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Hiscanvas.
Therehadto be a reason that thorn tattoo bothered meso much… had I seen it before, on someone else? When I closed my eyes, there was a memory that lingered just on the fringes of my peripheral thoughts, one I couldn’t bring into focus.
Frustrated, I let my eyes pop open, glaring across the painted sky.
I needed more details.
Details I didn’t have.
Shit.
I bet Tali would remember…
I closed my eyes again, my hand going to my neck to feel for the trinket I kept there, a gift from my baby sister, from what seemed like a lifetime ago. The tiny carved rose had been a joke, an ongoing one, based on me having “saved her life” when we were kids.
Such a silly ass story.
We were running one day, after school. Not for sport, or for fun—just running.
Why?
Who knows?
But we got so wild that we messed around and ran into this mean ass lady’s rose bushes, which hurt like a bitch. I had to untangle Tali, her hair, her backpack, all that.
I had to punch that lady in her face ’cause she tried to grab Tali.
Then we were running again, while she chased us, screaming.
Thatmemory made me smile.
I ran my fingers over the smooth stone rose carving, feeling the familiar ridges and grooves, still marveling over the detail of it all.
But then another,differentmemory struck.
My eyes went wide, shoulders tense as I snatched my phone from the pocket of my robe and navigated to one of my contacts to hit thecallbutton. The phone was barely answered before I started talking.
“Hey… do you remember telling me about this client you covered up a rose tattoo for?” I asked Maite, heedless to the time of morning as I excitedly spouted the question into the phone.
Ineededher to remember, so I’d know the thought wasn’t something I’d made up. She was probably cussing me out in her head, but all I had to endure was a long, exaggerated yawn before Maite confirmed, “Yeah, some drunk chick talking about assassins and shit like she was in witness protection. I shouldn’t have inked her with liquor in her system, but she seemed desperate. And she was fine. But how doyouremember that? It was like a year ago. Maybe two.”
“I remember a lot,” I told her. “It’s kind of an important quality considering…”
“Right,” she agreed. “Working withtheseniggas. You know what I always think about though? That girl swore afterwards she was just fucking around, but… I don’t know. A while back, I read on the internet about some secret society shit. All the women got tattooed with a rose.”
My eyes went wide. “Like an article? Is thereanyway you remember the site?”
“Nah, like…like a story. It’s one of those sites where people upload whatever they want for folks to read.”
“Like fuckingWattpad,Maite?!”
“Wattpad has some good shit! A lot better than some of the so-called New York Times Bestsellers,” she started up, and I shook my head like she could see me.
“I’m not debatingthatgirl, damn! I’m saying I thought you were… giving me some factual information.Nonfiction.”
“Oh. My bad. Nah, I can’t vouch for any of that. But I don’t know… it’s just real coincidental to me. Real convenient, you know? She’s drunk and spills all her beans, then she sobers up a bit and now all of a sudden it’stee-heeI was just playing. Story is posted on the internet, starts to gain a little interest, and all of a sudden it’s scrubbed down. Can’t find it anymore. Which pissed me off, ’cause I wasnotfinished reading.”
“Please stay focused,” I said. “This client, do you remember her name?”
