The Devil Has Tattoos

by Destiny Ford

  Understanding dawned. “Your father-in-law’s sculptures.”

  She nodded, her face visibly relieved that she was able to talk openly about what she’d done. “They’re valuable now, but they’re going to keep going up in value over time. I thought if I gave the mob one or two sculptures, they’d leave the game, Betty, and my family alone. I couldn’t give them one of our pieces because Aaron would know it was missing and start an investigation. But Aaron has a master list of where all the other sculptures are so it was easy to find them. I picked a family that was moving and took the first sculpture from them.”

  I was stunned at the idea and its effectiveness. She was able to stop the mob, keep the game going, and keep her secrets all with a simple robbery, one that she executed seamlessly.

  “The first time was easy. I simply offered to assist the family with their move,” she explained. “I helped them pack, and loaded several boxes—including the one containing the sculpture I’d helped pack—in my car. Then I took the sculpture out and handed it over to the mob as my payment.”

  I marveled at the simplicity of her plan.

  “That lasted a couple of months before the mob got restless. I’ve let them have more control than I probably should have—even inviting players they suggested to the games.”

  Which was how Hawke had gotten his invitation. The mob ran the auction and suggested new players who should receive invitations.

  “I realized they weren’t only going to settle for one or two sculptures, and I needed a way to get more. I’d heard about the Speedy Superheroes in a news story one night and realized if we had a chapter in Branson Falls, I could use it as my cover. Betty and I had a mutual friend who occasionally helped us in the game. He had more moral dexterity than Betty and I, and was willing to do things we weren’t—like breaking and entering. I spoke to him privately about the mob situation, paid him, and he opened the Speedy Superheroes chapter in Branson Falls. Then he started stealing things.”

  My mouth dropped. My gut had told me the Speedy Superheroes were involved, but I hadn’t figured out how. I never would have guessed a superhero was stealing sculptures to help pay off the mob so a poker game could continue with no one being harmed.

  “But there were robberies at multiple homes,” I said. “With various odds and ends taken, and some of the homes didn’t even own Ron Storm sculptures.”

  She nodded. “That was done on purpose. If we would have gone around only stealing Ron Storm sculptures, it would have been obvious the sculptures were the target. We needed to be more covert than that. The pattern needed to be odd and random. So odd items at random locations interspersed with the actual thefts is what my associate focused on. I honestly think no one would have suspected anything if my associate has spaced the thefts out more.”

  I had to hand it to her; she was committed to this business and didn’t seem to feel too bad about felony robbery.

  “So the robberies had nothing to do with Inked AF opening in town?”

  She shook her head and her face fell. “No. The additional pressure from the mob started happening at the same time, and I had to get more sculptures so the robberies became more common. I felt awful when I found out the tattoo shop was being blamed for the thefts.”

  Relief washed over me. It meant Axel and Sasha weren’t involved and once the story broke, I hoped people in town would rally around them and make them feel more welcome in Branson.

  A noise from behind Cadence startled us both and we jumped up.

  “Did you hear that?” she asked.

  I nodded, wishing I’d figured out a way to conceal my stun gun or pepper spray in my skintight costume. At least the outfit gave me a lot of flexibility because my heart was racing and I thought there was a good chance I might need to use my Hawke-taught self-defense skills on whoever was in the room with us…and I really hoped it wasn’t a mob member.

  We heard a click, each of us bracing for whatever was about to appear, when Aaron Storm stepped through the door that led to another room, his face a combination of fury and pain. “I heard everything,” he said, his voice shaky with hurt and anger. “How could you do this to me? To my family? To my dad?”

  Cadence’s surprise turned to sadness as tears welled up in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Aaron. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  Aaron paced the room, strongly resembling a rhino getting ready to charge, and I wasn’t sure he was any safer to be around than the mob at the moment. I stayed back, watching him closely, and ready to protect Cadence and I both if it came down to it.

  “How did you find me?” Cadence asked.

  I’d been wondering that myself. I’d followed him here, but someone had to have told Aaron about the game and his wife.

  Aaron looked up at Cadence. “You seemed preoccupied and were spending a lot of time at your craft nights. Then you kept leaving to go out of town on spa weekends. During your trip two months ago, I ran into Dorinda Fromm. I knew she was supposed to be with you that weekend and asked her why she’d decided not to go. She had no clue what I was talking about. I asked you questions and tried to get you to open up to me, but you wouldn’t. So I hired a private detective. They called me earlier today and said they had evidence you were involved in something dangerous and illegal, and told me you’d be at this address at seven o’clock.”

  Ah, that was the call I’d heard Aaron take.

  “It’s not illegal,” Cadence insisted. “We’re outside of Utah, and we don’t take a commission from the gamblers.”

  Aaron looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “You’re facilitating a game that allows players to exchange money they’ve won and lost. I’m not an attorney, but I’m sure that makes you complicit somehow.”

  Her lips pursed with resentment. “I’m not stupid,” she said, her words pouring out with years of regrets and pent up frustrations. “I consulted my own attorneys and accountants before I got into this. They say I’m fine.” She stood her ground against him and I was proud of her for it.

  Aaron’s expression was full of anger. “The area is grey at best.”

  Cadence looked down. “I needed to be something more than a mother, Aaron. I told you that from the beginning of our relationship. And I told you that again repeatedly throughout it. You never listened.”

  He leveled her with a hard stare. “And I told you I wanted a housewife.”

  Cadence breathed out a ragged sigh, her eyes liquid. “I guess we were both hoping each other would change. We shouldn’t have moved forward and gotten married with those presumptions.”

  The conversation felt like it had taken a very personal turn and I shouldn’t be there. I quietly exited the room and told Cadence’s security officer to keep the door ajar and go in if he heard anything that sounded like Cadence was in danger.

  Hawke and Drake were both waiting outside the door, directly across from the security guy. From the tension in the air, it seemed they’d all had words.

  “Are you okay?” Hawke asked, his voice clipped.

  “I’m fine,” I said, pulling off my ridiculous devil horns headband. The adrenaline spike I’d had was going to wear off shortly, and Cadence had downloaded a crap ton of information on me that I needed to get written down immediately so I could consult my notes for the complicated article I’d need to write.

  “What happened?” Drake asked.

  “A lot,” I said. “And right now, all I want is to get back into a comfortable pair of jeans, go home, and cuddle my dog.”

  Drake and Hawke both looked like they had murder in their eyes. I couldn’t handle it at the moment. “I promise I’ll give you more details, but I need to go home. Alone.”

  I was shocked when they both let me pass by them without more discussion. I went back to the changing room, switched into my regular reporter clothes, and made my way back to my Jeep, happy to no longer be a devil pin-up girl, and even happier I hadn’t been murdered by the mob tonight.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

&
nbsp; I sat in my Jeep for at least thirty minutes taking notes, then recorded more voice notes as I drove home. I thought of the game, Cadence, and how Betty and Cadence had come together. Betty, alone and wanting some connection and something to do; Cadence feeling lonely and unfulfilled in her own life. No wonder the two of them had bonded. On the surface it didn’t seem like they shared much in common, but they were both in the same emotional place and needed each other.

  I hoped that Cadence and Aaron would be able to work things out. Cadence had betrayed him in a horrible way and that wouldn’t be easy for them both to come to terms with. And Aaron had asked her to be someone she wasn’t—a person she had never wanted to be; that wouldn’t be easy to resolve either. I couldn’t imagine how difficult it would be to explain the thefts of her father-in-law’s sculptures to the Storm family. Those pieces had been sold by the mob, who had purposely inflated the prices to get more money and create a higher demand in the market. Cadence couldn’t get the pieces back. Her gambling game might straddle a legal grey line, but robbery didn’t, and even though she hadn’t committed the crimes herself, I was sure there would be consequences.

  It had been a long drive home and as I took the freeway exit for Branson Falls, I sighed. I’d be home, makeup free, showered, cuddling with Gandalf, and eating ice cream soon. Not thinking about work or anything else for the rest of the night, and definitely not worrying about being robbed because I certainly didn’t own a Ron Storm sculpture.

  The thought of the robberies snagged in my brain. I was missing something, I knew it. I paused, trying to put my finger on it. Betty had been one of the robbery victims, but that didn’t make sense since Cadence and her associate were the ones organizing the thefts. They wouldn’t have robbed her business partner, and Betty said she’d been targeted by two men instead of one.

  There had been a game tonight, and Cadence usually paid the mob’s game fee in Ron Storm pieces. But the last robbery targeting a Ron Storm sculpture had been botched. The sculpture wasn’t taken, and no Ron Storm sculpture had been stolen since.

  My heart started beating a little faster. That meant that the mob payment hadn’t been made. If the mob hadn’t gotten their fee, they might follow through with their threats to hurt Betty Turner, and Cadence probably hadn’t even considered that because she was currently in the middle of a discussion trying to salvage her marriage. Betty was at risk. I had to warn her. I pressed on the gas and took the turn to Betty’s house faster than I probably should have, judging by the squeal of my tires.

  I pulled up to the house, grabbed my stun gun and pepper spray from the glove compartment, flung open my Jeep door, and ran up Betty’s front porch stairs. Her door was already cracked open and a horrible feeling settled in my stomach.

  “Betty,” I said her name softly, hoping that maybe she was hanging out inside her living room with the door slightly ajar on purpose, and no mob members had come to hurt her.

  No answer.

  Dammit!

  I grabbed my phone and dialed the police, then spoke as quietly as could, “This is Kate Saxee. I’m on the scene of a break-in. I need the police at Betty Turner’s house.”

  I hung up the phone, and quietly stepped inside the living room.

  The room looked fine. Lights were emitting a warm glow like she’d been home recently, and might even be there still.

  I took my stun gun out of my pocket and held it in one hand, and pepper spray in the other. Hawke had told me repeatedly to get an actual gun, but I didn’t trust myself with it. I’d probably end up shooting a house plant or animal instead of a bad guy.

  I made my way down the hall as softly as possible, and that’s when I heard a deep male voice. “I know she’s here! We saw her!”

  I heard a sigh and another deep voice. “We’ve looked through the whole house. I don’t see her anywhere, Carl.”

  “Maybe she has a panic room or something? We saw her through the window. She’s, like, eighty-something. She can’t have gotten far.”

  I heard some grumbling and swearing. “Okay, let’s look again.”

  If they didn’t know where Betty was, that was a good thing. Hopefully she’d stay hidden until the Branson cops could arrive.

  Rustling noises started and got louder as they came toward the hall. I quickly jumped into a room to hide, and closed the door behind me. The room was lined wall-to-wall with shelves and cabinets full of bolts of material, ribbons, and a couple of sewing machines. It looked like a craft room.

  The noises continued down the hall, getting closer. “Hey,” the voice who was definitely not Carl said, “did we check this room? The door is closed.”

  I swore in my head. Repeatedly. Like, the only words coming out were swears. I should have been more careful and left the door open like it had been before I arrived.

  “I thought we checked it,” Carl said, his voice intrigued. “Check again.”

  I nestled behind the door, next to a wall of cheery printed fabric. Carl and the other guy came in and looked around. “Hit the lights,” Carl said.

  His buddy did, and that meant if they moved the door, I would be one hundred percent on display. Carl moved around the room. I don’t see anything,” he said. He started to pull on the door. I had my stun gun and pepper spray in attack mode when I heard a scream that sounded a hell of a lot like a warrior princess coming from the area of the craft closet. And then I heard a gunshot. Carl went down, yelling in pain.

  “Take that, you dirty mob ninnies!” Betty, warrior princess yelled, marching into the center of the room, gun in hand. She planted her feet and lifted her arms in a shooting stance. “Think you can beat me up to scare me? Well I’d like to introduce you to Bambi, bitches!”

  Betty fired another shot, and took out mob muscle number two.

  “Holy…” I trailed off, not wanting to swear in front of someone who was older than my grandma but could clearly kick even my ass and seemed to have no problem with swears herself.

  Betty beamed and put the safety back on her gun before turning to me with a wide smile. “Bambi never disappoints,” she said, lifting the gun and petting the barrel.

  Carl and his friend were on the ground. She’d shot one of them in the leg, and the other in the arm. She grabbed some orange fabric ribbon off one of her shelves. “Here, help me tie them up.”

  Luckily, I’d recently witnessed a goat subdued by ribbon and had a good idea how this worked. Too bad my mom wasn’t around to help since she’d shown some serious skills.

  “Damn mob asshats,” Betty said, shaking her head as we tied them up with various bits of fabric and tulle. “This is the second time they’ve tried to threaten me into submission.”

  I glanced over at her while she tied an impressive knot. “So the robbery that happened to you earlier was the mob as well?” I’d already figured as much but it was good to get confirmation.

  She nodded in response. “Same guys. They think they can intimidate me! Well they have another think coming!”

  I sat back on my legs and looked at her. “I know about the game.”

  She lifted her brows slightly in surprise.

  “Did you know Cadence was paying the mob off?” I asked.

  She pressed her lips together. “I had my suspicions.”

  Interesting. I wondered why she hadn’t talked to Cadence about it. “How long have you been running games like this?”

  The two guys were on the ground, whimpering in pain, but they hadn’t passed out yet, so that was a good sign that their blood loss wasn’t critical—yet. We finished tying them up and Betty checked her knots as she answered, “Years. Started when I was in my twenties. My husband was an alcoholic and couldn’t hold a job. We had kids and I had to find a way to make money. I’d grown up watching my dad run poker games and decided to try running one myself. It did well. So well that the mob got wind of it and wanted a piece of the pie. Sometimes I’d have to float players who overextended and couldn’t pay what they owed. The mob wanted to go after the g
ame players who were in debt to me, and take a chunk of the money. I said no. They weren’t happy with my resistance and threatened my family. I’d made plenty of money at that point so I shut my game down. But years went by and I realized I missed the excitement of the game.” Her eyes got bright with the memory. “I’m too old to run it by myself. I needed someone young and smart and beautiful. Cadence was perfect for the job, and she not only wanted it, but she needed it too. We’ve made a great team.”

  “What happens now?” I asked. Wondering if the game would continue. I wasn’t sure how it could considering Cadence was going to be in a lot of trouble for her part in the robberies.

  Betty shrugged. “Who knows?”

  We heard Bobby’s voice yell from outside, “Drop your weapons!”

  “It’s fine, Bobby,” I yelled back. “We’re fine. But you might want to bring handcuffs. I don’t know how long this ribbon will hold. And you’re going to want to call an ambulance.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Well!” Phyllis said, that was dramatic!”

  “Honestly,” I answered back, scooping up a huge amount of her amazing cheese dip. “I didn’t think they could make two strangers marrying each other any more awkward, but they managed to do it.”

  “Trust my words,” Phyllis said, “it won’t end well.”

  “Reality shows rarely do.” Gandalf climbed onto my lap and curled into a little ball. He was basically a tiny heater, which sucked in the summer, but was awesome for fall and would be even better come winter—and snow would be falling soon.

  “Tell me more about this gambling game,” Phyllis said, switching off the TV.