Dark Notes(39)

Clutching the low neckline in a subtle tug, she studies me with a bewildered expression. “What are you doing here?”

I meet Stogie’s watchful gaze and let him see the questions in mine. Do you know who I am? How well do you know Ivory?

He hooks his thumbs under the elastic of his red suspenders and blatantly stares me up and down. His smile fades, and his skeletal frame locks up. Apparently, his cloudy eyes see a lot more than they let on. “Ivory, why don’t you go on in the back and warm up one of them frozen meals?”

She crosses her arms, eyes narrowed. “Oh, now you want to eat?”

“I’d love a fresh pot of coffee and some of that cobbler you made, too.” He grips the seat of the chair and scoots forward. “Don’t keep an old man waiting.”

She huffs and steps out of the pile of books, pointing a finger at him. “Be nice.”

Then she looks at me, her expression vulnerable and hesitant, as if begging me to do the same.

The moment she disappears in the back room, he makes a painfully-slow attempt to climb to his feet while holding my gaze. “I know your kind.”

My hackles go up, but the manners my mother ingrained in me has me reaching out to help him stand.

He glares at my hand, scoffs at it, and rises on wobbly legs.

I swallow down my irritation. “Enlighten me on my kind.”

His hunched frame shuffles past me and toward the front of the store. I follow, glad to be moving out of Ivory’s range of hearing.

He circles behind the front counter and settles on a tall stool. Unhurried, he examines my expensive watch, fit physique, wide-stance, and raised chin. I know what he sees. A wealthy, cocksure man in his sexual prime standing in a run-down neighborhood for one reason.

He’d be right.

Finally, he stoops forward and rests weathered forearms on the counter. “That girl has had a rough go of it, and you’re the kind of man that’ll make it worse.”

There’s a treasure-trove of answers beneath his words, and I need to discover every one of them. “Explain.”

“You’re the kind of man that sets his sights on something and doesn’t let go till he possesses it.”

He’s far too shrewd for pretense, so I don’t bother playing dumb. “Doesn’t matter what I’ve set my sights on. I’m her teacher.”

“Yes.” Judgment creases his eyes. “You are.”

I measure my breaths, expressionless. “She talks to you. About me.”

“She’s said nothing incriminating, but she doesn’t have to. She’s mentioned you more in the past week than all her other teachers combined in three years.” He drums gnarled knuckles on the glass counter. “Whatever you’re doing with her, she wants to trust you.” His hand quiets, eyes unblinking. “The kind of trust she gives no one. But once you have what you want and discard her like your kind do, her distrust in men will be irreparable.”

An ice-cold wave of dizziness overtakes me as my mind jumps to sickening images of older men, brutal men, raping her.

I place my palms calmly on the counter and lean in. “Tell me what happened to her.”

He looks away, his attention on the back room. “She doesn’t talk about the bad things. I’m not sure she even distinguishes between the bad and the not-so bad. What happens to her is life. It’s all she knows.” His overcast eyes return to mine. “She’s not just financially poor. She’s short of love, affection, and protection. She needs a good example in her life, someone with a selfless interest in her.”

“You’re not that example?”

“I’m just a broke old man with one foot in the grave. I can’t buy her textbooks and fancy gadgets. I don’t hold her dream of attending a music college in my hands. And I don’t have the power to steal her heart.”

An overwhelming swell of respect rises in my chest. I can’t begrudge this man for caring about her enough to say that shit to my face. I can’t even argue with him, because in some ways, he’s right. I have nothing to offer her except heartache and disappointment.

“But you give her a place to practice.” Glancing behind me, I spot the only piano in the store and thrust my chin toward the old Steinway. “Is it for sale?”

The strained look in his eyes says no, but the splintered floorboards, rickety display racks, and overall dilapidated appearance of the shop tells me he needs the revenue. Desperately.

“She doesn’t know I get offers for it.” His hands clench on the counter. “I won’t sell her piano.”

But someday, maybe soon, he’ll be forced to accept one of those offers because it’s the most valuable merchandise in his inventory.

I pull the wallet from my back pocket and place my credit card on the counter. “Charge it to my card, as well as the cost to have it delivered to her house.”

He glares at the black American Express then lifts his glassy eyes to me. “She doesn’t want a piano at her house. She’s here because she doesn’t want to be there.”

My stomach sinks with dread. “Fine. Keep it here. Put the receipt in her name, and don’t tell her she owns it or who bought it unless she asks.” I slide the card toward his trembling hands and wait for him to look at me. “What is she avoiding at her house? You know her well enough to have a damn good guess.”