Sins & Needles (The Artists Trilogy #1)

Camden was leaving the house with two men. Something about the men made my heart skip more than a few beats. I could only see the backs of them, but the men were shorter than Camden, one stocky and the other thin as a reed. Both were wearing well-fitted suits, beige and grey. Both had dark hair and both walked with swagger that was designed to look cool and casual. But I knew those men were anything but.

I had no idea where they were going or why Camden went off with them, but it wasn’t a good sign at all. I knew I shouldn’t leave the house and head into town since Ellie Watt was supposed to be long gone, but I had to follow them. I had to know.

I grabbed my jacket from the couch and ran down the stairs. I went through his office, looking around to see if there was a scuffle or something was amiss. It looked fine, so I checked the safe just in case. All the money was there.

I walked into the tattoo shop. The lights were all off and the sign was still set to closed. Everything looked as it normally did. Except the counter near the register. A folded piece of paper rested there, forgotten and alone. It moved lightly with the draft that sneaked through the thin windows.

I picked it up and straightened it out.

It was a photocopy of a photograph. I recognized the face staring back.

It was me.

It had been taken in Palm Valley, the day of the robbery. I recognized the outfit I was wearing. I had stopped at a gas station on the way back from Joshua Tree and was pumping Jose. I was looking off into the distance, deep in thought, probably too busy planning my con to even take notice of the world around me. You’d think I would have picked up on someone taking my picture, even if they were across the street. But I hadn’t.

And there it was. A grainy, black and white photocopy of me from a few days ago.

Below it it said “Ellie Watt or Eden White.”

Below that it said “$50,000.”

Below that it had a phone number with a Biloxi area code.

And below that it said the name “Javier.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I could only stare dumbly at the paper as it trembled in my hands. My thoughts had been blasted into submission. I wasn’t even sure if I was breathing or if my heart was beating or if the shock had wiped away everything like a giant supernova. Was I even there in Camden’s tattoo shop? Had I died somewhere along the way? Was I in Hell? Purgatory? Was this the end?

Though my first instinct was to flee, to bolt out the door and never look back, I didn’t have the strength. Not at first. I sank to my knees behind the counter and put my face into my hands. The picture floated to the floor.

How the hell did Javier find me? All these years later, how did he find me? All those years that he knew me, he only knew me as Eden White. I made up a whole new background for myself and took on a whole new life. The whole relationship was a living lie and I never slipped up, not even once. I was young and in love and way in over my head but I never slipped up.

You probably shouldn’t have stolen his car though, I told myself. You shouldn’t have been so…sentimental.

I exhaled as slowly as I could to keep the shakes from getting inside me. I sure had a knack for pissing off men and making them hold grudges. They sure had a knack of making me pay for it.

I had to get out of there. I had to go, now.

But before I could, I heard steps on the wooden porch. I froze then shrank back against the counter, hidden from view.

The door opened, then closed. A lock slid across. Footsteps came across the hardwood floors, slowing down as they approached the counter. The paper. My eyes shot to it, lying on the ground beside me, a picture of an Ellie Watt I’d never get to be again.

The steps came—one, two.

Camden poked his head above the counter, staring down at me.

“Ellie?” he asked quietly.

I couldn’t answer him. The fear, it was too much. It was a hand in my stomach reaching for my lungs and squeezing them. It pulled down at my heart until I felt it drop.

“Ellie,” he said, a little more loudly. He crouched down beside me. I covered up my face, shaking my head, mumbling, trembling, trying to breathe. I gasped loudly, mouth open, not getting enough oxygen. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe. Grey dots filled my vision.

“Okay, calm down,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “You’ll be okay.”

I didn’t hear him. I couldn’t breathe. That’s all I could think about, the fact that I couldn’t breathe.

“Please,” he said, now holding my hand. His voice was gentle and soothing but had no damn effect on me. “You’re having a panic attack. I can understand why. I know a bit about panic attacks myself. I can get you some pills, okay? You have to come with me. I don’t want to leave you here alone. All right?”

He started pulling me up, but I was too weak to move and too terrified. He snatched up the picture of me and crammed it in his pocket. Then he looked around him nervously, reached over, and pulled me up over his shoulders. I went as limp as a ragdoll.

He carried me upstairs to the house, and the whole time I wished I had enough breath to get away, to make a run for it. There was no way I’d be getting out of that house on my own free will.

He placed me on the couch and disappeared to the bathroom. When he came out, he was holding a small prescription bottle. He tapped out a few yellow pills into his hand then held them in front of my mouth.

“Open up,” he coaxed me. “They dissolve under your tongue.”

Except Ativan was white, not yellow. He was trying to drug me.

“No,” I tried to say, but it came out like a whisper.

“Ellie, open up. These are for panic attacks. It’s like Ativan, but better.”

I shook my head but was afraid it was a losing race. I could suffocate to death. Or he could drug me and turn me over to Javier for a cool reward of $50,000.

I wasn’t sure which one I preferred.

And I didn’t have a choice. Camden opened my mouth for me and stuck the pills under my tongue, his fingers tasting like the latex from the gloves he had worn earlier.

I could have spit them out. I could have tried. But at that moment I just wanted to be able to breathe again. I could worry about my fate better with lungs full of air.

Camden stayed with me, stroking the top of my head while my heartbeat slowed. He told me to breathe in and out, in through the nose and out through the mouth. He held onto my hand and never once let go. I held his hand back, needing something to hang on to.

After some time, I didn’t feel woozy. I didn’t feel tired. I was calm but I was alert. I gave him a sheepish smile.

“Those are better than Ativan,” I said. “I thought you were trying to drug me unconscious.”

“I know you were.”

I bit my lip, hard. “What are you going to do about me?”

“About you?” he looked at me curiously.

I nodded. “Fifty thousand dollars.”

He frowned and adjusted himself on the couch, leaning in closer. “Ellie. I’m not handing you over to some psychopaths for fifty thousand dollars. This doesn’t change anything.”

“Yes it does,” I said. “It changes everything. It means we have to leave…now.”

“We can’t—“

“Listen to me, Camden” I said, trying to get the urgency back into my voice. “You have no idea what we are dealing with here. These men...tell me what happened. Tell me exactly what happened.”

He rubbed at his forehead anxiously. “Okay. The doorbell rang. I went downstairs and saw these two men standing on the steps.”

“Describe them.”

“One was about 5’10”, nice grey pinstripe suit. Really shiny shoes. Beak-like nose, a scar at his jaw. Clean shaven. Thick dark hair, brown eyes. Skinny. Like a male version of Olive Oyl. The other guy was a bit shorter, maybe 5’8”, same look about him except his nose had a huge bump on it like it had been broken a few times. Tan suit. Dirtier shoes. Both were Hispanic.”

“Raul and Alex,” I breathed out. Names I thought I’d never say again.

He nodded. “That’s right. Raul and Alex. They said they were looking for a girl. I said, ‘aren’t we all?’ They laughed like assholes laugh, so I knew they were bad news. They asked to come inside and I let them. They asked me a few questions about myself, the shop, how long I’ve been in the tattoo business, et cetera. Then then brought out the picture. They said the girl had stolen her ex-boyfriend’s car and money a few years ago and they wanted it back. The car, especially, had a lot of personal value to the man. They had heard she was in Palm Valley, and considering she had a tattoo on her arm and I was a tattoo artist, they figured I might have seen her.”

“That’s bullshit,” I spat out. “They know I’m here. They’ve seen us together.”

“I don’t think they know for sure. It’s a good thing your car—his car—is parked around the street, isn’t it?” He continued, talking faster now, picking up on the immediacy of what he was saying. “And so I told them I hadn’t seen the girl in the photo, though I knew who she was. I went to high school with her. They looked at each other like I’d said something really interesting and asked if I’d come meet someone. I told them I don’t normally walk off with people I don’t know and they said he was just at a teahouse across the street. So I figured I better find out what was going on. I followed them to that little shop that sells tea and English pastries and other nasty shit and they sat me down across from a guy.”

I swallowed hard. “And what did he look like?”

“Nice looking fellow,” he said, sounding slightly annoyed, “if you like swarthy-looking Latino men. He was sitting there, cool as a cucumber. And not a false cool—a real cool. Like he owned the teashop. Like he owned the town. Like he was God or something. Sitting back like he didn’t have a care in the world, brown suit jacket, expensive white shirt unbuttoned a bit. Jeans. Shit-kicker boots. Sipping on tea.”

“His face?”

Camden wiggled his jaw back and forth. “It…was like the sun. You wanted to look at him and you didn’t want to look at him. He looked fine, you know, for a guy. Wide mouth. Square jaw. Shaggy brown hair below his chin. In some ways he looked really young. But those eyes…I couldn’t look at them for too long. It was like he was staring into my soul or something and looking for things I don’t want anyone to go looking for. I couldn’t even look long enough at them to remember what color they were.”

“They’re green,” I said absently. “A very light, yellow green.”

He exhaled and sat back. “So then you know. It was Javier.”

“What did he want?” My voice sounded so far away. Javier. Javier Bernal was in my town. Right down the street from where I was. It was a miracle I wasn’t dead. Every second I sat there talking to Camden about him, I was pushing my luck. Javier was like my personal Candyman. There was a chance every time we said his name he would appear.

“He asked me the same questions and I gave him the same answers. Raul, I think, brought up the fact that I knew you in high school. So he started asking a lot of questions about your parents.”