by Cat Porter
“You can’t take your eyes off it, can you?” I asked.
“Give it here.”
I carefully laid it in her arms, the fabric gliding over our skin.
“Go,” I ordered.
Kicking off her shoes, she went into her back room.
I gave her a few minutes. “Honey, you need help?” I stepped into the room and my heart thudded in my chest.
Hell yes, best Fairy Godmother ever.
“It’s perfect. This color on you—it’s even better than I hoped.” I smoothed my hands down her back and across her waist. “Fantastic,” I murmured to myself.
Her skin trembled under my touch, and my eyes went to hers in the mirror. “Hon, you okay?” I stood up again and put my arms around her, my chin on her shoulder. “Tania, what’s wrong?”
“You’re amazing,” she said, her voice small. “This is a beautiful work of art. I feel beautiful.”
“Babe, you are beautiful. Only you could carry this one off. The color on you is—”
“Stunning. Somewhere between blood and wine.”
“Exactly. Your eyes really pop, and your skin is glowing, that dark, shiny hair.”
She pressed a hand against her middle. “I don’t even mind my tummy.”
“Stop. Your body looks great. I think you’ve lost a few pounds lately. Stressed out much?”
“Just a tiny little bit.”
“And don’t say a word about that ass. It’s glorious.” My hand slid down the curve of her hip.
She let out a small breath, her eyes ungluing from her reflection.
“What is it, Tania? What’s wrong?”
“I haven’t felt this way in a long, long time.”
“What way is that?”
“You know what I mean.”
I squeezed her hip. “Say it out loud right now while you’re feeling that shit.”
She met my gaze in the mirror once more. “I feel like the me I want to be. The me I’ve always wanted to be, but was never usually on the outside—sexy, in charge of myself. Powerful. Bold.”
I gripped her arms. “That’s the Tania I know. This one right here. Very powerful. Very bold.”
“That’s the act I put on for everyone. Or when my back is up against the wall.”
“No.”
“Yes. There’s a part of me that’s still a scared little girl. Scared of the dark, scared of twisty roller coasters, scared without her daddy, scared of bikers wielding knives.”
My chin lifted. “That’s not the Tania I know. No. This Tania is only scared of being alone, of not being enough.”
She bit down on her wobbly lower lip, a tear slipping down her cheek. Her fresh scar visible on her chest.
I pressed into her. “I know. Don’t I know?” My voice a hoarse whisper.
“You know.”
I wiped the tear from her face. “Hadn’t we said no more tears?”
“Tell me you’ve kept to that deal all these years.”
I made a face. “Nope.”
“Didn’t think so. Me neither.”
I sniffed in air. “It’s all right. We’re tough, you and me.”
Tania covered my hand with hers. “I’m glad you’re in my life again, whatever your name is.”
I laughed.
This is what mattered. This.
Tania pressed the side of her face against mine. Her peppery flower scent rose between us, capturing the rush of emotion in my veins like a snapshot.
“I really, really am glad,” she said.
I wouldn’t have made it without you. “Me, too.”
A small smile tugged on the edge of my mouth. “You’re really falling for Butler?”
“Yes,” she breathed, her lips pressing together.
“You’re questioning it? Maybe it’s too soon after your husband, and you need to be on your own for a while?”
“I’ve been on my own for years and years. That’s not what I want.”
Such conviction.
“Then, what is it?” I asked.
“I’m questioning myself. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to go the distance.”
“That’s the fear talking.”
“Says the expert.”
“We’re talking about you now,” I shot back.
“I don’t want to screw this up. He and I are both screwed up enough as it is. How many second chances do you get in life anyhow?” Tania’s teeth snagged on her bottom lip.
Second chances. I’d felt there were no more “chances” to be had for me, that I’d used them all up. That fact was riveted deep after all this time, holding my tattered soul in place, otherwise it would jump out of my skin and leave a zombie behind.
I’d become a rocket blasting into the air, only to nosedive and crash back into the nameless field from which it came. No sprint through the stars, no landing on fresh, unchartered territory. Some nights, I still smelled the fumes over my ashes.
I refocused my attention on the gorgeousness that was Tania in the scarlet corset. Here I was urging her to grab her second chance by the balls. And what was I doing?
She smoothed a hand over the side of the fabric. “I want to be with Butler like I’ve never been with anyone before, ever. But now he knows that I’m keeping a secret from him. A secret involving Finger. I haven’t told him all of it. Nothing about you.”
Tania was having to keep secrets for me from her lover. This situation certainly wasn’t fair. She needed to be unfettered. I was trying to do that for her with this corset, but she really needed something else from me, didn’t she?
And so did I.
I turned her around and leaned her forehead against mine. “You’re a good friend, Tania.” I planted a gentle kiss on her lips.
Tania and I never got involved sexually again after the motel with Finger. The threesome had been my idea, and I’d made her feel safe and beautiful, and she’d given the same to me. She given all of herself to me and Finger, helping us get past the fresh sting of our hell. That intense, burning level of frankness between us had never diminished.
Tania cleared her throat. “I need to tell you something. Cards on the table. I can’t keep it from you, and I don’t ever want you to think that—”
“What is it?”
“After you left him, after you...”
“After I broke him, you mean?”
When he’d seen me with Eric, pregnant with Beck.
She shifted her weight. “Yeah. He and I, we bumped into each other after that and...”
Oh man.
They’d had a relationship? A thing?
An ache bloomed in my chest, gathering force, sweeping up my throat and down my limbs. An invading army marching across my tattered battlefield. But it wasn’t jealousy that marched through me with every soldier’s heavy footstep. No, it was an acute sense of sadness. Displacement. Guilt, even.
I held up a hand, shaking my head at her, stopping the booming tromp of words I didn’t want to hear. I’d hurt him, I’d left them both behind, and they’d been there for each other.
“You don’t have to explain, Tania. I’m glad that he had you in his corner. I’m glad he tried to forget.”
She threw her head back. “Dear God, you are so wrong! He did it to remember.”
My heart stopped.
Those soldiers lined up before me, and I backed up against a wall.
Ready.
Aim.
Tania’s eyes pinned me to that wall. “His passion for you is some kind of fury. A fury whose fangs and claws have sunk deep. A fury that won’t let go. A damn tidal wave of love, anger, pain, desolation. A tidal wave that won’t quit. And he tortures himself with it.”
My breath burned in my lungs. She’d just described my soul.
“He got on with his life,”
I said. “So did I.”
“Yeah, he sure did. Just like you did.” A flicker of derision crossed Tania’s face. “Oh, there were the usual women. An old lady here, and another one there. They never lasted long though. Not one.”
“Well, I’m glad he had you.”
How long did it go on for? Did I want to know? It didn’t matter. It really didn’t. Why shouldn’t he have tried for happiness with Tania?
“Oh Lenore, we were only two people grabbing at something we couldn’t have.”
I plucked the shopping bag off the floor. “It has nothing to do with me.”
“That is such bullshit, and you know it! It was all about you!” Tania’s voice snapped. “You have to let him in. You have to tell Finger. I won’t ever. I made you that promise. But you have to tell him.”
To tell him would upset and shock him, and he’d probably hate me. To not tell him held up the barrier between us, a barrier I couldn’t pretend wasn’t there and enter into a relationship with him, casual or otherwise. Hell, there was no casual between us. That wasn’t us.
Either way, I’d lose him. Either way.
I folded the bag and placed it on a nearby box.
“Who’s afraid now?” Tania asked. “Finger knows I know more than I’ve been letting on. Honey, the other night was crazy.”
I’d pulled a gun on him, for fuck’s sake.
“He was so angry,” I said. “He got angry at you, too.”
“Yes, he did. But that’s because he felt powerless. He wants to help you, and he doesn’t know how. He’s desperate to reach you.”
My stomach curled at the memory of his very real desperation to reach me that night, to be good to me, to make me feel safe, to make me feel the emotion he still carried for me. That we were still possible.
If only I would—
My hands went over my ears.
“You still love him.” Tania pulled my hands from my head. “Can’t you say it? Why can’t you say it?”
Because the truth would slice deep. “Too much has happened.”
“No. You have to be brave. You have to be brave enough to act on that love.” Lacing our fingers together, Tania whispered, “How brave are you, Rena?”
I raised my head high. Since I’d met Finger, all I’d done was act bravely on that love. Everything I’d done was for that love.
Swords had hung over our heads, pendulums had swayed across our chests, we’d stood in line for our turn at La Guillotine. And yet, through all of that, all of it, we’d loved.
And now? Now that the way was clearer than ever before?
Still had to be brave. Still had to fight for it, risk for it.
I held Tania’s eyes. “How brave are you?”
61
Back in my office, I searched online for every Lenore’s Lace ad. All of them were of her. Her face never in view, but she showed off her terrific body draped and wrapped in her sexy lingerie and her unique swirl of tats. So many tats. Over her body lay an epic composition in ink, woven with beautiful and menacing images. From behind vines and flowers and suns and moons and sparkling stars, lay savagery: a fanged beast with bloody claws ripping at a princess, a fairy angel dancing with a shrieking demon, a dragon rising over a hill of flames. A bleeding eye. Lenore had composed a restless, disturbing, oddly hopeful, gruesome baroque symphony.
I enlarged each photo, scrutinizing each compass on her torso, her ass, her upper back, her chest, the inside of a thigh. Each was paired with a series of numbers. Eight in all. I emailed them all to Den.
— Find these locations —
Within minutes, he sent me a list of locations. I ticked off each spot.
Missoula, Montana - where she was born
Emmet, Kansas - Med’s Smoking Guns chapter
Chicago, Illinois - her refuge with Tania
Elk, Nebraska - my Flames of Hell chapter
Los Angeles, California - where she got married and her son was born
Rapid City, South Dakota - where she raised her son
Meager, South Dakota - her business, her home
Pine Needle, South Dakota -
Pine Needle?
Just past Meager, through wheat and sunflower farms, Pine Needle was a small town, much quieter, more rustic and worn than Meager. Although Meager had experienced something of a renewal the past couple of years, new businesses, younger families, Pine Needle remained sleepy, musty.
What the hell was in Pine Needle that warranted the honor of being tatted on her body?
My eyes shuffled over every compass on the photos, back and forth, back and forth. Every single coordinate tat had a compass above it, almost hidden, embedded in the leaves or the flowers or the birds surrounding it. Each compass had a different direction on it. But this compass in Pine Needle was the only one locked on True North. Only this one was on her chest. And the N for North on this compass was different from the others. This N was bolder, thicker, and in blue flames.
I headed for my bike.
It was late October and the sunflower and wheat and soy fields had been cleared, the air seeped with the aroma of resin and earth. The open land was shorn, gone was its former velvety fullness. The thick fabric of reeds no longer billowed in the winds, shuffling their mysterious music at me. This spartan starkness had its own special appeal. Bare essentials. Stubborn and uncompromising.
I parked my bike in front of Drake’s Garden Center, the exact location of these coordinates on the northeastern edge of Pine Needle.
Potted trees, shrubs, fencing samples, oddball garden fountains littered the wide front yard. A small colonial house that was in dire need of a fresh paint job was also on the property and was probably where the owners lived. A truck was parked out front where a fit man with silvery blond hair tucked into a baseball cap, wearing sunglasses, struggled to unload a wheelbarrow from his pickup that was filled with them. Signs advertising roses and perennials and organic seeds stood on either side of the entrance to a large store with long greenhouses attached on the side and a long one in the back. A field of pumpkins was to the left, a wagon filled with hay stood alone before it.
“Hey there!” the man, who must have been in his mid to late sixties, stopped his attempt at unloading and checked me out. “Good morning.”
“Good morning.”
He wiped a jittery, shaky gloved hand across his sweaty forehead. “Anything I can help you with?”
“How about I help you with those wheelbarrows?” I asked him.
“Would you? That’d be great.”
“No problem.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it. I shouldn’t be doing this on my own, got a bad back and lately my hands don’t grip the way they used to.”
“I know the feeling,” I said.
“Damnedest thing, getting old.”
“You don’t look so old,” I said.
“I certainly don’t feel old, I can tell you.” He let out a laugh. “The young man who helps me out won’t be coming in until later this afternoon, but I need to unload ‘em now.” He held out a shaky hand. “I’m Steve. Steve Drake.”
I shook it. “Hey Steve. I’m Finger.”
He adjusted his baseball cap, his eyes going to my colors. “Good to meet you, Finger.”
I hoisted myself up on the truck and maneuvered a wheelbarrow out, then another, and another while Steve rolled them inside his store.
He led me through to the interior of the Garden Center. “You looking for anything special today?”
“I am. Just not sure what that is.”
He took off his sunglasses. “A gift?”
“Yeah, a gift.”
“Lady friend?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll set you up. She like to garden?”
“Her garden is very neat and colorful, so yeah, she enjoys
it.”
He pointed at flowering plants, orchids, a flower box of oregano, mint, thyme, and chives. “That’s good for a porch or big kitchen window. If she likes to cook, that’s a good choice.”
“Right.”
The garden tools and fertilizer sacks, and bags of soil were all lined up in long rows.
And that’s when I saw them, stacked in wobbly piles. Hand painted flower pots. Another pile of dishes for the pots, trimmed in stripes and zig zags and polka dots. These were the pots and matching dishes Lenore had all over her house and front porch.
My eyes lingered over them, urging them to tell me what they knew.
Steve came up next to me. “You like those, huh?”
“Uh, yeah. They’ve got a certain charm.”
“My wife makes those. There are these over here too—” I followed his hand, gesturing to the left. A shelf of glazed earthenware dessert dishes and coffee mugs. Exactly like the coffee mugs Lenore used at her house.
“I like those. I think I’ll get a set of two of the blue glazed ones.”
“They’re real nice. That blue doesn’t come out that way very often. It’s pretty unique. My wife is good at what she does. I’ll pack them up for you.”
“Thanks.”
I followed Steve to the register by the front door. As he wrapped and packed each mug in butcher paper, I checked out his set up. A dollar bill was framed and hanging on the wall behind him. Next to it was a picture of a much younger Steve with darker long hair, his one hand on a shovel planted in the ground by a young tree, his other arm around a blonde who was holding a baby in her arms. The two of them smiling huge standing in front of their house which seemed fresher. Bright beginnings, big hopes. The all-American dream come true. There were other pictures of Steve and his wife at all different ages—riding horses, bundled up on a snow plow, drinking beers with friends at a bonfire, swimming at a reservoir in the summer.
He rang up the sale, and I handed him bills, picking up his business card from the neat pile at the side of the counter along with cards from other local businesses.
Steve gave me my change. “Hope she likes them.”
