healing ink. She hugged him back, and for a moment in his arms, her chest filled in a way that she hadn’t felt in a very long time.
“What do I owe you?” she asked, digging through her jacket pocket.
“No, please,” Walsh said, waving his hands in front of her. “We’ll settle up when I’m finished.”
She hesitated, wanting to protest, but thought better of it. She had to give him something to chew on and if her return was that bone, then so be it. “You have a deal,” she said. She turned on her heels and hurried out the door, stepping into the new dawn light without looking back.
Four
Bridget met Connie Winslow on the corner of 147th Street and Hammock Boulevard. Connie was a great field agent, and an even better friend when she needed one.
The government issued black SUV rolled to a stop and Bridget got in. "Thanks," she said.
“No problem,” Connie said. A grin spread across her face. “Your gun and badge are in the glove box.”
Bridget retrieved her forgotten items. “Anyone notice?”
“Not at all."
They drove a few blocks in silence.
“So where did you end up last night?” Connie asked, the suspense clearly killing her.
“What makes you think I ended up anywhere of interest?”
"Well, I left at 11:00PM and you were still at the office. And now you're way across town without your gun and badge. That makes me think you ended up in a place of interest.”
Bridget removed her jacket and eased the leather holster over her shoulder. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Connie notice her back.
“Jesus, Bridge, what happened?” Connie’s eyes darted between the road and the bandage covering her lower back, trying to get a better glimpse.
"Don't ask."
“You got a tattoo!” Connie said.
“What makes you think it’s a tattoo, of all things?” Bridget knew Connie was not going to let this rest.
“Well, you either have some major rug burn, or a new tattoo, wild thing.”
Wild was not an adjective people used to describe her. Professional. Hard working. Punctual. Dependable. Bridget was all of those, but wild–no. Momentarily overcome with hysterical reckless abandon, but far from wild. She wondered if Walsh Jackson, tattoo artist extraordinaire, thought of her as untamed. What would feral look like to a man who lived on the edge? She shook the thought of him away. It wasn’t that she regretted last night, but reality looked clearer in the daylight. He was a tattoo artist in Richmond Heights, and she was an FBI Special Agent in Charge who had worked her whole life to become the youngest SAC in FBI history. What could they really have in common other than one hot steamy night?
When Connie and Bridget arrived at Grim’s Reaping Tattoos, they found the crime scene riddled with flashing lights and police tape. Bridget spotted ASAC Furlong talking to local Miami PD officers. He was a good Assistant SAC, one of the best agents in the field, but she knew he was gunning for her job. When she joined them, Furlong looked surprised to find Bridget there at all.
“What do we have?” she asked him.
Furlong stayed at her side as they entered the shop. “Two Caucasians, one male, one female. And-”
Bridget gasped at what she found: the victims were strapped to the tattoo chairs. Pools of blood encircled them, but that was the least horrid part of the scene.
“Double decapitation,” Furlong added.
The forensics team already fast at work, snapped photos of the crime scene. Flash, pop, flash, pop, went the camera bulbs. Shivers went through her.
Murdered people laid out on chairs not unlike what she herself had sat in only a few hours ago. She gazed at the victims’ heavily tattooed bodies, noting the color and lines. The man was heavy set and had every inch of his chest and arms covered with ink. The woman, also bare-chested, her pert breasts lay fully exposed on her light olive skin. The ink on her was more controlled, less of an intricate pattern and more of a selection of taste.