Driven to Ink Read Online Free Page A

better? Maybe he did that, and he couldn’t stop. Maybe he strangled himself by mistake.” As I spoke, I began to wonder whether that wasn’t what had happened.
    “With a dead rat?”
    Okay, so I’d forgotten that tiny detail.
    Tim started scratching his chin in that way he does when he’s deep in thought. “Although it’s an interesting theory.”
    I left him with that as I went into the bedroom, plastic garbage bag in hand for my clothes. I filled the bag and stuck it in the hall, shutting my door before heading to the shower.
    It felt really good standing under the stream of water, the heat soaking into the Celtic cross across my upper back, the dragon that curved around my torso from my breast to my hip, Monet’s garden on one arm and a Japanese koi on the other, and the tiger lily stretching along my side. Not to mention Napoleon on my calf.
    I knew I wasn’t done yet, though. Getting tattooed, I mean. Every time a client came in, I wondered what my next one would be. The last was the koi, designed and inked by Jeff Coleman himself.
    As I pulled my tank top on over my favorite denim skirt, I heard Bruce Springsteen singing “Born to Run.” My phone had fallen off the bed when I was getting changed. I picked it up and heard, “Kavanaugh?”
    Speak of the devil. Jeff Coleman was the only person who ever called me by my last name and only my last name. I couldn’t remember him ever calling me Brett.
    “Yeah?”
    “The cops called.”
    “I gave them your number. I didn’t know where Sylvia and Bernie were staying.”
    “Why do you think they’re involved with this?”
    “Jeff, they had my car at the wedding chapel. This guy is from the wedding chapel. I’m sorry if it seems clear to me that perhaps Sylvia and Bernie might know something. They may even have met this guy before he was killed.”
    A loud knock resonated through the room.
    “Hold on,” I said to Jeff as I tugged the door open.
    Tim was holding the bag with my clothes. “Is this it?” he asked.
    I nodded. “Everything.”
    He strutted down the hall and out of sight.
    “Kavanaugh?” I heard Jeff asking.
    “Yeah, I’m here.” I wasn’t going to tell him that I had to strip down. There were things Jeff Coleman didn’t need to know. “There wasn’t only a dead body in the car.”
    “What?”
    I told him about the rat.
    “How do you get yourself into situations like this, Kavanaugh?”
    “I didn’t get myself into this situation, Jeff. It was your mother. By the way, did you reach her?”
    He was quiet long enough so I thought maybe the call had been dropped.
    “Hello? Hello?” I asked.
    “I’m here.” But then it got quiet again.
    “Hello?”
    “Yeah, yeah, I hear you. There’s just a little problem.”
    I didn’t like his tone.
    “Problem? What kind of problem?”
    “My mother and Bernie never checked into their hotel at the Grand Canyon. I have no idea where they are.”

Chapter 4
    N ow this wasn’t exactly a surprise. Sylvia Coleman didn’t always do what anyone expected of her. Which was probably why she’d gotten her first ink when she was fourteen and didn’t stop until most of her body had been covered.
    “I called Bernie’s daughter, Rosalie,” Jeff was saying. “She had the same information I did. Now she’s worried.”
    Something about the way he said it made me ask, “But you’re not?”
    Jeff chuckled. “You know my mother. She moves to a different drummer.”
    As I said.
    “If they stopped somewhere else that she might have liked better, then plans would change,” Jeff continued. “My mother is the queen of spontaneity. She told me the one thing that irritated her about Bernie was how he had to plan everything months in advance.” He paused. “She said she was going to change all that.”
    Seemed as though she’d already started.
    “So you don’t think something happened to them. Something bad,” I added.
    “My mother can take care of herself.”
    Well, I had to agree with