by Nicole James
“What do you mean everything?”
“I met this girl.”
“Ah, a girl. That’s the best kind of trouble.”
He gave a short huff of breath. “Not this one.”
Pam moved to the coffee maker and filled the tank, then shoved a filter in the basket and spooned in grounds. The aroma carried to Liam, and he breathed deep, hoping it would wake him up.
She finished and flipped the “on” switch. “Sit. Let’s talk.”
He pushed off the counter and dragged a chair out from the table. It gave an awful sound as it skittered across the linoleum. Nails on a chalkboard—that’s what flashed through his tired brain. He sat heavily.
Pam took the seat beside him. “Have I met this woman?”
He shook his head. “No, but I’ve been seeing her a while.”
“Where did you meet?”
“A tattoo expo in LA.”
Pam frowned. “A long-distance romance?”
“Nope. She moved to town.”
“Really? So what’s the problem?”
“She’s not who I thought she was. I found out she lied to me about her past.”
“Anything you want to share?”
He shook his head again. “She tried to explain; I didn’t really give her the chance, but it’s big. I’m not sure if it would matter—the why of it, I mean. It happened.”
“I’m getting the feeling this thing that happened, happened to you?”
“Yeah, well, to the shop. Her family scammed Jameson out of a lot of money, partly because I was an idiot and did something stupid. It’s a long story.”
“So, you cut her loose, I take it?”
“Yeah.”
“And now you regret it? Is that what’s bothering you?”
“I guess. I mean… Hell, I don’t know what I mean. I just feel like I was really quick to judge her and end it. It was the shock of it, the fact she lied, the heat of the moment. Now—”
“Now you want to take it all back?”
He ran a hand down the back of his neck. “Not take it all back, but… Maybe I just need to know what she was doing with me, ya know? Was it all some plan to… I don’t know what.”
“She’s the one who initiated the relationship?”
“That’s the thing. That’s what doesn’t make sense. I was the one who pursued her, not the other way around.”
Pam stood and poured the coffee, carrying them to the table and setting a steaming mug before him. His palms wrapped around it, taking in the warmth as he stared into the black liquid.
She sat again. “What you need Liam, is closure. And from the looks of those bags under your eyes, you’re not going to rest easy until you get it.”
At the reminder of how tired he was, he brought the mug to his mouth and took a big gulp. “Everyone tells me I should just stay away from her, just leave it alone and move on.”
“I see.”
His eyes darted up to hers, wondering if she agreed with them, almost willing her to deny it, but afraid she wouldn’t.
“Obviously, that’s not working for you.”
He let out a breath and felt a million tight muscles relax. “So, I should talk to her?”
She gave him an indulgent smile. “Honey, you knew the answer to that before you walked in here. But I’ll spell it out for you, because I think you need it right now. Yes, that’s what you should do, Liam. Communication is always the key to a relationship. And ending it like that, without talking it through? It’s not fair to either party.”
He nodded. “Thanks.”
“Can I give you a little advice about women?”
The corner of his mouth pulled up. “I suppose I need it, huh?”
“Never met a man who didn’t.” She grinned back, then leaned her elbows on the table, dipping her head close. “Listen to her. Listen, listen, and then listen some more, then speak.”
He nodded. “I’ll try.”
“Lying destroys trust; I’m not going to say it doesn’t, but we all lie at some point. Sometimes to avoid hurting someone we care about, or we don’t want them to think badly about us, or to protect our own selfish interests. She may have been worried she’d lose you. In any case, it was wrong because her lying took away your right to decide whether her behavior was acceptable or not.
“Look, bottom line, I can’t tell you what to feel or what to do, but the past is best left exactly there—in the past. If she hasn’t done anything to wrong you in the present, only you can decide if you want to try and make a go of it. Look at it this way, you’ve already been hurt, so what’s the worst that can happen?”
“I suppose.”
“Be honest about what you want from the relationship—with yourself and her. If you’re going to end it, do it by treating her with dignity, even if you think she hasn’t deserved it.”
He nodded again. “Thanks for the talk.”
She touched his forearm. “You’re like a son to me, Liam. I want you to be happy. If she’s the one, you better bring her to meet me.”
He leaned over, kissed her forehead, and teased, “Thanks, Ma.”
She rolled her eyes. “Go clean the cages.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Velvet stood at the counter, her eyes shifting to the clock on the wall. It was almost closing time, and the last customer’s ink was about finished. Finn was cleaning off the man’s skin. Cooter was cleaning up his station.
Velvet drifted quietly down the hall to the break room. She took a moment to glance around the room, wondering where to hide the dice-sized cameras that Sanders had given her. The sink and counter had been disgusting when she’d started working here, and since then she was the only one who’d cleaned it. She decided to stash it between two spray bottles of kitchen cleanser, a place she knew the men would never bother with. She aimed the device at the table and chairs, then went over and stuck the tiny audio transmitter under the tabletop.
She spun, checking over her shoulder, but there was no one there. She was glad to be able to get the two devices planted easily enough. Now she just had one more place to bug: Vano’s office. That part was going to be tricky; he always kept his office locked and never let her in there alone. She bit her lip, knowing she’d have to think of a way to accomplish the job.
She returned to the front. Finn brought his client to the register to ring him up, and Velvet straightened aftercare product on the shelves, keeping an eye on what Finn was doing. Her mind raced, trying to come up with a plan.
Finn finished up and walked the client to the door, then flipped the lock. “Time to crank the tunes!” he hollered out. “You got any beer in the fridge, Cooter?”
“Yeah, should be some. Get me one, will ya?”
As Finn moved toward the back, Velvet ran an end-of-day report on the register and counted out the till. Glancing surreptitiously over her shoulder to make sure Cooter wasn’t watching, she quickly snapped a picture with her phone of the total amounts on the register tape.
Finn returned with three bottles of beer and set one on the counter for her as she slipped the phone into her pocket. “Have a cold one, Velvet?”
“Thanks, Finn.”
He gave her a wink and walked back to his station, pausing along the way to crank up the stereo. Pulsing rap music filled the place, bouncing off the walls and vibrating the glass in the door. Velvet tried to concentrate on counting, but the noise made her lose track several times.
Vano walked up behind her, startling her, then yelling over at Finn, “Turn that shit down and hit the road.”
Neither Finn nor Cooter argued with Vano. Finn grumbled a little, but got up to do as he’d been told.
“I’ll do this.” Vano slipped the bills from her hand and took over the counting. The worn faded money slid easily through his hands, bill after bill, shup, shup, shup; the stack of increasing denominations was quickly tallied up. He glanced over at her as he stuck the money in a zipper bag. “You want to take this to the bank and put it in the drop bo
x tonight or take it in the morning?”
Velvet hated taking that much money at night, even with the FBI watching her every move. She knew saying no would also make him take it to the safe. Maybe that would be her chance. Plus then she’d get to take it into the lobby in the morning and give it to the teller where she could verify the amount being deposited. She could snap a picture of the receipt to compare with the total from the register report and give the information to Sanders. She had no doubt they wouldn’t match up. “I’ll take it tomorrow.”
Vano headed to his office to put the bag in the safe, and she tagged along behind him. She dug one of the audio devices out of the hip pocket of her jeans and closed her palm tight around it. “Can I talk to you, Vano?”
He stopped in the hallway, turning to her. “Yeah? What?”
This wouldn’t do; she had to get him in the office. She nodded to the door. “It’s kind of private.”
“Fine,” he snapped and led her inside the room. She sat in the chair in front of his desk as he closed the door and moved behind the desk, squatting down in front of the safe. Quickly, she pressed the magnetic device to the underside of his old metal desk.
He finished, locked the safe, and stood, turning back to her. “So, what did you want to talk about?”
“Um, well, you know I haven’t asked about mom in a while, and I was just wondering how she was doing?”
Vano sat, a doubting expression on his face. “Now, all of a sudden you care? She’s been in that nursing home six months.”
Velvet tried to fake concern for a woman who’d mistreated her for her whole life, but she didn’t want Vano to become suspicious, so she did her best. “We never got along, it’s true, but she’s still my mother.” She shrugged. “I just wondered how she was.”
“She’s fine, as well as can be expected. She barely remembers who I am anymore. You should go visit her while she’s still got any cognitive skills left.”
Velvet looked away. She’d hated her mother for so long. Could she actually see her mother now and feel any differently? Could she ever forgive her? Would that forgiveness help Velvet to finally let go of the past and truly put it all behind her? Hanging onto the bitterness certainly wasn’t hurting her mother any longer; the woman probably didn’t even know who she was. No, hanging onto all that baggage was only hurting herself now.
Perhaps when everything was over and Velvet got herself out of this mess, she’d go see her mother. After all, if things went the way Agent Sanders wanted, Vano wouldn’t be visiting her anytime soon. Her gaze flicked to him. “I suppose I should. Maybe I will. I’ll…I’ll think about it. The place… Is it nice?”
“As nice as those places can be.”
“You can afford that?”
“I manage. I prepaid for the year. They gave me a discount.”
She nodded. “I see. So she’s paid up till the end of the year then.”
“Yep. Although the doctors think the disease is progressing rapidly. She may be in a vegetative state before then.”
“Oh. It’s that bad?”
“Yep.” He leaned back in his chair, his hand rubbing his mouth, studying her. “I know she wasn’t a good mother to you, especially after Pop died, but she didn’t have an easy life either, Vee. She had to marry a man she didn’t love, and he was a jerk to her. You may have been daddy’s girl, but—”
She stood abruptly, having no interest in rehashing her childhood. “Fine. I said I’d think about it.” She turned to leave.
“Vee.”
She paused at the door. “Yes?”
“I hated it.”
“Hated what?”
“What she did to you.”
“But you didn’t stop it, did you?”
He had no comeback for that. His eyes dropped to her jaw, and he jerked his chin at it. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean it.”
She shook her head. “You never do, Vano. You’re more like Mom than you know. You always have been.”
For that he had no reply.
She turned and left. Her hand was shaking as she pulled the door shut behind her and leaned against the wall. She wished for the hundredth time she’d never come here. Except then she wouldn’t have had all the time she’d had with Liam. She wouldn’t trade that for anything, but it was over now. The pain of losing him descended over her again, and she closed her eyes. She couldn’t think about that now. She had to get herself out of the mess she was in, and no one could help her, no one could save her. Like Sanders had told her, she had to save herself.
She hadn’t been able to plant the tiny camera in Vano’s office, but at least Agent Sanders would be able to hear everything he said in there, every meeting with Thing One and Thing Two as she’d come to think of Skin and his buddy.
Which reminded her, she needed to get the hell out of here. She didn’t want to be around when those two showed up, and they always showed up not long after closing time. Grabbing her purse, she headed out the back door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Has Liam come in yet?” Jameson tapped a pen on his desk, his eyes connecting with Max slumped casually in the chair in front of him.
“Not yet.”
“Have you talked to him?”
Max shook his head, crossed his leg, and put his boot on his opposite knee. “I’ve tried, but he’s kind of closed down. If I bring it up, he changes the subject.”
Jameson’s eyes dropped to his desktop. “I guess we just need to give him time. He’ll come out of it eventually.”
Both men looked toward the stairs as the sound of someone running up them carried through the space.
Ava dashed in. “Jamie, you’ve got to see this.”
He frowned. “What?”
She put a copy of Inked Up magazine on the desk before him. There was an amazing shot of Liam and Velvet on the cover. On a small Post-it note attached was scrawled the note, Hitting newsstands Friday--Ryan.
“It just arrived by messenger,” Ava murmured.
Maxwell whistled. “Wow. Great shot.”
Jameson glanced up at Ava as he flipped the pages. “You read the article.”
She nodded, but he caught a funny expression on her face. She looked kind of shell-shocked.
“What’s wrong? Is it bad?”
She shook her head. “No. It was great. The shop is described as still the primo shop for color and shading. The pictures are gorgeous.”
Max came around behind Jameson and bent over his shoulder. “The chemistry between them really comes across in those shots, doesn’t it?”
Jameson skimmed the article, searching for any mention of Velvet. “Liam and Velvet are described as the ‘it couple’ in the world of ink right now.”
“Did he put that other shit in the article?” Max asked.
Jameson shook his head. “I don’t see it.”
“It’s not mentioned. I checked,” Ava confirmed.
Jameson let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God.”
“There’s more.”
Ava’s quiet admission brought his eyes up. He frowned. “More?”
She reached down and flipped to another article.
He stared down at the two-page spread. On the left was a black and white, slightly out of focus shot of Velvet staring out a window. She looked vulnerable, her eyes glassy. The tagline below her picture read: The tragic true story of the hottest tattoo model around.
On top of the adjacent page in bold black typeface it read: How America’s hottest ink model resurrected her life from a heartbreaking childhood of abuse.
Jameson read the story out loud.
We photographed the accompanying shot of Velvet in black and white because this story is not about the colorful ink on her skin, but about how she got it. Velvet is beautiful, but there is nothing beautiful about her story.
Born into the life of scammers and con artists with a family that was always on the move, always one step ahead of the law, young Velvet barely stood a chance.
The three of them bent over the story as Jameson read to the end. He lay the magazine down. “Jesus, I had no idea.”
“That’s fucked up, man.”
Jameson met Ava’s eyes, and she murmured, “Liam needs to see this. He needs to know the truth.”
“Is he here yet?”
“He wasn’t when I came up here. It was just Rory downstairs.”
Jameson stared down at the magazine. “That woman was one money-hungry bitch. Who does that to their daughter?”
They heard Rory and Liam’s voices in conversation downstairs arguing about a Broncos game.
Jameson looked at Max. “Go get him.”
Max strolled to the staircase and hollered down. “Liam, got a second?”
His answer carried up the stairs. “I do not actually.”
Max growled back, “Let me rephrase that. Get your ass up here!”
Jameson lifted his brow.
Max grinned and sat a hip on the edge of the desk as they waited.
The sound of Liam trudging up the stairs carried to them, and he came into view. He frowned when he saw all three of them around the desk. “What’s up?”
“The new issue just came in.” Jameson held up the magazine, and Liam’s eyes dropped to the sexy shot of himself and Velvet on the cover. His face went ashen.
“Oh.” He just stared at it.
“The article was great,” Ava whispered.
He nodded, with barely any emotion showing on his face. “Good.”
Ava took the magazine and opened to the article about Velvet. “You need to read this.”
He glanced down at it, and his expression changed to one of stunned disbelief. “What the hell is that? She conned the reporter into doing an article on her?”
“Read it.”
He shook his head. “No.”
Ava started reading it aloud.
Liam jerked the magazine from her hands and slapped it on the desk. “I said I don’t want to hear it!”
“You need to, brother,” Jameson advised. “It’s pretty shocking.”