Inked Armor

by Helena Hunting

  Only a few cars were in front of me now, and I worried we were gearing up for a fight. I wasn’t all that keen on getting into a verbal battle, especially with her so fragile and me already feeling like a huge dick. Add some police officers into the mix, and I was looking at a veritable shit show. I was fully aware of the stereotype I perpetuated, especially if Tenley ended up in tears. With the way she looked right now they’d think she was a victim of abuse, emotional or otherwise.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. Today’s been hard.”

  “You don’t need to apologize. I know today’s been difficult. I just want to know why you’re so upset so I can do something to help.”

  I kneaded the back of her neck. Her shoulders tensed so I backed off. She was silent for so long I thought she wasn’t going to answer.

  Then in a tiny, shamed voice she whispered, “I found a box of condoms in Connor’s car when I was cleaning it out last week.”

  Hearing his name in this context inspired the sensation of spiders crawling all over me. “In the douche mobile?”

  Another car passed through the police barricade.

  She nodded.

  Talking about Connor like this made me uncomfortable for a number of reasons, but I’d set aside my self-doubt if she’d confide in me. I was desperate to understand where she was at right now.

  “I’m sorry. I’m not seeing how that would be a problem,” I replied, confused.

  From the pictures I’d seen of him, he was a jockish, polo-wearing Boy Scout, so it made sense he’d want to be prepared. If she and I still needed to use condoms, I’d be wearing them as a belt.

  “There were four missing.”

  “Maybe he kept them in his wallet?”

  It was a reasonable thing to do, though four seemed like overkill. Yet the first night I went over to Tenley’s, I brought three. And back then, I’d been avoiding that scenario.

  “I’ve been getting the shot for years,” she said. “I went on it pretty much right after we started dating because Connor hated condoms and I didn’t want to take any chances. There was never a reason for him to need them.”

  My stomach bottomed out as what she was telling me hit. I thought back to those photo albums I’d gone through, and that period of time when Connor was absent from the pictures. There had to be a story there I didn’t know. Had her insecurities and second thoughts originated there?

  “There has to be a reasonable explanation.”

  “I’ll never know what it was, though, will I?” She wrapped her arms around her waist, folding in on herself.

  From the way she was shutting down, she had already formulated her own hypothesis—the worst one possible. To discover this after he was gone was fucked up. Since she couldn’t know for sure, those doubts would linger forever, tainting his memory. While I felt threatened by him, I didn’t want him demonized.

  It was better for him to be enshrined in her past. Because finding out that he might have been fucking someone else led to one truth: all that death might have been avoidable if she’d known.

  “Maybe they belonged to a buddy? Chris used to leave his all over the place. He got Jamie in a world of shit once when Lisa found a box stashed under the passenger seat of the Beetle.”

  “Maybe,” Tenley replied, but obviously she didn’t believe it.

  We moved forward again. Only one more car was in front of us.

  “There was never anyone else when you were gone,” I said, seeking to reassure her that I would never do that to her. This information explained so much about her past reactions, particularly to Sienna.

  “I know that.” She wiped at her eyes with a fresh tissue, leaving new mascara smudges behind.

  “The thought of being with someone other than you made me feel sick.” I smoothed my palm down her back, along the ridges of her spine. “It still does.”

  The car in front of us pulled through the barricade. I moved forward, annoyed at the interruption to our heavy conversation. My headlights washed over the officer inspecting the cars, and I gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles went white.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Just when I thought my night couldn’t get any worse.

  23

  HAYDEN

  I rolled down the window and waited. Cross would push my buttons. It was a skill he excelled at.

  “Mr. Stryker. What a pleasant surprise. License and registration, please,” Cross said icily.

  I reached across to the glove box and flipped it open. Tenley had moved the contents around in her search for tissues, so it wasn’t where I normally kept it. She leaned forward to help, and the light inside illuminated her face. Her skin was blotchy from crying, her eyes bloodshot and pupils dilated. Her mascara had run down her cheeks, leaving dark streaks. On the side of her neck was a faint red mark from my teeth.

  Cross rested his forearm against the doorframe and peered inside as I plucked the registration from the glove box. I flipped the compartment shut, extinguishing the light.

  “Miss Page?”

  “Hi, Officer Cross.” Tenley lifted her hand in a small wave.

  He flicked on his flashlight and surveyed my registration while I dug into my back pocket for my wallet. I was wearing dress pants, so of course it wasn’t there. I had to rummage around in the back-seat, where all the presents were strewn, for my jacket. Cross shone his flashlight over the seat and I snatched up my coat. Retrieving my license, I passed it over. Cross was too busy looking at Tenley to notice.

  “How are you this evening?” he asked, inspecting her in a way I didn’t like.

  “I’m fine.” She gave him a weak smile.

  “Are you sure about that? You don’t look well.”

  His flashlight moved over her rumpled dress to her legs. Her nylons had a run and she didn’t have shoes on. Fuck. They were still in the garage.

  “My license.” I held it up in front of his face.

  He gave it a cursory glance before his cold stare rested on me. “Where are you coming from and where are you headed?”

  “We were at my aunt’s for dinner and we’re heading home,” I replied, determined to get this over with as quickly as possible. I didn’t want him to get a good look at Tenley.

  “Have you consumed any alcohol this evening?” He continued to shine the flashlight into the car. Tenley cringed away from the brightness when it got too close to her face.

  “I had two scotch on the rocks between three and five this afternoon.” There was no point in lying. The alcohol was long out of my system.

  The flashlight panned over the hood, stopping at the small dent and the fresh scratches. He leaned over to have a better look and returned his calculating glare to me.

  “Were you in an accident?”

  “No.”

  “You are aware that you have a pretty good dent in your hood and some scratches?”

  “Yes.”

  “Had to be something heavy considering the car. Would you happen to know where it came from?”

  “Yes.”

  I didn’t elaborate, although I could see he expected me to.

  “Pull over and turn off the car, Mr. Stryker.”

  “What for?”

  “Because I told you to.”

  I sighed but followed his directions. I’d already caused a scene with him once; if I did it again, cuffs could be involved. I’d never had a criminal record and starting now by ignoring a command from an officer or punching out the douche fuck wasn’t something I was keen to do.

  I pulled off to the shoulder and cut the engine. Cross circled the car until he reached the hood, shining his light over the damage. Tenley’s jacket had a buckle on the back, and the repetitive hard thrusting had scratched the paint down to the steel. Cross went around to Tenley’s side, leaning in close with the flashlight. He rubbed a finger over one of the scratches and it came away black.

  “Miller,” he called out as he crossed back over to the driver’s side. “Can you come here,
please?”

  The female cop who’d been at the station when we were last there strode over. They had a conversation out of earshot with a lot of gesturing and frowning on both their parts.

  “What are they doing?” Tenley asked in a whisper.

  “Cross is probably trying to find a way to arrest me for having a dent in my hood.”

  “He can’t do that, can he?” She crushed the package of tissues in her hand.

  I took them from her and pulled another free, wiping under her eyes in a useless attempt to get rid of the smudges.

  “No, kitten. There’s no law against having dents in your car.”

  “I just want to go home.”

  “I know. Me, too. This shouldn’t take long.”

  In my peripheral vision, Cross hiked up his pants and head toward my door while Miller approached the passenger side.

  “Step out of the car, Mr. Stryker.”

  “I haven’t had a drink in hours.”

  “Out of the car. Now.” Cross’s hard tone left no room for argument.

  “Hayden?” Tenley gripped my forearm. “What’s going on?”

  I squeezed her hand as I leaned in and dropped a kiss on her trembling lips. “It’s okay, kitten. This’ll just take a minute. They probably want to check my blood alcohol level.”

  I doubted that was Cross’s motivation.

  “I’m not asking again, Stryker,” Cross snapped.

  I unbuckled my seat belt and climbed out into the cold night air. The temperature had dropped again and white flakes had begun to fall.

  Tenley started to open her door, but Cross stopped her. “Stay in the car, Miss Page.” He turned to me. “Put your hands on the car and spread your legs.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Officer Miller stared at me from across the roof of the car, her expression grim.

  “You question one more direct order and I’m going to charge you.”

  “This is bullshit,” I said, but I did as I was told. I was already drawing too much attention; a few of the other officers checking cars had stopped to observe the interaction with Cross.

  Officer Milled rapped on Tenley’s window and she rolled it down. Miller looked concerned as she leaned in, her hand on the doorframe. I could only hear Tenley’s nervous tone, not her actual replies to the questions asked.

  I imagined how it looked from Officer Miller’s perspective. Aside from the tiny diamond stud in her nose, Tenley projected a girl-next-door vibe. With her outfit tonight, that was magnified. Someone like her hanging out with someone like me would be an immediate red flag for a lot of people.

  Cross frisked me, searching for weapons or contraband I didn’t have.

  “Come with me, please.”

  “What about Tenley?”

  “Officer Miller will stay with her.”

  I didn’t ask any more questions because I wasn’t going to get answers. Cross went through the standard tests to check for drunkenness, making me repeat them twice because he wanted to piss me off.

  Cross led me to a cruiser and opened the rear door. “Get in.”

  “What for?”

  “I want you to take a Breathalyzer test.”

  “Why do I need to get in a cruiser for that?”

  “You’re trying my patience, boy. Get. In. I won’t ask again.”

  I dropped into the seat and folded my legs in the cramped space. Cross closed the door and claustrophobia set in immediately. Panic hit me like a sledgehammer, taking me back seven years to the night my parents were murdered. It was the only other time I ended up in the back of a police car. The interrogation followed.

  I couldn’t separate that situation from this one, and the bad place in my head got worse, dragging me down into the past I kept buried. There was no way out of the backseat unless Cross let me out. Logically, I knew nothing could happen to me, but it didn’t stop my throat from closing up.

  Behind the driver’s seat was a panel of bulletproof glass, with a thick, black mesh barrier of metal on the passenger side. Cross sat in front of the bulletproof panel and took his time setting up the Breathalyzer machine. He fed the tube through a gap in the mesh, forcing me to lean forward until my nose hit the divider. I exhaled into the little mouthpiece.

  It registered a zero blood-alcohol level.

  “Do it again.”

  “I blew under.”

  “Do. It. Again.”

  I shook my head but complied. Again, it came back clean. “Satisfied? Can I take my girlfriend home now?”

  She was standing beside the Camaro; shoeless with her arms wrapped around herself as the wind blew her hair around her face. She glanced over her shoulder ever few seconds, her eyes on the car that formed my prison. Miller put a hand on her shoulder and Tenley jumped, her attention moving back to the officer. There were questions and some gesturing aimed at Tenley’s feet. Miller was frowning; whatever excuse Tenley had come up with probably wasn’t very good.

  She was helped back into the Camaro. The door stayed open, though, and Miller crouched down in front of her, her expression somber. A Breathalyzer test was administered once, a second time.

  Cross relaxed in his seat and stared at me through the rearview mirror. “Would you like to tell me what happened to your car?”

  “Last I heard, you can’t detain someone for a dent.”

  “I can if you fled the scene of an accident.”

  “I already told you, we weren’t in an accident.”

  He sneered. “It’s obvious something happened to your car recently, though. Would I be right?”

  I stayed silent.

  “What time did you leave your aunt’s tonight?”

  “Around nine thirty.”

  “That’s more than an hour and a half ago.”

  “We made a stop on the way home.” I shifted on the hard plastic seat.

  “You don’t say. Is that when the damage to your car happened?”

  I sighed. “Is there a point to this?”

  Cross inspected his stubby fingers. “Most people would take good care of a ride like that. The last time I saw it, it was in pristine condition. Now, it kind of looks like someone had a throwdown on the hood.”

  When I didn’t respond, he took a different approach. “You know, Tenley’s not looking so good these days.”

  “The past few weeks have been hard for her. You know, what with her entire family being dead and it being the holidays and all.” I shot him a condescending look.

  He returned the glare with a hateful one of his own. “Maybe she should find someone who can take better care of her.”

  “I can take care of Tenley just fine.”

  “Judging by her condition tonight, I’m going to disagree.”

  “You need to back off.”

  “Or what?”

  “Fuck you,” I spat.

  He turned around, sneer firmly in place. “Go ahead, Stryker. Threaten me. It would be my pleasure to take you down to the precinct so you can get what’s coming to you.”

  “What’s coming to me? I’m taking my girlfriend home from a family dinner. I don’t see that as a criminal offense.”

  “What the hell do you do at family dinners that would make her look the way she does?”

  “She’s had an emotional day.”

  “And you thought you’d make it better for her by using her as a hood ornament?”

  “That’s not—”

  Cross slammed his palm against the divider, making it rattle. “Shut your fucking mouth, you little prick. You think I don’t know what happened? You think I can’t see what’s right in front of me? She’s a fucking disaster. You won’t be happy until you’ve dragged that girl down into your bottomless pit of shit.”

  “You don’t know a damn thing about my relationship with Tenley.”

  “Relationship? Is that what lowlifes like you call what you’re doing with her?”

  His words were like an acid bomb going off in my brain; corrosive, destructive.
“You’re a cocksucker, you know that.”

  He made a tsking sound. “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? Oh, wait, that’s not possible.”

  I exploded, a string of vile profanities spewing forth. I shut down the reaction quickly, realizing that he was riling me up on purpose.

  When I was under control again, Cross smiled. “You done? ’Cause if you keep it up, I might just have to take you in. You and me, we’ve been there before, haven’t we? I’m not so sure you’ll like that option the second time around, any better than you did the first.”

  “Fuck that. You can’t hold me.”

  “I think this time I’ll put you in a holding cell with all the other losers until someone can come pick up your sorry ass. Then I’ll be a Good Samaritan and drive Tenley home. How does that sound?”

  I nearly bit off my tongue to keep from telling him what I thought. He was goading me, looking for a reaction that would give him the reason he wanted to put me in a cell. At least for the rest of the night. There was no way I wanted Tenley in a car with him. Especially when he seemed to have it out for me.

  “Decided to keep your mouth shut for once, huh?” He opened the door and got out, leaving me locked inside.

  I knocked on the window, shouting after him. The threats to take me in had to be empty; he had nothing on me. He wanted to make me sweat, and he’d succeeded. My inability to protect Tenley made me feel powerless as he crossed the pavement to where she sat inside my car. The door was still open; she had to be freezing.

  He leaned against the side of the car when he reached her, blocking my view.

  Tenley shot up out of the seat and peered around him, her hands flailing wildly as she gestured toward the cruiser I was locked inside. Officer Miller put a hand on her shoulder and leaned in close; whatever she said calmed Tenley down. She glared at Cross and swiped at her cheeks while Miller helped settle her back in the car. Cross braced himself on the doorframe, looking the part of the concerned police officer as Miller headed for me.

  It was the divide and conquer. Cross had done the same thing in the interrogation room after the murders. One of them would leave on the premise of getting coffee or taking a break. While the other was gone, they’d change tactics to see if the story would change.