Pretty In Ink

by Karen E. Olson

  “What about my clothes?” I asked.

  “Confiscated.” She was a woman of few words.

  “Can you tell me what exactly I came in contact with up there?”

  Leslie shook her head.

  “I just went through complete humiliation and let you sandblast me with water. I think I’m owed an explanation.”

  Tim was coming around the side of the truck, also dressed in a white suit. We looked more like twins than ever. He’d overheard my comment. “She’ll find out soon enough,” he said apologetically to Leslie.

  To me, he said, “Brett, Wesley Lambert was making ricin up there. And there was enough to kill all of us.”

  Chapter 23

  Ricin, it turns out, is a poison that’s made from castor beans. Just a little bit can kill.

  “It’s a hot zone up there,” Leslie said. “He had about ten vials of the stuff, and some had spilled. We can’t take any chances that you or anyone else who came in contact with that condo will get sick.”

  “What are the symptoms?” I asked.

  “Difficulty breathing, fever, cough, nausea, sweating.” She paused. “Or severe vomiting and dehydration.”

  Which is what seemed to have happened with Wesley Lambert.

  I didn’t have any of the symptoms she listed, except maybe the difficulty breathing. But I think that had more to do with stress.

  “We’re sending you to the hospital to be checked out,” Leslie continued, leading Tim and me to an ambulance. I saw the other responding police officers and the paramedics, all wearing suits like ours, being led into ambulances as well.

  The driveway was crowded with city police vehicles, SWAT teams, and something called Metro Homeland Security. That’s right. Frank DeBurra worked with Metro Homeland Security. I remembered Tim telling me. I raised my eyebrows at my brother.

  “Ricin is used by terrorists,” he explained.

  Was Wesley Lambert a terrorist?

  I didn’t have time to think about it as Tim and I climbed into the ambulance. The doors closed behind us; we sat on little benches across from each other. The vehicle moved forward. I hadn’t even noticed there was a driver up there. They probably didn’t want to have anyone back here with us just in case we were contaminated.

  “I’ve got a client,” I said, remembering now. “I have to call the shop.” Leslie had taken my messenger bag when she took my clothes. “Can I get my phone? The other things in my bag?”

  “I’ll talk to DeBurra. We’ll have someone call the shop for you when we get to the hospital,” Tim said, his mouth tight.

  I didn’t remember the last time I saw him scared, but he was. It made me even more tense. My big brother was supposed to be the calm one. But I found myself telling him it would be okay.

  “Yeah, I know, but I’m worried about you. How did you get yourself involved with something like this?”

  “Charlotte,” I said softly, thinking about her somewhere out there, not knowing whether she was contaminated, not knowing if she was going to get sick. I really needed a phone, not only to call the shop, but also to call Ace. She’d run to him before; why not now?

  I gave Tim the whole rundown on what had happened yesterday: going to the pawnshops, the hospital, trying to track down Charlotte. It was the short, abridged version, so when we pulled up outside the emergency room, he had most of it.

  The back doors opened and a doctor in a white coat stood waiting. We stepped outside before I realized who it was.

  “Dr. Bixby,” I said. “Long time no see.”

  He seemed surprised to see me. But I couldn’t figure out whether it was because I was the one involved with the ricin or because it was just me.

  “Oh, yes, Miss Kavanaugh,” he said, and Tim’s eyebrows rose higher in his forehead.

  “Dr. Bixby told me about Trevor yesterday.” I felt an urge to explain, like someone would get the wrong idea.

  Tim nodded, a small smile of amusement tugging at his lips.

  “This must be your brother,” Bixby said, looking from me to Tim, my carbon copy.

  “She’s adopted,” Tim said with a straight face.

  Bixby frowned. He didn’t get it. Okay, something worse than living with his mother would be not having a sense of humor.

  Not that he’d be interested in me now. I was contaminated.

  Ugh.

  Bixby led us through the emergency room waiting room, stopping at a small office just before the doors that led into where all the activity was. A short woman in a bright yellow sweater smiled at us from behind a desk. Before Bixby could say anything, she said, “We need your insurance information.”

  Tim and I looked at each other, and we both started laughing at the same time.

  “What’s so funny?” The woman got up and walked around the desk toward us.

  Bixby looked confused.

  Tim and I couldn’t stop laughing. I think it was the stress.

  Finally, I managed to sputter, “They took everything.”

  “Who?” The woman looked concerned, like we’d been mugged.

  “They stripped us, took all our clothes, everything. We’ve got nothing but our birthday suits under these.” Tim indicated the white suits.

  The woman’s eyes widened, as if she would rather think of anything else than Tim naked. I’d have to give him some grief about that later. She had her hand on the phone, her eyes asking Bixby whom she should call.

  He put his hand up, and Tim and I started to calm down. “That’s right, June, I didn’t think.”

  “But we can’t admit them without their insurance information,” she argued.

  This could be a long day. I pointed at the phone. “Can I use that?”

  June looked at me as if I’d asked her if she was starring in the newest strip show downtown.

  “You have to use the pay phone.”

  “That would mean that I need to have loose change,” I said. “June, I’ve been exposed to some sort of poison, the police took all my clothes and my other worldly belongings, including my phone and my insurance card. I need to call my business and tell them I’m delayed.”

  Tim was nodding. “I’m a detective with the LVPD. I can vouch for her.”

  “This is highly unusual,” June said, but she was wavering because Bixby was giving her that smile that he’d given me yesterday that made me all weak in the knees. “All right. As long as it’s local.”

  “I’ll take your brother back,” Bixby said to me, then turned back to June. “Send her back when she’s finished with her call.”

  June sat back down behind her desk and pushed the phone toward me. So much for any privacy. I dialed the shop number.

  “The Painted Lady.”

  I was never so happy to hear Bitsy’s voice as I was right that minute. While I’d just been laughing hysterically moments before, now I wanted to burst into tears.

  “Bits, it’s Brett,” I said.

  “Where are you? Your client will be here in a few minutes.”

  “I’m in the emergency room.”

  “Are you okay? What’s wrong?” Panic rose in her voice.

  “I had a little exposure to some sort of poison this morning, and they brought me here,” I said.

  She was quiet for a moment before asking, “What’s going on, Brett? Poison? Exposure? What, did you drink some Drano or something?”

  I found myself telling her what had happened; June’s eyes grew wider with each word. She didn’t even try to pretend she wasn’t eavesdropping. I tried to ignore her. “And you have to call Ace, tell him to tell Charlotte to come to the emergency room. She needs to be decontaminated.”

  More silence, then, “Ace is here. He’s worried about Charlotte. He says he hasn’t seen her since last night and she won’t answer her phone.”

  “Have him try everything he can think of. She needs to be looked at.”

  “Okay, will do. What about your client?”

  “Do Ace and Joel have any clients now?”

 
; “Joel’s free for the next couple of hours.”

  “Can I talk to him?”

  “Hold on.”

  A few seconds passed and I tried not to look at June, who was overtly staring at me. Finally, “Hey, sweetie, Bitsy says you got poisoned?”

  At the sound of his voice, I lost it. Tears dripped down my cheeks, and I couldn’t stop them. “I think I’ll be okay,” I sniffled.

  “You want me to come over there?”

  I wanted him to come in the worst way. Even though Tim was here, I felt like I needed a band of friends around me now. But I wiped my cheek with the back of my hand and said, “No, not now. But you have to take my client, okay?”

  “No problem.”

  “The stencil’s in his folder. It’s a dagger wrapped with thorns. He wants it on his outside thigh; you’ll see the space. There’s not much, but it’s there. It’ll fit.” As I gave the instructions, I felt myself calming down. The tears had stopped.

  June, however, was frowning, trying to make sense of my conversation. With the suit on, she couldn’t see my ink. Too bad. I bet she would’ve loved that story to tell her husband when she got home.

  I asked to speak to Bitsy again. “Listen, Bits,” I said. “Tim and I are going to need some clothes. They took ours. They’re probably going to burn them or something. Can you get to the house and bring something over for us? Underwear and all.”

  Bitsy has a key to our house. I lost mine at one point and couldn’t get in touch with Tim for hours because he was on some sort of police stakeout thing, so I knew I needed a backup. Bitsy was one of the most responsible people I knew. She also had the code to our security alarm.

  “No problem. When Joel’s done with your client, he’s got an hour or so. I’ll get over to your house then.”

  “Thanks a lot, Bitsy. I really appreciate it.”

  Bitsy signed off, and I handed the phone back to June. She pointed out the door and down the hall. “Dr. Bixby is in there.”

  As I left the office, a frosted glass door slid open for me. Dr. Bixby was talking to Tim in a curtained area kitty-corner to where I was. Tim was on the bed, and a nurse was taking his blood.

  I averted my eyes as I approached. Sure, I drew blood every day myself when I gave someone a tattoo, but seeing large amounts of it in vials didn’t do much for me.

  Dr. Bixby met me just beyond Tim’s curtain. Tim smiled at me, and I smiled back, then met Dr. Bixby’s eyes.

  “We need a urine sample,” he said, handing me a little cup with a screw-on lid.

  How romantic.

  He led me to the bathroom, and I felt like an overachiever. It had been a long time since I’d been to the bathroom.

  A nurse was hovering outside the door when I emerged with my cup, and she took it, handing me a johnny coat. “Can you put this on?”

  I was more than happy to shed the white suit, but the johnny coat had an open back. There were a few snaps, and I did what I could to fasten them. When I emerged for the second time from the bathroom, Dr. Bixby was at my side again.

  “We want to keep you here for the day,” he said, “just in case you start exhibiting symptoms.”

  Great. But then he flashed me that George Clooney smile again and suddenly I didn’t mind quite so much. It was obviously very one-sided, but it kept my mind off what had happened this morning.

  Until those sliding doors opened, and Frank DeBurra walked in.

  Chapter 24

  DeBurra was sans white suit, and he wore the same frayed sport jacket he’d been wearing at Chez Tango and the other two times I’d seen him. Maybe he owned only one. I thought again about Shawna. This guy was the polar opposite of Tim.

  But then, that was probably the point.

  DeBurra pointed at me. “I need to talk to you,” he said.

  Dr. Bixby shifted around and stood between us. “We need to get her a bed first. Then you can talk to her. I need to monitor her vitals.”

  I was ready to have him monitor my vitals all right.

  Bixby’s hand was under my elbow, and he was leading me toward the curtained area next to Tim, who was watching the whole thing like it was the Super Bowl on TV. Bixby pulled the curtain around the bed and motioned that I should get in.

  “Thanks,” I said. “He’s been stalking me for two days.” Again, however, I remembered that he hadn’t been following me this morning. Why not? Maybe I had some questions for him. Suddenly it seemed really important to find out why he’d abandoned his mission to irritate me.

  Bixby slapped a blood pressure cuff on my arm.

  “Don’t nurses usually do that?” I asked.

  He gave me a long look, one I couldn’t read. “Yes.”

  “Did you ever get in touch with Kyle about Trevor?” I asked.

  He pumped up the cuff so much, I thought I’d lose circulation. Slowly he let it out, his stethoscope against the inside of my elbow. It was cold.

  He noted my blood pressure on a piece of paper in a file, then cracked the folder shut. “We’ve been in touch, yes,” he said. His tone was curt and professional.

  “Did he come get Trevor’s stuff?” I had nothing better to do than badger the good doctor.

  But instead of looking annoyed, he let a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. He turned his head to try to hide it from me.

  “Not yet.”

  “Are you done yet in there?” came a voice from beyond the curtain. Frank DeBurra. Bane of my existence.

  “No,” Bixby barked back.

  I was liking this guy more and more.

  “So do you hike?” I asked.

  Bixby cocked his head to one side and studied me for a second before grinning and nodding. “Yes. What is this, twenty questions?”

  “How long have you worked here?”

  He chuckled. “Okay, I’ll play. I’ve been here about five years.”

  “Where did you come from?”

  His left eyebrow rose higher than the right one. I had no idea anyone could really do that. “Where most people come from,” he said.

  I snorted. “No, I know that. But where? What part of the country?”

  “I grew up right here. In Vegas.”

  “Ha. No one actually grows up here.”

  “I did.”

  I started to get worried that he really did still live with his mother.

  “Where did you go to medical school?” Figured I should stay on safer ground.

  “Johns Hopkins.”

  Not too shabby.

  “Did you always want to work in emergency medicine?”

  “Did you always want to own a tattoo shop?”

  I nodded. “Okay, turning things around, I see. No. I wanted to have an easel by the Seine in Paris and sell my paintings and live in a garret, a poor, starving artist.”

  “You studied art?”

  “University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Concentrated in painting, yes.”

  “How did you get into the art of tattoo?” He seemed really interested. Go figure.

  I held out my arm and turned it around so he could see the heart on the inside of my left wrist. “Gave myself that tattoo when I was sixteen. I liked the way it felt.”

  He didn’t laugh. Instead he asked, “The way it felt when you drew it?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. And then I went to a shop. The Ink Spot. My friend Mickey, he owns the place. He took me in as a trainee. Then I moved here a few years later.” My life in a nutshell. Somehow it seemed like I should’ve done more in my thirty-two years, but I was happy, so I guess that was all that mattered.

  “Do you have any ink?” I asked, turning the tables on him now.

  He turned his head, wrote something down. “Chicken, I guess. I don’t like needles.” Then he put a tourniquet around my upper arm, told me to make a fist, and slid a needle into my vein.

  “For you, not other people,” I said, turning my head so I couldn’t see the blood filling the vial.

  He noticed.

  “Does blood make you queasy?
” he teased.

  “Only in large quantities,” I said.

  I felt the needle slide out of the crook of my arm, then a pressure. When I looked, Bixby was holding a small piece of gauze to the spot where he’d stuck me.

  “Are you doing anything tonight?” he asked.

  “I might be contaminated,” I said.

  He peered into my face. I noticed his eyes were a clear green with a tint of brown. His hair was spiky, like it was yesterday. All he needed was an eyebrow piercing and he’d be totally punk.

  The thought of it made me all hot and bothered.

  “You’re okay,” he said after a few seconds.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “You’re not exhibiting any signs. And if you got that close, you would be having difficulty breathing now.”

  I could argue that I was having difficulty breathing, but it was only because his face was just inches from mine and I was having impure thoughts.

  “What about my brother?” I managed to ask.

  It was as if I’d popped a balloon. He stepped away and turned his back to me as he put the vial into a holder on a tray.

  “How about tomorrow night?” he asked.

  “All right, so you’re hedging your bets now that I might be okay tomorrow, if not today.”

  I could see the side of his face and the grin.

  “Tomorrow?” he asked again.

  I thought about the shop. Bitsy did all the scheduling, and since my love life was a tad dry these days, I just let her make my appointments without any thought to actual dating. “I have to check my schedule,” I said.

  He sighed. “I see.”

  “No, I really have to check. I’m not sure about my appointments tomorrow. I can let you know as soon as I talk to my shop manager.” I didn’t want to sound too desperate for a date, so I left it at that, even though I probably could rearrange a client if necessary.

  Bixby turned around, holding a metal clipboard with my folder on top of it. “That would be fine,” he said, all professional now, but he gave me a wink as he pulled the curtain back and walked out.

  I had a clear view of the frosted sliding doors from my angle, but I couldn’t see Frank DeBurra hovering anywhere. I took a deep breath, hoped that he wasn’t close by, that he hadn’t heard my exchange with Bixby.