“They’re reaching for the easiest answer because they can’t find another one.” A good third of Ned’s customer base are bikers and, while most of them are just that—guys who ride motorcycles—Ned also found himself catering to Devil’s Iron, the one percent who do more than simply “ride bikes.” The cops are having a field day right now, going through potential motives and enemies. They have no other explanation for why two masked men would show up here, empty the register—which had maybe a grand sitting in it—and murder him and a customer.
Ian snorts. “Besides, I’m guessing there won’t be too many rednecks and bikers coming in here to get their work done by a California Roll.”
“They might, if the California Roll is Ned’s son.” I smile, despite the derogatory name. I heard it plenty growing up in San Fran, before my family decided they wanted me as far away from my uncle’s bad influence as possible. Ian and I are both children of interracial couples. Ned was as white as white can get—born and raised in New Mexico before moving to California and charming a Chinese-American girl named Jun—my dad’s sister—with his bad boy ways at a local grocery store.
The result of Jun and Ned’s union is a skinny, nonathletic version of Brandon Lee.
I, on the other hand, am a Spanish-Chinese mix. My mother was raised outside Madrid. She met my dad while attending college on a Spanish exchange program. I was actually born in Spain, which technically makes me something other than a Chinese American, but kids are stupid.
“Or Ned’s niece.” Ian meets my dark eyes with ones of his own. “This place means way more to you than it does me. What if we keep it and you manage it?”
A rare bark of laughter escapes me. Me, manage a shop in San Francisco?
“I was being serious,” he mutters.
My gaze shifts involuntarily over to the chair and that prickly ball that keeps lodging itself in my throat when I let myself acknowledge that Ned is gone forever appears once again. “I can’t,” I whisper hoarsely.
His face softens. “You haven’t said much about that night. I’m sure it was traumatic. Are you going to be okay?”
Everyone—Ian, Jun, my parents, local shop owners, regular customers—seems more concerned about how I am than about what happened to Ned and who killed him. None of them knows exactly what I saw. And none of them ever will if I can help it, because no one needs to hear those gory details. “I’ll be fine. You know me.”
“Yeah, I do. Tough as nails . . . on the outside.” His heavy dark brow furrows with concern. “I would have shat my pants. Were you scared?”
“Terrified . . .” And still am, for so many reasons beyond the obvious. Terrified to think what could have happened had I not gone for subs, had the sandwich guy known a tomato from his asshole and made the sandwiches in half the time, had I not been so quiet slipping through the back door.
Perhaps me being there could have saved Ned, somehow. Perhaps me running to the front instead of hiding in the back could have saved him. Maybe I made the wrong choice by crawling under the desk like a mouse. I have so many lingering what-ifs, all of them feeding that guilty burn that now festers deep in my core.
But talking about my guilt means facing it, and I don’t have the strength to do that. “So, I guess we should sell it, then.”
He sighs. “All the equipment is already set up.” As much as he isn’t about the money, he’s also not an idiot. “If we could freshen it up a bit, someone may be willing to pay good money for it.” He pauses. “But . . . I really can’t take care of all that.” I feel his gaze settle on me, and I keep mine glued to the deep grooves in the wood floor.
Because I know where this conversation is heading.
Ian just started his PhD two months ago. He’ll be the most highly educated tattoo artist the world has ever seen in another few years, but that means he can’t stay here to handle things. He has all kinds of commitments back in Dublin.
His little cousin, Ivy Lee, is the queen of not making commitments. She’s free as a bird. Only this bird had plans to leave here and pack up all her clothes and belongings today, so she could hit the road as early as tomorrow.
“I need you here, Ivy.”
I groan out loud, but that doesn’t stop him.