Shooting Scars: The Artists Trilogy 2

by Karina Halle

  Before I could change my mind and head back to the car, the door opened a crack and I got a glimpse of a wary eye, grey beard, heavy jowls.

  “Camden McQueen?” he sounded even gruffer in person.

  What was the use in lying now?

  I nodded. “Hello, Gus.”

  He grunted and then opened the door. “You better get in here before someone sees you.”

  I swallowed and walked in. The carpeting underfoot was worn but soft, the house smelled like a cabin. It was dark. The TV was playing in the background, a movie from the 1940’s. I picked out Peter Lorre’s voice though it wasn’t Casablanca.

  He shut the door behind him and set about locking the many deadbolts he had before finally sliding the chain across.

  “Tough neighborhood?” I asked. “I saw a girl on a My Little Pony bike outside, she looked kind of nasty.”

  He didn’t laugh. In fact he looked the opposite of amused. He leaned back against the door and folded his arms across his wide chest, his beer gut sticking out to infinity. His gaze leveled me.

  “Something tells me this isn’t the time to be making jokes,” he said. “Now, I don’t know if you realize it or not, but I’m not here to be your friend. I’m not here to give you advice. I’m here to give you what you need because I made a promise to Ellie once and it seems by you being here she’s calling in on that promise. I’ll help you if you understand that I’m not doing it to be nice. I’m not doing it to be good. I’ve got my own life that I’ve sliced out for myself here and if I can avoid putting it through the burner, I will.”

  I was biting my own lip without knowing it. He was waiting for me to say something.

  “I appreciate that, Gus,” was the best I could come up with. Talking to him was a bit like talking to my dad and though I’d like to think Gus wouldn’t suddenly slap me in the face or call me a faggot, there was always the chance that he would. He was unpredictable and completely detached and that combination was a bit frightening.

  “How about you go sit down and tell me what the hell is going on,” he said, gesturing to the couch.

  I nodded, feeling more stupid by the minute and took a seat on his grey leather couch while he disappeared into his kitchen. I watched the movie on TV for a few seconds and recognized it as Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant until Gus came back in the room with a beer. For himself.

  He sat down on the recliner across from me and cracked the top of the can, chugging down half of it before slamming it on the coffee table in either annoyance or exuberance. Foam fell down the sides.

  “You. Talk.”

  I took a deep, calming breath and got into it again, rehashing the story, telling him everything I told him before.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about being wanted by the LAPD?” he interrupted.

  And here it came. I eyed the window, expecting to see a squadron pull in right through his garden, squashing the gardenia.

  “I thought you wouldn’t help me,” I admitted. “And I need you to help me. To help Ellie.”

  “How long did you say you knew Ellie for?” he asked.

  “I went to high school with her.”

  “And?”

  “And she came back into my life two weeks ago.”

  “And?” His eyes were steel as he drank the rest of his beer, slower this time.

  “And, well, she was trying to rob me. I was on to her. We struck a deal, I’d ignore her attempt to steal from me if she’d help me escape my old life. She agreed. We took the money and ran.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “We laundered the money in the casinos,” I went on. “We got caught.”

  “By the police?” he asked, looking confused.

  “No, by Javier,” I said. “You do know who that is, don’t you?”

  He raised his hand dismissively. “I’m very aware of who that is. I just don’t know why the cops are after you now.”

  With a pained sigh, I went into my side of things. The after story.

  “But,” I finished off, “that really has nothing to do with the problem at hand. Javier has Ellie and I don’t know where or what he’s doing to her.”

  I almost saw a smile on his face but it looked like it was sucked up by his beard.

  “It has everything to do with the problem at hand if you’re wanted by the police,” he said like I was a moron. “Trying to track down Ellie just got a little bit harder with your fuck up.”

  Fuck up, huh. You know, I was having a real hard time figuring out why the hell Ellie would send me to this guy. So far he was a steaming pile of dickshit. Still, I bit my lip purposely, to keep myself from blowing up and saying something I’d regret. My old friend rage had been welcomed in the shootout yesterday, but not today. Today I needed to suck it up and behave and quit making things worse for myself.

  “So will you help me track her?”

  He pursed his lips. “And why do you want to find her so bad?”

  I gave him an incredulous look. “Because she’s in danger. If you know who Javier is, then you know he’s a bad man. He shot her uncle in the head.”

  Gus shook his head. “Poor Jim.” And I realized that maybe he knew him too. I was about to apologize when Gus continued, “She is in danger of some kind, that is certain. The man she’s with is not the man he was and the man he was … well, let’s just say he went from bad to worse. That still doesn’t explain why you care?”

  “Why I care?”

  “You should be hightailing it to Canada. Get your fake numbers and go. You should be creating your new life, your escape, not heading after Ellie. Why is that?”

  “Because …” how did I even explain it.

  “Do you love her?” he asked. “Are you in love with her?”

  I guess that explained it.

  I nodded. No hesitation. All cards on the table. “Yes, to both.” I almost said some bullshit like “We’re in love,” but I couldn’t even say if that was true. All I knew is what I felt. And that the woman that I loved, that I always loved, had sacrificed herself for me. There was no getting past that. She’d embedded herself in my skin, like a tattoo I could never give myself.

  “Well that certainly makes things messy, don’t you think?” he asked leaning back in the chair. The hostility on his face was replaced with pity. I wasn’t sure which one I liked better.

  “Love is messy,” I said. Another greeting card worthy sentiment.

  “So you’re a tattoo artist?” he said, getting out of the chair and changing the subject. He went into the kitchen and came out again, this time with two beers. He handed me one, which I thanked with a nod. I fucking needed this.

  I took a long swig before I answered. “I am. I used to work at a shop in LA before I opened up Sins & Needles.”

  “The front,” he filled in.

  “Yes,” I said hesitantly. “But I did actual work there. I had steady clientele. It really was enough to live on.”

  “Then why bother with money laundering?”

  My mouth flapped open and closed. “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “There’s always a choice. I get the feeling that you don’t know how to say no.”

  I glared at him. “I’m pretty sure I said no when I stole the money.”

  “And look where that got you. The best way to say no is before you start. Say no now, not later.”

  “Wise words,” I muttered, gulping more of the beer down. “You having second thoughts?”

  “I haven’t agreed to anything, now have I? I’m just hearing you out.”

  This was getting ridiculous. All this talk and he still wasn’t sold.

  “Maybe I’m wasting my time then,” I said, standing up. I felt better standing. I was a tall guy and I liked to remind people of that. If they couldn’t take me and my tattoos seriously then they at least took my height and muscle.

  I started for the door. “I just thought maybe you cared about Ellie since she seemed to care about you … that you cared whether an innocent woman liv
ed or died.”

  And at that, he laughed. Maybe I was being a little bit dramatic but it seemed the only way I could get his attention.

  “Innocent?” he sputtered out. “First of all, we both know that Ellie Watt is the furthest thing from innocent.”

  The funny thing was, although that was technically true, that Ellie thieved and lied and charmed her way through life, I still saw an innocence in her. When I tattooed her, I saw it all over her leg and swimming in her eyes. For all she’d done, for the heartless, cruel, selfish person she could be, there was an innocence deep inside – there was still a ten-year old girl who’d lost everything, who never learned to love without repercussions, who never let her real self be free. That was the Ellie I had seen all through high school, the one who hid behind jeans and a tough attitude. The real her, the purity, was never allowed to come out. She had her soul on a very tight leash.

  “And second of all?” I prodded him.

  “Second of all, you’re insinuating that I don’t care. Ellie and I never saw each other much over the last few years and I still looked on her like I would a daughter. A very badly behaving daughter that should be permanently grounded, but a daughter nonetheless. Whether I care or not should have nothing to do with whether I’ll help you.”

  I looked at the ceiling in exasperation. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “It means,” he said, “that I could take all the information you just gave me and go find her myself.”

  “Like it’s that easy,” I scoffed.

  “It is when you’ve got connections, firearms, and an idea of where she’s going. Of course, you’re still ignoring the big question here and it’s the only reason why I’m hesitant to involve you in any of this.”

  How the fuck did he just do that? He turned something that was my idea, my plan, and made it into his.

  And I was biting like a fish on a hook.

  “What’s the big question then?”

  He rubbed at his beard. “Does Ellie want to be found?”

  I thought maybe I was hearing it wrong because that didn’t sound like an actual question. Gus noted the look on my face because he said, “You see. You didn’t think of it.”

  “Of course she wants to be found. She went off with a psychopath, a dangerous uncle killer. She did it to save me and my family. She had to.”

  He nodded, seemingly to himself. “She probably did have to, you’re right. But that psychopath is also her ex-boyfriend. Ex-love of her life. The man, the catalyst, that made her the person she is today. You should have known the twenty-year-old Ellie. She was different.”

  “I knew the fourteen-year-old Ellie. She was already damaged.” I was spitting out the words like shrapnel, appalled by what Gus was suggesting. It created an empty space beneath my ribs that kept threatening to break open. “Ellie hated Javier with a passion. Feared him.”

  His eyes softened. “She always feared him, from day one, and that never did her any good. And hate, well we all know love and hate. Hate is the other side of the coin. It takes one good toss to get it facing down. It can happen quicker and easier than you would think.”

  “Are you talking Stockholm Syndrome now?” That I could understand a little better. What he was suggesting was beyond my realm of comprehension.

  He shrugged. “In a way. It’s just, with someone like Ellie, it’ll be really hard for her not to fall back into old habits. Javier was her biggest habit of all.”

  The hole was opening, my heart threatening to sink in. I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands and wished they were sharper.

  “Camden,” he said pointedly. “It would be Stockholm syndrome on steroids.”

  And suddenly, somehow, in some sick fucking twisted way, that scenario was a million times worse than the one I had envisioned. I thought the worst thing that could have happened would be Javier killing Ellie. Now I knew, I saw, it could get much, much worse.

  She could fall back in love with him. He could seduce her and set that soul free.

  And, in the end, still leave her dead.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ELLIE

  Pain saturated my dreams. When I woke up the next morning, lying there stiff in our old bed, I realized I really bungled up my ankle when I jumped off the balcony. Looking back, it was a stupid move, leaping away like I was in an action movie. Granted, I was trying to escape a drug lord’s henchman, so desperate times called for desperate measures.

  After Javier blackmailed me into agreeing to help him, I went straight to the room and didn’t come out even when he knocked on the door and told me dinner was ready, like we were roommates or some shit. I was this close to opening the door and breaking his perfect teeth, but it seemed the angrier I acted toward him, the more he liked it. He was delusional enough to equate hatred with passion and I’d seen the way he’d been appraising me, like some cocky player who assumes every woman is in love with him.

  The thing was, I had been in love with him once. I’d been more than in love with him – it bordered on something between love and obsession, between Romeo and Juliet teenage dramatics and something real. But, it never was real. Over the years, I had convinced myself of that. I had to. It was the only way I could make sense of what he had done and what I needed to do to get over it. What Javier and I shared was a deadly cocktail of intense hormones and lies. True love doesn’t have a sick desperation to it, an undercurrent of doom. People who burn that brightly still get burnt in the end and I’m sure if it hadn’t been for him cheating on me, it would have ended some other way. The whole relationship had been based on deceit and it was only a matter of time before it would have caught up with me.

  Now, of course, Javier knew the lie. I hoped it ripped his heart out just a little bit when he found out that all that time Eden White wasn’t who he thought she was. Probably not, though. He was different now, bolder and more exaggerated, all of his flaws magnified and his good side gone. He wouldn’t know the meaning of sentiment, though I had a feeling that it at least ate at his sense of pride, something he had too much of anyway.

  I knew I shouldn’t have been lying there thinking about him and the past and the ways things had changed. Giving him all that thought was giving him too much credit. It was a hard thing not to do when you were stuck in his house, the house you shared together. It gave a sense of comfort and familiarity that was all an illusion. If this was six years ago, I could figure out what to do next and how to get out of it. I could escape once again and go find Camden. I would find a way to keep him safe, even if it meant having to watch him start a new life with his family.

  The very thought of him and Sophia brought a heavy knot into my stomach. That was another thing I was trying to keep on the back burner, the fact that he was with his family. It shouldn’t have made me feel so … desolate … but it did. And it was partially my fault. I mean, I know I did the right thing, maybe the first right thing I ever did in my life. And yet, it didn’t feel right or good. It only made me feel a bit resigned that we’d even gotten in that position in the first place. If I could go back in time and change things, I would have split with Camden as soon as we left Vegas. I would have sent him up to Gualala on his own and gotten out of there before I fell in love with him. And, since we’re talking about a fictional time machine here, I would have saved Uncle Jim in the process.

  The knot in my gut started to twist and bleed, a whole new, less-selfish set of feelings cutting through. Uncle Jim, whose face I still saw in my sleep, the man who’d been so much to me yet was willing to sell me out for a bit of cash. I still didn’t know how to deal with his death, feeling so much anger for what he tried to do to and so much fucking shame that he died on account of me.

  And that’s what made things that much more confusing and hard to figure out, like puzzle pieces that never belonged together. The Javier of six years ago would have never killed my dear uncle, no matter how badly he hurt me. That Javier wouldn’t have kidnapped a mother and her child and smacked her around (or
even hired his thugs to do it). That Javier, for all his smooth intensity and seemingly blind devotion (seemingly, being the key word), wouldn’t bribe me to help him kill someone. That Javier was the one I knew and the only one I could try and figure out. This Javier was a stranger and a dangerous one at that. I had no sense of affection in his eyes, no hint of remorse or respect in his movements. As much as I pretended I wasn’t, I was afraid of this Javier in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

  I’d fallen asleep with my clothes on, Javier, Camden and Uncle Jim on my mind, so when I finally woke up with my buggered ankle, I decided I’d had enough of submitting to my thoughts. I carefully got out of bed and decided a shower would be a good idea after being dusty and dirty for the last three days. Soap and water had a way of clearing my head unlike anything else (except maybe some well-done sex). When I was finished, I searched under the sink for an Ace bandage and found one, making sure my ankle was wrapped well. It probably wasn’t even as bad as a sprain, but I had to make sure that I wasn’t going to make it worse.

  After the shower I contemplated putting back on my jeans and stained t-shirt when a morbid thought crossed my mind. I wrapped the towel around tightly lest Javier suddenly burst inside the bedroom and went to the closet I used to use. When I left Javier that one morning, I barely took anything of mine.

  I opened up the door and sucked in my breath. All my clothes were still there. Jeans, palazzo pants, tissue thin tank tops, maxi dresses and skirts that reached the floor. A year’s worth of wardrobe belonging to a scar-shy twenty year old. I couldn’t believe they were still there, that he’d saved my clothes all this time. I thought he would have burned them in a beach bonfire the moment he discovered I’d left him without a trace (and stolen his favorite car and a bunch of his money). Maybe he was more sentimental than I gave him credit for.

  Or maybe, dangerously obsessed. I couldn’t rule out that one either, considering where I was and how I got there.