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garb who entertained the tourists and shoppers, rather than a hokey North Pole setup with cotton-ball snow and Santa at Christmastime?
    I sidestepped a couple of the aforementioned tourists as I reached the end of the canal, where gondolas were waiting to pick up their next fares, and pushed open the door to The Painted Lady.
    Because it was a high-end mall, we weren’t allowed to advertise that it was a tattoo shop. We looked more like an art gallery. Ace van Nes, one of my tattooists, paints comic book versions of famous works of art. Today we had da Vinci’s The Last Supper , Ingres’s The Valpinçon Bather , and David’s The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons hanging on the walls. The blond laminate flooring clashed in a good way with the dark mahogany desk at our entry-way. Four individual workrooms were divided and closed off to the public. In the back, a sleek black leather sofa and glass-top coffee table served as our waiting area. We also had a staff room with a refrigerator, microwave, and light table, as well as a small office.
    Bitsy kept everything in order. That was why I kept her on when I bought the business two and a half years ago. And while we had four rooms, we had only three artists at the moment: Ace, Joel Sloane, and me.
    Ace was in Bitsy’s usual seat at the front desk.
    “Hey, boss lady,” he drawled. He’d been calling me that for the last month or so, and even though I kept asking him not to, he persisted.
    “Where’s Bitsy?” I asked.
    “I’m fine. How are you?” One of Ace’s eyebrows rose higher than the other. It gave his handsome face a comedic look, and I couldn’t help but smile.
    “Fine, fine.”
    “Heard you had some excitement this morning.”
    I bet he did. Bitsy couldn’t keep her mouth shut about anything.
    “I’m not sure I’d call it exciting,” I said. “Where’s Bitsy?”
    “She’s in with Joel.” Ace cocked his head toward Joel’s room. The door was closed. Something was up. Joel never closed his door unless a client specifically asked for privacy or he was tattooing a particularly private body part. Before working here, he’d tattooed in street shops, where most of the stations are all out in the open. He doesn’t like being closed in if he doesn’t have to be.
    I took a step toward the room, but Ace’s voice stopped me.
    “They’d hoped they’d find it before you came in.”
    My heart had jumped up into my throat, and it took me a second to ask, “Find what?”
    Ace sighed. “Joel’s clip cord. It’s missing.”

Chapter 5
    I t couldn’t possibly be the same cord. Mr. That’s Amore had been in my trunk since yesterday, and Joel was working yesterday, so it couldn’t be. As I’d told Tim earlier, I hadn’t taken any equipment home with me and didn’t keep anything in my car. But it did seem odd that I’d discovered a body with a clip cord around its neck, and now we had a clip cord that had gone missing.
    “I used the extra one yesterday,” Joel was saying. “I don’t know what I did with it.”
    Bitsy was riffling underneath Joel’s shelves, where he kept extra baby wipes, boxes of latex gloves, and inks. Her face was bright red, her breath ragged. I’d never seen her so undone. She was obviously making the connection, too, between what had happened this morning and Joel’s missing cord.
    “I knew it was here,” she kept saying. “I put it right down here. I know I did.”
    Joel and I shook our heads at each other and shrugged.
    “Who was in here yesterday?” I asked Joel.
    “Well, besides me and Bitsy, I did a couple of tattoos in the morning and three, I think, after lunch. It was a busy day.”
    Bitsy stood up with her hands on her hips, staring at the space where she insisted she’d put the clip cord, as if it would miraculously appear telekinetically.
    “So Ace didn’t borrow it?”
    “Why would he?” Joel asked. “He’s got a couple in his room.”
    I knew that, but I had to ask. I had two clip