Karen Olson - Driven to Ink

Flanigan took a deep breath and leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. My throat tightened. Whatever it was he was going to tell me-well, I knew it wasn’t going to be good.

“Your brother here is taking a couple of days off. To make sure you stay out of trouble.”

Istood up and faced Tim, ignoring Flanigan.

“You’re going to be my babysitter?”

Tim nodded. “That’s right.”

“I’m not a child who needs watching.”

“That’s what you think.”

With a huff, I plopped back down into the chair, my face in my hands. This was so not cool.

“It’s for your safety,” Tim said softly. “Someone already tried to run you down, too.”

Logically, I could understand his concern. Maybe I was getting too involved with all this. But this gun thing, well, that wasn’t my doing. I didn’t go looking for it.

“That should be that,” Flanigan said. “Hopefully, all this will be over soon.”

It was the way he said it that made me take pause, and I lifted my head up.

“Do you have a suspect?” I asked.

Tim rolled his eyes, and Flanigan shook his head as he left the room.

“What?” I asked Tim.

“ What? ” he mimicked. “This is exactly why this is a good idea.”

“But you’re using vacation days, and you wanted to go hiking in Alaska.”

“I’ll still get there. I’ve got time.”

Super.

“I have a client, you know. I have to get to the shop.”

“I’ll take you.”

I was about to argue, then realized he was right: The Jeep was in Summerlin, and my car was somewhere being probed by the police. I did need a ride.

I felt like such a loser.

As we settled into Tim’s department-issued Chevy Impala, which had all the personality of a dishrag, I asked, “Did Flanigan tell you that you had to watch me or did you volunteer?”

I saw it in his expression. This wasn’t voluntary.

He knew I knew. “It’s for your own good. I don’t want to have to explain to Mom and Dad how you got killed because you were too nosy. They’d end up blaming me, and I’d have to live with it.”

“So that’s why you agreed to this? So you won’t feel guilty?” Sister Mary Eucharista would be proud.

He turned down Las Vegas Boulevard. “You know, Brett, some nosy people are satisfied just poking into other people’s medicine cabinets and bathroom drawers.”

“So sue me. I’m not just some nosy person.”

Tim wanted to laugh. His jaw muscles twitched, and the faint hint of a smile tugged at his lips. “Maybe you should’ve become a cop,” he suggested.

“And maybe you could tell me how I could explain that to Mom.”

“It wouldn’t be any harder than explaining the tattoos.”

Touché.

“So if you’re hanging out babysitting me, maybe I should give you some ink,” I said slyly. Tim didn’t have a tattoo. He said he didn’t know what he’d want marked permanently on his person, so he wouldn’t get anything at all. “I’ve got books with ideas at the shop.”

He ignored me.

Bitsy’s eyes widened when Tim followed me into the shop.

“Hey, Bits,” Tim said jovially, heading toward the staff room and disappearing inside.

“What is he doing here?” Bitsy asked in a stage whisper.

“He’s my new babysitter,” I said, quickly telling her what had gone on since I’d hung up on her.

“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.

The 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.