So not my lucky day.
I flashed a smile at him, even though I was having a panic attack. Maybe he wouldn’t notice.
“Do you know why I pulled you over?” he asked, as if he didn’t know me from beans.
I shrugged, swallowing hard to push back the panic.
“You were not using a hands-free device for your cell phone.”
This was totally why I adhered to the rules of the road. Although people talk on cell phones all the time while they’re driving and there’s absolutely no enforcement, it figured that I’d end up being the poster child for it.
“I was stopped at a light.” Great. The moment my voice comes back it’s belligerent. “I was not driving.”
“You were going through the light, and you were on your phone,” Willis said sternly. “I need to see your license and registration.”
This was the sticky part.
“I’ve got my license,” I said. “It’s in my bag. I’m leaning over to get it.” And I did as I said, sliding my hand in my bag and taking out my wallet. I slipped the license out and handed it to him.
He held it for a second, his eyes skipping around the inside of the car.
“Registration?”
I made a kind of twittering sound. “That’s the problem,” I said. “This is my brother’s Jeep, and I thought the registration was in the glove box, but it’s not, and I don’t know where it is.”
He studied my face a second, probably trying to see whether I was lying, then said, “Your brother’s Jeep?”
I rolled my eyes before I could stop myself. “Tim Kavanaugh. Detective Kavanaugh,” I said.
“I know who he is,” Willis snapped at me. “Step out of the vehicle.”
This wasn’t going well. I did as asked and stood by the door as Willis looked around the inside of the car.
“What’s in the box?” he asked.
My chest constricted, and I couldn’t breathe. My mouth was as dry as the desert.
“The box? What’s in it?” he asked again.
I tried to swallow. “Tattoo stuff,” I croaked.
“I’d like to see it.”
Now, I know how to talk to cops. And when a cop wants to see something in my car, I should just let him.
Why hadn’t I gone straight to Tim rather than come out here?
I walked slowly around the Jeep and opened the passenger door. Willis was right behind me. I leaned in and picked up the box, handing it to him.
Willis’s eyes widened when he saw the address on the front.
“This belongs to Ray Lucci?” he asked.
I nodded. “I can explain.”
He flipped up the box flaps and looked inside.
Willis looked back up at me. He held the box with one hand, grabbed my arm with the other, and said, “Let’s go.”
“I was bringing it to Tim,” I started.
“You’re not exactly in the neighborhood,” he reminded me.
“I needed to make a stop first,” I tried.
He started leading me toward the cruiser.
“Can I at least get my bag?” I asked.
He let go of me, went to the Jeep, and got my bag for me, but he didn’t hand it to me. He indicated I was to keep heading toward the cruiser.
“Can I lock it up?” I asked, indicating the Jeep.
Willis sighed, as if I was the biggest pain in his butt all day. I probably was. He allowed me to get the keys and lock up the Jeep before he stuffed me in the back of the cruiser and we headed back downtown.
Willis put me in one of those concrete interrogation rooms you see on TV. It’s really like that, except possibly more uncomfortable. I waited there about twenty minutes before the door opened and Tim stepped in. He was not happy with me.
“Where did you get the gun?” he asked without saying hello.
I told him everything. About Sylvia giving me the receipt this morning and then going to see Jeff and finding the box at That’s Amore and deciding to go see Rosalie first.
Tim took it all in, pacing back and forth in front of me as I spoke.
“I couldn’t find your registration,” I said. “I thought it was in the glove box. Why don’t you keep it there?”
Tim stopped pacing and shook his head. “You’ve got an illegal gun in my Jeep, and you’re worried about the registration?”
“You can call Jeff Coleman so he can corroborate my story,” I said.
“Don’t worry; we’ll do that,” Tim promised.
“So am I free to go now?” I asked.
“I’m not letting you go by yourself,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“First off, my Jeep is somewhere in Summerlin. You have no way to get anywhere. Second, you obviously can’t be trusted on your own, so I’m going to have to take things into my own hands.”
“Take things into your own hands? What does that mean?”
“That means you go to work and you go home, no stops in between.”
“Like I’m under house arrest?” While I’d been having panic attacks with Willis, now my heart was pounding with anger.
“Exactly.”
My eyes filled with tears, and I struggled to keep them at bay. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I tried.
“You’re putting yourself in danger. What if someone else had found that gun in the car with you?”
I shrugged. “No one did.”
“Because Willis stopped you first.”
A knock on the door interrupted us.
Detective Flanigan stepped in. Might as well make it a party. It would be the only one I’d be able to go to for a while, it seemed.
“So, Miss Kavanaugh, you seem to find yourself in interesting predicaments, don’t you?” Flanigan asked before turning to Tim. “Have you told her?”
“Told me what?” I asked as Tim shook his head.
“I haven’t had a chance yet.”
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.”
Chapter 35
I stood 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.
Chapter 36
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.
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.
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