Bound by Ink (A Living Ink Novel) Page 15

  The other two men climbed into the car, the boulder in the front passenger’s seat, and the one he’d called “Dick” beside her in the back. It struck her, finally, that none of them wore coats or gloves. No acknowledgment of the frigid mountain spring. Did they not feel the cold?

  Whether they did or didn’t, the man in the front passenger’s seat cranked up the heater while Isa glanced at the snack offerings.

  Plenty of prepackaged junk food. High fat, high calorie. Just the sort of thing many of the detainees her age might crave. Any of them would have been perfectly safe, sealed as they were, but the moment her fingers brushed the smooth, cool skin of an apple, the sweet perfume of it filled her head. Her mouth watered. She drew it out. Bright, shiny red in the searchlights following the car out the front gate.

  They could have done anything to it.

  Were they playing out a twisted version of Snow White, poisoned apple and all?

  Or could she admit they had no reason to drug her?

  They’d already succeeded in obligating her to them by driving her out of the camp. They seemed intent on taking her back across the mountains to Seattle.

  If they took her home, she’d have no choice but to pledge her undying loyalty to them.

  Isa supposed, looked at that way, the apple was drugged with carefully calculated consideration, designed specifically to put her in their debt. Just like the rest of their rescue.

  Very well.

  She bit into the crisp, juicy flesh.

  There were as many ways to discharge debt as there were for her drawing to have gone so wrong that Isa stumbled out of one prison, right into another.

  Chapter Twelve

  They didn’t take Isa home. They raced the sunrise back to Seattle.

  The sun won, lighting up a brilliant blue sky studded with glowing clouds. The driver pulled into the parking garage beneath a set of condos that overlooked Pike Place Market and Puget Sound beyond. The two who’d brought her out of the camp escorted her into the elevator. One of them presented a key fob to a reader pad on the elevator control panel. It beeped and the floor numbers lit.

  He pressed the button for the top floor.

  They unlocked and led her into one of the penthouse condos. She counted three other doors in the hallway.

  “We’d like you to stay here,” the boulder said. “Rest. Recuperate. Enjoy yourself.”

  “What do you want?”

  He spread his fingers as if to assure her he had nothing to hide. The smile on his lips looked as if he hadn’t practiced the expression often or long enough for it to occur naturally.

  “We’d like you to hear us out,” he said. “But not before you’ve had a chance to recover. You have some important decisions to make. We’d like you to be fully rested and clear headed when that happens.”

  “Hello?” a male voice called from within the depths of the condo. Footsteps on polished beige stone sounded behind her. “You must be Isa. Welcome home.”

  Isa turned.

  A ruggedly handsome man, with gray eyes, sandy brown hair, and a chalky voice, stood looking her up and down, a faintly indulgent smile on his lips. He bore such a striking resemblance to Steve that Isa had to bite back a laugh.

  “Who are you?” she said instead.

  He held out a hand. “I’m Max. I’m here to take care of you.”

  Isa clasped her hands behind her back. “I think I’ve got a lock on taking care of myself. Thanks.”

  “You’re exhausted,” he said, his tone soothing. “You’d probably kill for a long, hot shower.”

  “Don’t tempt me.” She might not stop once she started.

  He grinned. Like Steve, that smile transformed him. But he wasn’t Steve.

  While her heart skipped in reaction simply because he was attractive, Isa shook her head. “This won’t work.”

  “What won’t work, Ms. Romanchzyk?” the suited boulder asked.

  “Whatever research you did on me to find and create what you imagine will leverage me into doing whatever it is you want.”

  “You seem to believe you know something about us, Ms. Romanchzyk.”

  “That’s right. I do.”

  Max raised an eyebrow.

  The agent shifted. “I’m afraid Max’s presence is nonnegotiable. Rest . . .Where are you going?”

  “To the car,” she said, already shaking, and ready to stagger with nausea. “I decline your offer.”

  “Wait. Ms. Romanchzyk, is your objection to Max personally?”

  “No.”

  “What is your concern?”

  “Disinclination to be manipulated.”

  The agents traded a glance.

  “If we take you back to the camp, you’ll be returned to the brig. It is entirely possible that you’ll die there,” the boulder said.

  “I appreciate the fact that you’d report the colonel for abuse of power before that happened,” she said. “Hope my dripping sarcasm won’t stain this nice stone floor.”

  Dick’s brows lowered.

  The boulder scowled and flicked a glance at Dick. Their lips tightened just enough for Isa to catch the misgiving in their expressions.

  “Our mandate requires a certain amount of discretion,” Dick said. “If you’re determined to return to the camp, we will not interfere.”

  His tone indicated that he expected her capitulation.

  Isa inclined her head. “Understood.”

  “Wait,” Max protested. “Will you accept visitors?”

  “Yes. In fact, I’d like to see Troy and Nathalie.” And Steve. But she didn’t think they’d be all that keen on letting the police know where she was, much less who had her. She almost added that if they really wanted her indebted to them, they’d bring Ikylla and Gus, but a sudden stab of circumspection stopped the words on her tongue.

  What would they do to the animals to ensure her compliance? Not even she was selfish enough to put her family in that position. Not to mention the fact that she had doubts about her stability if they threatened her dog or her cat.

  “Recover,” the boulder said, his placating tone sandpaper on her breastbone. “We’ll discuss our options when you feel more yourself.”

  Isa snorted. “Say ‘no’ when it’s what you mean.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You have no intention of letting me see my friends,” she said. “So just give me the rules that’ll keep me from being shot so I can go get that shower.”

  He traded a glance with Dick, who examined her with a furrow between his brows. “There seems to be some confusion. We got you out of the camp. This isn’t a prison.”

  She lifted one eyebrow. “So you won’t try to keep me from walking out the door, going downstairs, and going home?”

  “No.”

  Sincerity like a choir of damned angels rang through the palatial entry hall.

  Isa wilted.

  Of course they wouldn’t stop her. Because the second she turned up at Nightmare Ink or at her apartment, the AMBI would be waiting to take her back to the camp.

  “What did you do? Steal me? Make it look like I escaped? Why weren’t the soldiers shooting as we drove out the front gate?”

  “You seem to have the wrong idea about us,” the boulder said. “We’d like for you to stay here where you’ll be safe and comfortable. None of us wants to take you back to the camp.”

  “Ask us for anything you’d like that is within our power to supply—we may yet be able to arrange a meeting with your friends,” Dick added.

  Indebting her to them again, they imagined? There was one test she could conduct. “California roll from Okari Sushi,” she said. “And my painting gear.”

  “Not your pets?” Max asked as if he’d read her mind.

  Her heart stumbled. Calling her bluff? She shook her head. “I have
n’t heard your proposal yet. Until I have and we all understand the price tags each of us would impose . . .”

  “California roll and paint?” Dick said, one side of his mouth twisted upward. At least he had a sense of humor. “Is that why your hands are blue?”

  “Please stay,” Max said. “I know these past few weeks have been confusing.”

  Her diaphragm kicked out a laugh at the understatement.

  Tension ran out of the two suited agents. Dick’s shoulders eased lower. The boulder’s expression smoothed to impassivity.

  “You’re tired,” Max went on. “Angry. I’d be pissed as hell if I were in your place. Richard. Lawrence. Gentlemen, we’ve done a poor job of assuring Ms. Romanchzyk’s comfort.”

  Isa eyed the agents.

  Dick nodded. The boulder, Lawrence, she assumed, looked away, his lips pressed thin.

  A bubble of caution burst, coating the inside of her skin with sticky fear. Just who was running the show here? It hadn’t occurred to her that an agent put in place to “take care” of her would outrank the front men. Her prejudice?

  “I’m going to show Ms. Romanchzyk what she needs to know about her new home,” Max said. “If you’ll excuse us?”

  “Excellent suggestion,” Dick said. “Is one order of California roll enough?”

  She nodded.

  “What kind of paint?” Lawrence asked.

  “I prefer acrylic,” she said, glancing at the polished stone floor. “Has the advantage of cleaning up with water.”

  Max chuckled and held out a hand.

  Isa forced a smile that made her cheeks cramp. Stepping away from the door, she held up her blue palms. “The other advantage of acrylics. They don’t stain skin or transfer to other people.”

  The two suited agents slipped behind her and out the door.

  Nodding, Max dropped his hand back to his side. “I won’t touch you without your permission.”

  “Thanks. Please understand it’s nothing at all personal.”

  “This way,” he said, turning to lead her down the hallway. “It is personal, isn’t it? For a moment, when you first saw me, I saw recognition in your face. Then anger. Why?”

  “Because someone, I suspect you, went to way too much trouble to find my boyfriend’s twin,” she said as he took her into a master bedroom furnished with gray stained wood and gold fabric. “As if he could so easily be replaced.”

  Max shot her a sideways glance. “You’re saying you were attracted enough to think of me romantically? I’m flattered.”

  “Given that I haven’t had a shower in more days than I want to contemplate? I doubt it. “

  “Shower through here.”

  The gleaming white-and-black subway tile bath echoed with their footsteps.

  “You’ll find everything you need in the way of clothes,” he said, pointing out the walk-in closet.

  She glanced in. Slacks. Dresses. Skirts. They all looked familiar somehow. Not that she owned crisp linen trousers or wool pencil skirts. Not when she dealt with paint and tattoo ink on a daily basis. And all too often, with blood and mythical creatures given unnatural life.

  A pair of cowboy boots caught her eye. Her pulse stuttered. They were perfect replicas of the boots she’d lost the day Daniel had kidnapped her—the boots Henry had given her for her sixteenth birthday.

  How the hell had they known what those boots had meant to her?

  Frowning, she forced her gaze away from the polished, pointed toes. Deal with why the clothes seemed so familiar. She brushed blue fingertips down the silk of a dress the color of rich chocolate. Recognition hit. Her browser history. She snorted, dropped her hand back to her side, and made herself turn away.

  “What?” Max asked.

  “I’m glad someone found a practical use for the NSA’s spying program.”

  “That was cell phones.”

  She awarded him a raised eyebrow.

  He chuckled. “I got the clothes wrong, didn’t I? They weren’t things you wanted but couldn’t afford, where they?”

  “No.” She had no intention of volunteering that her browser window-shopping had been a glimpse of a life different than the one she led, if she’d made different choices. If she’d gone to college and gotten an office job maybe. If she didn’t have pets. If she didn’t draw things that came to life. Choices she had no intention of ever making.

  “I’m usually very good at finding keys,” Max said, propping one shoulder on the door frame and crossing his arms. “To people. It’s a gift, I guess. But you’re a contradiction. You don’t really want to be alone. Oh, you’re used to it. That’s in your file. And you’re right. We do know a little about you. Everything I’d seen in your file suggested that you consider Steve Corvane someone safe. Someone you can turn to. Yet you never let him in and I don’t know why. Is that why you object to me? Because Daniel Alvarez broke you and now you can’t let anyone in?”

  Isa straightened her spine. “Resident psychiatrist, too? Am I supposed to collapse in a teary heap and beg you to hold me?”

  Max held up his hands at her approach and backed out of the doorway.

  “Daniel couldn’t break me,” she said. “I was broken long before he showed up.”

  “I know. I’m sorry,” Max said. “Your childhood doesn’t matter. Not to me.”

  Meaning what? That he’d seen the AMBI’s file on her? Knew about the murder charge? Imagined that he knew what might drive a six-year-old to wish her nineteen-year-old cousin dead? Yet another picture she’d drawn that had come true. Her cousin, falling from a construction scaffold. He had. And he had died. He’d just taken three weeks to do it.

  “You want me to stay and let you go on looking for a key to me? I’ll give you the key. Explain. Who are you people? What do you want with me? Be straight. That’s my price tag,” she said, stalking past him.

  He trailed her to the bedroom door.

  “I’d like that shower now,” she said, holding the door wide for him.

  “I apologize,” he said, his velvety voice quiet. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “Sure you did,” she said as he exited the room. “Emotion, any emotion, is a tool, a key, if you will. I know that. And now you know I know that.”

  He peered at her for several moments, hesitating as if he wanted to say something more. Instead, he nodded once. “I’ll make coffee.” He walked away.

  Max’s words—Never let him in—echoed inside her skull, running around her mental picture of Steve.

  Dick entered the condo as Max strode past. Neither man acknowledged the other.

  “Ms. Romanchzyk, Okari Sushi is closed,” Dick said.

  The word closed thumped Isa, center mass. Hiro-san, Oki’s father, had a Live Ink tattoo. She flashed on the quarantine center where so many people and tattoos had died. Had he and Oki’s mother been picked up? The blood ran out of her head.

  His gaze slid left and his head tilted slightly that same direction as if he listened to something she couldn’t hear. “There’s a sign on the door saying they are closed for vacation.”

  “They don’t vacation,” she breathed. “Not in five years.”

  “Then I’d say they were overdue, wouldn’t you?”

  Of course they weren’t, and both Dick and Isa knew it.

  “Can we bring anything else?” he asked.

  Numb, Isa shook her head, then froze. “Yes. George Tollefson. Give me an hour to shower, but may I see him? He’s here already.”

  Dick frowned. “Who told you—”

  “Lawrence,” she said. Right before Ria had murdered one of his own gang members. “He said George had recommended me.”

  “One hour,” Dick said.

  She shut the bedroom door. No lock. Not on the bathroom door, either. Filled with misgiving, she went to the shower.

  Not e
ven limitless hot water could drive away the internal-to-her cold. Or wash away the blue stain on her hands. It had spread. Streaks reached up the insides of her wrist as if the pigment were poison aiming for her heart.

  If what the woman at the camp and her tattoo had said was true, nothing would warm Isa, save facing the spirits of the Mayan underworld.

  Isa shut off the water. Wrapped in an oversized robe, she combed out her snarled hair. She found jeans in the drawers lining one wall of the walk-in. T-shirts and sweatshirts were thin on the ground. She finally settled for a blue silk button-down atop a form-fitting blue tank.

  Every fiber tugged her toward the cowboy boots.

  She clenched her teeth and yanked her sneakers back on.

  Max had done better than he’d imagined at ferreting out keys he could use to unlock her. If he ever found out that she would fall at Murmur’s feet begging him to hold her—Isa broke off the mental image and shuddered.

  Dick and Lawrence had better bring painting supplies soon. She’d go mad without the busy work of Nightmare Ink to keep her from thinking.

  When she emerged from the bedroom, Max met her in the living room, a tray bearing a coffeepot and mugs in hand. “I’ll pay your price.”

  She met his gaze and lifted an eyebrow.

  “George will arrive shortly. Visit with him. Take your time. I’ll return when you’ve done.”

  When the knock came at the front door, Isa didn’t have a chance to hike across the vast wilderness of the living room to answer it. Max appeared to open the door.

  Maybe having a butler wasn’t so bad after all.

  “Mr. Tollefsen? Through here. Ms. Romanchzyk, I will step out to afford you some privacy. If you need anything at all,” Max said, “pick up any phone. It will ring directly through to your concierge.”

  She heard “jailor.”

  He ushered a tall, broad-shouldered man through the front door.

  Isa looked for some evidence of Patty in the man dressed in khaki slacks and a white button-down shirt, but saw none.

  George wouldn’t meet her eye. His skin was craggy and scarred. He slouched, hands jammed in his pockets. He lacked Patty’s streetwise confidence, her flair.