Page 29 of Dark Wishes
Iris pulls her long hair back from her face. “Did you piss him off somehow?”
“Probably.” Jamison looks at me thoughtfully. “You know what we’re here for, Selena. Let her use the computer, Iris, got it?”
“Yeah, yeah, fine.” With her agreement, he faces the door and marches inside, leaving Iris and I alone. She leans on her desk with a sigh. “Tusk is going yell at him, but that’s all. I think.”
“This Tusk guy, is he Jamison’s boss?” I ask.
“Oh no,” she says, her eyes widening. She giggles like I made a surprising joke. “They just work together.”
“Then why does Jamison have to crawl in there like a beaten dog?” I curl my lip, eyeing the door, wishing I had laser vision.
“Is that how he looked to you?” she asks softly.
The subtle judgement in her voice gives me pause. “How else would you describe it?”
Iris tugs at a piece of her hair, pulling it straight. “Jamison isn’t afraid of Tusk. If anything, I suspect Tusk is scared shitless of him.”
Now I’m super lost. “I don’t get it.”
“Tusk is maybe the only person Jamison listens to. They’re not friends, not in the typical sense.”
“Then they aren’t close.”
Iris stares at me as if I said something strange. She releases the piece of hair, sending it coiling back into place. “They’d kill for each other. What’s closer than that?”
Little claws scratch up my throat. I wipe at my neck uneasily. “I wonder how Jamison upset him.”
“Probably just ignored his texts. Tusk is needy.” She claps her palms together, motioning at her desk. “What are you searching for, by the way?”
I’m not sure I should tell her about my plan. Waffling, I move to stand behind the desk and sit in the chair as she makes room. The laptop is small, expensive looking. “I’m trying to find out more about the man I want dead.”
“Got it.” She isn’t bothered—why would she be? This is what she does every day. “The browser is in the top left, click away, do as you will. In the unlikely event the cops raid this place, that laptop won’t retain a search history.”
I let out a little whistle. “That’s nice.”
Iris stands opposite me, giving me the courtesy of privacy. “This guy you’re after, can I ask... you know, why?”
I look up through my eyelashes at her. “Do you ask every one of Jamison’s clients that?”
She lifts her shoulders innocently. “Nah, I just read the contracts and file them away.”
My fingers hesitate on the keyboard. “All of them?”
“Of course. I need them to funnel the money from point A to point B.”
I flick my eyes away from her, my voice as friendly, bored, as I can make it. “You get a lot of contracts?”
“In general, or for Jamison?”
I type up Caruso’s studio name, acting uninterested in her answer. “Just in general.”
“You’re curious about him, huh?” she asks with a smirk.
“It’s hard not to be.”
“Fair, fair,” she laughs in a friendly way. “I’ll say this, you’re his first contract in probably four months.”
My lips screw together like I bit into a lemon. “That can’t be right. What about Sanford?”
