Karen Olson - The Missing Ink

All bets were off once we were splashed all over 20/20 .

I put the drawing in my bag.

“You okay?” Joel stuck his head through the door.

I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.” Not very convincing. “Any luck with the eagle tat?”

“Seems like it’s pretty common flash. But I’ll keep asking around. And your nine o’clock is here.”

I rummaged through the piles I’d just made and found the stencils of the matching derringers that would adorn the inside upper arms of a young woman who’d also recently gotten a boob job. Charlotte Sampson had just graduated from college with a degree in accounting, but I wasn’t convinced she really meant to actually work as an accountant. She’d given herself a rather bad tattoo of a heart on the inside of her wrist, and when she saw my work, she insisted that I fix her ink up. Since then, she’d been back for five tats.

I mentioned that the derringers might sag a bit as she got older, but she shrugged it off.

Bitsy was telling her about our impending fifteen minutes of fame on 20/20 when I emerged.

“Brett, this is great news!” Charlotte threw her arms around me and air-kissed my cheek.

“Sure,” I mumbled. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

Charlotte frowned at Bitsy, who shook her head and rolled her eyes. I saw it, but I pretended not to notice.

I led Charlotte to my room and showed her the stencils.

“They’re perfect!” she said.

After pulling on my gloves, I applied the stencil, assessed the outline of the first derringer, arranged the ink caps, dipped the needle, and pressed the foot pedal. A tattoo machine is like a sewing machine; it’s all in the foot action.

I ran the needle along the lines of the stencil, feeling Charlotte flinch only as the needle first touched her skin.

Getting a tattoo feels like a hundred bee stings all at once. It hurts for the first few minutes, and then the endorphins kick in and the excitement pushes away the pain.

It was a quick job, just an hour and a half for both tats.

“Fantastic,” Charlotte said as she surveyed her arms in the mirror.

I wrapped her up in Saran Wrap; she knew the drill. Just before she left, though, she asked to see me privately.

Bitsy, who was in the midst of cleaning up for the night, raised her eyebrows at me, but I shrugged back. I had no idea what Charlotte wanted.

Once back in my room, Charlotte hesitated.

“What is it?” I asked.

She was a pretty girl, with sleek black hair and green eyes that sparkled. “I was wondering, well, if you ever, well, you know…”

“Spit it out,” I said.

She smiled shyly. “I was wondering if you would be willing to take me on here, like an intern or something.”

“What about being an accountant?”

She sighed. “I don’t think it’s in my cards. I bought my own machine, and I’ve been tattooing my friends.”

I caught my breath. “Not a good idea, Charlotte.”

“I know, but I just want to do this.”

I had to stop her, and the only way was to agree to have her come in and talk it over with the rest of the staff. We hadn’t had a trainee since I took over, but we’d all been starting out ourselves at one point. If Mickey hadn’t taken a chance on me, I don’t know where I’d be today.

Since I didn’t want her to overlap with the TV crew, Bitsy scheduled her for the next week.

“What do you think?” I asked Bitsy as we watched Charlotte skip out of the shop.

Bitsy shrugged. “It’s not like we don’t have work we can give her. And she’s a nice kid.”

I was preoccupied, however, with the Murder Ink address on Elise’s drawing. I didn’t tell anyone about it. If I did, it could end up all over national TV, and I wanted to talk to Jeff Coleman about it first. It was conceivable that Elise had never shown up there, that she’d come to our shop first, but I figured some well-placed questions to Jeff would get me the answers I needed.

Since he was open until four, I’d head over there now.

Joel and Bitsy told me to go ahead home, they’d finish closing up. They’d decided I was a “gloomy Gus” and felt I was raining on their 20/20 parade.

It was more like a monsoon.

Sure, I should probably feel guilty about that, but they were out of control, talking about outfits and Joel wishing he’d started Weight Watchers last week because he’d surely lose at least ten pounds right away, and you know how the camera puts weight on people.

Joel had completely forgotten about the creepy tattooed guy by now, but I didn’t see anyone suspicious as I left the mall and went to the parking garage. I started the Bullitt up and headed out into the night.

The lights of the Strip sliced across my windshield, and I thought about putting the roof down, but decided against it. It was still pretty hot, and the air-conditioning felt good as it blasted against my face.

I was halfway up the Strip when my cell phone rang inside my bag. I dug it out and flipped it open, noting Tim’s number on the screen.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Brett? You on your way home?”

I didn’t want to tell him about Murder Ink unless I knew Elise had been there or had some contact with them, so I sidestepped the question by asking one of my own: “Why?”

“You said that the picture of Elise Lyon on TV was definitely the woman who came into your shop?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“You’re absolutely sure?”

Something was up. “Why are you asking?”

“If I send you a picture on your phone, can you confirm or deny whether it was the woman who was in your shop the other night?”

“This is about that body in the car at the airport, isn’t it?”

“I can’t comment at the moment.”

By his not commenting, I knew it was.

“What about Chip Manning? Why can’t he identify her? What about her parents?” Yeah, what about them? Weren’t the parents the ones who were always plastered all over the TV screens begging for information about their lost girl?

“Her father is on his way to Vegas now, but her mother’s staying behind just in case she goes home.”

For the wedding. If she still wanted to get married, she’d be there now. “So why me? I only talked to her for, like, ten minutes.”

He sighed. “I’d rather not get her mother all upset-”

“Just in case it’s not her, right?” I finished for him.

“Just do it, Brett, okay?”

“Okay, okay, keep your pants on.”

“I’m sending it now.”

I pulled over so I wouldn’t get stopped by the cops for paying more attention to my phone than to the road.

I waited a couple of seconds, and a picture popped up on the screen. It wasn’t a great picture, but I knew one thing: Elise Lyon’s mother wouldn’t be upset.

Because it wasn’t the woman who’d come into The Painted Lady.

“It’s not Kelly Masters,” I said.

“But it is,” Tim said.

“What?”

“Her name is Kelly Masters. She’s got ID on her; the rental car agreement is in her name. She’s from L.A.”

“What happened to her?”

“I really can’t say.”

I was ready to smack him. He couldn’t tease me like this. “But you’ve already told me plenty. And I might find out on the news anyway.”

“You might.”

Something in his voice told me I might not. “You’re not releasing anything about this, are you?”

“We need to find out the connection between Kelly Masters and Elise Lyon-”

“Because there is a connection, isn’t there?” I interrupted. “Why else would Elise use Kelly’s name?”

He was quiet a second, then, “You can’t tell anyone about this. Promise?”