Ink Flamingos Read Online Free Page B

door and went around the less sleek desk and sat.
    “What do you need to know?” I asked bluntly.
    Flanigan sat in the uncomfortable metal folding chair across from me. He leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees, his expression blank.
    “Miss Hendricks showed me your schedule for today.”
    “I was here all day.”
    “So it seems.”
    “So that should be that, right?”
    “Not so fast.”
    I should’ve guessed. Flanigan wouldn’t have come all the way out here so soon after Daisy’s body was discovered just to find out whether I’d been in my shop all day. I had no idea what he was after, so I waited.
    “I understand Miss Carmichael was a client of yours.”
    I nodded. “For the last two years. I did all her tattoos.” When I realized what I’d said, I quickly added, “Except for that color on the flamingo. I did the black, but I never did color.”
    “Why not?”
    “She told me she was allergic to red dye. Found out when she took an ibuprofen when she was younger. She was really nervous about any sort of tattoo color, because she thought she’d have a bad reaction to it.” I remembered the first time Daisy had come in, adamant about not having any color. She had done her homework. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not regulate tattoo ink. Anything can be in it, and no one would be the wiser. There are a lot of metals and mercury, especially in red and yellow inks, and I always warn my clients that if they’ve got any sort of nickel allergy, they shouldn’t get red or yellow. We take an elaborate medical history, like they do at the doctor’s office, and make our clients sign a waiver so we’re covered just in case someone has a reaction and tries to come after us.
    “What would a reaction look like?” Flanigan asked, and I knew he wasn’t expressing mere curiosity from the way he asked.
    “It’s easier to show you,” I said. “Hold on.” I left the room and went into the staff room, where Joel was picking at a salad. He’d been on Weight Watchers, then the Atkins Diet, and was now trying the South Beach Diet on for size.
    “What’s up?” Joel put his fork down, and his expression said he hoped I would stick around and keep him company. Maybe eat the salad for him so he wouldn’t have to.
    I grabbed my laptop and swung it under my arm. “Have to get back to the detective,” I said apologetically.
    “Oh, right. What does he want now?”
    “He’s asking about reactions to tattoos and inks.” I indicated the laptop. “Figured I’d pull up some Google images for him.”
    “Have you ever thought about that citizens police academy?” He was totally serious.
    I made a face and rolled my eyes at him as I left. Flanigan hadn’t moved, or at least it looked as if he hadn’t. Nothing looked out of place, so I couldn’t tell if he’d snooped while I was gone. I put the laptop on the desk and powered it up, bringing up Google and my search. When the images popped up, I turned the laptop around and showed them to him.
    “Someone could get an infection because of the inks or because of a bad tattooist,” I explained as he examined an image of a tattoo that we couldn’t even identify because of the infection.
    “So you can’t tell which?” Flanigan asked, reaching into his breast pocket. He pulled out an iPhone and tapped the screen a couple times before holding it out toward me.
    It looked like what we were looking at on the laptop: a distorted tattoo that was bright red with little hivelike bumps.
    I frowned. “What’s this?”
    “This was a tattoo Miss Carmichael had.”

Chapter 4
    S he’d most definitely had a reaction—the reaction she’d feared.
    “This isn’t the flamingo,” I mused.
    Flanigan shook his head. “You can’t tell if this would be caused by the ink?”
    “Can I see it more closely?” I asked.
    He did one better than that. He zoomed in and showed me how to move the picture around so I could see all of it up close and personal-like. But