Poison Ink (23 page)

“I’ll take care of it. You can pay me back by taking me shopping tomorrow.”

Sammi glanced at her in surprise. “Girls’ day?”

Doubt touched her mother’s eyes. “If you want to.”

After the harsh words of the night before, her mom was reaching out to her. Sammi felt a bittersweet happiness welling up inside her. She’d been trying to keep it in, but her mother had hurt her deeply last night.

“I’ll even take you out to lunch.”

“I’d like that,” her mom said. “Do you have plans tonight?”

Sammi nodded. “I’m going to go get ice cream with Zak and Rachael.”

She hated how smoothly the lie came out.

“Ooh, bring some back for me?”

“If we don’t go anywhere after, for sure,” Sammi said. “And if we do, I’ll find some Ben & Jerry’s somewhere.”

“Ah, yes, Ben and Jerry. Friends to lonely women everywhere.”

The joke had the sting of truth, but mother and daughter both chose to laugh and ignore it. They were done talking about anything serious for a little while.

Sammi went upstairs. Nervous, she paced back and forth across her bedroom a couple of times, then stopped to stare out the window. It was after seven, and the long afternoon shadows were coalescing into evening.

Taking a deep breath, she fished her cell phone from her pocket and flipped it open, then dialed a number she knew by heart. None of the girls had her new cell number, so they wouldn’t have it programmed in. No one would know it was she calling. Sammi tried Katsuko first, but when she got no answer she hung up without leaving a message.

Next she tried T.Q. and listened to her ringback tone, a metallic sound that simulated the way phones had rung in times gone by.

“Hello?”

Sammi couldn’t breathe a word.

“Hello?” T.Q. said, an edge to her voice, maybe wondering if the call had been dropped, or thinking someone was screwing with her.

“T.Q. It’s me. Don’t hang up.”

The soft laugh that came over the phone sent a chill through her. “Sammi. Now, this is interesting. What, you want another ass-kicking?”

“I’ll pass, thanks. What I want is the tattoo.”

Silence fell on the phone line, lingering long enough that Sammi wondered if the call had been cut off. Then T.Q. asked her the question she’d been dreading.

“Why? You wouldn’t do it before. Scared your uptight parents would crush you under the weight of their disappointment. So why now?”

“I know what I did to you all, how much it must’ve hurt. I turned my back on you. I’m not gonna lie, T.Q. What you all did to me, I’d like a little payback for that. It wasn’t right. But some of it, maybe I had coming. As for my parents, forget them. They’re getting a divorce. My father moved out. Whatever I thought I had here that I wanted to protect, obviously it was an illusion. And besides…”

Sammi swallowed hard.

“I miss you guys.”

God, those words hurt to say. The lies were easy. But the truth broke her heart.

T.Q. must have heard the pain in her voice.

“Could be we went too far with you that night,” she said. “But you know how it is. You’re with us, or you’re against us.”

“I want to be with you again.”

“You still have the original design?” T.Q. asked.

“Yeah.”

“When do you want to do this?”

“Tonight. I’m going down to Rachael Dubrowski’s shop on Whittier Street. They close at nine, but she said if I came by around nine-thirty she’d do it for me without my parents’ permission.”

“She goes out with your cousin, right?”

“Yeah, Zak,” Sammi said. “Rachael did that airbrush one for me. But I told her I want the real thing now.”

“Why not go to Dante’s?” T.Q. asked.

“Does it matter? My mother knows I’m going out with Zak and Rachael tonight. She’s been looking over my shoulder constantly since my father moved out. I can’t get away with anything. Besides, isn’t the design what matters? It’s supposed to connect me to you guys, right? As long as I follow Dante’s design exactly—”

She almost said,
The spell will still work,
but cut herself off. For long seconds, T.Q. was silent, and Sammi began to worry. She wasn’t some kind of witch or whatever. If Dante needed to paint the tattoo on by himself, her plan wouldn’t work at all.

“You want us to meet you there?” T.Q. asked.

Sammi steadied her breathing, feeling her face flush with heat. This would be where things got risky.

“Just you.”

“What?”

“It’s just, I always felt closest to you, T.Q. And when everyone found out I’d done the airbrush thing, you never seemed as totally furious as Letty and Caryn and Katsuko. I would’ve just surprised all four of you, but I need a witness. No secrets this time.

“Will you do it? Meet me downtown at nine-thirty and be my witness, so when I show the other girls, there isn’t any doubt about the tattoo?”

“Yeah. I’ll meet you there,” T.Q. said.

“Excellent.”

“And Sammi?”

Sammi paused, thinking of a thousand ways T.Q. could screw up her plans. “Yeah?”

“Welcome back.”

15

R
achael’s tattoo shop embodied everything that Dante’s did not. Whittier Street had a frame shop and a dry cleaner’s, a bagel shop and a candle store. There had been a funky little shop that sold the kinds of cloaks and gowns, swords and leathers popular at Renaissance fairs and fantasy conventions, but it had lasted less than a year. A sign in the window advertised a comic book shop opening soon, but for now that storefront stood vacant.

A light still burned in the bagel shop, but as Sammi walked along Whittier Street, the rest of the windows were dark. Only the restaurants stayed open this late in Covington. Last time she’d glanced at her cell phone, it had been about ten past nine. She picked up the pace as she hurried toward the purple awning in front of Skin Colors. A lantern hung by the door. The drapes had been drawn across the large window in front, but the little sign—Body Art by Rachael—was illuminated by the lantern light.

The Closed sign had been turned around.

Sammi rapped softly on the door. As she waited, she reached down and felt the little plastic bottle in the pocket of her leather jacket. Impatient, she glanced around for any sign that T.Q. had already arrived, but the only other person on the street was a young guy in a business suit walking up to the front door of one of the old factory buildings that had been converted into condos. A little Kia drove by, and she raised her hand to knock again.

Before her knuckles could hit the door, she heard someone fiddling with the lock. The door swung inward and Zak stood on the other side of the threshold. Normally he would have been smiling, but not tonight. Whatever would go down here, he knew there was more to it than Sammi had let on.

“Hey,” he said, backing up so she could enter.

“Hey.” She swept past him.

Zak closed the door behind her, and she heard the lock tumble back into place. “So, you going to tell me what this is all about?”

Sammi smiled. “Where’s Rachael?”

The shop couldn’t have been more different from Dante’s. Yes, the equipment was there, but it was all elegance and art, tapestries and candles, almost a Victorian feel. Heavy curtains hung at the rear of the front room, closing off an area for more intimate procedures. That was where Rachael had given Sammi the airbrush tattoo she’d used to try to deceive the girls.

“Washing up. She’ll be out in a minute.”

He still wore that expectant look, waiting for her to start talking.

“I just need to use the bathroom real quick. T.Q.’s going to be here in a minute. Hopefully alone. Please let her in. She’s my witness.”

Zak flinched. “Sam. You’re really doing this? This girl helped put you in the friggin’ hospital.”

“Trust me.”

She went through the curtains and then through the door that led into the storage area at the back of the shop. Rachael glanced up from a shelf of plastic ink containers she’d been rearranging. There were a couple of empty boxes at her feet.

“Hey!” she said. “Great to see you. Anna said you were doing well. You look amazing.”

Sammi smiled.
Amazing for a girl who got stomped a few weeks ago,
she thought. But she didn’t say it. Rachael was being nice.

“Thanks. Listen, I really appreciate you doing this. You have no idea how much I owe you.”

Rachael rolled her eyes. “Please. When you really needed help, I couldn’t do anything. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Good. Then I’m going to ask you one more small favor.”

Something that might have been suspicion but was at least curiosity crossed Rachael’s face. “Name it.”

“When my friend gets here, I’m going to act like I want you to get started. Instead, I want you to stall. Clean the needle. Pretend it’s jammed. Something. Just for a little while. Twenty minutes, tops. Make conversation, whatever.”

Rachael crossed her arms. “I can do that, Sammi. But I’d kind of like to know why.”

“I swear I’ll tell you. Right after that.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Rachael shrugged. “All right.”

“Great!” Sammi hugged her, the cast only getting in the way a little. “Hey, do you have anything to drink?”

Rachael smiled. “You know I keep the fridge stocked. What do you want? Soda, iced tea, lemonade, or water. It’s all there. Help yourself.”

The last time Sammi had been here, Rachael had served her the greatest iced tea. She’d hoped to find that option again tonight. Iced tea was T.Q.’s favorite. “I’m just going to pee, and then I’ll bring drinks out for everyone.”

“Ooh, service,” Rachael said. “I could get used to that.”

Sammi went into the bathroom. She had genuinely needed to go, but now her nerves had driven the urge away. Instead, she waited a minute until she heard the door close, indicating that Rachael had gone back into the front of the shop. Then she flushed the toilet and washed her hands.

Peeking out of the bathroom, she made sure she was alone. The refrigerator stood near the back door of the storage room, humming softly. From a cabinet she took down four glasses. She filled two with lemonade and one with root beer—which she knew Zak would enjoy—and poured iced tea into the last one.

The plastic bottle in her jacket pocket held the remainder of the Percocet she’d been prescribed upon her discharge from the hospital.

On a counter near the fridge, Sammi found a plastic tray for the drinks. She carried them from the back room into the curtained-off privacy area at the rear of Rachael’s studio. She heard T.Q.’s voice out in front and paused to take a deep breath and plaster on a fake smile. Then she stepped out through the parting of the curtains.

T.Q. had never looked more beautiful. Her red hair glinted gold in the studio lights, and she wore a bone white top over black jeans and shoes. When she smiled at Sammi, it looked almost genuine. She stood between Zak and Rachael, who both looked supremely uncomfortable, and they all glanced up at Sammi as she entered.

“Hey,” T.Q. said.

Then she shifted slightly, and Sammi saw that she hadn’t come alone. Behind her, Katsuko stood in shadow, clad all in black, her hair cut into a severe bob that made her look even more petite. When Katsuko looked up, her smile had an edge to it—a predator’s smile.

Sammi couldn’t keep herself from flinching. “Hey,” she said.

“I know you wanted me to come alone, but Kat and I were out and about tonight. And two witnesses are better than one, right?”

Kat
? Sammi thought. Katsuko hated that nickname.

Or at least, the real Katsuko did.

“Yeah,” Sammi said with a nervous laugh. “You don’t even need a camera this way.”

The tension in the studio continued to build. They were waiting for her to let them know how this was all supposed to go. But Sammi didn’t know anymore. Her pulse sped up as she tried to work the angles in her mind. The plan she’d come up with wasn’t much of a plan, really. Desperation had driven her to it. But it was all she had, and the only choice now was to go forward.

“I brought out some drinks,” she said, stating the obvious. “I didn’t realize Katsuko would be here, so I’ll get another.”

Barely able to breathe, she offered the tray to Zak first, praying that she knew these people well enough to have predicted correctly. When he took the root beer from the tray she felt herself exhale a little and then turned to T.Q., who studied the three remaining drinks too long for Sammi’s liking. She resisted the urge to try to influence the girl’s decision.

T.Q. took the iced tea. She sipped it immediately, then tipped the glass back and drained a quarter of it, ice clinking.

As Sammi offered the tray to Rachael, who took a lemonade, Katsuko stepped up and took the other from the tray, leaving Sammi without a drink.

She glanced at T.Q., then at Rachael. “Let me just grab another lemonade.”

“There’s a ton of sugar in this,” T.Q. said.

Rachael frowned. “Sorry, I didn’t realize—”

“You never do,” Sammi interrupted. “Rachael always overdoes the sugar. I kind of like it that way, though.”

T.Q. said nothing, but took another sip. “You didn’t drag us down here for nothing, right? You’re really going to do this?”