Pretty In Ink

Bitsy was the first to speak.

“Have you talked to Charlotte?”

“She’s not answering her phone, and neither is Ace.”

“This is going to devastate her.”

I agreed. I didn’t know Trevor very well, but I felt awful. I couldn’t even imagine how Charlotte would feel.

“So if Charlotte told you that Trevor was supposed to tell you what was going on, what happens now?” Joel asked. “Should you just talk to Tim about all this?”

I wanted to. It was better than the alternative, which was talking to Frank DeBurra. He was too hostile.

At the same time, though, I was seesawing about how I felt about Charlotte’s reaction when I asked her just what went down this morning. Why not just tell me? Why tell me to talk to Trevor? What was she hiding?

I told Bitsy and Joel about my visits to the pawnshops, what the pawnshop guy told me about the guy who’d been angry with Charlotte, and how he wouldn’t say whether he recognized Rusty Abbott from the sketch.

“There’s so much; you’re making me dizzy,” Bitsy said.

Joel didn’t have that problem. He’d resumed eating the noodles with the duck, his chopsticks flying. It did smell good. I’d missed lunch while I was on my travels. I picked up the container of noodles with shrimp, grabbed a pair of chopsticks, and started eating, too. Bitsy decided to join us. The three of us sat, chewing our noodles, not talking, not looking at one another, just eating.

Considering the circumstances, I suppose I should say I didn’t taste the food.

But I did. And it was delicious.

From the slurping sounds next to me, I could tell Joel and Bitsy were enjoying it just as much as I was.

The buzzer indicating that someone had come into the shop startled us. Bitsy got her bearings first, put her container down, and went out to the front. I glanced at the clock on the wall and realized it was probably my seven o’clock. I saw a few file folders on the light table, found the one I needed, and followed Bitsy.

I was right. It was my client Hunter Ross. I wouldn’t have time to muse over the day’s events for the next two hours.

After I cleaned, shaved, and placed the stencil of the tiger on Hunter’s back, I set out my inkpots, slipped a new needle into my tattoo machine, and pulled on a pair of gloves. Hunter was facedown on the chair, and I pressed my foot to the pedal. The machine began to whirr. I dipped the needle into a pot and began to draw, washing away extra ink and blood with a soft cloth as I worked. Everything that had happened in the last twenty- four hours slipped away as I lost myself in the ink, the tiger’s stripes mesmerizing as I filled them in, shading the face, outlining the eyes.

I heard voices out in the front of the shop as I stopped the machine and looked at my handiwork. There was something about working on skin, knowing it was alive, that I was creating art on a living being. Beat the heck out of working on that hard canvas.

I didn’t have time to finish the tiger today. Hunter knew we’d have at least two or three sessions before it was done, but I gave Hunter a hand mirror so he could go see the partial tiger for himself in the big, full-length mirror out in the back of the shop. I started cleaning up my inks, taking the needles I’d used and disposing of them in the hazardous waste container under the table. The needle bar would be put in the autoclave for sterilization.

Joel was with a client when Hunter finally left after making his second appointment and paying for today’s session. Bitsy closed the drawer that hid the credit card machine and looked up at me expectantly.

“What?” I asked a little too sharply. She frowned, so I immediately said, “I’m sorry. It’s just been a really long day. Has Charlotte or Ace called?”

“Ace is in with a client.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“His client was already here. We couldn’t exactly have a heart-to-heart.” She paused. “I did ask him about Charlotte. He said she was in a safe place.”

What on earth did that mean?

But my brain was shutting down. I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed, forget that this day ever happened. Well, except maybe for Dr. Colin Bixby. Since I hadn’t talked to Charlotte, I had no excuse to call him. I wondered whether he really would call me.

As I was thinking that, the phone rang. Like karma or something.

“The Painted Lady,” Bitsy said when she picked it up. She listened for a minute, nodding, then turned to me, holding the receiver out. “It’s Jeff Coleman.”

So much for karma. I took the phone. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself, Kavanaugh. You know, you’ve got yourself in a bit of a pickle.”

“Huh?”

“Rusty Abbott was just in here. Asking all sorts of questions about you.”

I felt my chest constrict, and I stopped breathing for a second. “What sorts of questions?”

“Personal stuff. How long have you had your shop, are you dating anyone, where do you live. That sort of thing. It was weird, almost like he was sweet on you. But in a stalker kind of way.”

“Oh, that makes me feel better,” I said sarcastically. “Why doesn’t he just get in touch with me himself?”

“I’m not sure you want to have a cup of coffee with the guy, Kavanaugh. He was a little skittish. I didn’t tell him anything, but I did ask him about the roulette game, and he said he’d just happened to be there when you wandered over. You know, your reputation precedes you. He recognized you by your tats.”

Like I’d recognized him.

“So why would he run away, then?”

“I think you make him nervous.”

Great. A nervous stalker.

“I didn’t realize you were such great friends with the guy.”

“I’m not. First time I’ve seen him since I did his ink.”

“But you did tell him about me, didn’t you? When you inked him.”

“I must have. Otherwise how would he have known about us?”

Us. Like we were some sort of couple. I totally did not want to go there.

“He asked me to give you a message.”

I waited, could hear him take a breath.

“He said you might want to be careful, because you never know. Accidents happen.”

Chapter 18

My heart jumped into my throat. “Accidents happen?

What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’ve seen my share of crazy, Kavanaugh, and I think you better be on the lookout. I don’t think he’s playing with a full deck.”

Considering the tattoo on Rusty Abbott’s arm, Jeff Coleman was taking liberties with his puns.

“You really didn’t tell him anything?”

Bitsy was openly listening to my conversation, and I waved my hand in front of her face and turned my back to her. She walked around me to go to the staff room and stuck her tongue out at me. I stuck mine out in return. We were like a couple of third graders.

Jeff was talking. “All I said was if he wanted to talk to you, he could find you at your shop-that was public information-but he said that wasn’t the plan.”

“What does that mean?”