Black Hearts (Sins Duet #1)

“I’ll wait for him, then,” I tell him, wondering if I should add to that. It’s a risk. “I go to school with his daughter, Violet. She recommended him.”

“And not me?” Lloyd looks like I kicked him in the gut. I’m guessing he’s either oversensitive or he has a fucking hard-on for her. He manages to recover. “Well, any friend of Vi’s is a friend of mine.”

But as he says that, something in his gaze shifts. Not quite the suspicion I would expect. He’s sizing me up. A flicker of jealousy. Wondering who I am exactly to Violet McQueen.

Seems like the guy has a hard-on for her after all. For all I know, they could be together, but from the impression I got from her photography on her Instagram account, I’m guessing he’s not her type. Her work is too thoughtful, stark, poetic. This guy seems too simple for her taste.

It doesn’t matter. Violet isn’t any of my business. It’s her mother that I’m curious about.

“So, how about it?” I ask, tapping my fingers along the glass counter, binders beneath it full of tattoos, both designs and pictures of inked skin. “Does next Friday work?”

Lloyd stares at me for a bit too long and I’m seconds from mad-dogging him but I manage to refrain myself and force that polite full-of-shit smile again.

Finally he looks at his computer and scrolls down the screen.

“Five p.m. okay? You know what you want?”

I nod, since I’m going to just cancel the appointment anyway. “I do. And that’s fine.” I pause. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Tio and Nacho loitering outside. “Have you seen Violet today?”

“No,” Lloyd says, his voice on edge. “She doesn’t come by often and only when the bus drops her off after class on weekdays. It’s Saturday.” No shit it’s Saturday. “What did you say your name was again?”

“I didn’t. It’s Vicente.” I give him my phone number.

“That’s an LA area code,” Lloyd says, squinting at me. “I thought you said you went to school with Violet.”

“I’m from LA. Going back after the semester is over. I haven’t changed it yet.” Which reminds me, I’m going to need another phone with a SF number really soon. The moment I purchased this one in LA, Tio and Nacho scammed the number off me and no doubt passed it on to my father.

Lloyd seems to buy that, though I have no doubt he’ll probably tell Violet about me when he sees her next, probably in some sniveling way. The truth is, I probably won’t be around come Friday anyway, and I’m certainly not getting a fucking tattoo. Everything I plan to accomplish will be done before that.

When I leave the shop I look to my right at the two stooges who are pretending to stare through a shop window. I don’t even know why they bother.

“Hey,” I tell them. “You guys want a tattoo? I could make you an appointment. Get a couple of naked ladies on your arms, closest to a woman you’re ever going to get.”

They stare at me blankly, completely void of personality. It’s their job to watch me and pretend they don’t know me.

I roll my eyes and head out into the street, dodging the headlights of passing cars. It’s completely dark now but the night is buffered by fog, painting everything charcoal, onyx, and grey.

They’re right behind me, wondering where I’m going and if I’m trying to lose them.

I’m not. I need them to follow me.

I don’t know what is hidden in my father’s past. He’s been pretty open about every last gruesome detail of his life, even the less than charming circumstances of how he met my mother. But I know I’m close to figuring something out here. I just don’t know what it is.

I also know that Tio and Nacho are reporting every last detail about what I’m doing and will be doing. Either to my father over the phone and through email, maybe even to my mother. Either way, he’ll hear I randomly went to a tattoo shop.

He’ll hear the name Sins & Needles.

And I’m sure it will ring a bell.

As will the name Camden McQueen.

My father doesn’t believe in coincidences.

If he is informed tonight, I guarantee I’ll wake up tomorrow evening in Mexico with a mouth full of cotton balls and sedatives in my veins. If not tonight, the next day.

The point is, everything I want to find out would go straight down the drain. Everything.

Though I don’t know San Francisco well, I know the maps I’ve been studying and the travel guide audio book I listened to on the drive up here. I head down the street, Tio and Nacho hot on my trail, then cut into Buena Vista Park.

The oldest park in the city, I remember that much. It’s mostly steep hill, disappearing into the fog, shrouded by darkness. During the day it’s a magnet for dog walkers. At night it’s a mountain of drug addicts, dealers, vagrants, the homeless, and a whole other range of less than desirables. No sane man would come here after dark.

And though I’m not sane, I am smart.

Maybe smart isn’t the right word.

Fastidious.

Thorough.

And maybe, just a bit ruthless.

I’m yelled at in incoherent ramblings by a few shadows as I pass them by but I pay them no mind. I ignore the darkened steps of a path curving up the hill and go straight up over the grass and brush and into the trees. I briefly turn around before disappearing into the forest. Tio and Nacho have attracted the attention of the bums who are shouting ethnic slurs at them, and I wait, breath held in my mouth, for either of them to overreact.

That would be seriously bad luck. For all of us here. Me, them, the bums. But they keep going, keep coming after me, straight up the hill, feet slipping on the fog-damp grass.

The bums won’t remember us tomorrow.

I head into the trees. The light from Haight Street below is dispersed into the mist, leaving a world of shadows with just enough to see by. I duck behind a thick eucalyptus, its scaly bark appearing like loose skin in the night, and take my .45 out of my waistband, quickly slipping on the silencer from my pocket.