Driven to Ink

by Karen E. Olson

  Bitsy raised her eyebrows at me, but I gave my head a quick shake, indicating she shouldn’t ask now. I forced a smile for Bixby, still unclear why he was here.

  “Hi there,” I said.

  It wasn’t quite a smile, just a little hint at the corner of his lips. It seemed he was as unclear about his visit as I was. But I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. For once.

  “Want to come back?” I asked, giving my head another little shake at Bitsy, whose eyebrows were now almost to her hairline.

  Colin followed me to my room, and I indicated he should go in. I closed the door after us.

  “Have a seat,” I said, waving my hand toward the client chair.

  Bixby stood awkwardly, his hands in his pockets, looking at the chair as if it were a wild animal that might bite him.

  I laughed. “It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t have my machine on.”

  The joke didn’t do much to change his mood, but he sat tentatively on the edge of the chair. I swung my wheeled chair around and sat next to him.

  “I guess you’re not here for more ink,” I said after a few seconds of loud silence.

  The smile peeked out then, and his green eyes flashed. His gaze was intense, and I found myself feeling all hot and bothered, but in a really good way. There was definitely something still between us.

  “You seeing anyone?” he asked.

  I shook my head, not sure where he was going with this. He could’ve asked me that the other day or called me to find out. A personal visit wasn’t necessary.

  “I’ve been seeing someone.” His words were like a gut punch, and I found myself struggling for a breath.

  Okay, I was really in the dark now.

  “Maybe you should tell me why you’re here,” I said after a second. My voice sounded oddly disconnected from my body.

  “But it’s not serious,” he continued as if I hadn’t said anything at all.

  Something inside me switched, and I felt anger rising. He couldn’t mess around with me like this. What sort of game was he playing? Sure, I’d screwed things up before, but we’d been perfectly happy not seeing each other. Hadn’t we?

  “Maybe you should spit it out,” I said, the edge in my voice sharp as a knife.

  It didn’t go unnoticed.

  He nodded. “I’m sorry, Brett, but seeing you again has sort of thrown me for a loop. It’s brought back some feelings I’d forgotten about. Or tried to forget about.”

  I remembered what he’d told me when we met at the university the other day. How he’d just about forgotten me. I nodded.

  “But I’ll tell you why I’m here. I know you’re curious.”

  I wished he’d get on with it.

  “It’s about Rosalie. Marino.”

  My confusion about Colin Bixby melted away with the abrupt change of subject.

  “What about her?”

  “You know about the abuse.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I did her tattoos,” I admitted. “The purple and white ribbons on her arm. The ones that symbolize survival.”

  Bixby leaned forward and I could smell his scent: a little citrus and honey with a slight hint of hospital.

  “I treated her for the broken bones. The bruises.” He paused a second. “And when she lost the baby.”

  Chapter 42

  Now I really felt as though someone had punched me in the gut. Baby?

  He saw what I was thinking.

  “You didn’t know about the baby?”

  “No.”

  “But you’re her friend,” he said.

  I wasn’t. I barely knew her. She’d spent a couple of hours right here in this chair, but other than that, my contact with Rosalie Marino had been limited to the last couple of days. Because of our encounter at the university lab, it may have seemed to Bixby as though we were closer than tattooist and client. I shook my head. “No. Not really.”

  Confusion crossed his face. “But you came to the hospital to see her last night,” he said. “I thought—”

  “No. We’re not friends. But I am friends with her father’s new wife and her son. What’s this about a baby?”

  Colin hung his head in his hands. “I should have known.”

  He didn’t answer my question. “Should have known what?”

  “That things with you aren’t always as they seem.”

  Okay, so he was right on that. But he didn’t have to act as if it were the end of the world.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “But you did come to me about something. Is Rosalie in trouble? I really am friends with the rest of her family.”

  “Her new family,” he emphasized. “And I can’t say any more than that now.”

  He shut down, his doctor-client confidentiality held close to the vest now that he knew I wasn’t who he thought I was. His eyes skipped around the room, resting finally on the ink pots lined up on the shelf, the tattoo machine on its side.

  “Do you want another one?” I asked softly. I’d warned him when I’d given him his Celtic knot on his breast that tattoos are addictive. It’s rare to find someone who’s content with only one. Maybe he’d never get more than one, but I was willing to bet he thought about it. I had quite a few repeat clients.

  When Colin didn’t answer, I tried a joke. “How about a stethoscope on your arm?” I could see it, too, how I would design it, and suddenly it wasn’t a joke anymore. It could be really cool. The stethoscope could start on his bicep and swirl down to the crook of his arm, where I’d place the chest piece, which he’d use to check someone’s blood pressure. I described my idea to him.

  Colin Bixby’s eyes flickered, and the temptation had been planted. He liked the idea. Liked it a lot.

  “You could do that?” he asked tentatively.

  “I could draw up something, see if you like it,” I said, reaching for my pad and pencil. Quickly I sketched it out, shading here and there, and when I was done, turned it around so he could see it.

  “Wow,” he whispered, staring at it.

  “You could think about it, make an appointment if you think it’s something you want to do,” I said. The last time he didn’t think he would go through with it if I didn’t do it right then, so I had. He’d flinched only at the first touch of the needle, didn’t even seem as if he’d pass out at all—a problem more common than you’d think—which was why I thought perhaps he might not mind getting more ink. Despite his admission that he didn’t like needles.

  The thing with the tattoo machine is, the needles only go down into the second layer of skin, where they release the ink. I don’t like needles, either, when they go farther than that. Granted, getting a tattoo still hurts, and knowing that the needles pierce the skin only so far is cold comfort.

  I put the pad and pencil on the shelf. Colin got up and brushed imaginary lint off his jeans.

  “It’s possible that since her husband is dead now, Rosalie’s going to be okay,” I said, wondering whether I could somehow trick him into telling me what he came here to say. I was sure he was here to tell me something so I could either watch out for Rosalie or warn her about something. I didn’t think he came just to spread information. That would violate his doctor ethics.

  His head snapped up, and he stared at me for a moment. It wasn’t one of those sexy stares, but I could see him thinking about something, wondering what he should say next.

  Finally, “Did you ever find Dan Franklin?”

  The name jolted me out of my thoughts. I thought about the ten thousand dollars again. “No,” I admitted. “As far as I know, no one knows where he is.”

  “You should tell that detective brother of yours to try harder,” he said, his hand on the doorknob.

  Exasperated, I sighed. “Why can’t you tell me why you’re here,” I said.

  He shook his head and then smiled. “I might be back for that tattoo.”

  I grinned. “It could give you some cred with those guys who come into the ER.”

  He pushed the door open and went out i
nto the hall and down to the front desk, where Bitsy sat facing us as if she’d been waiting the whole time for us to emerge.

  “Care to make an appointment, Doctor?” she asked politely, but I could hear the curiosity in her voice.

  Colin Bixby gave me a look that curled my toes, his green eyes all smoky and sexy, before saying, “Maybe. I’ll call.”

  And he went out the door without looking back.

  Bitsy and I stared after him.

  “What did he want?” she asked.

  “I have no clue,” I admitted. “He wanted to tell me something about Rosalie Marino. He thought we were friends. But all he ended up saying was that we need to find Dan Franklin.”

  “What about Franklin?”

  Tim’s voice from behind made us both jump.

  I related what Bixby told me.

  “Pretty cryptic,” Tim said, running a hand through his hair.

  “It’s pretty clear she lost a baby because of the abuse,” I said. “But I’m not sure what Dan Franklin would have to do with that.”

  “He works with her,” Bitsy piped up. “Maybe he’s got the hots for her. Maybe he killed her husband.”

  Tim and I exchanged a look.

  “Has Flanigan actually looked for Franklin?” I asked him, thinking that if Flanigan focused on Franklin, it was likely he’d find out about the ten grand and I’d be off the hook.

  “I have no idea. You’re my assignment,” he said with a shrug.

  I thought about what Bitsy said, about Franklin possibly killing Rosalie’s husband. Maybe Franklin was one of those guys who decided to go after men who abused women. I voiced my thoughts.

  Tim sighed. “That’s possible, I suppose.”

  It was the only idea I had at the moment. But what about Ray Lucci? There was that rat.

  The phone rang, interrupting us.

  Bitsy picked it up. “The Painted Lady,” she said.

  After a few seconds, she looked up at me and handed me the receiver. “Jeff Coleman.”

  I took the phone. “Hi, Jeff.” I hadn’t talked to him since the previous day, when he came to take Sylvia and Bernie to Rosalie at the hospital. “How’s Rosalie holding up?”

  “Listen, Kavanaugh, you and I both know that Rosalie is better off without that scumbag. I don’t even care if the cops never find the guy who did this.”

  The words hung between us for a second before he spoke again.

  “But I think I know who did it.”

  Chapter 43

  “Who do you think killed Lou?”I asked. “Dan Franklin.”

  Everything seemed to come back to him.

  “Why him?” I had my own suspicions, but I wanted to know his.

  “That car’s gone.”

  “What car?”

  “That Ford Taurus we saw in his driveway.”

  I gave a quick glance at Tim, who was watching me intently. He raised his eyebrows, wordlessly asking me what was going on, but I shook him off.

  “So that could mean anything,” I said.

  “Maybe. Except that Detective Flanigan said they think it was a blue car that hit Lou.”

  “They think? Don’t they know the color?” In books and on TV, the cops always know the color of the cars in hit-and-runs. They can even track down the kind of paint to determine what make of car it was. I had no reason to think they couldn’t do that in real life, too.

  “He didn’t want to say for sure. Maybe they’ve still got tests to do or something. But Franklin’s car is blue.”

  So was Will Parker’s, but I wasn’t sure what Parker’s motive would be. Dan Franklin seemed a better suspect at the moment.

  “So what are you up to, Kavanaugh?”

  It was the way he said it that made me wonder what was up with him.

  “I’m working.”

  “What did your brother say about the gun?”

  “Oh, that. Well, it sort of got all messed up. I was on my way over to see Rosalie—”

  “She said you never showed.”

  “No, I didn’t. I was talking on my cell phone, and a cop pulled me over.”

  He chuckled. “You can’t tell me that they gave you a ticket.”

  “Worse than that.” I gave Tim another sidelong glance. “He found the gun in the box addressed to Ray Lucci and took me down to see Tim and Flanigan.” I didn’t want to tell him about Tim’s new assignment as my babysitter.

  “So what did they say about it? Did they know about this illegal-gun stuff?”

  Now that was a question I hadn’t asked. “I’m not sure,” I said. “They sent me back to work.” I paused. “Hey, how do you know Franklin’s car is gone?”

  “I happened to take a ride over there. The mail in the box is gone, too, along with the newspapers on the stoop. Looks like the man came home after all.”

  “So he’s not dead.”

  Tim’s eyebrows were just about popping off the top of his head, and Bitsy was hanging on my every word.

  “Probably not.”

  It was killing me that I couldn’t hop in my car and drive over to see for myself. Maybe after Tim and I got home and after he went to sleep, I could take a little midnight stroll over to Franklin’s house.

  Maybe I was too nosy, as Tim said. Because even to me that sounded a little crazy.

  “Listen, Kavanaugh, gotta run. I’ll give you a call tomorrow.” And then he was gone.

  I hung up the phone, putting up my hand before Tim could speak.

  “Flanigan says they think it was a blue car that hit Lou Marino.”

  Tim pondered that a second, but as he opened his mouth, Bitsy said, “Like that blue car that came after us at the university?”

  And like that blue car that almost hit me and Tim in the parking garage. Was it the same car? Who knew? Franklin and Will Parker both had blue cars.

  I shrugged.

  “Why does he think it’s Franklin?” Tim finally got to ask a question.

  “He says Franklin drives a blue Taurus. It was in his driveway, and now it’s not.” Oops. Might have been a little more information than I wanted to give.

  Tim caught on. “How does he know it was in his driveway and now it’s not?”

  I sighed. “Okay, Jeff and I went over to Dan Franklin’s house. We saw the car in the driveway. There was also a pile of mail in his box and newspapers on the stoop, and Jeff says those are gone now, too. So Franklin came home after being gone for what looks like a couple of days.”

  Tim’s face was so red I thought he was going to have a coronary.

  “You have to stop this, Brett.”

  Bitsy took that as her cue to skedaddle off to the staff room. She saw what was coming.

  I was tired of it, though. “Okay, fine, I’ve been doing a little snooping. But it’s only to help.”

  “Do I need to lock you up in the house until all this is resolved?”

  Now that was going a little too far, and even he knew it. Tim threw up his hands, said, “I give up,” and went to join Bitsy back in the staff room.

  I sat at the front desk, watching the people milling around outside. Suddenly I needed to feel not so much like a prisoner anymore. I also needed chocolate. Godiva was across the canal.

  “Anyone want chocolate?” I asked loudly.

  Joel’s head stuck out from his room. “I do,” he said gleefully.

  “Can you have that on your diet?” I asked sternly.

  He took a deep breath and said, “I don’t really care.”

  Joel was back.

  I grinned. Call me an enabler.

  Tim was standing in the staff room doorway.

  “I’m going across to Godiva,” I said, getting up and going around to the front door. “Want anything?”

  He must have been as tired of me as I was of him because he shook his head and disappeared again. I could hear his and Bitsy’s voices murmuring, but I ignored them as I pushed the door open and stepped outside.

  I could just keep walking, I thought as I strolled alo
ng the canal to the end, where a line of tourists awaited their turn in a gondola. A glance back at the shop told me Tim wasn’t waiting in the doorway, watching me. I saw the top of Bitsy’s head, but no one else.

  I stepped up my pace and didn’t round the end of the canal as I should’ve if I was going to Godiva. Instead, I moved into the Shoppes at the Palazzo, passing Michael Kors’s store, not even pausing briefly to admire the shimmering cobalt strapless gown in the window—although I promised myself I’d be back later to check it out—and going around the maze of walkways until I faced Double Helix, the bar.

  I really wanted a drink. But more than that, I wanted to feel a little invisible.

  The problem was, I was all too visible.

  The hand gripped my shoulder, and I felt his hot breath on the back of my neck as he said, “Just the person I was looking for.”

  I tried to turn around, but I couldn’t.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “I’ll scream.”

  “Don’t scream.” Anxiety laced his voice, and he loosened his grip, moving around so he was facing me.

  I recognized him then. From his ID picture.

  Dan Franklin.

  Chapter 44

  All I could think about was how Jeff Coleman said he thought Dan Franklin killed Lou Marino. It wasn’t the most calming of thoughts. I felt my heartbeat ratchet up, thumping in my chest as if it were trying to break free. Sort of like I’d been when I left the shop just moments ago.

  Bad move.

  I found my voice. “Where have you been?” I was surprised it came out so normally, as if I were just meeting an old friend for drinks at the bar. “And why are you looking for me?”

  “I heard you were at my house.”

  “How did you hear that?”

  “With neighbors like mine, who needs a security system?”

  “They must have pretty good vision,” I said.

  “You sort of stand out. You’re so tall, and you’ve got that red hair.” He cocked his head toward my arm with the koi swimming on it. “Not to mention the tats.”