

  One by one, I’d studied each. I’d been through her social media accounts already, marking every picture that was viewable via those. Even if it required being her friend, she’d admitted she didn’t particularly screen those requests given the variety of people she met through Sailor’s Grave and the marketing efforts she did even with her personal accounts for the shop. Even if we went through every friend on her list, there was no telling what information was true on any of those.

  I did the same process with every picture online connected with Sailor’s Grave. Then, with a list provided by Sketch and verified by Carson, sites for every convention and event she’d done with the shop.

  It was the sheer volume of pictures left that couldn’t be accounted for from those sources that first started to prickle at me. None of these were recent. It wasn’t a case of a freak with a camera of his own. She wasn’t caught behind her desk, or walking down the street, or leaving her apartment. All of these were shots taken by others.

  In fact, nearly all of what was left were professionally done.

  According to Jess, a lot of the modeling work she’d done had been for clothing retailers, wearing items for the online or catalog listings. Those sorts of images didn’t stay widely available for years. They were only up as long as what she was being used to sell was available. Which meant he’d had to collect them when they were live.

  “Fuck,” I whispered.

  He’d been stalking her for years.

  I frantically searched each remaining shot, cataloging my way backward through her tattoos and piercings. Tracing the images back to the ol
dest one, the youngest, least inked image I could find.

  And there it was. The whole image was partially covered by another, but Jess was in full view. A Jess that looked like a child still. This was no professional photo. In it, fresh-faced and smiling, was Jess in a bikini. The only modifications to be seen were the dot of a piercing in her belly button, and the shadow of a single rose peeking from the underside of her arm.

  Heart in my throat, rage burning in my belly, I snatched the photo and ran out the door.

  Andrews was already at the station when I went barreling in. One look at his desk and I saw the same images I’d been studying for hours. That, the fact that he’d been at it as hard as I had, was why even as I’d been nosing my way into the investigation, I’d never given him shit for not finding the asshole.

  “Look, man, I’m trying,” he started defending straight off.

  “I know, but I’ve got something.”

  Rumor had it that Andrews had a history of aligning with the Disciples himself, so it wasn’t like he was always on the captain’s best side. He glanced over at the dark, empty office that our boss was luckily not in despite it being nearly nine, then back to me. “What do you have?”

  I dropped my own marked-up prints onto his desk, pointing at that bikini-clad young Jess. “This image, it’s not one from modeling, and it isn’t anywhere on her social media.”

  He nodded. “That was one I was still looking at. Seems to be the earliest.”

  “She’d be seventeen or eighteen there,” I confirmed. “I know when she got that piercing and tattoo done. It also wasn’t long before she got more. Her second was on her shoulder, so it’d be visible in this picture.”

  He studied the picture closely. “You’re sure?”

  “Certain. She told me the whole story of getting those done.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. “So either our guy knew her then, or he tracked down someone that would have and got ahold of this.”

  “The long trail of images throughout that time makes the second seem unlikely,” I pointed out. The images he’d collected started there, following nearly everything from the time she left home on.

  “Why follow her for so long without reaching out?” he mused. “She said she was sure there was nothing off until right before the attack.”

  I didn’t know. I couldn’t begin to figure out where the fuck the guy’s head would be to do any of this shit. Even as crazy as I’d been for Jess from the beginning, I’d never have followed her so closely.

  And only a monster would have done to her what he had in her apartment.

  “You have any idea where to go from here?”

  I had one, no idea where it would lead, but it was something. “That picture is from about the time she left home. Did that with a pair of twins, Beverly and Cade.”

  A short search landed us on a Beverly Strock in Jess’s friend list. Her information was hidden, but Andrews started a search on her.

  “She’s dead,” he announced a few minutes later.

  “What?”

  He tilted his screen toward me, but said, “Found dead three months ago. OD. Marked as suspected suicide.”

  Fuck. Jess hadn’t mentioned Beverly passing. I wondered if she even knew. I rubbed at my eyes, wondering how the fuck I would deliver that news on top of everything else. When, at the moment, I wasn’t sure Jess would even speak to me.

  Either way, she deserved to know this.

  “Be back,” I said to Andrews, taking my phone over to my own desk.

  I called Jess, listening to it ring, then connect to voicemail. Shit. She was asleep or ignoring me, and I strongly suspected it might even be both.

  After the beep, I started talking.

  “Hey, goddess,” I swallowed, trying to clear my hoarse voice. “I know you need time now. I’m sorry. I want to give you that, but I’m at the station and I just learned something I think you need to know. You don’t have to talk to me beyond that if you don’t want to, but please just call me back.”

  It wasn’t what I wanted to say. I wanted to fucking grovel, but I wasn’t going to do that. It wouldn’t get me anywhere with Jess, anyway. My woman needed action, not words. I knew that. I just had to figure out how that worked here.

  When I set that aside for the time being and went back to Andrews’ desk, he was on the phone.

  “Fuck,” he cursed. “You get anywhere with that?” He listened, and the tension that settled into his body echoed in my own. “Right. Thanks.”

  He hung up and didn’t explain right off. “What was that?” I prompted.

  “The report indicated there was an investigation into Beverly’s death. So I put in a call to the local department. The guy I spoke to said there wasn’t a note to indicate suicide, but there were loads of diary entries with suicidal ideation and even some specifically discussing using pills.”

  There was a strain to his voice that told me straight out that there was more. “What?” I demanded.

  “Entries also indicated that she’d been physically and sexually abused by her brother.”

  Fuck.

  “Was he questioned?”

  Andrews shook his head slowly. “They wanted to bring him in, but he couldn’t be found. His apartment was cleared out. Except for what looked to be hundreds of pieces of tape strewn across a wall, all looking like they’d once held something there.”

  No.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jess

  The next morning, I left the room, finding Park already set up with a cup of coffee. He must have woken up and showered while I was getting ready for the day.

  Seeing that I was done up, set to walk out the door any minute, he asked, “You talk to Braden?”

  “No,” I replied, pouring myself a cup.

  “But you’re going somewhere,” he stated the obvious.

  “I’m going to work.”

  He set his mug down and I prepared for the upcoming lecture. “Are you sure that’s best after last night?”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  He shot me a look that told me to cut the shit. “Look, I hesitate to bring it up, but there were rules put in place about you being at work.”

  Rolling my eyes at the reminder, I shared, “Sketch has a full schedule of clients today. There has been no mention of canceling or moving those. They’re all still on the calendar as of this morning.”

  “I think the situation might have changed a bit overnight.”

  “Those pictures weren’t put in the mailbox yesterday,” I stated. “Whatever threat there might be, it was exactly the same as the last few days and I’ve been into work during that time. I can’t just hide forever.”

  He didn’t look convinced.

  “Look, I’m going in. You can call whoever you need to and tell them that, but it won’t change anything. Are you going in early with me or not?”

  Knowing well enough that there was nothing he or anyone else could say to change my mind, I actually saw the fight leave him and his body slump. “Fine.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  I unlocked the front door of the shop, heading for the alarm panel while Park trailed behind me.

  “Yeah,” he said into the phone. “We’re already in.”

  He was on the phone with Sketch, informing him of our movements and my decision to come into work. I started to walk away once I’d turned the alarm off, but Parker snapped twice, drawing my attention. He had the door closed behind him, phone still to his ear, and he jabbed a pointed finger at the panel. Understanding he’d gotten orders to leave it armed for now, I rolled my eyes and reactivated it.

  Letting him deal with the boss, I went to my desk to boot up the computer. A minute later, Park was there holding the phone out to me. Sighing for what seemed like the millionth time in the last few weeks, I took it.

  “Yes, boss man?”

  “Don’t be cute,” he snapped. “Why are you there?”

  “I work here.”

  “Jess,” he gro
wled.

  “Unless there’s a concrete reason to believe I shouldn’t be, I’m not sitting in that apartment anymore. We’ve already had that fight. You lost,” I reminded him.

  I could physically feel his frustration through the phone. “If I didn’t fucking need you, I’d fire your stubborn ass.”

  “Your wife would never let you.”

  He didn’t argue because he knew I was right.

  “I’m having breakfast with my girls. I’ll be in in an hour.”

  “Righty-ho.”

  He hung up on me.

  Apparently, in the people-pleasing stakes, I was rocking 0-2 for the day. Oh well, can’t win them all.

  I returned Park’s phone to him, pointedly moving my attention to my computer. His footsteps moved through the shop, and a few minutes later I heard the distinct rattling of spray paint cans and then low metal music turning on, alerting me that he was in the back room working on a piece, which was good. We’d been getting more requests for wall art from all the artists than we had the stock to fulfill.

  There was a buzz, and I looked over to see my phone light up with Braden calling.

  At some level, I knew I’d been harsh. He’d spent the better part of the night—and weeks before that even—trying to protect me. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate that.

  I just didn’t want to think that he was the type of guy who would so dramatically change his morals that way.

  I told him I love him, I thought again.

  I hadn’t meant to do that, that was for sure. I hadn’t been even close to actually deciding if I was there after my conversation with Liam. And then I’d just gone and blurted it out. The scariest part was, I wasn’t sure I even regretted saying it. Though I certainly regretted saying it in that moment. I wasn’t really sure I could have picked a worse one.

  Staring at the phone as it buzzed away, knowing I wasn’t going to answer, only confirmed what a spectacularly terrible moment I’d picked.

  I love you, but I don’t want to hear your stupid voice right now, or I might lose it.