Helena Hunting - Inked Armour

“Yeah. A few months after my parents died, I started apprenticing for him. I worked for him for almost three years. He runs this seedy tattoo shop, Art Addicts. I’m pretty sure he was questioned about the whole thing since he was my alibi.”

“You got a last name for this Damen character?” Duggan asked.

“Martin. His last name is Martin.”

Miller and Duggan exchanged a look.

“What’s going on? Do you guys know him?”

“The name might be familiar,” Duggan said. “Can you tell me a little more about your relationship with him?”

I stared down at my shoes. The toe of the right one had a scuff. “He was my employer and my dealer for a number of years. He introduced me to a lifestyle I didn’t want any part of, after I got my head out of my ass.” I looked up at Miller. “I made some regrettable choices when I was kid, especially after my parents died.”

“I’ve seen the crime scene photos. You witnessed some pretty horrific stuff.”

“That painting you took? It wasn’t in those photos. I remember being confused about that. I know I was messed up at the time and I wasn’t thinking clearly, but that’s one thing I couldn’t forget. When I walked into my parents’ room”—the images in my head were so vivid, my stomach clenched—“that painting was on the floor. I remembered thinking if my dad had seen it like that, he would have freaked out. But in the photos, it wasn’t there at all.”

“You’re sure about this?” Miller asked, leafing through the file on her desk, searching for something.

“Positive.” I kept telling Cross something was wrong when I was being interrogated, but he made it seem as if I were losing it.

Miller made a call. More people came into the office, more questions were asked, but it was nothing like the night of my parents’ murder, or the last time I’d been in the precinct. Cross wasn’t there to needle me, and no one treated me like a deviant loser. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my adult life.

I was wiped out by the time the questioning was through.

Miller said she’d call after the painting had been to the lab. Since we couldn’t do anything else, Tenley and I headed home. She drove. My phone buzzed in my pocket, but it took me too long to get it out so I missed the call. There were fourteen of them—several from Lisa and Jamie, a few from Chris, one from Sarah. The rest were from Cassie. I didn’t have the energy to call them all, so I shut off my phone instead. I let my head drop back against the seat and closed my eyes to try to relax. But all I could see was that goddamn painting and all the blood.

“What can I do for you?” Tenley asked as she pulled into her parking spot behind Serendipity.

I had no idea how to answer that. I stared blankly out the windshield. Snow was starting to fall again, little flakes sticking to the glass before they melted into tiny crystal tears.

“I should get you a spot in my underground parking. I’m allowed two.”

“You don’t need to do that.” She didn’t press for an answer to her previous question.

“You don’t even stay at your place. The parking garage is heated. You wouldn’t have to clean off your car when the weather gets bad.”

“That would be convenient. Why don’t we go up to your place? I’ll make you a sandwich or something. You haven’t eaten all day.”

It wasn’t a no, but it wasn’t exactly a resounding yes. Even though I was strung out and my decision-making skills were questionable, the parking spot was my testing the waters. I wanted her permanence, and this was one way to achieve it. If she parked her car at my place, she might as well move her stuff in, too.

I didn’t go there, though. I knew if she said anything but yes, I wouldn’t be able to handle the rejection.

My phone rang and I snatched it up off the comforter. It was Cassie. For the twentieth time in the past four days.

“Hi,” I whispered.

“Is now a good time to talk?”

I rolled off the bed. “Hold on.”

The water was running, but that didn’t necessarily mean Hayden was still standing under it. Before I tiptoed to the bathroom I ran a hand over the comforter, smoothing out the wrinkles. It was pointless. Hayden was likely to remake the bed once he was done with the shower. He’d be able to tell I had lain on it, waiting for him.

Hayden was far from okay. Ever since he turned over the painting to Officer Miller, things had gotten worse. She called yesterday to inform him several sets of prints had been identified, and they had a few promising leads. They also confirmed blood spatter on the painting. Hayden had been asked to provide a blood sample to check if the spatter belonged to his parents, but we hadn’t heard anything about the results yet. I thought the progress would be a turning point for him. It was, but not a good one.

I hid the phone in my back pocket and peeked through the gap in the door. I didn’t want him to know I was talking to Cassie again. He’d grown suspicious of the number of calls I received from her. I told him she was worried, which wasn’t a lie. We all were. Lisa and Chris called almost as often, but no one could do anything to help.

Hayden’s back was to the spray, hands at his sides, head hanging low. He’d stay there until the water ran cold, sometimes longer. I’d had to forcibly remove him more than once over the past few days when his lips went blue from standing under the frigid water. After he was finished, he’d clean the bathroom. Again. He’d been like that with everything since we’d come home from the police station—cleaning and reorganizing to the point of obsession.

Nothing was good enough. Not the hospital corners on the sheets, not the line of pillows on the bed, or the shoes in the front hall closet. Yesterday he sat cross-legged on the floor for a good half hour, spacing and respacing the shoes until there was an inch between every pair and the heels lined up perfectly with each other. His compulsive tendencies had ratcheted up to frightening heights. I was reluctant to admit how severe it had become, for fear of what it meant.

“Hayden?”

His head snapped up and the glass door slid open. Water sluiced down his back and over his chest. My eyes followed the path. His hand went to cover himself. He hadn’t had an erection since the morning we went to the storage unit. I met his exhausted, anxious gaze. His eyes were bloodshot with dark circles under them.

“Is everything okay?” It came out a hoarse croak.

“Everything’s fine. I’m going to the kitchen to get a drink. I’ll only be a minute or two.”

After a long pause he replied, “Okay.”

I couldn’t leave the room without telling him. If he got out of the shower and I wasn’t there, he was liable to have a meltdown. It had happened yesterday.

“He’s in the shower,” I said once I was in the hall.

“Again? How many times is that today?”

“This is number three.”

He’d been taking upward of four showers a day. I didn’t know what to make of it.

“This isn’t good,” Cassie said.

“It’s getting worse.”

“You sound like you’re on the verge of tears.”

I had to put my hand over the receiver so I could clear my throat. “I’m okay. I’m just worried.”

Cassie sighed. “Tenley, this reminds me of what happened when his parents first died. I’m afraid it isn’t going to get better if we don’t intervene.”

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, though I suspected she was right. I dropped onto the couch. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Nate and I have been talking. He’s called in a favor and set up an appointment for Hayden this afternoon. It’s a little short notice, but we can come over and persuade him to go.”

“When’s the appointment?”

“Four.”

“That soon?” That was less than three hours from now. It didn’t give us much time for acts of persuasion.

“Do you think you can keep this up much longer?” Her tone was gentle but prompting.

I surveyed the living room. It was spotless. I was terrified to touch anything because Hayden knew immediately when I had. His quest for order was draining. I understood the reason behind it. His world and his mind were in utter chaos; he could control his environment.

“Let me see if I can convince him first. I don’t want him to feel ambushed.”

“Okay. But if you haven’t called back within the hour, Nate and I will come.”

I took down the details and hung up, shoving the paper in my back pocket. I wasn’t sure how I was going to broach the subject with Hayden, but he needed more help than I could give him.

TK jumped up on the couch and head-butted my hand. She’d been as jumpy as me over the past few days, unsure of Hayden’s unpredictable moods. One minute he was fixated on a task; the next he exploded out of frustration because he couldn’t get it right. I picked her up and pressed my nose into her fur, listening to her motor run.

“Tenley?” The high tenor reflected Hayden’s anxiety, as did the heavy thud of his feet coming down the hall.

“I’m in the living room,” I called out.

“I thought you were just getting something to drink—” He stopped short when he entered the room.

He had on boxer briefs and nothing else. His chest and shoulders were sprinkled with droplets of water, his wet hair standing on end. His hands sank into it and tugged hard, the concern switching to irritation.

“This place is a sty. There’s shit everywhere,” he barked, his accusatory glare on me.

My phone and the pen were on the coffee table. Nothing else was out of place as far as I could see. But based on Hayden’s current rigid standards, those two items constituted a mess.