Page 52 of Grave Stone

“Oh, yeah,” I lied. “Sorry. I was trying to remember if I had any appointments already scheduled for today.”

“I’ll be back in a couple of hours to take you to lunch but call or text Halo if you need anything.”

“I will,” I said and reached for the door handle.

Stone gently grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me toward him, covering my lips with his before I could protest. Not that I would have. The man knew how to use his mouth. Who was I to stop him?

“See you in a few hours,” he said once he released me.

I walked into the shop, slightly dazed but less anxious.

“Hey!” Lewis said when he saw me. “Did you find out what that detective wanted?”

“Yes! I couldn’t believe it,” I said, trying to sound genuine. “My ex-boyfriend was reported missing earlier this week. He asked me a couple of questions about him and wanted to know when I’d last seen him or talked to him. Stuff like that.” I shrugged. “I don’t think I was much help. We broke up over a year ago, and we didn’t keep in touch.”

“Really? What do they think happened to him?”

“I don’t know. If they have a working theory, they didn’t share it with me.” I pointed toward my room. “I’ll catch up with you in a bit. I want to clean everything since it’s been almost two weeks since I was here.”

“Do your thing, girl. We’re here all day.”

After cleaning the room, I set things up as much as I could. Then, I pulled out my sketchbook and started drawing while I waited for a client. Piercing was very different from tattooing in terms of customer volume and scheduling. Sometimes I would go hours without a customer, and then a party of eight would come in for naval piercings to commemorate a bachelorette weekend. I tried to use the slow periods to work on sketches and check to see if there were any new openings for a tattoo artist. I enjoyed piercing, but I loved tattooing and wanted to find a job doing that primarily.

I glanced at the clock and nearly groaned. I’d been there for almost three hours without a single customer. Not even a jewelry change. On the bright side, my lunch break was less than an hour away.

Twenty minutes before Stone was supposed to pick me up, Lewis lightly knocked on my open door. “A lady out front has some piercing questions.”

“I’ll be right there.”

After quickly glancing in the mirror to make sure I didn’t have graphite smeared across my face, I stepped into the lobby and froze.

“What did you do to him?” Tori screamed. “I know you did something! Did you kidnap him or kill him? Tell me!”

I raised my hands in front of me and stepped back. “I didn’t do anything,” I said as calmly as I could.

“Liar! I know you’re hiding something!”

“I’m not hiding anything. I spoke with Detective Yates for over an hour yesterday.”

“I’m gonna find out what you did to Glenn! And there’ll be nowhere you can hide!” She turned and pushed through the door, storming off down the street.

“I’m, I’m so sorry,” I stammered. “She’s, uh, that’s my ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend. I guess she’s not handling things well.”

“Sounds like it,” Lewis said. “Maybe you should go home for the rest of the day in case she comes back.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Stone should be here to pick me up by the time I finish packing up and closing down my station.”

Before I did anything, I texted Stone and Halo to let them know what happened.

Stone: Stay in the shop. I’ll be there soon.

I heard the back door chime and assumed it was Halo coming inside to wait with me. Grabbing my bag, I walked into the lobby and saw a man I didn’t recognize pointing a gun at Lewis.

“Where the fuck is Whitney?” he demanded.

Lewis slowly raised one hand and pointed his finger toward me. “Right there,” he squeaked. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“You!” He pointed the gun at me, then gestured toward the back door. “Let’s go. If you do anything stupid, I’ll kill you and every motherfucker in here.”