“You had a gun in your car?”
Oh, right. Forgot to tell her how I came to possess a firearm. So I did.
As I spoke, the door swung open, and I looked up to see Will Parker coming in. I’d almost forgotten about him, but surveying the jeans and the button-down shirt and the way his blond hair flopped across his forehead, I figured I could have a lot worse ways to spend the next hour.
Tim, unfortunately, chose that moment to stick his head out of the staff-room door. Will Parker spotted him, and he did a double take.
“That’s my brother, Tim,” I said.
“The cop?” Will had a deer-in-headlights look about him.
I chuckled. “He’s not going to arrest you until after I work on your tattoo. My room’s this way.” I led him down the hall and pointed to my room. “Wait a sec, okay?” I continued to the staff room, where Tim was riffling through a file folder with some stencils in it.
I grabbed the folder from him and put it back on the light table.
“You can’t check out all the clients,” I hissed. “You’ll scare them away. I’m going to be about an hour, so you can go get a drink or lunch or something if you want. You can bring something back for all of us.”
Tim was grinning. “Okay, fine, don’t get all mad. I’ll go get food.”
He started out, and I remembered something. “Joel’s on Atkins. He needs some sort of meat.”
“Really? It looked like he’d lost some weight. But don’t people on that diet gain it all back later anyway?”
“Don’t tell him that.” I shooed him out and went into my room, where Will Parker was seated, checking out my tattoo machine. He was caressing the clip cord far too intimately. I took the machine and cord and put them on the shelf behind the chair before I sat down next to him.
“Roll your sleeve up,” I said.
“All business, huh?” he asked as he did what I said. “You’re kidding about your brother arresting me, right?”
I made a face at him and didn’t answer. The tattoo was on the top of his forearm. The skull was bleeding outside the lines, the black faded to a dull gray. It was really an outline, no color. The daggers through the eyes were also black, and while I’d initially thought with a quick glimpse the other day that it was good work, I was definitely rethinking that now.
“How about a little color,” I said. “I could do some red, some silver in the daggers, make the skull white, the sockets blacker, and it’ll be really striking.”
As I readied the inks and slid the needle into the machine, I felt myself go into autopilot. I pushed Tim from my head, and everything that had gone on the last couple of days faded like Will Parker’s ink. When I finally put my foot to the pedal and the machine started its familiar whirring, I was focused on the tattoo and nothing else.
He didn’t even flinch.
“You must have a high threshold for pain,” I said as I wiped the excess ink with a soft cloth.
“Always did,” he said.
“Can you twist your arm around a little to the right?” I asked, and he did, giving me a better angle so I could work on the outline of the skull.
It also gave me a better view of the bruises on his hand.
Chapter 36
T
he bruises looked as though they were a few days old, already turning purple and yellow.
“What happened here?” I asked, tapping one.
He flinched then.
I looked up and saw a glimpse of panic before he composed himself.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “I fell.”
I wasn’t an idiot, although I was wondering whether he was. Did he think I wouldn’t see this when he came in?
He saw my expression and sighed.
“Okay, it was this girl. It got a little rough.” To his credit, he blushed, as if embarrassed. “I’m not really seeing her.”
But he’d seen enough of her. I got the picture. And I certainly wouldn’t go out with someone who “got a little rough.” Made me happy I hadn’t gotten into his car the other day.
I pressed the needle to his skin.
“It’s none of my business,” I said softly, focusing on my work.
He didn’t say anything.
I didn’t know whether that was a good thing or bad.
Not that it mattered much right now. I went through the motions, the machine’s gentle whirring echoing in my head and blocking out everything else. I was in my zone.
Finally, I sat up and took my foot off the pedal. I gently wiped the last of the ink off the tattoo. What had been a rather boring tattoo before stood out now. I’d added some embellishment to the dagger hilts, gold swirling through the silver, showing off the stark black and white of the skull.
Will Parker stared at it.
“Is it okay?” I asked. The worst thing is when a client hates what I’ve done. It doesn’t happen much, but it’s happened a couple of times. Although admittedly more in the early days of my career.
Will swallowed hard, then looked at me. “It’s fantastic. I had no idea you were so good.”
I swiveled my chair around so I could put the tattoo machine on the shelf. The inks would be thrown away, as would the needles I’d used. Everything was disposable. Much like Will Parker. Those bruises had told me more about him than any sexy smile, and I wasn’t willing to go there.
When I turned back to him, he saw it in my face.
“It was a one-night stand,” he tried.
I shrugged. “Like I said, none of my business. Let me get some stuff for you about how to take care of the tattoo, and I’ll cover it up before you leave so it won’t get all over your shirt.”
He tried a grin on for size. “I never want to cover it up.”
I smiled back, but it wasn’t as enthusiastic. “Thanks for the endorsement. Tell your friends.” I slapped a bandage over it anyway.
I went out to the front desk, where Bitsy and Tim were deep in conversation. When I approached, they both looked up, startled as if I’d interrupted something important.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you two had something going on,” I teased.
They exchanged a furtive look, and I frowned.
“Don’t tell me . . .”
Tim put his hand up. “No, no, Brett, it’s nothing.”
But from the look on Bitsy’s face, I knew it was definitely more than “nothing.” She tried to cover it up by asking, “So how’s it going in there?” and giving me a sly grin.
I shrugged. “The tattoo came out pretty good.”
She frowned. “But what about
him
?”
I leaned toward her, and Tim leaned in, too, so he could hear.
“He’s into some rough stuff with women,” I whispered.
“He told you that?” Bitsy exclaimed.
“Shh!” I put my finger to my lips. “No, but he’s got bruises on his hand, and he said he’d been with someone and it got rough.”
“Maybe he’s into bondage,” Tim suggested, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “You sure you’re not up for that?”
I slapped his arm. “Give me a break. Maybe
you
are.”
I grabbed a sheet with tattoo-aftercare instructions out of the desk drawer. I waved it in front of Bitsy’s face. “Need to make more copies,” I said, going back to my room and Will Parker.
He didn’t expect me back quite so quickly. When I stepped through the door, his back was to me. He was holding my tattoo machine and fiddling with the power source.
I cleared my throat loudly and went over to him, taking the machine.
“I’d thank you to leave my things alone,” I said, my voice cold as I checked the power source. He’d changed the settings.
“I didn’t know how it worked,” he tried.
“If you’d asked me, I could’ve shown you.” I thrust the paper at him. “Here. This tells you how to take care of it.”
“Should I come back and have you check on it?” He tried that seductive smile on me, but it was a bad move. It put me in a worse mood.
“Do what the instructions tell you. And Bitsy will take your payment out front.”
He stood there a second, as if I was messing with him. “Is your brother still here?” he asked.
“What? Oh, right, yeah.” Maybe he thought I’d sic Tim on him over the bruises. I turned my back on him, and as I fiddled with the power source, putting all the settings back where they belonged, he went out to see Bitsy.
“Psst!”
I turned at the sound to see Joel frowning in my door. He kept glancing out toward the front desk.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“You didn’t just ink that guy, did you?” Joel’s voice was barely above a whisper. I could hear Bitsy and Will talking out front.
I nodded. “Sure. Only a touch-up, though. Nice tattoo. Skull with daggers.”
“He’s been here before.”
“Sure he has. He came by yesterday. He was going on a job interview here at the Venetian.”
“No, no, that’s not it,” Joel said, his voice getting higher with anxiety. He’d stepped inside my room now.
“What’s up, Joel?”
Joel’s eyes were wide.
“He was here with that guy you found dead in your trunk.”
Chapter 37
“W
hat do you mean? He was here with Ray Lucci?”I Wasked. “Bitsy never said anything about him, and she was here, too.”
Joel was shaking his head so hard I thought it would bounce off.
“She wasn’t here when they got here. She came in late. Dentist or something. I don’t know. All I do know is, that guy came in here with Franklin, or Lucci, or whatever his name was. He didn’t stay long, but long enough to poke around in my room while I was getting my inks together.”
I remembered how Will Parker had been messing with my clip cord and then my power source. I had another thought.
“He wasn’t in there alone, was he?” I asked.
Joel’s hand shot to his mouth, covering it, and I knew. Parker had been alone.
“I had to go get some red ink from the storage room. I was out. I wasn’t gone but a few minutes. He was gone when I got back.”
Probably with Joel’s clip cord.
“You didn’t tell the cops about him.”
Joel sighed, his hand dropping down to his side. “I forgot all about him until I saw him now. It was a crazy morning. The phone kept ringing, we actually had a couple of walk-ins, and I had to schedule appointments.” He paused. “Which Bitsy had to reschedule. I never said I was good at that.”
“I didn’t say you were. It just seems like this was pretty important, and you forgot.”
Joel snorted. “It’s this diet. I’m forgetting all sorts of things. It’s like my brain is hardwired for sugar, and without it, I’m a complete mess. I’m so sick of meat.”
I reached over and rubbed his arm in support. “I’m sorry,” I said softly but then jerked my hand away. Joel frowned.
“We need to stop Will Parker,” I said. “Where’s Tim?”
I didn’t wait for an answer. I went down the hall to the staff room, where Tim was leaning back in a chair, his feet up on the table, leafing through a tattoo magazine. He grinned and waved the magazine when I came in.
“Interesting stuff,” he said.
“I don’t have time for that now,” I said, launching into what Joel told me about Will Parker being here with Ray Lucci.
A few words in, Tim pulled himself up and looked like a cat about to pounce. “Where is he now?”
“He left,” Joel said from the doorway.
“How long ago?”
Too long ago, but I didn’t want to burst his bubble if he thought he could catch up with him. “I don’t know, a few minutes,” I said.
Tim grabbed my arm.
“Hey!”
“You have to come with me. I only saw him for a few seconds; I don’t know if I’d be able to pick him out of a crowd,” he said.
We passed Bitsy, whose expression was asking what the heck was going on. I said, “Joel will fill you in,” just as Tim pulled me out of the shop.
Once on the walkway, we stopped abruptly, Tim’s head swiveling from right to left and back again.
“Do you see him anywhere?”
It had really been too long. I doubted we’d track him down now, but it was worth a shot. However, all I saw was tourists. I shook my head. Something told me to go toward St. Mark’s Square, toward where the Renaissance dancers perform, and I started to walk in that direction.
A gondola sailed past, the gondolier’s even strokes moving it along the canal. With Tim following, I went up the small footbridge over the canal. From the top of the bridge, I could see farther, so I scanned the crowds on both sides of the water and then in the square. There was no music now; there were no dancers prancing about, only the sound of chatter and a line at the gelato place.
“I think it’s a lost cause,” I told Tim. “I should’ve immediately gone after him, after Joel told me. But I didn’t quite understand at first what he was telling me.”
Tim tugged my arm and led me over the bridge. “Come on,” he said. “You never know if he stopped somewhere along the way.”
“Right. He probably went to the garage and got his car.” As I spoke, Tim and I stared at each other.
“Well, that was pretty stupid of us,” I added. “Considering one of us is a police officer. A detective, no less.”
Tim rolled his eyes as we went back over the bridge and weaved our way around one of the small walkways that led away from the canal. I didn’t have a chance to ogle the shoes in Kenneth Cole, as I usually do, although I did see Ace at the oxygen bar again. There should be a twelve-step program for air addicts.
We rounded the corner, passed the newsstand and kiosk, and pushed the glass doors open, making our way down the ramp and then through another set of glass doors into the parking garage. We stared at the concrete and the lines of cars.
“Another brilliant idea, Watson,” Tim said.
The parking garage was huge. He could’ve parked anywhere.
Tim’s Impala sat nearby.
Tim crossed the pavement toward the car. I scurried to keep up.
As we reached the door, the roar of an engine echoed through the garage, and I gave a little jump. A blue car screamed around the corner and sped up as it came toward us. Tim grabbed my shoulders and pulled me farther into the parking spot, wedged between the Impala and an SUV. The blue car flew around the corner and out of sight.