by Dale Mayer
Silence filled the air as he fell silent.
The cop never said a word, but Morgan watched him process the information, seemingly trying to fit the new information with the bits of old information like a big jigsaw puzzle that still didn’t make any sense. It was obvious he was determined to get a clearer picture from these new pieces.
He gave a curt nod, turned to Jazz, and asked quietly, “Do you have anything to add to that?”
“Only that he was a player and he was a bastard. Put those together and you get plenty of pissed off men and women.”
“Not helpful. I don’t suppose you have any names, do you?”
She winced. “All I can say is my assistant said in confidence that he had been sleeping with her but apparently was still stuck on me.”
“I’ll speak with her.”
“And that will just make life between us difficult. She told me in confidence.”
“She might have, but we need to know what happened, so this is going to get uncomfortable for many people.”
Jazz nodded.
Morgan piped up, “Then let’s make sure it’s damn uncomfortable for the killer.”
Chapter 11
Jazz stared at the empty bedroom. The cops were gone and they’d said it was okay to go back inside. She stood at the doorway and wondered about going to the spare bedroom. But it wasn’t likely to improve the issue. The cops had searched but hadn’t found any other electronic device to invade her privacy. Not that it made her feel much better.
Who knew what this asshole could do? That the person had botched the job made her feel better. The camera was now long gone, and she had to find some semblance of peace for the upcoming night.
She couldn’t help herself. She walked over and stripped the bed clear of all the bedding and changed the sheets. There’d been enough strangers in here. The last thing she wanted was to have another one in her space. She quickly replaced the large duvet cover and remade the bed.
“Feel better?” Morgan asked from the doorway.
“Not much,” she said quickly, turning to stare at him, “but I’ll take the little bits I can get right now.”
He opened his arms and she ran to him. “Would you like to go to a hotel for a few nights?” he murmured against her forehead.
“No. I’m fine. This is probably the best place for us now that the cops have swept it. If your friend can set up a security system, that would be that much better.”
“He’s coming by in an hour or so.”
“Oh good.”
“He’ll need at least a day or so, but he can rig something up in the short term.”
“Even that is a help. How good are the locks in the house?”
“Normal, but I am seriously rethinking that now.” He squeezed her tight. “The thing is, this has been a distant hands-off type of action on his part. There were opportunities where he could have come and made it personal, but he didn’t. Shootings via drive-bys leaves him in control but detached. He broke into the house when it was empty. He avoided a confrontation.”
“So what? He’s afraid he won’t win in a one-on-one scenario,” she asked, looking up at him.
“That’s quite possible. Getting the shit kicked out of you or being stabbed – those are personal and close up.”
“So this person doesn’t want a confrontation but they want to punish us.”
“Maybe. His behavior might get more aggressive.”
She shivered. “He’s been aggressive enough for me already,” she muttered.
“Exactly, but there is that newness to his actions, as if he doesn’t do this on a regular basis – likely never before, and he is learning as he goes.”
“That’s…” she had no words. It was too horrible to contemplate. Just to think of someone getting more aggressive in her personal life scared the crap out of her. She was not confrontational to begin with, but to think the shooter was getting that way was way worse. And how the hell was she supposed to protect herself from that? If he wanted to find her and kill her, then he would and there’d be damned little she could do about it.
“Nothing has changed. We take precautions. You’re never alone and we let the cops do their thing.”
His tone was harder than she expected to hear. As if something was working away in the background. She leaned back so she could see his face. “What are you planning?”
His gaze slanted down at her. And narrowed.
“Oh no. No secrets,” she snapped. “Tell me.”
“I don’t have any plans. But I know lots of riders. They are a lot of eyes to keep a lookout for us.”
She gasped. “That would be perfect.” Her face fell. “Unless they can’t identify the bike.”
“They will. I can give them a lot of detail. And let them know who to text when and if they see it.”
She marveled at his foresight. “It’s brilliant,” she admitted. “I wish I’d thought of something proactive to do.”
“There’s something that I wondered about but…”
She frowned. “What?”
“Have you considered contacting other tattoo artists and seeing if anyone can recognize the artist?”
“I’d considered it but thought that was something the police would be doing.”
“And they are, but consider your connections versus theirs.”
*
He loved watching the expressions cross her face. Her features came alive as her thoughts shifted from topic to topic.
“I could. I do belong to several groups. I could post the image. Or maybe email them privately.”
“Whichever is likely to get you answers faster?”
“The thing is the work is more amateur than professional. More garish than elegant. I’m not sure that they wouldn’t get pissed off at me for posting.”
“Would you rather be pissed off or know that you’d done everything you could to help out.” He waited a beat. “Besides which, wouldn’t they understand if you explained?”
She mulled that over. He loved the idea, but neither did he want her to get further into danger. “My only concern is that this image might go fall in the wrong hands.”
“Ugh.” She pondered that. “I don’t think they’d be in this group. I do know them fairly well and have seen a lot of their work over the years. None are at this level. They are all superior artists.”
“Then do it,” he urged. “Anything that can help solve Billy’s murder and possibly nab our shooter is huge. If you get any information, we’ll take it to the police and they can follow it up.”
At her nod, he smiled. He figured she’d feel compelled to help if she could. Besides, she really did have connections the police didn’t have.
Taking his suggestion to heart, she got up and walked over to her bag and pulled out her small laptop. She turned it on and signed into her group of tattoo artists. She quickly posted a short terse note of explanation then posted the second tattoo image.
“Done,” she said. “I have another group I can post it to. Let me do that one.”
He waited and watched as she brought up the second group and quickly repeated her message. Before she was done, there were a few responses already on the first page. She flicked through them and called out two names, “Mark Sanders and Hemi Colfax.”
“Who are they?”
“Suggested artists so far.”
“Do you know either of them?”
She shook her head. “No.” Then she caught herself. “Maybe.”
Chapter 12
She searched through her files as Hemi Colfax’s name triggered something in the back of her mind. She’d seen some of his artwork. Where?
Then she got it. She’d been a judge at a contest, and she was sure he’d submitted one of the semi-finalist entries. Did she still have a copy of it? She dug through the emails to find the links. Clicking on the website that showed the original entries, she quickly scanned through the images. With Morgan leaning over her shoulder, studying the images along with her, s
he flicked from page to page. Hemi had a natural talent but it was raw and as yet unrefined.
He needed more practice, but he had the potential to be excellent. She’d been fascinated by his talent but couldn’t see any resemblance to the images she’d posted. There. She enlarged his entry and studied his techniques. It was a dragon. And his whorls were clearly evident. His shading was interesting but also not quite there yet. He hadn’t gotten into the finals, and given his talent, he might have considered the results to be unfair that he might hold his lack of standing against her.
Her name had been on the website as she’d been listed as one of the judges.
Easy to see. Easy to track down. “I wonder if someone who wasn’t happy with his standing would be pissed off enough to come after us.”
“Meaning this Hemi guy?”
“Not him per se, but someone else in the contest maybe.” But even to her, the motive was lacking the punch to do what had been done to them. And if killing Billy was added to the list, then this persona had to be seriously pissed.
“How big a deal is this contest?” Morgan asked, studying the page intently.
She shrugged. “Not really, but it’s big enough that people do get hurt and upset over the results. Pissed enough to kill? I doubt it, but who knows?”
He nodded. “Right. And this Hemi guy?”
“It’s not him.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Damn. What about the other one? Mark Sanders.”
“I don’t see the name here.” She quickly searched for the name, adding the words tattoo artist. Up popped dozens of pages. She scrolled carefully to the first one.
“This might be him.” She pulled up the listed webpage and sure enough, there was another artist using a similar dragon tattoo as hers. She frowned. Good thing she’d decided not to do these anymore. This guy wasn’t very good, but the designs were unique. They were too unique to be the ones she’d seen, but it was close enough that she could see why this guy came to mind for the other forum members. But she’d bet her career that he wasn’t their stalker.
As she stared at the tattoos, she realized something else. Even though this guy was up and coming and his stuff was a little in need of finesse in various points, he was way better than the tattoos she’d seen in the multiple images they’d been given. They’d been really rough. As in very amateur. Her friends and peers were professionals. They were looking in the wrong places. She explained quickly to Morgan.
“So what do we do?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. There are many groups and other forums where we could post this, but I’m thinking before we do a widespread posting like that we should confirm that the police are okay with it.”
Instantly Morgan pulled out his phone and texted the cop. The response was immediate. Yes.
She shrugged. “Okay then.” And proceeded to go through the various forums and groups she’d belonged to over the years asking if anyone knew the artist of the tattoo. If they were lucky, they’d get a hit somewhere.
Otherwise, she could potentially try to do a Google image search, but she felt it was too blurry to work. Trying wasn’t an issue, but the fact that Google was likely to return hundreds if not thousands of related images for her to wade through was daunting. Still, it wasn’t that hard to try. The cops would likely have better equipment to clean the image up and scan it themselves but hey, she’d give it a shot.
She put the image into her image program and cleaned it up slightly. She didn’t want to make too many changes, knowing that it would affect the results.
When she was done, she used it in Google to find similar and exact images.
The search results were almost immediate. Except there were thousands of them.
With Morgan, now fascinated, sitting beside her, she started to scroll down the page. There was nothing in the first scroll, so she hit see more and kept on scrolling. She didn’t know how long they were looking when Morgan snapped his finger against the screen and said, “Stop.”
*
“What did you see?” she asked as she slowly retraced her steps, scrolling up to where he’d thought he’d seen a similar image.
“That.” He tapped the monitor lightly and said, “That’s the same image.”
She leaned closer and gasped. “You’re right.”
Opening the image in a new tab, she also opened the home page of the image in a new page. The image appeared to be identical. And came for a website called www.creepyscenes.com.
“What the hell,” Morgan exclaimed. “Where did they get that image from?”
“I don’t know, but if these other images are of the same guy, he’s dead.” In fact, they looked to be morgue files, but she had no idea from where.
“If so, how did this image get out on the Internet?” he demanded. If they had one image did this site have others? He hated to think of his brother’s body lying up on the Internet open for any curiosity seekers to come and view. Like that was just creepy.
“The Internet makes anything and everything available, even morgue photos, and just because they were supposed to be from a respectable facility, it doesn’t stop people from being people.”
“That doesn’t make it right.” Still, they’d found something major, and he was already sending the website to the cop.
They could take it from there. Morgan couldn’t help but think she’d done enough. But she couldn’t leave it. He watched quietly as she searched the website and after seeing way too many pictures he’d rather not see of dead bodies, she turned to her files and pulled up the image they thought was Billy. She ran it through her image program and set it up for a search on Google.
It was a long shot, but she was good at those, too.
Then so was he. Look at what he’d achieved getting Jazz to trust him again.
Chapter 13
Jazz watched impatiently as the images scrolled by. After a few moments, she slowed it down a little more. “I’m not seeing anything.”
“Good,” Morgan said, lying beside her. “I don’t want to think of my brother’s body up for public viewing.”
She shot him an understanding look. “That has to be tough.”
“What about the third image?”
“I don’t have a digital image,” she said. “They took it away and never emailed us one.” Except he was already sending a text asking for a copy by the time she was finished.
She was tired. And needing rest. But how much rest was she going to get? Without realizing it, she’d laid back down on the bed even though they’d pulled a camera out of the headboard earlier. She’d already relaxed about it. At least for the moment. She couldn’t see ever making love here again.
But knew Morgan could make her forget anything.
“Here it is.”
“Here what is?” she asked absentmindedly.
“The third image.”
“Already?”
“Yes. I’m forwarding it to your email.”
And sure enough, it was there in seconds. She quickly repeated the process of the other two and set up a search. It might get a few close matches, although it was poorer quality. And where had they gotten these images from? From the bodies… or from the websites.
“What if this person is a graphic artist and not a tattoo artist?”
“Then the cops should be able to find that out. Maybe.”
“Maybe, but maybe not.” She pointed to the screen. “If they digitally enhanced the image then printed it off and did a poor quality copy several times, it’s going to be that much harder.”
“Harder doesn’t mean impossible.” He straightened, his fingers busy on his phone. “We actually have something specific for the cops to work on. It’s more than anyone has found to date.”
The computer search came up fast, so she set about scrolling through the images. Most weren’t even close on this round. She figured it was the poor quality of the copy. How any image could be found if the
original was so crappy?
Unless the original was crappy as well. She stared at a similar image in front of her. “Here it is.”
“What?”
Morgan leaned closer. “That’s identical. Including the number 2.”
She swallowed hard, fear choking her throat. “It is,” she said in a low voice. “But look at the website it’s posted on.”
“It’s too small; bring it up in a new tab.”
Obediently, she opened the page the picture was posted.
And heard his gasp.
The image was on her own store website.
*
Morgan waited for someone to answer his call. He kept a wary eye on Jazz. She looked wrecked. Then he was sure he was looking a little peaked too. Talk about a shock. He hadn’t even considered someone targeting her website. Why would they? But at the same time as there’d been so much about tattoos, it made sense that her website would be in the mix.
“Morgan, what’s up?” Shaun answered his own question with a yawn. “Sorry. Long day.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Morgan muttered. He walked to the window and looked out, but with the darkness he couldn’t see much. He quickly explained about the images they’d found and the one on Jazz’s store website.
“Interesting. Seems to confirm she’s the target here.”
“Somewhat. It’s not like the image was a good example of her work to put on display so it’s just an oddity there, more as a prank to see if they can fool her.”
“More like a message to say ‘I can do whatever I want and you won’t even know,’” Shaun said.
“Implying this asshole is just playing with us.”
“He’ll have a specific reason for his actions, but that doesn’t mean any of it is clear to us yet. Maybe never. If the person has just gone off the deep end, then something has triggered this and everything else just grows out of it.”
“So we need to figure out the starting point?”
“Exactly.”
Jazz walked over to him and put her arms around him. He hugged her close. “I can tell you the starting point for Jazz was when I walked back into her life a few days ago, and the starting point for me was Billy’s death.”
