Sins & Needles (The Artists Trilogy #1) (20 page)

“Yes. Non-negotiable.” He got to his feet and threw the dishtowel in the trash. “In six days, one of Vincent’s partners will come by and make the drop. I want to take that money, as well as all the money in the safe.”

“Whose money is in the safe?”

“Theirs. They like to have some of the cash on hand.”

I felt a wash of ice go down my spine. “What would have happened if I had actually robbed you, Camden?”

His smile was sad. “If I hadn’t stopped you? They probably would have killed me. No, scratch that. They definitely would have killed me.”

Shit. In some backwards way, I was glad that Camden had been smart enough to see through me. This alternative was much better than the other. I would have never been able to live with myself if he ended up dead because of me.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, looking down at the wounds on my wrists.

“Yeah, well it’s a good thing I’m not one of those guys, because apparently your head would already be blown off.”

I gave him a small smile. “It is a good thing.”

He sat back down in his seat and stared at me for a few moments before saying, “So now that you know what I want, can you do it in six days?”

“Yes. I can.”

“Then I guess you better get started.”

I nodded. “What about Uncle Jim? And my stuff, I need the stuff in my car. This basketball jersey is starting to smell.”

“Where is your car?”

“Just a block away, by the dog-walking park.”

He sucked on his lip in thought. “I’ll go with you. I know you’re not stupid enough to run but I can’t be sure. As for your uncle, I don’t know. I guess you’ll have to drop him a line telling him you’re still in San Diego, or whatever place you lied about, and that you’re not coming back. I know you love your uncle, but I have a feeling he’ll be relieved.”

I hated that he was probably right about that.

CHAPTER TWELVE

It was Wednesday when Camden told me the details of his plan, six days from the scheduled drop. It’s a good thing most con artists don’t have banking hours, or we would have gotten screwed over the weekend.

Aside from walking over to Jose and getting all my gear out of the car, I didn’t get to leave the house until Friday. Until then, I was holed up in his living room, the couch my new bed. In the living room, I felt open and aware. His spare bedroom was too dark and cramped for me. Like a cell.

It wasn’t a bad place to have house arrest. Camden stayed out of my way and spent as much time as possible in the shop or in the office, either inking the occasional client or dreaming about his new future. He was cordial to me when we did cross paths, and whenever he made himself dinner or ordered take-out, there was always enough for me. He had even offered me a beer at one point but I made a point of saying no. I needed to think clearly, more clearly than I ever had to before.

He had put away his gun somewhere and stopped throwing pots of coffee. He seemed a little embarrassed about that to be honest, but I probably would have done the same thing if I were in his shoes. Sometimes you have to shock someone to get them to see how serious you really are—I knew that all too well. And I saw that Camden was serious beyond reproach. I missed the days we had before this mess, when he was flirting with me and everything was fun. But, I guess all of that was a lie anyway.

There was no fun in the truth.

On Friday, while my friend Gus in Pismo Beach worked on securing Camden some fake Social Security Numbers, I was in the middle of making him a fake driver’s license. In order to get it done properly, we would have to go to a place to get his picture taken.

“I don’t see why I can’t go alone,” he said while we ate our All-Bran cereal like the world’s most fucked up married couple. “There’s a few passport photo places on the strip and in the mall.”

“Look,” I said pointedly, “You can’t keep me cooped up in here forever. I have to go out sometime. I’ll go crazy otherwise.”

“Too late for that,” he mumbled under his breath.

“And I have to make sure you look right and the photos are the right size and the right everything. It’s very easy to get wrong. You have no experience in faking IDs. I do.”

He obviously thought I was going to make a run for it, but I was beyond that now. I was starting to trust Camden a little bit and trust his intentions. I didn’t exactly want to help him escape with a shitload of cash and have more people to be running from, but it wasn’t too off from something I’d be doing anyway. If this was all Camden wanted to use me for, I could live with that.

He sighed and pushed his bowl of cereal away. “Well, if you’re coming, we better not let anyone recognize you. If your uncle saw you, it would look pretty bad.”

I shrugged. “I have some wigs. It’s you we don’t want people to recognize. To be more specific, we want you looking as different as possible. Are you sure Vincent or any of his cronies won’t be around between now and the drop?”

“Cronies?” he said with a laugh. “You’re making them sound like the mafia.”

I stared at him. “Yeah? They’re Italian aren’t they? They probably are the mafia.”

“That’s racist.”

“It’s racist if I said all Italians are part of the mafia. The Madanos run drugs or guns or whatever. You’re laundering their money. It’s probably safe to say they have ties to the mob in some way. My ex-boyfriend is part of a gang. He’s Mexican. Guess what? He’s part of a large Mexican drug cartel. I’m white trash with an Eastern European background.  I’m also a gypsy and a con artist. We’re all stereotypes. Sometimes they come from somewhere. Sometimes when people pigeonhole you, you end up being the pigeon.”

“You’re not a pigeon,” he said. “You’re whoever you want to be.”

“Whatever. So, back to the question.”

“The answer is no. I shouldn’t see any of them until Monday.”

“Then we should get started on your new look now.”

“Should I be worried?” A wrinkle appeared on his forehead. I wasn’t letting my guard down, but my god he looked adorable.

“Well, aren’t we a little vain,” I remarked. “You’re not going to look like an idiot. I can’t do anything drastic with you anyway, you’re covered in tattoos.”

He raised his hands in the air and wiggled them. I’d forgotten how strong and elegant they were. “I don’t have any tats on my hands. They’re the last frontier for me.”

“Good. Let’s keep it that way.” At least long-sleeved shirts would do the trick. I peered at him, moving my head from side to side. “You’re going to start wearing your Kettle Black glasses, the black ones, all the time. We’re going to dye your hair black, cut off all this shaggy surfer dude-ness and make it short and a bit spiky.”

He grimaced.

“What?” I asked, leaning in. “That not cool enough for you?”

“Never mind,” he said. “Fine. Dye my hair, cut it off, say goodbye to contacts. Anything else?  Should I remove my septum ring too or do I get to keep some memento of who I was?”

He was being sarcastic and missing the whole point. I almost put my hand over his to comfort him and add emphasis to what I was about to say, but I didn’t dare touch him.

“Camden,” I said delicately, “you’re not going to want any mementos of who you were. This isn’t about a disguise; you’ll barely look any different than you do now. This is about saying goodbye to the person you are, the person you were, and hello to the person you’ll be. You’ll have to change and change is big. Change is scary. You’re uprooting everything you have worked so hard to get. You’re not going to know who you are for a while, not until you relearn how to live. If you look in the mirror and you don’t immediately recognize yourself, then you’ll know you’re on the right track.”

“Is that why you’re so sad all the time?”

I frowned. “What?”

“You know when we were in my car, heading to the show and I said I liked Guano Padano because it reminded me of you? Rough and sweet at the same time? I wasn’t lying. I was just leaving something out. It’s rough and sweet and very, very sad. When I look at you, I see sadness.”

I chewed on my lip and looked away from him. “I thought you saw justification.”

“I do. I see a lot of things when I look at you.”

I got to my feet, feeling uncomfortable. “Come on. Let’s get you a makeover.”

***

It’s funny how women underestimate just how vain men can be. Camden didn’t really have a problem with wearing his nerd glasses all the time—which, fortunately for him, didn’t make him look any less attractive—and he didn’t care that he had to dye his hair black. His brows were naturally black anyway and the combination would make his icy blue eyes pop even more.

No, Camden had a problem with having his hair cut short, purely because he didn’t like the way his ears stuck out. It was hard to believe that this was the man who was planning to run away with a bunch of the mafia’s money, but hey. Someone can look like a tattooed, muscular god and still be terribly insecure because of his Dumbo ears.

Which, by the way, also didn’t make him look any less attractive, especially since he didn’t get his hair cut
that
short. I had a change of heart. It wasn’t fair, really. Somehow, even being a new person and having a new look, he still managed to look hot. I’d stopped swooning over him as soon as I learned that he was borderline insane, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t still checking him out from time to time.

When we were done with the hair, we made our way to the passport photo place and I had to explain to the old, deaf man who was taking the pictures that it wasn’t for a passport but for an ID. We couldn’t say driver’s license since that was illegal and all, so we made it look like Camden owned a growing business and wanted to get security passes for the staff. That was enough for the old guy and we got three tiny photos ready to become a forgery.

It was surprising how different he looked in the photos. I was standing off camera, looking at the screen and giving him directions. Despite the glasses, the new Camden looked serious and tough, the kind of person who never forgot a face. The kind of person you didn’t want to mess with. I wanted for Camden to feel empowered by the new him every time he looked down at his ID and new name.

Speaking of, now that the hard part was over, we retreated back to his house before anyone could see me and got started on finding his new name. He had picked up a bottle of Buffalo Trace whisky at the store, and over a glass of it, we were brainstorming.

“Your new name is the most important step in this whole process,” I informed him, sitting back on the couch. He was sitting in the leather armchair across from me and swirling his glass. Again, I had passed on the alcohol. “You’re going to have to live with this name. You’ll no longer be Camden McQueen. Even though that sounds like a good idea right now, it’ll hit you somewhere down the road. That you can’t go back.”

He stared at the swirling bourbon. “You came back. You got to be Ellie Watt again.”

“Yeah, well that’s only because that name was clean. It might not be clean when we leave this place.”

“That name,” he said curiously. His eyes were on me. “You refer to it as ‘that name’ but it’s your name. You were born with it, were you not?”

“I was,” I said cautiously.

“Yet you’re treating it like it’s made up, like it’s not even yours. Like it won’t even stick.”

I started fiddling with the tassels on the end of the white throw blanket. “It probably won’t stick, not until I go legit. Not until I have a home.”

“A name is like a home, then. All those years without a name. All those years without a home.”

I twisted my lips. What was this, amateur psychiatry hour?

“Be that as it may, you need a name that you like, Camden. And the easiest names to remember, to believe, are the ones that have the same initials as your current name. Or your real name. Either or. There’s something very…reassuring about seeing those initials over and over again, no matter how many times your name changes.”

He watched me for a beat, then downed the rest of his drink. The glass was refilled in no time. There was something very cagey about the look on his face, and considering it was only six in the evening, if he kept up at this pace he’d be drunk as a skunk.

“Camden? Now’s the time you tell me your favorite names that start with C.”

He shook his head. “Does it have to be the same letter?”

“Trust me. It’s easier this way.”

As he lapsed into silence, I said, “Caleb?”

He made a disgusting face.

“All right, Calum.”

“God no.”

“Cade?”

“Way too evil. Next.”

“Cory.”

“Haim or Feldman?”

“Cash?”

“Might as well call me Douchebag.”

That can be arranged
, I thought. “Okay, Carter.”

“Gah. When I hear Carter, I think nerd.”

“Well, if the shoe fits…”