I rose early that morning, unrested and edgy. Not only was my visit from the night before lurking in my mind, but today, for the first time ever, a man was joining the Amazons-or at least our little group of Amazons. I had called Peter right after leaving my conversation with Mother. He’d agreed to start today.
Short notice for everyone. Which meant no time to prepare my family-all in all, the best solution.
Fresh from a night of hauntings, I was ready to beard the lion of two millennia in my den.
After a quick look at my bedraggled reflection in the bathroom mirror, I dragged myself out to the main living area. Harmony was in her room polishing her nails while Bubbe stomped around the kitchen muttering something in Russian I didn’t care to translate, and Mother had already disappeared into the basement. A peaceful, if early, morning in the Saka household.
Not up for conversation, I skipped breakfast and sneaked down the steps to the shop. I was rearranging the stations, trying to decide who would be best suited to pair with our new addition, when there was a rap on the front door. The metal pan of needles I was holding fell to the ground with a loud clatter. Dropping to my knees, I muttered a curse and began rounding up the once-sterile tools.
“We don’t open till eleven,” I yelled, my voice loud in the small cubicle.
The door rattled in response.
My hands shook as they hovered over the spilled needles. Jumpy. I was too damn jumpy. Lost spirits didn’t knock on your front door and, bold as the killer might seem, so far all her gifts had been left in the dead of night. My palm sank onto the sharp end of a needle; the sudden pain brought me back to myself. I stared at the red bubble of blood forming on my hand and folded my fingers closed over it.
A fist hammered against the wood.
Blowing out a breath, I rubbed my palm against my jeans, leaving a red, angry stain, and started toward the steps. Let it be the killer. I was ready to end this.
I was halfway down the stairs when the rattling stopped. Frowning, I stomped down the last few steps anyway.
Only empty concrete stairs and an old chip bag shoved against the building by a biting fall wind greeted me. I crumpled the trash in my hand and glanced around one more time-nothing. A familiar fragrance I couldn’t quite peg drifted around me. My anger dissipated, replaced by a rush of unease.
My gaze darted around the yard, looking for any sign of my early-morning visitor, but there was nothing more suspicious than a squirrel busily hoarding nuts for the coming winter.
Unable to shake the unsettling impression off, I considered storming around the side of the building in hopes of catching whoever had made the earlier racket, just to prove to myself it was nothing more ominous than a bored neighborhood kid pulling a prank, but thought better of it.
I had stepped back inside, feeling as useless as the crumpled chip bag in my hand, and had started the trek up to the shop level when I heard voices coming from the basement.
Someone was visiting Mother.
This was unusual. Bubbe loved mingling with the locals-or more accurately, rooking them out of their cash-but Mother kept to herself. She did the odd tattoo for me, basic stuff, but that was it. I’d never known her to encourage company.
I paused, one hand on the wooden railing, the other still holding the chip bag, and considered going down to see who rated high enough to be invited into her world. Then, unbidden, a rough laugh escaped my lips. Secrets. Mother wasn’t the only one who had them. Maybe if I let her keep hers awhile longer, the cosmos would look kindly on me and return the favor by helping me to hide my own.
Besides, my latest secret, Peter, was due in at ten. I needed the time left until his arrival to work out how I was going to present him to my family. I tapped my fingers a couple of times on the banister, then went back to stocking Peter’s station with bandages and other necessities of tattooing life.
The next couple of hours passed uneventfully. Harmony flounced off to school and Bubbe stomped directly from the second floor to the basement without stopping in the shop to harass me-another unusual occurrence. On a different day this might have raised some notice from me, but today I was too busy battling my warring emotions-still anxious thanks to my nocturnal visitors and their killer, proud I was doing my part to break old prejudices, and nervous that Bubbe, Mother, and centuries of other Amazons who had banned men from all but one aspect of their lives were right and I was on the brink of making a fatal error.
The third emotion was beginning to edge out the others when I glanced up at the clock and realized it was almost ten. Squaring my shoulders, I tromped down the stairs and unlocked the door.
Peter Arpada in all his brown-eyed, six-foot-plus-tall glory was waiting for me. He had a new, bigger portfolio under one arm and two steaming cups of premium coffee in his hands. My heart jumped a beat-for the coffee, I told myself. I don’t splurge for the good stuff too often.
He followed me up the stairs.
“Interesting setup,” he commented, once we were on the main/shop level. He was staring up the stairs that led to our living area.
“Uh, yeah. It works for us.” I gestured for him to follow me through the glass doors that separated the tattoo cubicles from the waiting room. Wisconsin regulations required tattoo areas be separated from living areas by a full wall. Putting one on this level was easier than trying to close off the stairs some way. In other words, anyone who walked into our shop could just stroll up the stairs, past the JUST STROLL UP THE STAIRS, PAST THE sign and be in our living area. Assuming they made it past Mother, Bubbe, and me, that is. Until now, it had never occurred to me to worry about the possibility. Funny how a couple of dead bodies and having a man around could twist your view of things.
He gave the stairs one last glance, then followed.
“I thought I’d set you up here.” I pointed to an empty cubicle in the front. “It’s next to Cheryl. She’ll be in at eleven. So she can show you around.” Cheryl, a forty-something divorced mom of three, was one of the artists at my shop. The other, Janet, a fifty-year-old lesbian who had never bothered to tell her husband of twenty years her sexual preference, had the day off. I’d called Cheryl last night after I talked to Peter. She was the only one in on our new team addition.
“Won’t you be showing me around?” He arched an eyebrow, and I would have sworn his eyes twinkled.
Despite my sleepless night and internal emotional battles, something inside me went all soft and girly. I obviously needed to get out more.
Trying to act casual, I grabbed one of the two rolling chairs in the space and, positioning it between us, pointed toward the back room. “Back there you’ll find extra supplies and the autoclave. You’re responsible for keeping your own equipment sterile, but Mandy, our office manager, will usually help out if she can.” Spinning so the chair was against my back, I gestured past the reception area. “Over there’s the little boys’ room. That’s it. You got the tour.” Shoving the chair away, I took a step toward the reception area and freedom.
I hated to admit it, but he made me nervous-or my reaction to him made me nervous. No matter which, I needed to leave.
“What about these?”
Cursing my short legs for costing me the three seconds it took him to ask the question, I stopped and looked back. He was holding up his portfolio.
“And paperwork. Isn’t there paperwork I need to fill out?”
“Mandy will help you with that-the paperwork, I mean.” Remembering how Mandy had looked him over a few days earlier, I barely suppressed an eye roll. Yeah, she would help him out.
“And?” He shook the portfolio.
“If you have something you want added to the shop flash, give me a copy and I’ll look it over. Each artist has a private flash too. Give those to Mandy, and she’ll get them displayed.” I waited to see if he had any other questions, but he just nodded and picked up the iron. As I left, I could tell he was doing a mental inventory of ink and supplies. I knew, because it’s the first thing I’d do too.
Lucky for me, I had a cover-up scheduled for ten thirty, a long-time client I’d agreed to work on before the shop officially opened. It kept me busy and away from Peter. By the time I was done wrapping a bandage around my client’s arm, I could hear low voices peppered by the occasional giggle coming from reception. Guess Mandy is helping Peter with his paperwork. I escorted the client out, giving her a last few care instructions on the way.
As I suspected, Mandy was pressed against the reception desk and Peter. What surprised me were the other two women-Cheryl and Janet-also as close as they could get to our new employee. Cheryl, maybe, but Janet?
“Slow morning?” I asked, my tone dry.
Four heads popped up to stare at me, only Janet had the grace to look embarrassed.
“What? You can’t stay away, Janet?”
Her hand went up to rub her close-cropped head. “I remembered I left my…pen here last night.”
Uh-huh. I shot a look at Cheryl. I’d thought she was the only one who’d known about Peter-wonder who else she had told? Anger swelled momentarily, but I forced the emotional uprising down. What did I care? It saved me from making the announcement. I turned to the gossip queen.
“How about you, Cheryl? You searching for a paper clip or something?”
Never one to be intimidated by me, Cheryl grinned. “We were just helping Peter pick what to put in his flash.”
Mandy reached across the chest-high desk to slide a sheet of paper toward her. Her upper arm brushed Peter’s chest in the process. A simple accident, I was sure.
“I love this one,” Mandy gushed.
“There’s a lot of nice work there.” Eyes twinkling, Cheryl looked at me behind Peter’s bowed head, her hand pointing to his muscled backside. “What about you, Mel? You see anything you like?”
At that moment, a forty-something man dressed in a suit and wearing a no-nonsense expression stepped out of the men’s restroom. His hair matched the suit, short and conservative, but his face was too rugged for a complete fit. He didn’t look like my typical client. I frowned and looked for another clue that would tell me his purpose here. His stance said he was physically fit and used to being in charge. And while his hands hung casually at his side, there was nothing casual about the expression in his blue eyes or the way his gaze worked its way around the room.
Glancing from the group clustered around the desk to me, he took a step forward. “Are you Mel Saka?”
I looked over my shoulder at my office manager. Mandy had the sense to look sheepish. “Sorry. There’s somebody here to see you. I told him you were with a client and he said he’d-”
“Yeah, I can figure out the rest.” I waved a hand at her and turned back to the man. “I’m Mel.”
He stared at me, checking me over as if he could learn some secret I held simply by looking. I shook off a shiver of disquiet and squared my shoulders. “May I help you?”
He stood there another beat or two, then reached into his jacket. He brought out a leather wallet, flipping it open to display his ID.
“Detective Reynolds. Milwaukee Police Department. I was wondering if I could speak with you for a few moments.”
I could feel the curious eyes of the group behind me pressing into my back. I resisted the urge to glance back at them. The bodies. Could he have traced them to me? I’d been careful-leaving the corpses in unpopulated areas, making sure nothing of mine touched them. I was confident no one had seen me anywhere near the bodies and any evidence left on them was from the killer, not me.
But if not that, what?
My mind flicked to Bubbe, the squirming rabbit grasped in her fist, the soccer mom’s wide eyes on me when I stormed in on them. I glanced from his badge to him. “Milwaukee?”
“Yes.” His gaze shot to the cluster of employees behind me. A frown lowering his brow, he shoved his ID back into his pocket. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”
Some ancient part of me reacted to his discomfort, made me want to refuse and force him to state his purpose there in the open. But the more modern, smart me realized there was no benefit to that track. Besides, careful as I had been, there was still the chance someone had reported something “odd” about me or my family to the police. If so, I didn’t really want it broadcast to the entire staff. With a nod, I turned and led him into my office.
Once the door was closed, he straightened, walking around the room with a relaxed nonchalance that told me he was cataloging the contents. Back to being the confident cop, a man in charge. I bit back a flare of annoyance. “So what brings you to Madison, Detective?” With my arms folded over my chest, I slid into my chair.
“Strange place for a tattoo shop.” He placed a finger into the metal blinds that covered the window overlooking the old school grounds and separate gym/lunchroom.
“It serves our purposes.”
“Tattooing…and…?” He turned until he faced me.
I smiled and leaned back against the hard wood of my chair. “Why are you here, Detective? Not to get a tattoo, I’m guessing.”
“How long have you been tattooing, Ms. Saka?”
“Long enough.”
“Ever tattoo someone under eighteen?”
I arched a brow. “That’s illegal in Wisconsin.”
“And you’d never break the law?” He strolled closer to my desk, slipping into a chair with misleading disinterest.
“If you’re looking to bust me for tattooing someone underage, you wasted a lot of gas, Detective.”
He gave me a look that was hard to read, then slipped his hand back into his jacket. This time to retrieve a stack of photos. He slid one across the desk to me. “This look familiar?”
Something in my gut tightened. Keeping my face blank, I looked down.
My worst fear rushed up and smacked me in the face. The photo showed the tattoo on the small of a woman’s back-a bear, paws outstretched and teeth flashing.
My first early morning gift.
“Nice work,” I commented, my throat dry, but my tone noncommittal.
He slid a second photo toward me.
I didn’t really have to look, but I did-the leopard. I picked it up, stared at it for a second. Anxiety sliced through me. I lowered my hand to rest on my desktop, the photo still pinched between my fingers.
Keeping my eyes cast down until I was sure I was under control, I dropped the picture, then looked up. “Also nice. Is there a point here? You going to tell me why you’re bringing these pictures to me?”
He made no move to pick up the photos, just snapped the ones still in his hand against the edge of my desk. “We took them to some artists in Milwaukee. Consensus was, they look like your work.”
That startled me. Every artist has a signature style, something that even when they are copying another’s work shines through. But to me, neither of the tattoos looked anything like mine. I picked up the second one, the leopard, and tried to look at it dispassionately, as just a tattoo, not a piece of a once-living girl.
“Are there more?” I nodded to the pictures still in his hand. There were twelve main tribes, each with a totem. He’d only shown me two. I’d only found and deposited two bodies. Were there more? Had the killer left bodies on someone else’s doorstep?
He gave his head an almost imperceptible shake. “Just dupes.”
I accepted his words with solemn resolve-not that I wanted there to be more dead girls, but if there had been others, not left on my doorstep…I shook the thought from my head. There hadn’t been. I was the target.
I could feel his gaze on me. I looked up, meeting his eyes. “Where’d you say you got these?” I asked, not that I didn’t know, but it seemed like the logical question.
He tapped the photos in his hand another time. “Is it your work?”
“I already said it wasn’t.”
“Did you?” An emotion glimmered in his eyes, determined, dangerous. Like the glint of steel before you see the actual knife slicing toward you.
“If it were my work, I’d tell you.”
“Would you?” His expression said he didn’t believe me.
Smart guy.
I shrugged. “Okay, maybe I wouldn’t, if I had a reason not to, but I didn’t lie. The work isn’t mine.”
This time he nodded in quiet acceptance. “There’s something, though. You know who did it?”
“No idea.”
A short laugh escaped his lips. “And just when I thought we were becoming friends.” Leaning forward, he placed both palms flat on the top of my desk. He was so close I could smell his toothpaste-cinnamon.
“This is serious. This isn’t about slapping a fine on someone for underage tattooing. Whoever did these”-he glanced down at the photos-“knows something. Something I need to know.”
I could feel the intensity rolling off him like heat off pavement. I wanted to help him. Wanted him to find the killer. But what could I tell him that wouldn’t lead back to me?
“They’re the same,” I blurted.
He blinked, maybe startled that I replied-I know I was. “What?”
“These tattoos.” I regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. None of this mattered, wouldn’t help him find his killer because I wasn’t going to tell him what else I knew about these tattoos-that they were done by an Amazon. However, my mind committed, I continued on, let myself get lost in discussing something I loved. I flipped the pictures back up to face us. “They’re done by the same person. Look at the bear. See the thinness here.” I pointed to the delicate stroking around the animal’s muzzle. “The slight upward curve at the end of each line? Now, look at the leopard. The shading, the variation in line width? It’s the same. Whoever did these tats wasn’t just cranking them out. He-” I chose the pronoun carefully, wondering briefly if Detective Reynolds noticed-“put time and dedication into them, blood, sweat, and tears. Good tattooing is more than simple art. More than a drunken lark. It’s ritual, beauty, strength, and power. That’s what you have here-mixed into ink and sketched into some girl’s skin. Whoever did this is good.” All Amazons entrusted with the art were.
His blue eyes grew hard. “A girl? How’d you know these were both girls?”
I pulled back, startled out of my reverie. How’d I know the pictures were of girls? Because I’d seen them firsthand, held their lifeless bodies in my arms. But I couldn’t exactly tell him that, now could I?
“The position. The lower back. Only women get tattoos there, and you already said it was someone underage-has to be a girl.” I tilted my chin upward, daring him to call me on the statement. It was true, lower back was a female-preferred spot. There was no way he could prove there was any other reason for me to know the pictures were of girls.
I watched as he rolled this around for a few seconds. Something battled within him, but eventually he seemed to accept what I said, kind of.
“That’s all you can give me?” He suddenly looked tired, like he’d used up his energy on his last explosion.
I nodded, guilt gnawing at my gut. He was one of the good guys, abrasive as I found him. But I couldn’t tell him what he wanted to know.
He started to turn, then stopped. His hand going again into his jacket, he pulled out a business card. “You call me if you decide you can tell me more.”
His way of letting me know he didn’t believe my story completely.
My fingers reached for the card, but he didn’t quite release it. “How about the breast? That a popular place for girls to get tattoos?”
This time I couldn’t stop the slight tremble in my fingers any more than I could stop the lurch of my heart. “The breast?” I repeated.
“Yes, the breast. A lot of young girls get tattoos there?” He lay his hand over his right pectoral muscle. “Right here. Not big. Probably under a few inches in diameter.”
Breathing through my nose, I slowed my heart rate, willed my mind not to think about the patch of missing skin, the raw flesh underneath. “More women than men. Why?”
“No reason,” he replied. “No reason at all.”