Surviving Ice

by K. A. Tucker

  I’d like her to decide sooner rather than later, because I’m leaving here and she’s not staying without me.

  I watch patiently as she makes a point of pulling money out of her small purse and putting it back into my wallet, enough to cover the cigars and the drink I bought her. Figures. She’s too independent to actually let me pay for them.

  When she makes a move for Gregory White from San Diego’s driver’s license, though, I snap my wallet out of her hand and slide it back into my pocket.

  The last thing I want to do is expose my weakness to her, but I need to leave. I lean in close to her, reveling in her perfume. “Listen, I really need to get out of here. The strobe lights and flashes . . .” A perfectly timed parade of servers with bottles prance by, waving sparklers in the air to announce their delivery. “. . . Sometimes they remind me of shit from the past.”

  I can’t be sure that she’ll even understand what I mean. Or care. But there’s an instant flicker of recognition; I can see it in her demeanor. She doesn’t say a word. Slipping her hand in mine, she begins leading me to the stairs.

  Thank God.

  “I drove,” I call out.

  She glances up over her shoulder, a step below me. “Good, because you’re taking me home.” She doesn’t have to spell it out, I can see her meaning in her eyes.

  We exit the front door with a nod to the bouncer and a smile on my face.

  “Which way is your car?”

  I place my hand on the small of her back and she has no choice but to let me lead, though she doesn’t tense or scowl. She doesn’t seem to mind at all.

  As we round the end of the building to the street parking behind, I casually check the entrance.

  The guy with the black blazer and black dress pants and polished black boots is standing on the sidewalk.

  Watching us.

  NINETEEN

  IVY

  I prefer short flings.

  Not because I’m a slut—I detest that word; it’s so disparaging, and who the hell is anyone to judge anyone else’s sexual preferences?—but because there aren’t any expectations beyond, hopefully, a good time. There is no opportunity to hurt anyone’s feelings. I don’t know him, he doesn’t know me. It’s just pure physical attraction.

  Like what I’ve been feeling with Sebastian all day.

  I want to take him home. I want to take his clothes off and mother his wounds—my artwork—with a gentle, experienced hand. And then I want to fuck him. I decided that somewhere between tucking the cigars into my cleavage and him revealing a vulnerable side that he was hiding so well, until he wasn’t.

  But to be honest, I’m not entirely sure that this is simply physical attraction anymore. Had I had sex with him on the dirty floor of Black Rabbit two minutes after he walked in the first time, or even yesterday, then it would have been. But after spending seven hours with him and his body today, I feel connected to Sebastian, for reasons that go beyond his looks.

  So maybe this is going to be a huge mistake.

  Maybe Sebastian is going to be the one who messes with my head.

  Maybe I should call it quits right now.

  “Make a left turn up here,” I instruct, a split second before his finger hits the signal, as if he already knew where he was going. Just like he begins to slow his obscenely clean car as we approach my driveway. “Pull in behind that Honda there. Please.” I bought the used silver Civic for five grand cash a few weeks after I moved here. It’s been reliable so far, if not exactly sexy.

  He turns in. And cuts the engine.

  “Quite presumptuous of you,” I say.

  He rests his elbow on the console and turns to give me a look as flat and unreadable as the one I’ve perfected. “Is it?”

  It’s not at all. I think it’s inevitable, really. There’s no way in hell I’m calling it quits. That decision I would definitely regret.

  Flutters explode in my stomach. This guy is not good for my cool, unflinching mask. Soon, I’m going to be giggling like a fucking Valley Girl. “How’s your side?” There is that giant open wound to think about in all this.

  “A little sore.” His gaze skates over my mouth. “Nothing hindering.”

  “I guess I could take a look at it for you. Show you how to clean it properly.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.” I watch his hand as it reaches out for me. His fingers dip into my top to pull the cigars out, the edge of his thumbnail skating against the inside of my breast. “And then we could smoke these.”

  I shrug. “Maybe.”

  I duck out of the car before he can see my excited smile, slamming the door shut behind me, thinking I’m going to get ahead of him and up the stairs, so he’ll have to trail. But he’s somehow already out and waiting for me by the time I get around. “Do you do everything so fast?”

  Amusement sparkles in his dark eyes. “When it matters, yes.” He steps closer, pushing my hips into him with one hand on my back. He cups the back of my head with his other hand. “And when it matters,” he says as his breath skates across my lips, “no.”

  And then his mouth is on mine, firm and demanding and arrogant, because he already knew I wanted it. He ropes a fist around my hair and pulls my head back to get a better angle of my neck. He takes it, and when I feel the edge of his teeth scrape against the underside of my jaw, I know that we may end up doing this right in front of Ned’s house.

  “Inside,” I whisper, pushing against his chest. I charge up the steps while fumbling for my keys in my purse. Not because of the whiskeys I pounded back—I sweated those out on the dance floor—but because I’m suddenly very nervous about being with Sebastian. About pleasing Sebastian.

  I finally find my keys. I pull them out, then drop them—twice—each time earning a loud clank and a groan from behind me as I bend over to retrieve them, my extremely short dress not made for modesty at that angle. This is the longest, most graceless trip up a set of stairs in my life. If I wasn’t so anxious to get inside, I’d be mortified. Finally, I get a good grasp of the ring, climbing the last few steps.

  It turns out I don’t need my keys.

  “What the . . .” I come to a dead stop in front of the iron gate with the visibly mangled lock. The door sits open a crack.

  Sebastian grabs my arms and shifts me back behind him before slipping through, the tension suddenly radiating off him palpable. When we find that the front door sits ajar as well, he smoothly reaches back and hands me his keys. “Take my car and drive down the street. Lock the doors,” he whispers calmly, without looking behind him. Then he disappears through the front door.

  Leaving me standing there, debating whether I should actually listen to him or not.

  TWENTY

  ICE

  This is not a coincidence.

  Ivy’s home has been trashed, the flat-screen smashed instead of taken, the heating vents ripped from the walls, drawers pulled out and overturned, the couch torn apart and emptied.

  Someone was searching for something.

  I slide my piece out of my boot and flick off the safety. Standing in the living room, I simply breathe and listen. For creaks, for windows sliding, for anything that might indicate the person is still here.

  Or people. Because what I see here suggests more than one person.

  Whoever it was, we missed them by only minutes. I can still smell their sweat in the air. I’m now sure that the guy at the club tailed her all the way there from here and was tasked with being on lookout while whoever he is working with ransacked her place.

  Was this on Bentley’s orders?

  My adrenaline courses through my veins as I slink from room to room, expecting that someone might be waiting in a closet or behind a curtain.

  They’ve been through the entire house.

  I check my watch. It’s only twelve thirty. Ivy would have left to meet me just before eleven. That gave them less than two hours to do this much damage.

  Sirens sound in the distance. They could be for anyone, but I
know they’re not.

  Ivy must have called the cops. Fuck.

  This entire house will be canvassed for prints. I quickly dart into Ivy’s room, intent on wiping down the perfume bottle—the one thing I touched without a glove in this house—only to find the glass smashed, the alluring scent now too potent as it seeps into the carpet.

  Careful not to touch the walls, I run down the stairs, bending over to slide my Beretta back into my boot when I reach the bottom.

  When I stand, I find Ivy in the living room, aluminum baseball bat gripped in her small, talented hands, ready to take a swing. Watching me.

  “The house is empty, but they were upstairs.”

  She twists her mouth, glancing down at my boot—wondering, I’m sure, why I’m carrying a gun when I’m “off duty”—but she doesn’t ask about that. “I called the cops.”

  “I can hear that. You also didn’t take my car, like I asked you to.” I should have known she wouldn’t listen.

  She relaxes her arms, tossing the bat to the floor. “I’ll need their report to file any insurance claims,” she says, ignoring my chastising. She gazes around the main floor, her attention not really grabbing onto anything for more than a second. “Why would someone do this? There’s nothing of value to steal in here.”

  I know exactly why, but I can’t tell her.

  I shouldn’t be here. I should leave right now.

  I close the distance and rope an arm around her as the screams of sirens approach.

  Ivy flips through her sketchbook, the sheets half torn from the spiral spine and dangling. “Seriously? Even my sketchbook?” She whips it across the dash of my car in a fit of rage, blinking repeatedly to stave off the tears that coat her eyes.

  I pull up to the curb in front of a simple green California bungalow in the Haight, an artsy neighborhood that my mom used to like to drive through on hot summer days, to look at the brightly painted Victorian houses. My parents actually aren’t far from this quiet side street, no more than a ten-minute drive.

  Reaching over, I silently retrieve the book from my dashboard and shift the pages as best I can to fit within the cardboard cover. A man’s profile fills the page in front of me.

  “The police sketch artist did a shitty job. I’ve been trying to get it right,” she mumbles. “Haven’t, yet.”

  Probably a good thing. I don’t want to give Bentley’s guys any more reason to consider her a risk.

  I say nothing, continuing to tidy the pages. The last one before a stack of blanks is a sketch of me. A highly accurate depiction, which I can’t say I’d want ever handed to law enforcement.

  When she sees me studying it, she reaches over and yanks the book out of my hand. “I like to draw people I meet,” she explains simply, holding her ruined sketches close to her chest, her arms roped around the book. If she’s blushing, it’s too dark to tell.

  But I know she’s shaken up by the entire experience tonight, whether she’ll admit it or not.

  The cops let her collect a few overnight things before sending us out so they can finish their evidence collection. I lean over to grab the handles of her duffel bag in my backseat, taking in the scent of her as I get close. She doesn’t make a move, and I’m not about to try anything on her now. “Whose place did you say this is?” I ask.

  She glances toward the house, where a porch light is now on. “My friend Dakota, from Oregon.”

  “Okay, well, you’ll be safe here. I’m sure of it.” I know because I watched my mirrors for a tail the entire drive over.

  Silence hangs inside my car for a few long breaths. “How’s your side?”

  “Don’t even feel it,” I lie. It’s not too bad, but it’s definitely noticeable.

  “You’ll need to take the wrap off soon.” She pauses. “If you come inside, I could do that for you.”

  I glance at the shadow watching from the window. “You’ve already woken your friend up in the middle of the night. You don’t think she’ll mind you bringing a stranger in with you?”

  “Dakota?” She snorts. “She’ll love it. She invites strangers over all the time.”

  “That doesn’t sound safe,” I joke. It’d be so easy to say yes, but I have things I need to deal with. “I’ll be fine. But thanks.”

  She chews the inside of her mouth, but she doesn’t say anything. She’s probably wondering why I didn’t offer to bring her back to my place for the rest of the night. I considered it, because I’d rather not let her out of my sight after what happened, but I don’t think even someone as open-minded as Ivy can look past the motel with hourly rates and hookers hanging off the streets outside. “Thanks for sticking around and helping me deal with the cops,” she finally says. “And driving me here.”

  As far as the police know, Gregory White accompanied Ivy home from the club. Luckily she wasn’t around when I was giving them that information. They’ll run it through, I’m sure, and they’ll find the dummy profile that Bentley had set up—a thirty-one-year-old truck driver—as a precaution. And hopefully, that’s where that’ll end.

  “When you want to go and get your car, give me a call and I’ll take you.”

  She slips her duffel bag out of my grasp. “That’s not necessary.” The cool, I-don’t-need-help-from-anyone Ivy is slipping back.

  “Yeah, it is. You heard the cops. These people ransacked your place. Given your uncle was killed two weeks ago, it’s suspicious. I don’t want you going to that shop again without me, either.”

  Rare amusement dancing in her eyes. “Is this you going all badass bodyguard on me?”

  I smirk. “Something like that.”

  “Well, don’t think I’m gonna pay you. I have no money for protection.”

  “I seem to remember handing you fourteen hundred bucks today.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She gives me a sly smile, but then all amusement fades from her face. “Do you always carry a gun, even when you’re not working?”

  I figured that would come up, eventually. “Yeah.” I hesitate but ask, “Does it bother you?”

  She shakes her head and then dismisses the topic entirely. “Well, I’m going to the shop at nine in the morning to let the painters in. That’s”—she glances at the clock—“only five hours away.” She looks from the house back to me. I can’t tell if she’s just pointing out the obvious or fishing for me to stay. I don’t even think it’s about getting laid anymore. By the way she seemed to gravitate to my side for the past few hours, dealing with the cops, I think she just feels safer having me around. And that is why I’d love to say yes to her right now.

  Pulling out my burner phone—idiot move but it’s the only phone I have on me—I demand, “Give me your number.”

  She recites her number and then pushes open the door and climbs out.

  I briefly consider grabbing her arm, pulling her back in to taste the last of the whiskey and Coke in her mouth, but I resist because I know where that’ll lead and I do need to go. “Get some sleep. I’ll come back in the morning,” I call out, watching her saunter up to the house with her duffel bag slung over her shoulder. The door opens and a pretty woman with long dark hair and tan skin appears in nothing but a nightshirt. She’s smiling wide, like she’s not at all bothered by the late arrival.

  I wait until the door is closed, send her a quick generic “sleep well” text so she has my number, and then pull away.

  Bentley answers the phone with a gruff, “Yeah?”

  “You sent those fuckers into her house!”

  There’s a pause and then I hear rustling on the other end, followed by a muffled, “It’s not even five in the morning, John. Who’s calling?”

  “It’s okay. It’s work.”

  “What phone is that? That’s not your iPhone, is it?”

  “Go back to sleep, Tuuli.” He heaves a sigh. Footfalls sound, and I can picture him trudging down the long hall to his office. Not until a door shuts does he speak again. “I warned you, didn’t I?”

&n
bsp; “You said tomorrow, and you didn’t say anything about going into her house.”

  “I changed my mind and had them go in to do a final sweep tonight. Figured we had to be sure.”

  “That wasn’t a sweep, John. They ransacked it.”

  “So the police will file a report and she’ll claim insurance. Not a big deal.”

  I grit my teeth against the urge to yell. “You also said they’d stay away from me. One of those assholes was ten feet away from me tonight. He followed her to the club.”

  “Did he approach you?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then he followed orders and there’s nothing to discuss here, so stand down!” Bentley doesn’t like being questioned, and he’s not used to it coming from me.

  “Don’t you think turning over a recently murdered man’s house will raise suspicions?”

  “Maybe, but no one will have anything to go on and it’ll die down soon enough. It’s worth it, if it means finding that tape.”

  “And did they?” I already know the answer, because I already searched the fucking house!

  A long pause. “No.”

  “Keep them away from me. And her. If she has the tape, she doesn’t know.”

  “How do you—”

  “Because I’m good at what I do. I can read people, and I know that she had no fucking clue why anyone would want to bust into her place tonight. If she were hiding a tape that got her uncle killed, she’d be freaking out and running. And now the cops have turned their attention to her, and they’re already starting to ask questions that tie back to her uncle.”

  A quiet “shit” slips out of Bentley’s mouth.

  Seriously, what did he think was going to happen when he told those guys to tail us? They’d already acted beyond the scope of his orders before. Stupid amateur move, Bentley.

  “Just . . .” He sighs. “Keep an eye on her. You’re right. We don’t want her turning up dead right now.”

  “Or ever.”

  “Right.”