Thread of Fear, page 15
part #1 of The Glass Sisters Series
“Crappy day?” Courtney prompted.
“You could say that.” Fiona put down the staple gun and turned the wooden frame ninety degrees. “You want to help?”
“Sure.”
“Right here,” Fiona directed. “Pull as tight as you can.”
Courtney sauntered over and positioned her hands on the frame. She’d helped with this chore before, so she knew how important it was to get the linen as taut as possible. The fabric had to be stretched tightly across the wood, but not so tightly it would tear at the staple points. Fiona turned the frame frequently, so the fabric would pull more evenly over every side.
Courtney held the linen beneath her thumbs. “This is a big one.”
“Tighter.”
Courtney pulled it tighter.
“Your hands are all chapped,” Fiona said.
“Comes with the job.”
Her sister had been through a wide variety of jobs in the beauty industry. In her current position as a hairstylist at an exclusive salon, she worked with chemicals all the time and washed her hands frequently.
“Is this for the show?”
“It’s the focal point. It’s supposed to be the largest canvas in the Blanco River series.”
“Wow,” Courtney said. “No wonder it’s so big.”
Fiona had the four-by-six-foot composition all planned out. She’d had it planned for weeks, but hadn’t had time to get started until tonight—which was crazy, considering this was to be the centerpiece of her entire exhibit.
“How’s the detective?” Courtney asked.
Fiona blew out a sigh. “He’s not a detective. He’s a police chief.”
“So where is he tonight?”
“Working on a case.”
“This the Jane Doe thing down in Hickville?”
“Natalie Fuentes.” Fiona positioned the staple gun. Pop.
“Huh?”
“Her name’s Natalie Fuentes. They IDed her late last night. College freshman. She was a cheerleader.” Pop. “One of the little ones, you know, who go on top of the pyramid.”
They rotated the frame again, and Courtney pulled another section of fabric. She was good at this, always had been. A properly stretched canvas was the first step to a good painting. One of Fiona’s first instructors at Art Center in L.A. had drummed it into her head: no gaping fabric, no puckers, no tears, and for God’s sake, make your staples straight!
“It’s called a flyer.”
Fiona looked up. “What?”
“The girl on top of the pyramid. She’s the flyer. She’s the lightest one, so she gets tossed around the most. Sometimes twenty feet in the air.”
Fiona lifted her eyebrows. “How do you know that?” Courtney had steered far away from the cheerleaders during high school.
“Some of my clients bring their daughters in for highlights.” Courtney shrugged. “I can tell you anything you want to know about the glam high school scene.”
Fiona shook her head at the irony. She and Courtney hadn’t run with the cool crowd back in high school. Fiona had been the quiet misfit, and Courtney was the promiscuous one whom the guys sought out and the girls hated.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
“Okay, that about does it.” Fiona stepped back to look. “Not bad, either. Thanks for helping.”
“Sure.”
Courtney stripped off her sweater as she crossed the apartment. “You mind if I borrow something to wear tonight? I’m having dinner with David.”
Fiona eyed the lotus tattooed on her sister’s shoulder. “I thought he lived in Dallas.”
“He does. But he’s had a lot of business in town lately.” Courtney smiled over her shoulder. “I think he likes me.”
Fiona leaned the canvas against the wall and followed Courtney into the bathroom. Her sister swept back the shower curtain and turned on the water to heat.
“And do you like him?”
Courtney wouldn’t look at her, which was always telling.
“Is he a nice guy?”
“Yeah.” Courtney took off her earrings. “He treats me well. He talks to me. Tells me about his cases. His job’s really interesting.”
Fiona remembered this guy was a lawyer. Knowing her sister, she’d be talking about going to law school next week. Not that Courtney wasn’t smart enough to do whatever she wanted—she was. She just didn’t have much follow-through.
“Stop worrying,” Courtney said.
“I’m not worrying.”
“Yes, you are. I can see it. Chill out, okay? It’s not like I’m getting married or something.”
“Where’d you get your tattoo done?” Fiona asked, changing the subject.
“What, the lotus?”
“You have more than one?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a yin-yang, too.” She tugged down her skirt and showed her the black-and-white disk just below her left hip bone. “I got that, like, a year ago. Both times I went to a place downtown.”
“Hmm…” Fiona rubbed her fingers over it. “Did it hurt?”
“Not too bad.” Courtney grinned. “Why? You want one?”
“I’m just curious.” Fiona leaned back against the sink. “Say I wanted to get a swastika? Could I just show up somewhere and get one, or is that taboo?”
Courtney flipped the toilet lid closed and sat down to take off her shoes. They had narrow black ankle straps and stiletto heels that looked fabulous but probably felt miserable.
“A taboo tattoo,” Courtney mused. “I think that’s an oxymoron.”
“So I could just get anything I want?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, really. You’d have to check. I’ve never seen anyone ask for neo-Nazi shit. It might be something they don’t talk about, but they’ll do it in a back room or something.”
“And where would I go?”
Courtney grinned. “You really want to do this? I’ll go with you.”
“You will?”
“Sure, it’ll be fun. We could look at tats, piercings. This is for an investigation, right? You’re not really going to get one?”
Fiona wrinkled her nose.
“Don’t be so judgmental,” Courtney said. “I happen to think you’d look extremely hot with a navel ring. Jack would probably take one look at it and have an orgasm.”
“We’re not sleeping together.” Yet.
“Whatever. I’ll take you to one of the ink places on Sixth Street.” Courtney glanced at her watch before taking it off and tossing it on the vanity. “We need to go soon, though. I’m meeting David at nine.”
Fiona heaved a sigh and buried her face in her hands. “God, what is wrong with me? I’m supposed to paint tonight. Instead, I’m going to go traipsing around tattoo parlors.” She looked up at Courtney. “If I don’t get these pictures finished soon, I’m going to blow my whole career before it even gets off the ground.”
Courtney lifted an eyebrow. “Which career is that?”
“My art career! The one I spent six years training for. The one I’ve been dreaming about since I was a kid. I’m throwing it all down the drain, Court!”
Courtney tipped her head to the side. She had that look of understanding, the one nobody else in the universe had ever had except for her. “You already have a career. You’re good at it, too.”
“But I’m trying to get out of that.”
“Are you really? Seems to me if you really wanted out, you’d be out by now.”
The Egyptian Cat perched at the end of Sixth Street, just beyond a series of crowded bars and thumping dance clubs. Fiona followed Courtney inside, relieved to get away from the throngs of college students and the bitter night air.
The room was warm. Intricately patterned fabrics were draped over the light fixtures, giving the space a muted glow. Sitar music surrounded her, and she felt like she’d entered an Indian restaurant instead of a tattoo parlor.
“Not what I expected,” she said, slipping off her coat. At the back of the room hung a saffron yellow curtain, and from behind it came a low buzzing noise.
“I know. Isn’t it great?” Courtney led her to a wall of drawings. Almost all the designs looked Eastern. Fiona caught a few Celtic symbols. Some hieroglyphics. Where were all the naked women and biker symbols? This place seemed a little high end for their purposes.
“I love the incense here,” Courtney said, as they perused the drawings. “It gives you something to think about besides the needle.”
Fiona sent her a skeptical look. She doubted anything would take her mind off the needle except a shot of morphine.
“This would look good on you.” Courtney pointed to a Chinese character. “It means double happiness. Maybe it would cheer you up.”
Fiona turned to her sister. “I’m cheerful.”
“Right.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re too serious lately. You need to destress. Have some fun.”
“I have fun,” Fiona said, defensive now.
“You haven’t had fun since you and Aaron broke up.”
“That’s not true.”
“All you do is work all the time. And you’re avoiding men.”
“No, I’m not.”
Courtney gave her a “yeah, right” look. “So what happened to Jack the other night? Why didn’t you bring him home with you?”
“You were there.”
“I was on my way out. You should have asked him up. He’s very nice-looking. And I think he’d be good for you. He seems trustworthy.”
Fiona bit her tongue. She didn’t need relationship tips from Courtney. Her sister’s longest-term boyfriend had lasted three months.
“Don’t get upset.” Courtney’s expression softened. “I’m just saying, you should start dating again. Loosen up some. Not everyone’s out to hurt you.”
A man with short-cropped dark hair ducked out from behind the curtain, saving Fiona from a response. He had olive skin, a muscular build, and two full sleeves of black tribal-looking tattoos.
“Hey, there.” He stepped closer and zeroed in on Fiona. “You need some help?”
She was speechless. Men typically gravitated toward Courtney first. It must be the outfit. She was wearing a low-cut crimson sweater with bell sleeves and tight, hip-hugger jeans.
“We have some questions for you,” Courtney answered for her. “But we don’t want to keep you from a client or anything. You busy?”
“We’re slow tonight.” He smiled, and focused again on Fiona. “What can I do for you?”
She cleared her throat, trying not to stare at his lip rings. “I’m wondering about your designs here. What all do you do?”
That sounded vague, but she felt flustered. He was looking at her with those sensual black eyes.
“Anything. What did you have in mind?”
“What about swastikas?” she blurted, and his eyebrows shot up.
“She means, hypothetically,” Courtney put in. “Would you do a swastika? If someone asked you?”
He looked from Fiona to Courtney and back to Fiona again. “I wouldn’t. But that’s me, personally. You could get someone else to do it. Not here, though.”
“Where could I go?” Fiona asked.
His gaze drifted over her. “You don’t seem like the swastika type. Have you thought this through?”
“It’s not for me. I’m just doing some research.”
He seemed to relax at this, and smiled again. “Good. You strike me as more of an artist.”
Fiona glanced at Courtney. How could he know that?
He crossed his arms and seemed to be looking at her strawberry blond hair. “I could see you with something Celtic. Maybe a cross. Or a tree of life.”
“I don’t want a tattoo.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Yeah, why not?” Courtney echoed.
Fiona floundered for a reason.
“She thinks they look trashy,” Courtney said in a stage whisper.
“I do not!”
Her sister rolled her eyes.
“It’s just that it’s too permanent,” Fiona explained. “I get bored with my shower curtain after six months. Plus, I’m a wimp about pain.”
The man smiled. “It’s not as bad as you think.”
“Yeah, I barely felt my last one,” Courtney said. “But we could always get you drunk and come back. There’s a shot bar next door.”
Fiona gave her sister a pointed look. “I came here to ask questions.”
“See what I mean? Much too serious.” She sighed. “I’m going to look around.”
Courtney wandered off, and Fiona turned back toward the man.
“Go ahead.” A smile spread across his face. “Ask me anything you want.”
Jack hated the stereotype, but desperate times called for desperate measures. And besides, Sunrise Donuts had great coffee. Jack was on his second cup of the morning—and his third chocolate-iced doughnut—when his cell phone buzzed.
“Did you know that one of the largest tattoo parlors in the nation is less than an hour away from you?”
Jack pulled the phone from his ear and checked the number. Yep, it was Fiona. “You want to repeat that?”
“I said, one of the country’s largest tattoo parlors—well, actually, they call it a studio—it’s off I-35, not fifty miles away from you. I spent my whole morning there, and it was fascinating.”
“Is that right.”
“Some of the piercings would make you lose your lunch, so I spent most of the time looking at tattoos. They do everything—exotic animals, tribal designs. You can even copy something from a famous celebrity. Did you know the Rock has a Brahma bull on his right biceps?”
Jack steered through downtown, noting it was unusually quiet for a Saturday morning. He chalked it up to weather. “Are we talking about the wrestler?”
“That’s the guy. The bull symbolizes virility. It’s an extremely popular tattoo design in central Texas, I’m told.”
“Very interesting, Professor. Course that probably has nothing to do with football.”
“With what?”
Jack sighed. “Never mind. Hey, if you’re thinking about body art, I should warn you that place has been slapped with fines by the health department for using dirty equipment.”
But Jack knew she wasn’t interested in a tattoo. In fact, he knew exactly why she’d hauled her pretty butt all the way down here. She was running down the swastika lead.
He pulled into the parking lot at the station and slid his truck into the chief’s space. “I thought you were planning to paint all weekend.”
“I was. I will. I just started thinking about something, and I wanted to follow up.”
Jack cut the engine and stared through the windshield. He dreaded going inside. His desk was stacked a foot high with paperwork, and he didn’t give a shit about any of it. All he wanted to do was solve the Natalie Fuentes homicide. It had been a focus before, but now that he had the victim IDed, it was becoming more like an obsession. Natalie had been a vivacious, energetic young girl, much like Lucy had been before her attack.
“So you spent your Saturday morning at Texas Ink.”
“Yes.”
“And let me guess,” he said, “you took some drawings with you and flashed them around.”
“Nobody recognized him. But I have a lead for you.”
Jack gritted his teeth. It wasn’t just the logjam of work that was bothering him. It wasn’t just that Fiona had told him she needed to spend the whole weekend painting, and then obviously had changed her mind. It was that her involvement in this case was starting to make him uncomfortable.
Hell, it made him more than uncomfortable. He hated it. He wanted her to stick to oil painting and leave the investigating to the investigators.
“Jack? Don’t you want to hear about my lead?”
“Let’s hear it.”
“There’s a guy over at Texas Ink. They call him Viper. I don’t know his real name, but I’ve got an address. The official policy over there is that they won’t do neo-Nazi stuff, but if you track down Viper, he’ll set you up. He works privately out of his house, apparently.”
“Sounds legit.”
“It’s probably not,” she said. “But he gets a lot of traffic. Listen, here’s the good part: the woman I talked to said she recognized the swastika.”
“The one with the arrows?”
“That exact design. She said she’s been to Viper’s studio, and he’s got it posted up on the wall.”
“Fiona, did it ever occur to you that our guy might not have gotten tattooed locally? There are thousands of other places he could have had it done, starting with the state pen.”
Silence. Shit, he’d hurt her feelings.
“Look, I know you’re just trying to help—”
“It’s a lead. That’s all I’m saying. Now do you want it or not? If not, I’ll head over there myself—”
“Give me the address.” Goddamn it.
“Do you want company?”
“No.” Which was a complete lie. He wanted her company in the worst way, but he didn’t want her anywhere near Viper or his pit.
“Fine, then. He’s at 2200 Dry Creek Road. That’s in Borough County, north of you.”
“I know.”
“She said the house is hard to see from the road, but you can’t miss it. The mailbox is painted with a Confederate flag. Are you sure you don’t want help with this?”
“Completely.” Jack got out of his truck and slammed the door. If he needed help, he’d enlist Lowell or Carlos. Or even Sharon the greenhorn.
“Thanks for the offer, though,” he added diplomatically.
“Well…I guess I’ll get back to work, then. Bye.”
She disconnected before he could try to talk her into having dinner with him sometime in the next century.
Jack mounted the steps, eyeing the portly Latino man standing beside the entrance. He wore jeans and a lightweight windbreaker, and he was probably freezing his ass off if he’d been standing out here any length of time.
“Chief Bowman?”
“Yes?”
He stuck out his hand. “I’m Father Alvaro from Blessed Sacrament Church down in Hamlin.”
Jack shook his hand, noting the black and white collar peeking out from beneath his jacket.
