Inked Magic (44 page)

Lord
Eamon’s edict stirred resistance in her. She wasn’t sure whether she reacted to the idea of change or his underlying attitude, one he’d already infuriated her with by using worlds like allow and tolerate. But rather than mar the enjoyment that had come before it, she let it go as a battle for another day.

With a final kiss he rose and dressed. In the doorway the moonlight caressed his features as he sent a heated glance and silent promise her way. There was no going back, only forward.

Etaín sighed and snuggled against Cathal, smiling when he immediately draped an arm and a leg over her, possessive even in his sleep.

It seemed as though she’d only just closed her eyes when her cell phone chimed. The darkness outside confirmed it was too early for a call to be anything but bad news. Dread gripped her as she left the bed and answered.

“You owe me, girl,” Anton said, and in a heartbeat excitement replaced everything else.

“You talked to Deon.”

“I told you, I’ve always been a real popular brother.”

“Did he give you a name?”

“Better than that, gave me an address, too. Not an apartment number, but he thinks third floor. Should be easy enough to find. Guy’s a painter. Has a van he’s got signs for, got a phone number on the signs.”

She crossed to the table and turned on a small lamp. The sketchpad with the Cathal-inspired tattoo was open but she flipped a different tablet to a clean page and picked up a pencil. “I’m ready.”

“Say the word, I’ll take care of this guy then you and me can celebrate afterward.”

“I promised him to someone else.”

Anton grunted. “Too bad. Name’s Kevin Wheat.”

She wrote it down, along with the address that followed, then read it back to Anton.

“You got it. Be seeing you soon, girl.”

Parker’s number she knew by heart. Trent’s she had because he’d asked for her help on Quinn’s behalf.

She hit send and Trent answered immediately, sounding alert, as if the Harlequin Rapist case left no time for sleep. “I found the artist.”

“Who?”

“Not someone you can reach out to. But I did, through someone else. He just called and gave me a name and an address to go with the tattoo.”

“Give it to me.” His voice held the same excitement she felt.

She relayed everything she’d learned from Anton. Trent said, “I assume you didn’t call Parker with this.”

“That would be a correct assumption. Good hunting.”

H
e stank as badly as the winos sitting on either side of him. Even the smell of the food couldn’t mask
it.

The feel of stiff, dirty clothes against his skin made him itch. Eating was a chore. But he applied himself to it, hunching over the plate of eggs and toast.

Men and women and children were still shuffling though the line, claiming seats in the shelter dining room as soon as they emptied. He’d already been here longer than the people he’d come in with.

No one noticed. They were used to him
now.

He stayed because he wanted to see her. He ached to see
her.

Before he chose her, he could go without seeing her for days and it didn’t bother him. Now he couldn’t.

He didn’t dare go near her apartment again. Or the tattoo shop. The police might be there, hiding, watching. He didn’t want to be noticed.

They’d be here tomorrow, too, for the fund-raiser, but he wasn’t worried. They’d never catch him, and after tomorrow, he wouldn’t come back here. He wouldn’t need
to.

He’d be with her in their special place. He didn’t think he’d want to leave it for a long time.

He finished breakfast and stood, shuffling over to the place where the trays and dirty dishes went. He didn’t want to leave without seeing her, but he had
to.

Kevin didn’t like how much time he was spending away from the apartment. Even though they’d only argue when he got back, he needed to go. His skin itched.

It was hard to keep from clawing at the filthy clothing to get it away from his body. One more time, he told himself. He’d put them on one more time, then he could throw them away.

He left the shelter, a howl rising inside him at not having seen her. He kept it from escaping by thinking about the supplies already loaded in the
van.

Duct tape and Taser. A syringe with a sedative that should make her sleep until he got her to their special place and it was time to begin. And best off all, most clever of all, the hollowed-out speaker strapped to a dolly.

He giggled. Having live musicians at the fund-raiser had made it easy to come up with the perfect plan. Even if someone noticed him with the speaker, they’d just think a musician had paid him to haul it to where they were parked. No one would guess she was inside it and he was taking her away.

S
he’d thought she’d sleep until noon but she woke early, not dreaming but restless all the same when she should have been content to lie with Cathal. She opened and closed her fist, making the eye on her palm blink and her thoughts drift to the ones her mother wore on the backs of her hands.

She wondered again if her mother had a different gift of sight, and if she’d foreseen this. Eamon and Cathal.

Heat moved through Etaín with thoughts of the night. She closed her eyes to incorporate it into a fantasy spinning out into the future. But the restlessness returned, intensifying, making it impossible to lose herself in sexual imagery or remain in bed.

Careful not to wake Cathal, she got up, glad she’d taken a shower after the call to Trent. She hoped they’d found probable cause to take
Kevin Wheat into custody and search his apartment. Her tip alone wasn’t enough. It would only point them in the right direction.

A chill swept through her, like a small fissure in the wall separating Tyra Nelson’s reality from her own. She crossed her arms, wishing Eamon were there to shore up her defenses.

Dressing, she had the vague intention of getting a bowl of cereal. It disappeared when she saw the open sketchpad.

The reason for the restlessness crystallized with the sight of Cathal’s tattoo. She glanced at him, eyes going to his exposed forearms and seeing the ink there in more detail than what was on the paper.

She didn’t fight the compulsion to draw. There was no point in it though it had never been like this before.

A thought piggy-backed on to the one she’d had earlier. If her mother had the gift of sight, did she have a small measure of it, too? Was that the reason she returned again and again to a tattoo Cathal told her he would never wear? Because he needed it?

With a sigh of frustration she picked up a pencil and began working in the additional detail, finishing it only moments before Cathal got up. He came to her, bending down to rub his cheek against hers.

“There’s cereal in the cabinet,” she said. “Or better still, we could hit McDonald’s.”

He nibbled along her neck. “What if I rummage around and make us something decent to eat.”

“Good luck with that.”

“You doubt my ability to cook?” His tone one of mock affront.

She smiled at his playfulness. “More like I question the contents of my fridge and cabinets.”

“A challenge then.” He kissed the place where her neck met her shoulder, sucked, the pull of his mouth reaching her nipples, and lower. “I can rise to any challenge.”

“Can you? Prove it by letting me tattoo your forearms,” she said, the ink—the magic—using her mouth to deliver a dare she hadn’t intended.

It sent fear skittering through her. But if she lost her faith in this and recalled the words, where would she be? Where would he be? If he needed whatever the design stood for?

“Leaving your mark on me?” Cathal asked, unable to explain the primitive satisfaction coursing through him at the idea of it.

Days ago he would have said no without hesitation. But then days ago, he wouldn’t have shared her with Eamon, though at the moment he didn’t want to either talk about it or look any closer than accepting Sean’s theory about men being turned on visually and competitive as hell at their core.

“I’ve never tattooed anyone I’ve been with, either before or after. But every time I look at your arms, I see these on them.”

He reached around her, taking her hands and turning them so the palms faced upward. Last night all he’d cared about was bridging the distance between them, and afterward, rational thought had been beyond him.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be exposed to any more of the freaky stuff. He handled it now the same way he intended to handle the reality of Eamon, at least for today, by
not
thinking about it. But as he stroked his thumbs over the eyes inked into her skin he felt compelled to ask, “Does your seeing the tattoos have something to do with these?”

“Yes.”

Not the answer he wanted though he expected it. The skin of his forearms tingled, and he remembered waking with her in his bed, her fingers tracing the design captured on paper in front of him. “This is important to you?”

“Yes.”

She’d sacrificed for him, taking Brianna’s memories and reliving them. It seemed fair to take Etaín’s ink in turn. Pain for pain, even if a traitorous part of him found true pleasure in the idea of it.

“Okay,” he said, nuzzling her. “But you don’t get to demonstrate your artistic ability until after I’ve shown off my culinary talents.”

*     *     *

T
he sight of the police cars barricading the street made him slam on the brakes. Tires squealed, the van belonging to Kevin and the car following
it.

The driver behind him gave a long blast on the horn. And then another. And another.

His heart lurched as the cops standing near a squad car turned to look. Automatically his hands went to the seatbelt release and door handle but the policemen turned back toward the apartment before he bolted from the
van.

Beyond their car he could see men in SWAT uniforms and more cops. Two of the taskforce members climbed out of a car and he whimpered, grabbing one of the candy bars on the seat next to him at the same time he grabbed the phone so he could call Kevin.

POP. POP.
POP.

He jerked at the sound of gunfire.

POP. POP. POP. POP. POP.
POP.

He sobbed, the candy bar and phone biting into his lip as he held them against his mouth.

Kevin. Kevin was in the apartment waiting for him to come home so they could argue again about
her,
and why she wasn’t a good choice right now. He wanted them to go to New York. He said they could come back to San Francisco for her in a couple of months because he was afraid they’d be caught if she really had visited the hospital and learned something. Kevin believed in psychics.

They fought over her. And now tears streamed down his face because he knew they wouldn’t fight again.

He lurched over, vomiting the breakfast he’d eaten at the shelter onto the passenger seat floor. Sweat broke out on his skin, reviving the stink left over from the clothes he’d changed out of after reaching the
van.

When he sat up again the cops were moving, no longer hiding behind their parked cars. They were talking into radios and putting away their
guns. He saw the FBI agents, including the one who was her brother, go inside.

They’d find the pictures. Kevin had started getting tattoos to remember the women by, but he liked looking at pictures best.

The candy bar and phone dropped to his lap. He had to leave before someone saw how much he looked like Kevin. Or before a neighbor told them there might be someone staying with Kevin. Or they noticed the van and decided to check to see if it was Kevin’s.

The man behind him had gotten out of his car so he could watch. That meant using the sidewalk, turning and going forward, backing up and turning.

He was careful to keep his head ducked and go slow. Not to act like someone trying to run away.

It took all his concentration. It helped him forget for a few minutes.

He turned the radio on when he got out of sight of the apartment. The song stopped and a voice cut in. “We’ve got breaking news. Sources at the scene of a shootout between SWAT members and an unidentified individual say the man who has been killed by police is believed to be the same one who has been terrorizing the Bay Area for months as the Harlequin Rapist.”

A howl erupted from inside him. He pounded on the steering wheel and screamed. “No! No!
No!

“No! No!
No!”

He screamed until he was hoarse, until the front of his shirt was wet from spit and bile. Until the word became sobs and finally hiccups.

“Kevin,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I should have . .
 
.”

He couldn’t say
it.

It would be a
lie.