Surviving Ice (Burying Water, #4)(33)

“I thought you said you didn’t want any more people involved?”

“I don’t. These two are the idiots who helped make the mess, so now they’re going to help clean it up.”

The two guys who killed Royce and Ivy’s uncle. Great.

“They’ll stay out of your way with the girl. I agree, it’s best you work on her alone.”

The dial tone fills my ear and I realize that he’s hung up on me. Tossing the phone onto the bed next to me, I simply lie there for a moment, listening to car doors slam and horns honk from down below. It’s cool outside, but that doesn’t translate in here, with the poor air circulation. The air duct on the wall across from me is meant for air-conditioning, but it’s being used for nothing more than the hidden camera that I found in my preliminary search, expecting as much. I covered it with a piece of cardboard for privacy and left it at that. The scrawny forty-year-old male receptionist downstairs doesn’t need to be jerking off to the sight of my unconscious naked body, but I’m not going to say shit about it, just like he’s not going to say anything about the torn wallpaper.

I give my forehead a hard rub, an annoyed whisper of “Fuck . . .” slipping out of my mouth. Bringing those two guys in means that they could connect me to this. I’m usually far removed from Alliance and for good reason. This is a mistake on Bentley’s part, but it’s his call. He must be desperate.

I reach up and pull another chunk off. Something to kill time with while I wait to resume the search for this damning video confession.

And see Ivy.





ELEVEN


IVY


I jump at the sound of knuckles hitting glass.

The shade is pulled down, so I can’t be sure that it’s him. And as much as I’d love to not care whether it is, I already know that if I go to the door and find anyone besides Sebastian standing there, I’m going to be royally disappointed.

We never agreed on a time yesterday, thanks to Bobby, something I realized when my eyes cracked open at noon. So I threw on some clothes and rushed to my car, telling myself that I was in a hurry only because I’d already wasted enough of the day sleeping and still had plenty to do at Black Rabbit.

Really, it’s because I didn’t want to miss Sebastian.

If he’s coming back, that is. And I so desperately need him to, so I can prove to myself that my reaction to working on Bobby yesterday was an anomaly—an insidious after-effect of Ned’s horrific death and nothing that will stop me from inking people permanently.

Forcing myself to walk at an extra-slow pace, so as not to appear overeager, I make my way to the door and peer out from behind the shade.

My heart skips a beat at the sight of Sebastian.

And I’m instantly disappointed in myself. I can’t be having this kind of a reaction to a guy who lives in a city I’m about to leave. “Sebastian.”

His intense gaze is hidden behind reflective aviators today. I can see myself in them. My bright, wide eyes. I’m not hiding my eagerness very well.

“Ivy.” Even through the closed door, his voice is so deep, so even, so instantly soothing to me, that it sends a shiver down my back. No one should be able to elicit that kind of reaction by just saying my name.

I turn the dead bolt and open the door for him.

He steps past me, and suddenly Black Rabbit doesn’t seem as eerie and lonely anymore. Just his presence swallows up some of the anxiety that’s been hanging over me.

He inhales deeply. “You like that scent, don’t you?”

I use the excuse of locking the door to turn my back on him and hide my reddened cheeks. There’s nothing cheaper than a woman who wears too much perfume, and it doesn’t matter how much she paid for the bottle. Or how much her friend paid for the bottle, in this case. Still half-asleep, I must have gone a little overboard with it before I left the house, if he’s commenting on it now.

“We’re doing this in the back room, I gather?” His sharp raptor gaze sizes up the shop in a very calculated way. I worked double time all afternoon, both to keep my idle hands and mind busy while I waited, and because the painters are coming first thing tomorrow morning. There’s nothing much left here, except a few cardboard boxes and a thousand thumb tacks, where Ned had pinned up old newspaper clippings and pictures. I’m probably the least sentimental person on the planet when it comes to material things, and yet I can’t bear to throw them out, so they’re now neatly piled in a box. Maybe someday I’ll put them in an album.

Or I’ll get Dakota to put them in an album. She likes to scrapbook when she gets high.

Composing myself, I edge past him, reaching for the clipboard. “Unless you want to lie out here on the floor. You need to fill out this paperwork, and then I need a copy of your ID.”

He stares at it. “What’s this for?”

“It’s a legal requirement. I can’t put a needle to your skin until you’ve signed. You can fill it out while I finish getting the room ready.” Ned was always strict about filling out the required paperwork. The threat of losing his license was enough to scare him and, while I was working here, to scare me into following his lead.

“Right,” he mutters. “I forgot about that.” I lead him into the back room, watching quietly as his gaze scans the black walls—covered in dusty square outlines where Ned’s portfolio of the weirdest tattoos that he’d ever done used to hang—then the cases of ink that I haven’t decided whether to take home for my own use or sell with the store, and the leather table, laid out flat and covered in plastic wrap, my tools and supplies set on the tray beside it. “The room looks ready to me.”