Karen Olson - Pretty In Ink

“Is that a no?” he asked.

I shook my head, happy I could be honest, although later I’d take a quick look. He seemed to know what I was thinking, and he leaned over and put his hand on my knee.

“I came here today because I like you,” he said softly.

I let myself get lost in his eyes for a second, and it was an extremely pleasant place to be. But then he sat back again, his eyes leaving mine and skipping all around my room. “Can we get this over with?” he asked.

“With that sort of attitude, I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” I said.

He flashed me a smile. “A Celtic knot. Small.” He unbuttoned the top three buttons of his shirt, and I tried not to catch my breath. He pointed just above his left nipple. “Here.”

I smiled back, despite myself. “You’ve been thinking about it.”

“I didn’t want to go someplace where I’d get hepatitis, or worse,” he said, waving his hand around to indicate my room. “This looks pretty good. I feel safe here.”

“I’m glad you feel safe,” I said, sketching out a Celtic knot on my pad. I could do one of these with my eyes closed. But I wasn’t going to tell him that. He might think I would actually close my eyes, and then he’d get spooked. “What about this?” I asked, showing him my sketch.

He nodded slowly. “That’s exactly right.”

“You can make an appointment with Bitsy and leave a deposit,” I said, standing.

Bixby reached out and caught my hand with his. “Now. It has to be now, or I might never come back.” He paused. “I took a Xanax.”

I laughed out loud. “Let me check with Bitsy, make sure I’m free for an hour. That should be all it’ll take. I need to make a stencil. I’ll be right back.”

I could still feel the pressure of his hand on mine as I scurried out to the front desk.

“Someone looks happy,” Bitsy teased.

“He wants me to do it now.”

“I like a man who’s decisive,” she said, looking at the book. “Go ahead. You don’t have anyone coming in for another couple hours.”

I had started back toward the staff room to make the stencil when I heard her say, “Oh, by the way, Jeff Coleman just called. He wants you to call him right away.”

“What did he want?”

“I don’t know. He wouldn’t say.” She rolled her eyes at me. “Maybe he wants to make an appointment, too.”

I made a face at her, and when I went into the staff room, I grabbed my cell phone out of my bag. I could multitask with the best of them, but I’d have to call Jeff before I started Bixby’s ink.

“Murder Ink.”

“Jeff? It’s Brett. What do you want?”

“No foreplay, Kavanaugh? You disappoint me.”

“What do you want?” I repeated. “I haven’t got all day.”

“You might want to make time for this. I made a few calls. About Charlotte. Asked what Homeland Security was investigating her for.”

My heart started to beat a little faster, and I put my sketch down. “What was it?”

“She’s not being investigated.”

I thought about what Tim had said. Was he wrong? “What do you mean?”

“She’s working for them. Undercover. Has been for almost a year now.”

Charlotte? Working for Homeland Security? “What’s she doing for them?”

“She’s been getting them information about that Lambert guy, the one you found dead in that condo.”

“It’s the ricin, right?”

“He’s involved with some sort of militia out in the desert.”

So it wasn’t drugs. It really was terrorism.

Jeff was still talking. “There was something about Lester Fine, too, but they got all squirrelly, Kavanaugh. Wouldn’t tell me more than that, and they were all nervous about telling me what they did.”

“Why did they, then?”

“Why did they what?”

“Tell you.”

I could hear a low chuckle. “Well, if you really want to know, one guy doesn’t owe me money anymore, and I’ve got a date for Saturday night.”

I didn’t want to know about Jeff’s social life. “Are they really looking for her, or is that all a ruse, too?”

“That’s all I know, Kavanaugh. The rest is up to you.” He hung up.

I sat, staring at my phone for a few seconds.

“Brett?”

Joel’s voice made me jump. I turned to see him coming into the staff room.

“Are you aware you’ve got a hunky guy in your room?”

I nodded. “Yeah, and I’ve got to get this stencil done.” But my hands were shaking and I dropped my sketchpad. Joel leaned down, picked it up, and handed it to me.

“What’s wrong?”

I told him what Jeff Coleman had said about Charlotte working for Homeland Security.

My thoughts were more mixed up than clothes in a dryer. And I still had Colin Bixby to deal with. All of a sudden, he was the last thing on my priority list. But I couldn’t let him down now. It wouldn’t take but an hour.

“Why would she work undercover?” Joel was asking. “Is she undercover here? I mean, she just started working for us a couple months ago. Do you think she’s investigating one of us ?”

I hadn’t thought of it like that. Jeff said his people told him it was Lambert. Since he was dead, though, why was she still hiding out?

There were more questions than answers as far as Charlotte Sampson was concerned.

“I have no idea what’s going on,” I told Joel truthfully as I put the drawing into the thermal fax machine and watched the stencil emerge. I grabbed it and went back to my room.

Bixby flashed a nervous grin at me. “I thought you forgot about me.”

“How could I forget about you?” I asked, forcing myself to flirt even though my thoughts were miles away. I told him to take his shirt off as I lowered the back of the chair so he would be more lying down than sitting up. I washed the spot where he wanted the ink and then carefully shaved it. He was watching everything like it was on the Discovery Channel.

Before putting the stencil on the spot, I rubbed a little glycerin-based deodorant on it.

“What’s that for?” he asked.

“You’ll see,” I said, carefully pressing the stencil on his skin and then peeling it back to show the Celtic knot design.

He grinned. “Is that it?”

I turned in my chair to the counter and put a new needle into the machine and dipped it in black ink. I wheeled back toward him and let the machine hover a second. “I assume you didn’t want any color.”

There was no color in his face as he stared at the machine. He nodded, and I pressed the foot pedal. The soft whir of the machine was hypnotizing-for me, because it pushed everything out of my head except this tattoo; for Bixby, I wasn’t so sure. I moved the machine closer.

“It’s going to feel like bee stings,” I warned.

He closed his eyes. “I’m ready.”

He didn’t cry, and after a few minutes, he was even watching me draw.

“I’m glad you’re my first,” he said when I was almost done. He hadn’t spoken at all until then, and his voice knocked me out of my zone.

I smiled. “I will tell you that people who get one tattoo usually end up getting at least one more.”

“Maybe I’ll be back.” He cocked his head toward my arm. “Although I’m not sure I’d get anything like that.”

“You could bond with the ER patients,” I quipped, putting the finishing touches on the tattoo. I took my foot off the pedal and surveyed my work. It was a simple design, but classic.

“Want to look?” I asked. “There’s a big mirror in the back, on the wall next to the couch.”

Colin Bixby stood up, a little wobbly at first; then he flashed me that sexy grin as he left the room. I put the tattoo machine on the counter and started to gather the instructions for the tattoo’s care.