Karen Olson - Ink Flamingos

“You said you’d never met her sister, right?” I asked Terri, who had lost interest and was now paying more attention to Joel’s drawing.

“No,” she said.

“What can you tell me about the blog?” I asked, when I realized she wasn’t going to say anything more.

“She loved doing that.”

I’d hoped for a little more, but Terri didn’t seem inclined to elaborate. I changed tacks.

“She worked at a dental group?”

Terri nodded. “She was a hygienist.”

“Did she have a boyfriend or anything?”

“Some guy showed up last week. Never saw him before. Tall, dark hair, looked like he worked out, older guy. He had a long nose. It didn’t seem to go with his face.”

Terri had just described Sherman Potter. What was he doing there? He was involved with the sister, not the blogger. Or had he known both of them?

“I’m done.” Joel put his pencil on the table and lifted up the notepad.

I stopped breathing. It was a flamingo. He shrugged at me. “This is what she wanted.”

I stared at Terri, who was admiring the sketch. “I love it,” she said. “It’s perfect.”

I wanted to put a ban on flamingo tattoos. A sign out front that said NO FLAMINGOS HERE. Joel knew what I was thinking, and his eyebrows rose high in his forehead as if to tell me to chill.

I forced a smile. “It’s nice,” I said and went back to the front of the shop to leave them alone to figure out the particulars and see when Terri could come back for the actual tattoo.

Bitsy’s mouth formed a little “o” when she saw my face, but the phone rang, interrupting any question she’d had, and she picked it up. “The Painted Lady,” she said, all signs of emotion wiped from her voice.

“Hold on a sec,” Bitsy said, putting her hand over the receiver and frowning up at me. “There’s a problem.”

I waited.

“This is your next client. She said she got a message from you saying you had an emergency and wouldn’t be able to keep her appointment. She wants to reschedule. What’s up?”

I had no idea. Because I hadn’t called her.

Itook the phone from Bitsy.

“Jenny? It’s Brett.”

“Oh, is everything all right?”

“I’m not sure. When did I call you to cancel?”

Silence. I could hear Jenny wondering why I was asking, then, “Maybe about an hour ago. I had my phone off because I was in class.” She paused. “What’s going on?”

Exactly what I’d like to know, too. “I didn’t call you, Jenny. I’m sorry. It wasn’t me.”

“It sounded like you.”

My impostor strikes again. “I can keep your three o’clock, if you can still come in,” I offered.

“I’ll be there,” she said, relief in her voice.

“Okay, great. See you in an hour,” I said, and hung up. I turned to Bitsy, who’d been hanging on every word. “I want Tim to catch that woman and lock her up.”

“But how did she know Jenny was coming in? How did she know her phone number to call her?” Bitsy asked.

Good questions. Wished I had the answers.

“Only way to know was the appointment book,” Bitsy pointed out.

I knew what she was thinking.

“Where’s Ace?” I asked reluctantly. Ace had access to our appointments.

“He went out for lunch, but remember, she said a woman called her,” Bitsy reminded me. “So it couldn’t have been Ace.”

Not Ace, maybe, but a friend of his? Did he know Ainsley Wainwright? Or her sister? I didn’t hang out with Ace after work; I had never been as close with him as I was with Bitsy and Joel.

Bitsy anticipated my next question. “He wouldn’t sabotage the business, Brett. No matter how he felt about it or you.”

None of this made any sense. I waved my hand in the air and shook my head and went into the staff room. I sat at the light table, grabbed Jenny’s folder, and pulled out her stencil. I still had a little work to do before she came in, and now, because of that phone call, I wanted to make it up to her, so I added more detail to the rosebush that she wanted on her side.

I saw Joel walking Terri out, and then I heard Bitsy and Joel talking; the phone rang, but I shut it out, concentrating on the roses.

“Brett?” Bitsy stood in the doorway.

“Yes?” Jenny couldn’t be here yet; it was still too soon.

“It’s another one.”

“Another one what?”

“Another client. Said she got a phone call, wanted to make sure you were okay after the accident.”

A lump stuck in my throat. “What accident?”

“She says you called, said you were in an accident and would be canceling all your appointments for the rest of the week. She’s worried about you.”

I couldn’t breathe. What was going on?

“Ace is back,” Bitsy added softly. “Do you want me to ask him about this, or will you?”

I didn’t think I could form a coherent sentence at the moment. Finally, I took a deep breath and said, “I will. Please tell my client that I was not in an accident, that I’ll be able to keep her appointment.”

“I’ll send Ace in.” Bitsy disappeared, and I was still staring at the doorway when Ace appeared.

He wore a frown. “What’s up?”

I indicated he should come in and sit down at the table, where I joined him. I licked my lips, uncertain how to start.

Finally, “I have to ask you something, but please don’t take it the wrong way. It’s just that someone’s been impersonating me, sending me text messages from dead people, breaking into my house and leaving plastic flamingos on my bed.”

“That blog,” Ace said, his voice low, his eyes dark.

I nodded. “Right. That blog. Well, now someone is calling my clients and telling them I was in an accident, that I can’t make their appointments. And the only place to find those clients’ information is in the appointment book.”

Ace stared at me, confusion slowly replaced by understanding. His eyes flashed. “You think it’s me?” he asked incredulously.

“I have to ask everyone,” I said. “Not just you. I just need to make sure it’s no one here.”

“You’re mad that I’m leaving,” he accused. “So now it’s my fault.” He stood up, his hands clenched into tight balls.

I stood, too. We were about the same height, both of us almost six feet. “No, Ace, I want you to stay. I want to talk to you about what I can do to convince you to stay.”

“So you do it by accusing me of taking your client list and telling them not to come for their appointments?”

I totally screwed this one up, because now I could see it in his face. He had nothing to do with this. I was way off base on this one.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I just had to ask.” I tried again. “But please reconsider your decision.”

He shook his head. “No, this pretty much seals the deal for me.” And he stormed out.

I sank back down into the chair and put my head in my hands. This was not working out the way I wanted. Whoever was doing this was responsible, and I had to stop her.

“Guess that didn’t work,” I heard Bitsy say.

I looked up over my elbow and saw her coming toward me. I shook my head. “No, it was pretty awful.”

“He’s packing his stuff up now.”

“I made a mess of all this.”

“No, someone’s messing with you. Bad. You should call your brother about this one.”

Bitsy was right. I did need to call Tim, but he knew so much already and still hadn’t found Ainsley Wainwright’s sister. There was no guarantee that he would ever find her, that this would ever stop, until my life was totally ruined and I was hiding under chairs all the time.

I heard my cell phone ringing in my bag. What now?