Blood, Ash, and Bone (3 page)

“John—”

“I’m willing to make a deal. If she’ll give you the Bible to sell, I’ll split the profits with her fifty-fifty. I won’t press charges, and she and Winston can sail over the damn sunset for all I care.”

I thought hard. The Expo was already on my agenda—how hard would a little extra relic hunting be? Plus, if I managed to track down the Bible, the Expo would provide an excellent opportunity to find a buyer, maybe even get some good publicity for the shop. On the other hand, this was John, a complication magnet.

“I need to think about it,” I said.

He waved a hand at me. “Forget it. I should have known you’d still have hurt feelings. After what I did—”

“Oh please, I got over that a long time ago.”

I said it too emphatically, and John caught it. He didn’t challenge me, though, simply stood and sent the check my way one more time. “Whatever. You think about it and let me know tomorrow. I’ll be at Last Chance Tattoo until noon. If I haven’t heard from you by then, I’ll hit the road.”

He got his helmet and walked out, the door bell jangling in his wake. I heard the rumble of the Harley, then silence. I stood at my counter and stared at the check. I didn’t touch it.

But I didn’t shove it away either.

Chapter Three

Trey’s voice held a tone of disbelief. “That’s what he wanted? To hire you?”

I tucked the phone against my shoulder and unfolded the sofa bed. “So he says.”

I climbed into bed. The mattress smelled like stale popcorn and gun oil, but thanks to Trey, it had 400-thread-count Italian sheets.

I curled around a pillow. “I don’t suppose you know anybody with expertise in that area?”

“I do. Audrina Harrington.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. She hired Phoenix to create a safe room for her collection. I designed the security system.”

Audrina Harrington, Atlanta’s most famous doyenne of all things related to the War of Northern Aggression. Her family traced their ancestry back to Mary Rose, one of the Confederacy’s most notorious spies, and she still maintained a certain aristocratic hauteur, like an exiled countess. She was also, as John put it, one of those big-money, under-the-table collectors. Unlike my customers, she didn’t run around in green fields waving her bayonet. Instead, she accumulated Civil War artifacts with a hoarder’s zeal, her specialty being ephemera—books, letters, papers, documents.

I pulled my computer from under the bed and typed her name in the search box. Sure enough, the
Journal-Constitution
had done a full color spread, featuring the diminutive Harrington surrounded by her faded brittle treasures. She stared straight at the camera, a tiny birdlike creature, her vivid clothes like plumage, her steel gray hair like a cap of feathers.

“Wow. Lots of photographs.”

Trey made a noise of annoyance. “She wasn’t supposed to show anyone that room. That completely defeats its purpose.”

“Y’all should have told her that before she brought in the
AJC
.”

“I did tell her. It’s an environmentally-regulated storage room now, not a true safe room. But her brother convinced her the publicity would be good for their foundation.”

His voice held disapproval. Trey did not like people hiring him to make rules and then ignoring the rules he made.

“Is that the man standing next to her in the photo?”

“Describe him.”

“Short, stout, silver-haired?”

“Yes. That’s Reynolds Harrington. He’s responsible for bringing in the external funding, mostly corporate, some private donors. Miss Harrington manages the family assets.”

I clicked on a link for the Harrington Foundation. A quick scan of the website revealed two things—a serious commitment to curating the largest museum-caliber collection of Civil War antiquities outside of a museum, and an equally serious bankroll to fund it.

“You think she’d talk to me?”

“I could get in touch, if you’d like.”

“I would. Thank you.” I stretched out under the sheets. “Not that I’ve decided to take the case or anything.”

“Case?”

“Situation. Whatever. I haven’t given John an answer yet.”

A pause. “Has there been foul play?”

“Beyond Hope running off with his possessions? No. I mean, there’s lots of hypothetical hinkiness, but nothing obvious.”

Trey waited, but I had no further explanation. The memory of the check still loomed crisp in my mind. So did John’s face. And Hope’s. And the humiliation I’d felt at their hands. It had been over a year, and the fire of anger had diminished. Time helped. So had acquiring a top-of-the-line boyfriend. But the scars remained, thick ropy ones.

“I’ll do a little poking about and let you know more at dinner tomorrow night. We’re still on for dinner, right?”

“Right.”

“And you’re helping me pack on Sunday?”

“Yes.”

“And you finalized the paperwork to get the week of the Expo off?”

“Yes.”

Our first getaway. Not exactly a vacation—the Expo and related events would keep me busy for several days—but a first of some kind. Almost portentous.

“Are you ready for the interview tomorrow?” he said.

“I hope so. The ATF guy is showing up at eight sharp, ready to talk federal firearms license renewal.”

“You’re wearing your suit, right?”

I looked over to where my only suit, a purple pants-and-blazer set, hung on the bathroom door. The ATF’s letter called the meeting “informal.” Trey insisted I wear the suit anyway.

“Ready to go. I even ironed the thing.”

“Good. If you need anything—”

“—I’ll holler, I promise.” I reached over and turned out the light. “I miss you.”

“You could have come back with me.”

“I’ve discovered that nights at your place do not make for productive mornings.”

A soft exhale at his end, almost like a laugh. “I’ve discovered the same thing.” A pause. “I miss you too.”

He’d once explained what that felt like to him—a hard knot in the diaphragm, surrounded by an achy spreading warmth. I put my own hand in the same spot on my own body and felt the same tenderness. I wasn’t someone people usually missed, especially not people like Trey. Usually people like Trey sighed with relief and straightened the slipcovers when I left.

“Tai?”

“Yeah?”

“This may sound overprotective, but—”

“It’s a runner’s job, that’s all. No bodies, no fires, no stalkers, no drug cartels. I do this all the time.”

Silence at his end.

“Trey, listen to me. I learn from my mistakes. I know to back off if things get dangerous.”

He listened. His exquisitely fine-tuned ability to detect other people’s deception did not extend to phone conversations, which was a relief. But I was telling him the truth this time. I didn’t need any drama on my plate.

“Okay,” he finally said. “But if the situation changes—”

“Then I drop it.”

He hesitated, then acquiesced. “Okay.”

***

I tried to sleep. Eventually I got up and dug the box out of the closet. I found the photograph quickly—me, reclining on the hood of my cherry-red Camaro Z-28, the late summer sun flaring off the chrome. Tybee Beach glowed in a sandy blur behind me, the sky a milky blue. I wore a halter top and jean shorts, a two-week-old tattoo hidden beneath the denim. My first ink, a gift from John’s talented hands, a red fox with vixen eyes.

Only two men had seen that fox—and they’d been standing face to face in my parking lot one hour ago.

I touched the image, half-expecting it to be warm beneath my fingers. I was alone in the shot, but I could see John in the gleam of my eyes. He was behind the camera, and I stretched in the heat of his gaze, grinning, one hand shading my face from the noonday glare.

I tried to inhabit the photograph—the sun-baked metal, the sand gritty between my toes. The girl I was then had been perched on a slice of between-time. Within a month, my mother would be diagnosed with breast cancer. I’d sell my wild red car and drive her more sensible four-door back and forth to chemo. In less than a year, she’d be dead, and I would be the one at her bedside when she took her last breath. And soon after that, John and Hope would sneak off in the night.

I placed the glossy 3X5 back in the box and turned out the light. I’d known my past was waiting for me down in Savannah. I’d been preparing. But I hadn’t been prepared for it to show up on my doorstep in Atlanta, unannounced, with eyes that still looked like a storm about to erupt.

Chapter Four

As it turned out, my interview with the ATF was not a formality. The inspector, a newly-minted devotee of all things bureaucratic, kept using the word “irregularities” to describe Dexter’s previous application. He kept quoting Statute 478.44 at me. It took all my self-control not to bean him with the ledger book, especially when he used the dreaded A-word—audit. In four weeks.

After he’d gone, I looked at the list of upgrades I needed to reach even minimum compliance, and the list of penalties waiting for me if I didn’t. The words “possible jail time” floated amongst the dollar signs. I took a deep breath. Then I poured a quart of dark roast into my travel mug, slapped on a new nicotine patch, and made my way to Last Chance Tattoos and Cigar Emporium. There I found John getting a fill-in on his upper shoulder, sitting shirtless while the artist worked behind him, squinting in concentration, her spiked purple hair luminous in the smoky light. The air buzzed with the sound of needles.

I pulled over a stool and sat in front of him. He eyed my pantsuit.

“What’s with the get-up?”

“Interview with the ATF.”

John put a beat-up coffee mug to his lips. “Bummer. Those guys can ream you from every direction.”

“I know. So don’t start with me this morning.” I pulled a pen from my tote bag and used it to fasten my hair into a knot at the nape of my neck. “I decided to take your job.”

“Good to hear.”

“On one condition.”

“Shoot.”

“You are hiring me to locate a particular artifact, nothing more. My job is to find your Bible and present whoever has it with your terms for its return.”

“That sounds fair.”

“And if said person refuses, the ball’s in your court. Call the police, come get it, whatever. Plus you’ll owe me any expenses.”

“Also fair.” He stuck his hand out. “Shake on it.”

I shook. “So we start with backstory. Tell me about the box of stuff Hope took.”

“What’s to tell? It was mostly junk—old books, pens, pencils. Scraps of paper. Dusty, like the guy hadn’t cleaned out his desk since the fifties.”

“What guy?”

“The uncle.”

“What uncle?”

“The one who died.”

I stared at him, a chill creeping down my spine. “What do you mean, died?”

John chuckled and sipped his coffee. “Damn, Tai, why else do you think his niece was having an estate sale?”

I smelled bourbon in his coffee. The tattoo artist eyed me, the sunlight setting her piercings aflame.

I stood up. “Sorry. I don’t do dead people.”

John’s jaw dropped. “But this isn’t about the dead guy!”

I shook my head more firmly.

“Come on, Tai! It’s not like he was murdered. He had a heart attack or something.”

“Or something.”

He glared at me. “So you’re going back on the deal, that it?”

“It wasn’t a fair deal. You didn’t mention the corpse.”

“Corpse!”

“That’s what you call a dead person!”

He took a drag on his cigarette. I massaged my bicep, willing the nicotine patch to kick in before I snatched the butt out of his hand and sucked it dry.

“Fine,” he said. “I knew it was too much to ask. Considering.”

“Don’t try that. This has nothing to do with me and you.”

“Of course not. There is no me and you.” He blew out a thin line of smoke. “Unless you want there to be.”

“I don’t.”

“You sure?”

“Dead sure.”

He grinned. I glared. The needles whined. And I was two seconds from turning my back on him when I remembered the upcoming audit and all the expensive upgrades I’d need to implement. But I also I remembered my promise to Trey, to drop it if it got complicated. And then I remembered Garrity, who was two blocks down in his office at Atlanta PD headquarters. With any luck, he was at his desk and looking for lunch.

I did a quick calculation. “Here’s the deal. I’ve got a source at the police station. I’m gonna ask him to make some calls. And if I learn there was the slightest hint of suspicion about that old man’s death, I’m done. No deal. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Now here.” I shoved a yellow pad at him. “Write down everything you know about the old man, his relatives, what was in that desk. I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”

He took the notepad. “You want to take the chair? Stevie here would be glad to let me borrow her equipment, touch up that critter of yours, isn’t that right, Stevie?”

Stevie grinned. She had red lips and a single gold incisor with a rhinestone.

“My critter is fine.” I handed him a pen. “Now write.”

***

Inside the APD headquarters, chaos reigned—phones ringing, uniforms huddling, the smell of burnt coffee. I saw Garrity at his desk, phone to his ear. He was a kinetic knot of energy, red-headed and sharp-featured. The laugh lines at his eyes and the corners of his mouth told me he used to smile a lot, once upon a time.

“No comment,” he said into the phone.

He spotted me and waved me over. I dropped into the chair in front of his desk, the only horizontal space not sporting a skyscraper of paperwork. He kept the phone to his ear.
Reporter
, he mouthed.

I placed the take-out bag on his desk. Thai-German fusion—pad thai schnitzel for him, bratwurst curry for me—and two sweet teas. Garrity responded well to bribes, and I needed all the leverage I could muster.

He slammed the receiver down. “Would you believe we’re having a rash of hair weave thefts? Seriously.” He scrunched his eyes at me. “What’s with the purple?”

“Long story involving the ATF and Dexter’s lack of organizational skills.”

“You’re not getting audited, are you?”