Tattooed

by Pamela Callow

  After three attempts, the green light on the lock blinked and she pushed the door open.

  Foo rushed in, knowing that this signaled his mealtime. Kenzie dropped her kit bag to the floor, locked the door behind her, and hurried into the tiny white kitchenette of her generic hotel suite. Within a minute, Foo had been served his dinner and it had been consumed. He now licked his bowl, either hoping for magical food to appear, or savoring the micro dust left by his kibble.

  A message blinked on the desk phone. She ignored it.

  Her brain still processed her encounter with McNally in the parking lot.

  One minute she’d been strapping Foo into his seat, the next minute she was confronted with the person who had forced her to flee Halifax a lifetime ago.

  It was a lifetime ago and it had shown on John McNally. She knew he had been in prison, but even if the thicker build and jailbird tatts hadn’t given that away, it was evident in the harsh lines etched in his face. Gone was the smooth-cheeked passionate wanna-be rocker of her youth, whose handsome features were made edgy not by years spent in an eight-by-eight cell, but by his punk haircut. In its stead was a physically threatening man, with a buzz cut, goatee and a look of desperation in his eyes.

  That look, more than anything else, convinced her that the body in the peat bog was indeed Heather Rigby’s.

  It could be no one else.

  She had fled before Heather’s body had been disposed of. She had guessed that Lovett and McNally tipped her over the edge of the cliff. Not buried her in a peat bog. What the hell were they thinking?

  But they hadn’t been thinking that night.

  She closed her eyes. She wished she had never come to Halifax, she wished she had never left her apartment in Manhattan.

  She wished, as she had wished a thousand times before—until she knew it was a barren trench into which she had dug herself—that she had never met McNally.

  Her fingers scrabbled for the remote. She turned on the TV, standing in front of the small flat screen, flipping channels until the supper-time news came on. She waited, impatient to learn more about the discovery of Heather’s corpse. Halfway through the local news segment, the anchor provided an update on the “bog body.”

  She sank down onto the sofa.

  Everything came rushing back to her: the rubber Halloween mask, the naked girl, the rope…

  The rope.

  The tantalizing, pleasure-inducing, terrifying rope.

  But it hadn’t started with a rope.

  It had started with a gun.

  Months before they picked up Heather Rigby at the Mardi Gras.

  The first time they played was at two o’clock in the morning, after a gig. McNally had pulled his grandfather’s service revolver out from under his bed.

  “Holy shit, you’ve got a gun?” Lovett chortled.

  Kenzie had stared at it. It looked like an adult version of her brother’s toy guns that he had flourished with great machismo when they played cowboys and Indians as little kids.

  She couldn’t tear her eyes away from it. She had never seen a real one before.

  McNally held the revolver up to the light. “It was my grandfather’s. It’s an Enfield No.2 Mk I.”

  “Lucky you,” Lovett said, his gaze avid. “I’d die to have one of those.”

  McNally pointed the gun at Lovett’s head. “You can have a bullet, instead.” He grinned.

  “Hey!” Lovett flinched.

  “Hey, what?” McNally mocked. “It’s not loaded.” His finger caressed the trigger.

  “You idiot! If it was loaded, you could have shot someone! The hammer has no spur.”

  Kenzie had no idea what Lovett was talking about, but he seemed pissed.

  “So what?” McNally’s voice was casual, but his gaze sharpened.

  “The spur on the hammer was removed from the Enfield during World War Two because it kept getting caught on things inside the tanks.”

  McNally had lost his smirk. “So?”

  “It makes it a double-action revolver.”

  At Kenzie’s blank stare, Lovett added, “You don’t have to keep cocking the hammer. Once it’s cocked, you just have to pull the trigger to empty the cylinder.”

  Clearly wanting to demonstrate that he was the real expert in the room, McNally released the lock on the cylinder and pushed down on the front of the barrel. The action pushed the cylinder upward, exposing six empty bullet chambers. “See? There’s a hinge at the bottom. Makes it easy to load.” He grabbed a box of bullets. The box looked like a cigarette package, but made of heavy brown paper. There was some kind of serial number, with the words: 12 Cartridges Revolver—380-inch, with the date stamped on it 24 JUL 1942. “These are military issue.”

  Envy twisted Lovett’s mouth. “You are so lucky. Those are hard to come by.”

  McNally loaded bullets in five of the chambers. “You need to leave one empty, otherwise it could discharge accidentally if you drop it.” He snapped the barrel up, locked the cylinder, cocked the hammer, and pointed the barrel at a flower vase sitting on his bureau, all in one smooth motion.

  Kenzie didn’t even see him pull the trigger. She heard the gun fire, saw the vase explode into smithereens, smelled the gun smoke. “Sorry, Grandma.” McNally grinned.

  Lovett snickered.

  McNally fired again. The bullet grazed the lamp. He blew gun smoke from the barrel and smiled. “Bingo.”

  “You can blow your brains out doing that, McNally,” Lovett said. “There’s still a bullet left.”

  “Oh, yeah?” McNally flipped off the lock on the cylinder. But instead of breaking open the revolver, he spun the cylinder and locked it. He held the gun to his head. “Bang, bang, I’m dead.”

  “John, don’t—!” Kenzie screamed.

  Lovett stared at him, fear mingling with excitement in his eyes.

  McNally pulled the trigger.

  He fell backward, moaning.

  “John!”

  Then Kenzie realized she had not heard gunfire.

  She shook him. “You faker.”

  He grinned. “Your turn.” He thrust the gun at her.

  “Me?” Her heart lurched at the look in McNally’s eyes. “No way.”

  He grabbed her hand, uncurled her palm and placed the gun in it.

  Kenzie stared at the revolver. A sculpture of extinction. Or rebirth. Depending on your beliefs.

  Her fingers curled around the grip. It felt so natural, that she relaxed. She hefted the weight of the cold metal in her palm. It felt good.

  She held in her hand the power to end a life.

  Her blood surged.

  McNally grabbed her wrist and forced the gun up to her temple.

  “Stop it, John.” She tried to shake him off but he wouldn’t let go.

  He pressed the gun to her temple.

  “Shoot it.”

  “No!”

  “You scared, Kenz?” he asked, his voice soft, teasing. “You want to be a tattoo artist and you’re scared of one little bullet? You need balls to be a tattooist, Kenzie. Balls.”

  Lovett gave a slow smile.

  The air was thick from her sweat, the booze exuding from McNally’s pores, the animal excitement that both McNally and Lovett gave off. Kenzie could hardly breathe.

  “Do it, Kenz,” McNally breathed in her ear. She shivered. His breath was moist, warm, erotic. “Do it for me, baby.”

  Her nerves screamed with an exhilarating rush of fear and adrenaline.

  Do it.

  Her finger tightened on the trigger.

  Do it.

  She pulled the trigger.

  The sex they had that night was the best sex they’d ever had.

  Kenzie had packed her memories of that night with Heather Rigby—and the months leading up to it—into a tidy little box, along with her passion for the fiddle and any goodness that she’d once possessed, and buried the box in a tiny corner of her memory.

  And she’d done everything she could to preserve the entom
bment of those memories—she left her home, deserted her friends, abandoned her family and struck out on her own. She had slept her way into a tattoo apprenticeship and used every skill at her disposal to create the KOI brand.

  She wasn’t going to let those memories be exhumed now. She wasn’t going to let all those years of damned hard work go down the drain.

  She wasn’t going to let herself get caught now.

  Why had McNally come to see her today? What was so important that he was willing to risk being seen in public with her—one day after Heather Rigby’s body was discovered?

  He was no fool.

  Her cell phone rang. It better not be her mother. No, the call screen flashed the number for Yakusoku Tattoo.

  “Kenzie?”

  “Hey.” She exhaled. “What’s up, Yoshi?”

  “Listen, we are getting many, many phone calls from customers wanting to book with you. Would you consider staying a few days extra?”

  She almost laughed. “Sorry, can’t do that. I’ve got some stuff to attend to back in New York.”

  “Of course, I understand, Kenzie.” There was silence. She sensed his hesitation. “I’m wondering if you could do one extra client tomorrow. She’s a special client. It would be a great favor.” Knowing Yoshi and the über-politeness that had been ingrained in him, Kenzie recognized how important this must be to him.

  She closed her eyes. Every cell of her body urged her to leave Halifax before it was too late. But she knew that would be a big mistake. If she was connected to Heather Rigby’s murder, high-tailing it the day after the body was discovered was a sure sign she was running away from something.

  No. She should stay and act as if nothing had changed. And take her scheduled flight back to New York on Monday.

  “Yes, of course. Just add your client to my schedule.”

  “Arigato,” he said, his voice soft. “See you tomorrow.”

  “See you tomorrow.” Kenzie exhaled.

  Speaking with Yoshi had its usual calming effect. She had panicked when she saw McNally, maybe because she was used to being in control.

  She stripped off her clothes and ran the bath.

  The warmth of the water relaxed her. As did her ritual of gently washing her tattoos. Each one on her leg was a token that had been earned, a reminder of what she had lost or gained.

  When she decided to train in tebori and learn the secrets of Japanese horimono from the masters, she devoted her upper body to Japanese designs. The image of the koi had spoken to her the moment she saw it. A symbol of transformation in Japanese and Chinese mythology, the koi represented wisdom, knowledge and loyalty. In the traditional fable, a koi traveling up a waterfall symbolized courage and an aspiration to overcome life’s obstacles. If it reached the Dragon’s Gate, it would transform into a dragon—a most powerful symbol.

  Kenzie had no desire to become a dragon. For her, life was about change and fluidity. Horifuyu, one of the great masters, tattooed the koi on her upper body. It began under her left breast, traveled diagonally across her chest, until the head of the fish curled around the right side of her neck.

  Every time she looked at it, she felt a sense of accomplishment. She had grunted away for years as an apprentice, honing her craft, deflecting the occasional sexist attitude of her coworkers or clients, and clawed her way to artistic prominence. She had picked up the pieces of her shattered life and made something of herself.

  She worked hard to remove any reminder of the girl she had been in Halifax. Including the tattoo McNally had inked just below the back of her neck.

  Yoshi had created a most exquisite peony over it.

  Calmer now, she stepped out of the bath.

  Just four days of scaling this waterfall.

  She had been through worse.

  You are a wily old carp, Kenzie.

  22

  McNally had parked behind a large SUV, farther down the street. His camera sat on the seat beside him.

  Tall, slim, her brown hair pulled into a ponytail, Kate Lange was so much more than he remembered. Perhaps because Imogen had been the one that people had gravitated toward. Imogen, with her laughing brown eyes, her impish smile. She had captured the light; Kate had moved with the shadows.

  That had been seventeen years ago. Somewhere along the way, Kate Lange had torn through the tightly woven chrysalis of her younger insecurities. She had emerged strong. Feisty. A monarch of monarchs.

  For her, a butterfly tattoo would be appropriate. In bold orange and black.

  Although he could imagine a tiger in the same colors, crawling along her back, ready to pounce on any man who was not her match. Yes, a tiger tattoo would be most fitting for Ms. Lange.

  It was funny—he had thought the same thing about Kenzie when he first met her. With her deep red hair and glittering eyes, she had immediately reminded him of a predatory cat.

  Kate’s coloring was more subdued, although her eyes had an amber glint to them that was most definitely feline.

  But it was more than outward appearances. Or even the way she moved.

  There was something in her—a tightly suppressed energy, a suggestion that those lithe legs could uncoil at any moment—that was feral.

  Powerful.

  Exciting.

  She was way too confident, way too proud.

  She probably thought she was hot stuff, killing a serial killer.

  It was time to give her a taste of what was to come.

  He slipped a rope over her head, flipping her brown locks tenderly out of the way. He slid the knot until it was snug against her throat. She gazed at him, eyes defiant, lips curled in a snarl, her body twitching. He held up the other end of the rope until her eyes shone with anger. With fear.

  “Nice kitty,” he said.

  John McNally was back.

  * * *

  Ethan rubbed his hair dry with a towel and threw it on his bed. He had done a quick workout on the treadmill after supper, and then had taken a shower, just in case… .

  He had watched Kate on the supper-time news with her client Frances Sloane. Most people wouldn’t have caught it, but he had seen the distress lurking behind her steady gaze as she discussed why surviving the Body Butcher attack had made her an advocate for assisted suicide.

  He turned away from his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

  He needed to talk to her. He couldn’t stand it any longer. The frustration. The longing. The pain.

  Especially when he was so sure it didn’t have to be that way.

  He picked up the phone.