to find out. A personal visit wasn’t necessary.
“I’ve been seeing someone.” His words were like a gut punch, and I found myself struggling for a breath.
Okay, I was really in the dark now.
“Maybe you should tell me why you’re here,” I said after a second. My voice sounded oddly disconnected from my body.
“But it’s not serious,” he continued as if I hadn’t said anything at all.
Something inside me switched, and I felt anger rising. He couldn’t mess around with me like this. What sort of game was he playing? Sure, I’d screwed things up before, but we’d been perfectly happy not seeing each other. Hadn’t we?
“Maybe you should spit it out,” I said, the edge in my voice sharp as a knife.
It didn’t go unnoticed.
He nodded. “I’m sorry, Brett, but seeing you again has sort of thrown me for a loop. It’s brought back some feelings I’d forgotten about. Or tried to forget about.”
I remembered what he’d told me when we met at the university the other day. How he’d just about forgotten me. I nodded.
“But I’ll tell you why I’m here. I know you’re curious.”
I wished he’d get on with it.
“It’s about Rosalie. Marino.”
My confusion about Colin Bixby melted away with the abrupt change of subject.
“What about her?”
“You know about the abuse.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I did her tattoos,” I admitted. “The purple and white ribbons on her arm. The ones that symbolize survival.”
Bixby leaned forward and I could smell his scent: a little citrus and honey with a slight hint of hospital.
“I treated her for the broken bones. The bruises.” He paused a second. “And when she lost the baby.”
Chapter 42
Now I really felt as though someone had punched me in the gut. Baby?
He saw what I was thinking.
“You didn’t know about the baby?”
“No.”
“But you’re her friend,” he said.
I wasn’t. I barely knew her. She’d spent a couple of hours right here in this chair, but other than that, my contact with Rosalie Marino had been limited to the last couple of days. Because of our encounter at the university lab, it may have seemed to Bixby as though we were closer than tattooist and client. I shook my head. “No. Not really.”
Confusion crossed his face. “But you came to the hospital to see her last night,” he said. “I thought-”
“No. We’re not friends. But I am friends with her father’s new wife and her son. What’s this about a baby?”
Colin hung his head in his hands. “I should have known.”
He didn’t answer my question. “Should have known what?”
“That things with you aren’t always as they seem.”
Okay, so he was right on that. But he didn’t have to act as if it were the end of the world.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But you did come to me about something. Is Rosalie in trouble? I really am friends with the rest of her family.”
“Her
He shut down, his doctor-client confidentiality held close to the vest now that he knew I wasn’t who he thought I was. His eyes skipped around the room, resting finally on the ink pots lined up on the shelf, the tattoo machine on its side.
“Do you want another one?” I asked softly. I’d warned him when I’d given him his Celtic knot on his breast that tattoos are addictive. It’s rare to find someone who’s content with only one. Maybe he’d never get more than one, but I was willing to bet he thought about it. I had quite a few repeat clients.
When Colin didn’t answer, I tried a joke. “How about a stethoscope on your arm?” I could see it, too, how I would design it, and suddenly it wasn’t a joke anymore. It could be really cool. The stethoscope could start on his bicep and swirl down to the crook of his arm, where I’d place the chest piece, which he’d use to check someone’s blood pressure. I described my idea to him.
Colin Bixby’s eyes flickered, and the temptation had been planted. He liked the idea. Liked it a lot.
“You could do that?” he asked tentatively.
“I could draw up something, see if you like it,” I said, reaching for my pad and pencil. Quickly I sketched it out, shading here and there, and when I was done, turned it around so he could see it.
“Wow,” he whispered, staring at it.
“You could think about it, make an appointment if you think it’s something you want to do,” I said. The last time he didn’t think he would go through with it if I didn’t do it right then, so I had. He’d flinched only at the first touch of the needle, didn’t even seem as if he’d pass out at all-a problem more common than you’d think-which was why I thought perhaps he might not mind getting more ink. Despite his admission that he didn’t like needles.
The thing with the tattoo machine is, the needles only go down into the second layer of skin, where they release the ink. I don’t like needles, either, when they go farther than that. Granted, getting a tattoo still hurts, and knowing that the needles pierce the skin only so far is cold comfort.
I put the pad and pencil on the shelf. Colin got up and brushed imaginary lint off his jeans.
“It’s possible that since her husband is dead now, Rosalie’s going to be okay,” I said, wondering whether I could somehow trick him into telling me what he came here to say. I was sure he was here to tell me something so I could either watch out for Rosalie or warn her about something. I didn’t think he came just to spread information. That would violate his doctor ethics.
His head snapped up, and he stared at me for a moment. It wasn’t one of those sexy stares, but I could see him thinking about something, wondering what he should say next.
Finally, “Did you ever find Dan Franklin?”
The name jolted me out of my thoughts. I thought about the ten thousand dollars again. “No,” I admitted. “As far as I know, no one knows where he is.”
“You should tell that detective brother of yours to try harder,” he said, his hand on the doorknob.
Exasperated, I sighed. “Why can’t you tell me why you’re here,” I said.
He shook his head and then smiled. “I might be back for that tattoo.”
I grinned. “It could give you some cred with those guys who come into the ER.”
He pushed the door open and went out into the hall and down to the front desk, where Bitsy sat facing us as if she’d been waiting the whole time for us to emerge.
“Care to make an appointment, Doctor?” she asked politely, but I could hear the curiosity in her voice.
Colin Bixby gave me a look that curled my toes, his green eyes all smoky and sexy, before saying, “Maybe. I’ll call.”
And he went out the door without looking back.
Bitsy and I stared after him.
“What did he want?” she asked.
“I have no clue,” I admitted. “He wanted to tell me something about Rosalie Marino. He thought we were friends. But all he ended up saying was that we need to find Dan Franklin.”
“What about Franklin?”
Tim’s voice from behind made us both jump.
I related what Bixby told me.
“Pretty cryptic,” Tim said, running a hand through his hair.
