Mystic Mischief

by Sally J. Smith

  When you're right, you're right. "Bludgeoned?"

  "Something heavy. So, we're here now, all us deputies, and probably you're gonna see us here awhile. Because we got us a homicide. Elroy Villars, he was beat to death."

  I just stared at him.

  He went on. "So now I'm on my way to tell Jack we're ready to help him get all these crazy people loaded on the shuttle and bussed outta here. Then we can get down to some good ol' fashioned police work."

  He gave me a mock salute. Those warm brown eyes were alive with enthusiasm. Chief Deputy Boudreaux was in his element. "Catch ya later."

  So the sheriff was finally on board with homicide. That was a good thing for Harry, who had taken this pretty hard, and justice for Elroy's death would probably make him feel better about it all. His home had been the scene of a murder. How must that have felt to him? I couldn't even begin to imagine. Would he relive discovering the body every time he went into that bathroom? Would Fabrizio? Would they ever be happy in their home again?

  It had taken the sheriff's office a pretty long time to finally decide they needed to get to work on this case. Not a real confidence booster, even if they had finally put their top dog (which was what I considered Quincy) to work on it.

  All of a sudden the urge to get back to the scene of the crime was fierce. Maybe the police had missed something the first time they'd checked it out. After all, they hadn't really been looking for evidence that anyone else had been there besides Elroy Villars. They could have missed a whole bunch of clues as to who killed Percy's brother.

  Halfway across the lobby, I spun on my heel and turned toward the grand staircase, intent on finding Harry and getting the key to la petite maison.

  "Melanie Hamilton? Wait. Stop."

  Oh, crap. Was that who I thought it was?

  "Hold up."

  It was.

  I stopped walking and turned, dreading the exchange about to take place, forcing a neutral look on my face, not quite able to manage a smile.

  "Sydney." I kept my voice low and even.

  She teetered up to me on leopard-print slides with what had to be four-and-a-half-inch stiletto heels. Her clothes looked expensive, some highfalutin designer outfit she'd wear when breezing in for a decaf soy latte at a trendy Palm Beach coffee shop. Her curly blonde locks were pulled back from her face. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes blue. She looked like a Barbie doll.

  Could I even begin to compete with her? The doubt was alive for just the briefest of moments.

  "Tattoos. That's what you do, right? Tattoos?" she chirped.

  "Well, yes," I said slowly, wondering where this was going.

  "Well, I need one. Can you do it?"

  "Now?" I looked around. "You want me to ink now?"

  She pressed her lips together and nodded.

  "It's my day off," I said. "But on days I do work, appointments are made in advance. The resort prefers it that way."

  She crossed her arms, cocked a hip, and pouted. "Jack said you'd do it. He said even if it was your day off you'd be glad to do it."

  "He did?" That didn't sound like Jack. Even if this woman had wormed her way back into his heart, it wasn't like him to impose on another person.

  My suspicion must have been showing because she opened her eyes really wide and tucked her chin.

  Oh, yeah, sure. Like that ingénue act is gonna work with me? No way, sistah.

  "Jack must have figured you'd do it for him." I was having some trouble deciding if what she was doing with one of her eyes was a wink or a tick. "I really need it before the costume ball. I'm going as a girl pirate, and I want Jack to see it."

  She laid her hand on my arm, and it took just about all the self-control I could muster not to slap it away.

  Several thoughts took a jog through my mind. This woman had either come here on her own after reconnecting with Jack in Florida, or she had been sent by Jack's mother for what appeared to be the sole purpose of stealing my Cap'n Jack away. Also, if the petite blonde interloper was telling the truth, Jack had sent her my way. And I could only come up with two reasons for that—either he was, in fact, sweet on her and wanted her to have the tattoo she had her heart set on, or he wanted her out of his hair for a while. I chose to believe it was that latter. To ride this out, I had to believe he was still in love with me. Lastly, it occurred to me that if I took the time to do her ink, I'd have her alone and maybe get a chance to figure out her strategy for hijacking my man.

  Granddaddy Joe's slow drawl rolled through my brain with one of his infamous muddled idioms, "Keep your friends close-by, Mellie gal, and your enemies close-by too, like maybe tied up in the closet where you can check on them and make sure they ain't up to no good. " Lord, I missed my granddaddy.

  I couldn't exactly put Sydney Baxter in a closet, but my stronghold, Dragons and Deities, would surely run a close second.

  I smiled at Sydney, who'd surprisingly been waiting patiently for me to respond. Since I was on the wrong side of my smile, I could only hope it wasn't evil as Hannibal Lecter when I said, "Sure, Sydney. I'll give you a tattoo. Why the heck not?"

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  "What do you think of these?" I'd flipped the screen on my computer to the next page of fonts.

  "Ooh, that's it." Sydney's manicured finger pointed to Edwardian Script, a particularly flowery scroll. "That's the one I want you to use for my tattoo."

  Sydney had changed into one of the salon smocks Harry and I had chosen when we first set up the shop. They were gender specific and looked nearly medieval in design to go with the days-of-old theme of the tattoo parlor.

  When I'd handed one to her, Sydney had said, "Are you sure this one's suitable for me. I have a twenty-inch waist, just like Scarlett O'Hara, you know."

  I gritted my teeth. "Scarlett's waist was seventeen inches. If the smock doesn't fit, I'll find you one that does."

  Sydney had emerged from behind the changing screen wearing the smock, a look of distaste puckering her face. Holding the fabric away from her, she'd asked, "Are you positively sure this thing has been to the laundry since your last customer used it?"

  "Positively sure," I'd said brightly.

  "I just hope to God that Jack doesn't decide to pop in and see how I'm doing. I'd rather die than have him see me in this ratty old thing."

  I didn't respond but gestured toward the chair, not the cushy lie back and chill out chair but the crawl on and put your face in the hole chair. She wanted a small tattoo of scrolled initials just below her left shoulder. The initials were J A S, which (she'd made it a point to tell me five times already) stood for John Allen Stockton. Jack. My Jack. The woman was having my Jack's initials tattooed on her body. Grr. My fingers itched to ink something entirely different on her snowy shoulder, something inappropriate, something that would make a sailor blush. Now, now, you're a professional, and she's a customer of the resort. Put on your big girl panties, and take one for the team.

  So, big girl panties on, I leaned over her, swabbed her skin with alcohol, and turned on the inking gun. Breathe in. Breathe out. It's just a tattoo, like any other tattoo. But it wasn't, and no telling myself it was would make it so.

  "You know. I was happy to see you looking so much more presentable today than usual." Her words were partially smothered by the ring of cushion around her face, but I, like a dentist, had enough practice at translating a person whose mouth was inhibited, so I understood her perfectly.

  More presentable? What? "I'm sorry?"

  "Well, that thing you had on yesterday was just horrible," she said.

  "Oh." She must have seen me in my work costume yesterday.

  "It was so, so…dowdy."

  Your mother should have told you to never say "dowdy" to a woman with an ink gun in her hand.

  But I bit my cheek to keep from screaming and merely said, "It's my work costume." Mentally adding Twit! and Jack thinks it's sexy in an Elvira Mistress of the Dark sort of way.

  I leaned over her milky soft skin and ai
med my ink gun, thinking a stun gun would have been great to have right about then.

  The tiny little tattoo, just the initials and a few curlicues and flourishes here and there, nothing at all elaborate or challenging—shouldn't have taken very long.

  —but—

  Because Sydney kept breaking out into bouts of crying—no, not just crying, wailing—and panting, like she was in labor or something—we had to stop the process every few minutes so she could gather herself.

  At one point she looked at me, eyes red-rimmed and swollen, nose runny, and whispered, "A woman in love will put herself through hell to please her man."

  When we were finally done and she'd composed herself, she asked to see it. Before bandaging it, I gave her the hand mirror and spun her around to see the reflection of her back in the large mirror on the wall.

  "Mmm. It's very nice." She said, sounding surprised. "You really are as talented as Jack said you are." Then she seemed to realize she might have said something decidedly uncatty to me and pushed herself up off the chair. "I'll just change out of this, this thing and be on my way."

  While she went back behind the changing screen, I ran her credit card.

  When Sydney came back around the screen, I went over the aftercare instructions with her and gave her the kit that consisted of an instruction sheet, antibacterial soap, and special ointment to use on the tattoo.

  "It'll begin to peel in about three to seven days," I finished. "When it does, discontinue the ointment and keep it dry until—"

  "So it only lasts three to seven days? Well, that should be okay. The costume ball is tomorrow night. I only need it for that long. You know, to show off to Jack."

  Oookay. "Sydney." I wasn't quite sure how to begin. "In three to seven days, it will begin to peel, like a sunburn. But after the peel, the art will still be on your skin."

  "So, what do I need to do to get it off?" She looked down at the bag in her hand. "Just use this soap to scrub it?"

  "Uh. No."

  "Then what?"

  "It won't come off. If you decide you don't want it, you'll need to have it removed by a professional. "

  She looked at me for a moment then laughed. "No. You're just shining me on. Right? I mean I see little kids wash them off all the time. And actors in movies get temporary tattoos, don't they?"

  I shook my head. "Those aren't real tattoos."

  She twisted around and glanced back at the bandage, which was now under her knit top. "And this is…?"

  "Permanent."

  She flinched at the word. "But I don't want… I didn't think… Nobody ever told me." She glared at me. "If you think I'm not stopping the payment for paying for this, you'd better think again. And you can bet I'll be talking to the manager."

  "But Jack already knows these aren't fake tattoos." I couldn't believe how calm my voice was.

  "I…I…well, crap." Her mouth drew into a bitter, tight line. "We'll just see about this." She turned abruptly and headed for the door.

  I watched her go, hoping for her sake when her wedding night came she would have wound up with someone whose initials are J A S because John Allen Stockton, alias Cap'n Jack, wouldn't be the man who took her on a honeymoon.

  I wasn't going to take a passive role in this triangle, not for even one more minute. I'd given Jack time to take care of this, a whole day and half, as well as space, took a room in the resort, and he hadn't been successful. I folded my arms and made a mental inventory of what I had in my war chest and prepared myself for battle, just like Jean Lafitte.

  Not more than ten minutes after Sydney had stormed out, Catalina Gabor, all aglow and excited, waltzed into Dragons and Deities. She carried a big, cream-colored shopping bag with the words Brenda's Bridals scrolled on it in silver letters.

  I was still cleaning my equipment after having worked on Sydney.

  "Hmm," Cat said. "I thought you were off today."

  "So did I. Sydney Baxter had something else in mind." I regaled the tail of Sydney's inking session.

  Cat sat with her hand over her mouth, and I could tell she was trying not to laugh. When I came to the part about the tattoo washing off, she lost the battle and snorted. Her total lack of self-consciousness was one of the things I loved about her. Cat was Cat, take it or leave it.

  "Don't laugh," I said. "I almost feel sorry for her."

  Cat sobered and wagged a finger at me. "Huh-uh. No feeling sorry for the enemy. You've got to be ruthless, merciless, serious. She's after your man, Mel. You can't have even the smallest soft moment."

  I didn't know what to say, so I changed directions. "What's in the bag?"

  It worked. She took the bait and switched subjects. "Only the most yummy fabrics the seamstress gave me to look at for the wedding. Wait'll you see."

  And with that she began pulling samples of fabric from the bag, each more beautiful than the one before it. And when they were all spread out across the chaise in the corner of my studio, we put our heads together over them, pulling one after the other.

  "This one for you," she said, snatching up a swatch of teal silk.

  "Or this one?" I reached for a swatch of royal purple charmeuse that pooled softly in my hand.

  "Oh, yes, that is lovely," Cat said.

  We spent a few more minutes looking at all the fabrics and notions she'd brought, pairing the cream silk with those seeded pearls, that gorgeous purple charmeuse with color-matched chiffon for the sleeves and bodice. Then we put everything back in the bag from the bridal shop.

  I stood up beside her as she picked up the bag. "I'm so happy for you and Quincy," I said and hugged her.

  "Stop it." She sniffed. "You'll make me cry, and my mascara will run."

  Something I'd thought of earlier popped back into my head. "Off the subject, do you have time to schedule a free reading for Nancy Villars?"

  She shrugged. "The sister of the man who was killed?"

  I nodded.

  "I could make that work. What do you have in mind?"

  "I talked to her earlier today. I don't know that she actually lied to me, but I didn't feel like she told me everything she could have. I'm willing to bet there're things going on with Nancy and with Percy that relate in some way to what happened to their brother—things that they're both leaving out."

  "Sure," Cat said. "I'll call her room, tell her she won a free reading, and give her a couple of times today she could come to the House of Cards and have it done."

  I hugged her again. "You're the best. I know snooping around behind your boyfriend's back isn't like you, and you aren't even the one who'd said she'd check into the Villars background and Elroy's death. That was me. I really appreciate—"

  She cut me off. "Oh, stop it. You know I love fumbling around in people's closets to bring out all their skeletons just as much as you do."

  We both turned at the sound of a voice clearing, and my heart swelled at the sight of Jack Stockton standing in the open doorway, in one hand a bouquet of peachy peonies and in the other the unmistakable cream-colored, pink-ribboned gift bag from Hové Parfumeur Ltd., which, if I had my guess, was soap or lotion or perfume of their Pirate's Gold scent that both Jack and I loved.

  Cat's eyes went straight to the bag, and she laid her hand on my arm in a would-you-look-at-that way.

  "Hi, Jack," Cat said when she saw my emotion had rendered me mute.

  Jack said, "Hey, Cat. How're you doing?" But his eyes never left mine. "Mel." The subtext was full of longing.

  "Jack." So much was behind that one word from me—need, love, hurt, yearning, regret. I was too full of emotion, and I couldn't have said more if I wanted to, which I didn't.

  I only wanted to stand there and look at him—look at his long, strong body, dark, wavy hair, luscious full lips, and the sexy five o'clock shadow that never seemed to go away whether it was five o'clock or not. And I loved his eyes, eyes as warm and liquid as brandy and at the moment full of pleading.

  I wanted to run to him and throw myself into his arm
s, but pride, even though I knew how stupid it was, stopped me.

  In my side-vision Cat looked from me to Jack then back to me. "I should leave," she said awkwardly.

  What do you think about that? So much is bubbling beneath the surface here, it's too intense for even the never-at-a-loss Catalina Gabor.

  Jack suddenly snapped out of it. "No," he said, gesturing at the swaths of fabric on the chaise. "You ladies are doing something important here. I just wanted to bring these to you, Mel. To tell you I'm sorry I've hurt you, that I love you and miss you. I've sent for my mother. She'll be here later today. While she's here, I'll be setting things straight with her one way or another." His gaze held mine, and I felt tears start behind my eyes. "And I'm working on the other thing, too. You can count on it."

  He stepped through the door into the suite, and while I looked up into his wonderful face, willing him to lower his head and press his lips against mine, he leaned over and whispered in my ear. "I love you. And I miss you, baby. I want you back in my house, in my bed. I can't take knowing you're hurt and upset. I'm going to fix it. I promise."

  Tears filled my eyes, and the feelings were so strong I even sobbed.

  He reached down and lifted one of my hands, laid the peonies in the crook of my elbow, and draped the handle of the gift bag across my palm. Another whisper. "Just a little something for you to model for me the next time we're alone." He kissed my cheek, turned, and walked away, leaving me standing there crying and laughing and breathing hard.

  "Holy Moses," Cat said.

  I turned and looked at her. In all honesty I'd forgotten she was there.

  "Hot. Louisiana pepper sauce hot." She fanned herself. "But in the end, he's just a man, and that conniving blonde is a pretty little thing. She might not hold a candle to you, but we're gonna take some steps to make sure he knows that. There can't be any room for doubt in that man's mind that you're the best woman in the world and you were meant to be together. No mama. No Sydney. Just you and him."

  I didn't answer, thinking about the fragrance in the gift bag and that Jack had said he wanted me to model it for him, and I couldn't help but smile at the thought—just the fragrance, nothing else?