Page 51 of The Deeper Game
Thor squeezed in next to me, resting a hand on my thigh under the water.
“And you’ll get the tattoo?” Odin asked.
“Of course,” I said, even though the idea of those negative words on my skin bothered me.
Maybe I could still at least talk them out of that. Or find something better for the tattoo to say, something positive and badass. There was still time.
Odin’s wet hair shone like obsidian in the moonlight. “You WISH we were dead, motherfuckers.” He watched my eyes. “It’s time to finish them. This week.”
“I’m in,” I said smoothly.
The heist was a few days off, and there was a lot to do yet.
Surely he wouldn’t want to spend time on lengthy tattooing sessions.
His eyes glittered in dark.
Chapter Thirteen
Odin and Thorand I were sitting outside the bank two days later, squished together in the front seat, when Thor’s phone rang.
“Yeah?”
The caller had a lot to say, rambling on and on. You could hear his tone, but not the words. Thor thanked him and told him he’d courier over some money, and then he cut the connection.
“That was our panther guy from the university with the results on the feather.”
The feather was over seventy years old, apparently, and from an eagle. The panther guy and his colleagues thought that it might be from an old taxidermy piece, judging from the dust and dirt pattern.
“That’s weird,” Odin said.
“What’s weird?” Thor asked.
“There was no taxidermy in Travis’s place. Or his mother’s.”
“Maybe it was there and you didn’t see it,” Thor said.
“No, therewouldn’tbe any,” Odin said. “Ever. All the dirt and dust? Those two wouldn’t let a stuffed eagle within a hundred feet of their door.”
Thor grumbled.
Odin swore under his breath.
Zeus and Odin had paid a visit to Travis in the prison hospital the night before.
Travis had denied being the stalker, but Zeus and Odin had expected him to deny it. I’d asked them if they were convinced.“He was drugged up,”Zeus had said simply.
Odin hadn’t liked it. “You can see so little in a drugged man’s eyes,”he’d said. But the circumstantial evidence was there. The paper was in his dumpster. He bought the shoes. He’d done that type of crime in the past.
Odin stared out at the bank steps. It was nearly eleven, almost time again for my deposit.
“On one hand, it makes no sense he’d use such a dirty object when he’s practically germaphobic, judging from the many hand sanitizers. But I could make a case for it.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“That he keeps afucking-gvice grip of sterility over his home and thoughts, that he associates functions of the body, and in particular anything sexual, with dirt and sin. Therefore, he would seek out something horribly besmirched as a gift to you.”
“And as we know, there’s no better way to a girl’s heart than a horribly besmirched gift,” I said.
