Pretty In Ink

by Karen E. Olson

  On the forearm that was bare, she had a queen-of-hearts playing-card tattoo.

  I took a deep breath. Could this possibly be Colin Bixby? I tried to see him in her but failed. That wasn’t a total surprise. These guys transformed themselves so well.

  Something about her seemed familiar. I knew I’d seen her before. I shut my eyes and tried to picture her. This was bothering me.

  Until it hit me.

  This was the woman I’d seen across the street from Chez Tango when I discovered that the tires were slashed on Jeff’s car.

  Had Colin Bixby slashed the tires? He was scheduled to arrive here any minute. How was I going to react to him now?

  Kyle could probably tell me for sure who she was. I wished I could print the picture, but the laptop wasn’t hooked up to a printer. I’d just have to ask him to go to Facebook and check it out.

  Granted, when Colin Bixby showed up, I could confront him about it, but I’d have to play that by ear. I wasn’t sure I was ready to go public with this just yet.

  I closed Facebook and opened the folder with the photos in it again. A quick click confirmed the pictures on Facebook had come from here.

  Except there was one more folder. I opened it. There was only one picture in it. This one hadn’t been on Facebook.

  “Brett, he’s here.” Bitsy’s voice made my heart jump into my throat.

  I looked up to see Colin Bixby hovering behind her in the doorway, a grin on his face. For a second, my heart jumped out of reflex.

  Before I shut down the computer, I took another look at the last picture, just to make sure my eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on me. And then the screen went black.

  I didn’t want to have to deal with Colin Bixby now. I wasn’t ready for that. What I really wanted to do now was go back over to see if Lester Fine was still at Madame Tussauds.

  Because I was pretty sure why Lester was paying Trevor McKay. For his silence. Trevor was guarding Lester’s body all right.

  Chapter 45

  Bitsy stepped aside and let Colin pass her and come into the staff room. He was wearing a long-sleeved white shirt and a pair of dark jeans that did, indeed, show off that nice butt Bitsy had mentioned. I stood, one hand shutting the laptop, the other in the air to stop him.

  “Let’s go out there,” I said, indicating the hall. I moved past him, trying not to notice his musky scent. He must have poured a whole bottle of cologne on himself. But instead of it being a turnoff, I liked it.

  I was getting too desperate if I was caving in to a guy who dressed like a girl. I needed a date.

  Bixby followed me into my room, where I indicated he should sit in the client chair. I grabbed a sketchbook off the shelf and picked up a pencil before settling onto my chair. I settled a little too fast, though, and it started to roll. I stuck a foot down to stop it, but my knee connected with Bixby’s, and he flashed his sexy smile at me.

  I cleared my throat and pushed away, my pencil poised.

  “So what is it you want?” I asked, realizing too late that it was a loaded question and could mean just about anything. “I mean, well, what sort of ink do you want? Something small? Since it’s your first one.” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my tone.

  He frowned. “Did I do something wrong?” he asked.

  I sighed. Might as well get this over with. I pointed to his long sleeve on his right arm. “Can you just pull that up? I want to see it.”

  More frowning. “See what?”

  I shook my head. “Just do it, okay?”

  He actually looked puzzled, then unbuttoned the cuff and shoved the sleeve up.

  I did a double take. Really.

  There was nothing there.

  I peered more closely, wondering whether he’d had it removed. But I didn’t see any signs of laser surgery.

  “What’s this all about, Brett?” he asked, his tone frosty.

  I bit my lip and shrugged. “I thought you already had a tattoo,” I said.

  “I told you I didn’t. And I must really like you, because this isn’t something I’d do on the spur of the moment.”

  He didn’t sound like he really liked me at the moment, but I was too busy trying to register what he was saying.

  “But Jeff Coleman-” I thought about the folder at Murder Ink, how I’d seen the name Colin Bixby. I wasn’t going crazy; it was there in black and white.

  “Who’s that?” he asked. “Is he your boyfriend?”

  I snorted. “Absolutely not,” I said with more force than I intended. “He owns Murder Ink. He said you got a tattoo.”

  Bixby’s eyebrows moved so close together, they looked like they’d become one. “I never had a tattoo. I told you that.” He looked at my tattoo machine on the counter and sighed. “I’m not thrilled about needles.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you said that,” I said, mulling this new information. If Colin Bixby hadn’t been the one at Murder Ink with Wesley Lambert and Rusty Abbott, then who was it? Who was using his name? “You said, too, that you know Kyle Albrecht. Do you know Wesley Lambert, too? Shanda Leer,” I added, trying to hide my smirk.

  “I do,” he said.

  “Lambert and a guy named Rusty Abbott-”

  “Lester’s assistant?”

  He knew all the players. How was he involved in all this? Because even though he didn’t have a tattoo, it was all a little too close for comfort.

  “That’s right. Rusty Abbott, Lester Fine’s assistant. How do you know him?”

  “What about him?” He was evading my question. I’d have to get back to it.

  “Well, Abbott and Lambert and another guy went to Murder Ink after that Queen of Hearts Ball last year and got queen-of-hearts playing cards inked on their inner right forearms. Jeff Coleman told me that the third guy’s name was Colin Bixby.” I leaned back a little, studying his face to see his reaction.

  “Well, it wasn’t me,” he said loudly. “I have no idea who it was. And I’ve never gone to a tattoo parlor with anyone, anytime.” He paused. “Except right now.”

  I had to ask. It was eating me up inside.

  “How do you know Kyle and Wesley? Are you a drag queen, too?”

  His eyes grew wide, shock crossing his face. “You think…” His voice trailed off into a sort of cough.

  “I don’t know what to think,” I said.

  Bixby took a deep breath and forced a smile. “Brett, I’m not a drag queen. I’m not gay. I know Kyle because he’s my cousin.”

  His cousin?

  “But why would someone use your name when getting a tattoo?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows?” But his jaw had tensed, be-lying his nonchalant tone.

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to say your name is John Smith or something?” I was talking off the top of my head now and didn’t exactly expect an answer.

  “Rusty Abbott and I don’t get along very well. Maybe it was his idea of a joke.”

  The mention of Abbott veered my thoughts onto another track. “So how do you know him? Is it through Lester Fine?”

  “That’s right.”

  I had another thought. “You called him Lester. That’s pretty familiar for someone it seemed like you met just yesterday at the hospital.”

  Bixby bobbed his head a little in a sort of nod. “I know Lester. I don’t advertise it because he’s a celebrity and all, and I don’t want to come across as name-dropping or anything. But I met him several months back when he came into the hospital for a… well… a procedure.”

  I grinned. “A face-lift?”

  He shook his head.

  “Eye work?”

  He shook his head again. “I can’t tell you. HIPAA, you know.”

  Yeah, I knew. “But you’re an ER doctor. Emergencies only. Do you do procedures?”

  Bixby chuckled. “You can’t cut a guy a break, can you?”

  “I just like to find out as much as I can about someone before I ink him.” I almost said “when I like him,” but managed not to slip up.

 
“Did you Google me yet?”

  Hmmm. That was an idea. I was so wrapped up with Trevor and Lester Fine and Wesley Lambert that I didn’t think to Google Colin Bixby.

  “Is that a no?” he asked.

  I shook my head, happy I could be honest, although later I’d take a quick look. He seemed to know what I was thinking, and he leaned over and put his hand on my knee.

  “I came here today because I like you,” he said softly.

  I let myself get lost in his eyes for a second, and it was an extremely pleasant place to be. But then he sat back again, his eyes leaving mine and skipping all around my room. “Can we get this over with?” he asked.

  “With that sort of attitude, I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” I said.

  He flashed me a smile. “A Celtic knot. Small.” He unbuttoned the top three buttons of his shirt, and I tried not to catch my breath. He pointed just above his left nipple. “Here.”

  I smiled back, despite myself. “You’ve been thinking about it.”

  “I didn’t want to go someplace where I’d get hepatitis, or worse,” he said, waving his hand around to indicate my room. “This looks pretty good. I feel safe here.”

  “I’m glad you feel safe,” I said, sketching out a Celtic knot on my pad. I could do one of these with my eyes closed. But I wasn’t going to tell him that. He might think I would actually close my eyes, and then he’d get spooked. “What about this?” I asked, showing him my sketch.

  He nodded slowly. “That’s exactly right.”

  “You can make an appointment with Bitsy and leave a deposit,” I said, standing.

  Bixby reached out and caught my hand with his. “Now. It has to be now, or I might never come back.” He paused. “I took a Xanax.”

  I laughed out loud. “Let me check with Bitsy, make sure I’m free for an hour. That should be all it’ll take. I need to make a stencil. I’ll be right back.”

  I could still feel the pressure of his hand on mine as I scurried out to the front desk.

  “Someone looks happy,” Bitsy teased.

  “He wants me to do it now.”

  “I like a man who’s decisive,” she said, looking at the book. “Go ahead. You don’t have anyone coming in for another couple hours.”

  I had started back toward the staff room to make the stencil when I heard her say, “Oh, by the way, Jeff Coleman just called. He wants you to call him right away.”

  “What did he want?”

  “I don’t know. He wouldn’t say.” She rolled her eyes at me. “Maybe he wants to make an appointment, too.”

  I made a face at her, and when I went into the staff room, I grabbed my cell phone out of my bag. I could multitask with the best of them, but I’d have to call Jeff before I started Bixby’s ink.

  “Murder Ink.”

  “Jeff? It’s Brett. What do you want?”

  “No foreplay, Kavanaugh? You disappoint me.”

  “What do you want?” I repeated. “I haven’t got all day.”

  “You might want to make time for this. I made a few calls. About Charlotte. Asked what Homeland Security was investigating her for.”

  My heart started to beat a little faster, and I put my sketch down. “What was it?”

  “She’s not being investigated.”

  I thought about what Tim had said. Was he wrong? “What do you mean?”

  “She’s working for them. Undercover. Has been for almost a year now.”

  Chapter 46

  Charlotte? Working for Homeland Security? “What’s she doing for them?”

  “She’s been getting them information about that Lambert guy, the one you found dead in that condo.”

  “It’s the ricin, right?”

  “He’s involved with some sort of militia out in the desert.”

  So it wasn’t drugs. It really was terrorism.

  Jeff was still talking. “There was something about Lester Fine, too, but they got all squirrelly, Kavanaugh. Wouldn’t tell me more than that, and they were all nervous about telling me what they did.”

  “Why did they, then?”

  “Why did they what?”

  “Tell you.”

  I could hear a low chuckle. “Well, if you really want to know, one guy doesn’t owe me money anymore, and I’ve got a date for Saturday night.”

  I didn’t want to know about Jeff’s social life. “Are they really looking for her, or is that all a ruse, too?”

  “That’s all I know, Kavanaugh. The rest is up to you.” He hung up.

  I sat, staring at my phone for a few seconds.

  “Brett?”

  Joel’s voice made me jump. I turned to see him coming into the staff room.

  “Are you aware you’ve got a hunky guy in your room?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, and I’ve got to get this stencil done.” But my hands were shaking and I dropped my sketchpad. Joel leaned down, picked it up, and handed it to me.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I told him what Jeff Coleman had said about Charlotte working for Homeland Security.

  My thoughts were more mixed up than clothes in a dryer. And I still had Colin Bixby to deal with. All of a sudden, he was the last thing on my priority list. But I couldn’t let him down now. It wouldn’t take but an hour.

  “Why would she work undercover?” Joel was asking. “Is she undercover here? I mean, she just started working for us a couple months ago. Do you think she’s investigating one of us?”

  I hadn’t thought of it like that. Jeff said his people told him it was Lambert. Since he was dead, though, why was she still hiding out?

  There were more questions than answers as far as Charlotte Sampson was concerned.

  “I have no idea what’s going on,” I told Joel truthfully as I put the drawing into the thermal fax machine and watched the stencil emerge. I grabbed it and went back to my room.

  Bixby flashed a nervous grin at me. “I thought you forgot about me.”

  “How could I forget about you?” I asked, forcing myself to flirt even though my thoughts were miles away. I told him to take his shirt off as I lowered the back of the chair so he would be more lying down than sitting up. I washed the spot where he wanted the ink and then carefully shaved it. He was watching everything like it was on the Discovery Channel.

  Before putting the stencil on the spot, I rubbed a little glycerin-based deodorant on it.

  “What’s that for?” he asked.

  “You’ll see,” I said, carefully pressing the stencil on his skin and then peeling it back to show the Celtic knot design.

  He grinned. “Is that it?”

  I turned in my chair to the counter and put a new needle into the machine and dipped it in black ink. I wheeled back toward him and let the machine hover a second. “I assume you didn’t want any color.”

  There was no color in his face as he stared at the machine. He nodded, and I pressed the foot pedal. The soft whir of the machine was hypnotizing-for me, because it pushed everything out of my head except this tattoo; for Bixby, I wasn’t so sure. I moved the machine closer.

  “It’s going to feel like bee stings,” I warned.

  He closed his eyes. “I’m ready.”

  He didn’t cry, and after a few minutes, he was even watching me draw.

  “I’m glad you’re my first,” he said when I was almost done. He hadn’t spoken at all until then, and his voice knocked me out of my zone.

  I smiled. “I will tell you that people who get one tattoo usually end up getting at least one more.”

  “Maybe I’ll be back.” He cocked his head toward my arm. “Although I’m not sure I’d get anything like that.”

  “You could bond with the ER patients,” I quipped, putting the finishing touches on the tattoo. I took my foot off the pedal and surveyed my work. It was a simple design, but classic.

  “Want to look?” I asked. “There’s a big mirror in the back, on the wall next to the couch.”

  Colin Bixby stood up, a little wobbly at firs
t; then he flashed me that sexy grin as he left the room. I put the tattoo machine on the counter and started to gather the instructions for the tattoo’s care.

  When he came back, he was still smiling, so I figured he liked it. I covered the tattoo, told him to keep it like that just for a little while, then instructed him to take the wrapping off to let it heal, washing it with liquid antibacterial soap and applying an antibiotic ointment. After a few days, he could switch to using an unscented moisturizer.

  “It’ll be pink for a while, like bubble gum,” I said, “and it’ll peel like sunburn. Then it’ll be fine.”

  He buttoned his shirt, and I saw his fingers shaking a little.

  “Has the Xanax worn off?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “I’m just a little nervous about what I’m going to do next.”

  “And what’s that?” I asked absently. My thoughts were turning back to Charlotte and what I’d be doing next.

  But instead of answering, he grabbed me around the waist and pulled me to him. His lips found mine, and I couldn’t breathe, but in a good way. He tasted like wintergreen Tic Tacs.

  When we finally came up for air, we grinned stupidly at each other.

  “I guess you don’t think I’m contaminated after all.”

  I couldn’t believe I said something so stupid.

  But he didn’t seem to notice. “I’ll call you.” He started out the door, but then stopped and turned. He held his hand out.

  “I don’t know what to do with this. Kyle came and got Trevor’s clothes, but he wouldn’t take this.” He opened his hand, and sitting in the center of his palm was the queen-of-hearts brooch.

  I stared at it.

  “Isn’t there some sort of hospital procedure for stuff like that?” I asked.

  “We keep things for the next of kin, but Trevor didn’t have family, apparently. That’s why Kyle took over. But he didn’t want to take this. Said it was bad karma or something.”

  No kidding. Wesley Lambert was looking for this pin, and the next thing we knew, Trevor was dead.