Surviving Ice (Burying Water 4)

All the same, Black Rabbit feels eerily empty. Void of life. I guess that makes sense, since it lost its heart.

“He was Ned, right to the end.” Never warm and cuddly, never someone who changed himself to try to please others. He always knew who he was, and for that, he earned the respect of many people.

Including me.

But had Ned been someone else—someone who groveled, begged, who offered his attackers anything and everything he could—would they have spared his life? That question has been haunting me for six days now.

“Where did you find him?” Ian asks quietly.

I point to the leather chair that was still occupied by Dylan Royce—aka Tree Trunks—when I left for subs that night. At some point, the two men with guns must have dragged him out of the chair and forced Ned into it, using the extension cord plugged into the floor fan to secure him. The police haven’t revealed anything about the other guy, but since I never heard his nasally voice during the few minutes that I was hiding in the back, I’m guessing he was already dead when I arrived.

Then again, I also never heard the gunshot that gave Ned a quick and painless end to his ordeal.

At first I didn’t believe that the hole in his forehead was from a bullet wound. The police say they must have been using a silencer. That makes sense, when I think about the length of the handgun that I saw. But who comes with silencers, unless they’re planning to kill instead of simply scare? These guys came prepared, and they knew what they were doing, hiding their faces behind masks and their fingerprints inside gloves, and smashing the camera trained on the front. They even took the VCR to ensure there was no video evidence of their entrance.

In some ways, I’m relieved that they did that. While I want the assholes who did this caught, I don’t ever want to have to sit in a courtroom and give testimony while a video of how “Mario” tested his skills with the tattoo machine against Ned’s left eyelid is played for a jury.

Ian chews the inside of his mouth. That’s one of a few signs that his father’s death has affected him emotionally. He hasn’t shed a single tear from what I’ve seen. Neither have I, though—and I’m devastated—so I guess crying is not a good indicator of pain.

But where Ned and I were close, Ian hasn’t spoken to his father in years, after he and his mom, my aunt Jun, walked in on Ned in the back room giving a female customer more than just a tattoo. When they divorced, Jun and Ian moved to San Diego, where he lived until he started college in Dublin. He’s been living in Ireland for eleven years now. So long that his voice carries a faint Irish brogue.

“I can’t believe he included me in his will,” he finally mutters, kicking the trash can again, this time denting it.

“Of course he did. You’re his son. He loved you.” It’s true, they hadn’t talked since Ian’s high school graduation day, but Ned never stopped loving Ian in his own way. I saw it, through the occasional questions that Ned would slip into a conversation, pumping me for information about Ian; and the times I’d catch Ned trolling Ian’s social media pages online after I taught him how to navigate this “goddamn computer-age world.”

Ned still kept the picture on his nightstand of seven-year-old Ian standing in front of the shop. When I was living in Dublin, I tried talking to Ian about it, hoping to convince him to pick up the phone and make amends with his father, to try and find the good in him. Unfortunately, for all that Ian inherited from his mother—which is most of his phlegmatic personality—he did get Ned’s stubbornness.

Ian’s head bows, his brow furrowed deep. He saw that picture, too, and now he needs to come to terms with the fact that he will never get the chance to know his father as an adult. “He shouldn’t have. I don’t feel like I deserve a penny of it.”

“Come on, Ian. You were everything to him.”

Black eyes settle on me, full of regret. “You’re the one who came back here. You’re the one who bothered staying in touch with him all these years.” It’s something that has caused Ian and me to have our ups and downs. He thought I was taking sides—the wrong side.

I never saw it that way, though. I was only ten when it happened, too young to really grasp what was going on. After Jun and Ian moved away, I asked Ned why. He said that sometimes people make horrible, stupid mistakes and sometimes other people can’t forgive them for it.

I told Ned I forgave him, and that was that.

Ian’s thirty now—five years old than me—so we were never especially close growing up, and had even less of a reason to stay in touch after he moved away. It wasn’t until I was finishing high school that we reconnected over email and our love of art. Sharing the same passions helps us understand each other. Very few people truly get me. My parents and brothers sure don’t. Ned was one. Ian is the other.

I shrug. “I guess that’s why he included me, too.” Not only am I inheriting half of Ned’s estate, he named me executor. What the fuck was he thinking? Me? Dealing with lawyers and real estate agents? It’s a sizable inheritance, with this shop and a small three-bedroom house in Ingleside. The house has got a hefty mortgage to go along with it, and it’s seen much better days, but it will fetch an easy seven hundred, as is.

“What the hell are we going to do with this place, Ivy?” He shakes his head, punching buttons until the cash register pops open to reveal an empty drawer.

Just like that guy did only days ago.

I squeeze my eyes shut and shiver at the memory. It’s one of a few that keep replaying in my head at odd times throughout the day and night, with no warning. The ding of the register, the buzzing of Ned’s tattoo machine. The cool metal desk against my skin as I hid.

The blood splatter on that guy’s wrist.

The cops blame my fuzzy memory on shock. They say I may remember more with time.

But a part of me hopes I don’t.

“Black Rabbit’s got a great reputation, a loyal clientele. It makes decent money. And we’ll make enough from the sale of the house to pay off the mortgage on the building.” After a messy and expensive run-in with the IRS back in the ’90s, Ned learned how to keep proper files and pay his taxes and bills on time. Ian and I were able to get a good understanding of the business affairs in one evening of going through the files. We know that he borrowed a hundred thousand against the building—that was previously paid off—only a month ago. But what that money went to, neither of us has any idea. It sure as hell wasn’t upgrades. And Ned’s bank account is bone dry, which we discovered when making funeral arrangements. It makes no sense, given how well he did here. He didn’t employ anyone besides me, and he didn’t pay me an hourly salary, because he let me take home all my earnings, without any chair rental fees.

Ned did like to gamble, but it was always low-key betting—day trips to the racetracks, poker nights, some online stuff—so if he was into someone for a hundred K, I’d be surprised.

But there’s also no sign of that money, which makes me wonder.

“I can’t run this place from Dublin and I’m not abandoning my own shop to keep it going,” Ian says.

“You’d make more money here, though . . .” The Fine Needle, Ian’s shop in Dublin, is great—small and full of character. But it’ll never compete against a well-established business in San Francisco when you’re weighing dollar bills. I know that argument is pointless, though. I knew before the words even left my mouth. Ian is about political movements and the environment. He’s about books and learning and experiencing life. He’s never been about money.