The Missing Ink Read Online Free PDF

I dubbed Venus on a Half Shell ). The Degas on the far wall was one of his. Because we looked like a gallery, he actually sold some of his work on a fairly regular basis.
    The people who wandered in here by mistake were relieved they could buy something other than a tat.
    Generally, we were by appointment only, no walk-ins, and we got a lot of referrals from the hotel concierges.
    “Bitsy says that missing woman was here.” Ace ran his hands through his abundantly thick dark hair, which fell gracefully just above his shoulders. It was a gesture meant to draw attention to himself; Ace was all about attention. He had those chiseled good looks that indicated possible plastic surgery—because what man could be so striking without it?—and clear blue eyes that seemed somehow reflective, like a pool. Even his tats were perfectly aligned on either arm, dipping ever so slightly onto the backs of his hands into fleurs-de-lis. He was a true artiste, lamenting his plight as a tattooist, unable to pursue his art as he wished, frustrated—but not enough to cut off an ear for anyone.
    It was enough to make us all roll our eyes in unison.
    “Tim needs to talk to you,” I told Bitsy.
    The stool still didn’t take her to eye level with me, but it was close. I noticed she had on a new pair of khaki trousers and a white eyelet blouse. Bitsy was rather conservative in her style, wearing no makeup except for a little mascara, but she didn’t really need any. She had flawless skin any woman would kill for. She was the only one in the shop without ink. I’d asked her once why she didn’t have a tat, and she said she just didn’t want one. I’m not into peer pressure, so I let it alone.
    “He called. He should be here soon.”
    I knew he was doing his job, but wasn’t it enough that he’d already told me he’d be by? Like he didn’t trust that I’d relay his message to Bitsy. Sometimes he still treated me like his little sister. If the rent weren’t so good, I’d move out and get my own place.
    I put my bag in the staff room. I’d left a design only partly done on the light table the night before. An older woman wanted “something special” to cover her mastectomy scar, something that indicated emotional growth and physical strength. I’d started drawing an oak tree, delicate leaves at the ends of thin branches that gradually grew thicker into the trunk and ended in a mass of roots.
    I took the pencil and sketched it out further, adding more details. When I was in school at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, I’d dreamed of going to Paris and putting up an easel next to the Seine, painting on a stiff white canvas.
    Instead, my canvas was alive, soft and moving, and my brush had turned into a machine with a needle on the end of it.
    The first time I’d touched that needle to my own skin, I knew this was what I wanted to do.
    My mother, who moved with my father to a retirement community in Port St. Lucie, Florida, right after I left for Vegas, said a Hail Mary for me every day.
    I heard some sort of commotion out in the front of the shop. I pushed the sketch aside, put my pencil down, and got up. As I moved toward the door, I heard Bitsy arguing with a man.
    “She’s busy. I can help you,” Bitsy said.
    “I want to talk to the owner!”
    For a second, I froze, wondering if it was the big tattooed guy who’d been watching me. I shrugged off the apprehension, telling myself that if it were, I’d at least know what he wanted now. Still, I tentatively pushed the door open.
    The man Bitsy was arguing with didn’t have one tat. At least none that I could see. He was in his late twenties, early thirties maybe, as clean-cut as he could be, with a short, military-like haircut, nicely pressed button-down shirt, and jeans that looked like they’d been ironed.
    I took another look at his face.
    He was the spitting image of his father.
    It was Chip Manning, jilted groom.

Chapter 6
    He saw me peeking out the staff room