The Missing Ink Read Free

night. She’d seemed a little skittish, but we’d chalked that up to it being her first time. She didn’t even get the ink. She just made an appointment and then never showed.
    “You’re sure it was her in the picture?” Bitsy asked for the umpteenth time.
    “Yes.” I felt like a broken record. It was a recent picture—I could tell that even though it was a photocopy. She was in her late twenties, the long dark hair pulled into a fashionably tousled knot, a pair of big, black Jackie O sunglasses outlined in rhinestones on top of her head, her face white and narrow with brilliant blue eyes that indicated colored contact lenses. I couldn’t tell what she wore for the snapshot, but when she showed up here, she was wearing a thin white lace baby-doll top with spaghetti straps, a black bra peeking through, and skinny jeans with strappy red sandals. At first glance, she could have been one of those rich girls partying in Vegas for the weekend—or a working girl. It was hard to tell, since the wardrobes were similar these days.
    She said her name was Kelly Masters. She said the concierge at the Bellagio had recommended us.
    She said she wanted to surprise her fiancé on their wedding night. So much for the working-girl theory. The diamond on her hand could’ve been listed as one of the wonders of the world, the way it flashed like a strobe across the walls when the light hit it.
    From the small bag over her shoulder, Kelly took a rather rudimentary drawing of a heart with what I supposed were two hands clasped underneath it.
    “I want his name—Matthew—too,” she said.
    I’m not big on devotion tats. Relationships might start out great, but statistics were against most people. And relationships that had any foothold in Vegas were dubious, in my opinion. What happens in Vegas may stay here, but tattoos didn’t have that option. They went home with you.
    That said, a client is a client, and as David St. Hubbins of Spinal Tap noted, it’s a fine line between stupid and clever.
    I was used to straddling that line myself, so I cut her a break.
    We made an appointment for the next day. I told her I’d make a proper sketch, she could take a look, and I could make changes, if she wanted.
    Then she left.
    I carried out my part of the bargain—my sketch was much more elaborate than the simple one she’d handed me—but Bitsy doubted she’d come back. We’d even bet on it. My wallet was a hundred dollars lighter. They don’t say Vegas is for suckers for nothing.
    “Wonder where she is,” Bitsy said thoughtfully.
    “Maybe she and Matthew had a fight,” I suggested. I gave Jesus’ nose a little more shadow before lifting my foot off the pedal. The machine stopped whirring, and I assessed the Son of God before me.
    Not bad, if I did say so myself.
    “Cops don’t come looking for you unless something awful’s happened,” Bitsy said.
    “You’re done,” I told the young man, handing him a small mirror so he could take a look at himself in the full-length one on the staff room door. As he went to see my handiwork, I shook my head at Bitsy. “He said she wasn’t dead.”
    “He could’ve been lying.”
    I mulled that over for a second. Willis didn’t seem like the type to lie. Then again, I didn’t know him well.
    The young man came back and handed me the mirror. “It’s awesome ,” he said.
    Sister Mary Eucharista felt the same way, although she had her own descriptive adjectives.
    I covered the ink with Saran Wrap, taping it down and going through the laundry list of how to take care of the tattoo. The skin was the color of bubble gum right now, but after it healed and peeled like sunburn, it would begin to look like his other tats. Not that he’d notice much, since it was on his back.
    He paid Bitsy at the front table, the cash and credit card machine discreetly hidden in a drawer, and I went into the staff room. Joel and Ace had gone home at ten o’clock. It was eleven now, and Bitsy and I were going