Tattooed (26 page)

But if Frances’ daughter was a suspect in this notorious case, he would not want anything to do with her.

God. What a mess. “Thanks, Nat. I’ve got to run.”

“No problem. But remember, when your client gets arrested for Heather Rigby’s murder, I get dibs on the exclusive. You know, quid pro quo.”

Kate laughed. “She didn’t kill anyone, Nat. She’s not capable of it.”

“So, if it wasn’t her, why were the police at her house?”

“I don’t know.” Kate couldn’t implicate Kenzie. That could interfere with the police investigation, and she had learned from bitter experience with the Lisa MacAdam case how important it was to stay out of their business.

But she could defend her own client.

And if that meant that the media turned their focus to a different Sloane, then so be it.

32

K
enzie stretched her shoulders and reloaded the needle with ink. She found herself glancing at her purse in the corner. Even though she had erased the text message from McNally, her cell phone now seemed like a ticking bomb.

Her client lay on his back, eyes closed. Conversation had become sparse in direct proportion to the stages of completion of the tattoo. The ribs were a sensitive area, and Kenzie worked as quickly as she could. Her client had tolerated the outline of the hannya mask well. It was the shading that was killing him. After three hours, the mask was almost done. And Kenzie’s nerves were almost shot.

Kenzie had tattooed many hannya masks over the years. A traditional Japanese theatre mask that originated in the fourteenth century, the hannya mask was a popular symbol for good luck, even though it depicted the demonic rage of a woman who had been betrayed. The horns, the bulging eyes, the glowering expression—it had never bothered her.

Until today.

“The police have revealed that murder victim Heather Rigby had been wearing a rubber Halloween mask of a witch when her body was hidden in the bogs at Chebucto Head.” The killer’s final, gruesome act was constantly replayed in the newspaper, the radio, the TV.

Heather had not been wearing a mask when Kenzie pulled the trigger.

Kenzie wished she had. Then she would never have seen the shock in her eyes, the rictus of pain twisting her mouth, the blood that eventually erupted from her lips and ran in a rivulet down her neck.

Kenzie’s hand shook. The red ink that she used to shade the demon’s mask trickled down the side of her client’s rib cage.

Blood gushed from the wound in Heather’s chest, running in separate streams across her ribs.

Kenzie’s nose stung from an acrid, burning smell. Only then did she realize that a bullet had been fired.

“Shit,” Lovett cried.

A moan broke from Heather’s throat. Her eyes, so brown, so afraid, locked with Kenzie’s. Help me, they begged.

Help me.

McNally threw Kenzie a triumphant look. “Guess you got lucky,” he said.

Heather gasped. Tried to cough through the blood.

She was dying.

She knew it, Kenzie knew it, Lovett and McNally knew it.

Stumbling sideways, Kenzie propelled herself through the small door.

“Where are you going, Kenz?” McNally panted. “You’re gonna miss the grand finale!”

She heard him yell after her, “I’m doing this for you, Kenzie! Come back here!”

Warm, damp air enclosed her as she stumbled down the slope. The peat bogs lay below. Silent, watchful.

Shrouded with mist that both invited and repelled.

In the distance, she heard McNally shout, “Get her, Lovett!”

She ran onto the hummocks, her feet sinking into the spongy mass. The mist crawled over her skin, under what was left of her clothes. The damp chilled her, and she began to shiver, her teeth chattering.

The cocaine-fuelled adrenaline that had pounded in her veins, rampaged through her cells—that had given life to the wings of the raven inked on the back of her neck until they beat in time with her heart—was gone. The mist enveloped her and whisked the adrenaline from her muscles, leaving a chill damp that radiated from her very marrow.

She would never be warm again.

A sob threatened to break from her throat. She was moving too slowly. The bog had tricked her, promising to obscure her path but instead it grabbed her boots and wouldn’t let go.

Lovett. Where was Lovett?

She glanced over her shoulder.

He wasn’t behind her.

Relief bubbled through the tightness of her chest. He had taken the path that ran along the cliff.

She stumbled across the bogs toward the woods, the mist absorbing the sound of her feet splashing through the water, the thud of her body as she fell and righted herself, the panicked breathing as she gasped for air.

When she reached the woods, she heard the first splash.

Lovett had realized his mistake. He had turned around.

He had come to the bog.

And just as the mist had protected her, it now shielded him.

She couldn’t stop, couldn’t catch her breath.

The branches of the bushes whipped her face, snatched at her hair.

One almost took out her eye.

But she cleared the woods and found the road.

Only then did she realize that she still carried the gun.

Kenzie could barely breathe. She bent over her workstation to compose herself. After a few deep breaths, she wiped the ink from her client’s skin.

The hannya mask was almost completed.
Just finish the damn thing, Kenzie. And never do a hannya mask again.

The only area of the tattoo left to complete were the eyes. She dipped the needle in black ink and pressed on the pedal of her tattoo machine. She would outline the irises first. Her hand moved quickly, steadily. She focused on the smallest of details, not allowing herself to glance at the mask in its entirety. Then it would have no power over her.

All she needed to add were the yellow highlights. A slight sheen of sweat dotted her upper lip. She dipped the needle into the ink and drew it into the tube.

She stretched the tattoo, lowering the tattoo needle to the irises of the mask. Its bulging gaze was accusing, angry. Vengeful.

They were McNally’s eyes.

They were Heather’s eyes.

They were Imogen’s eyes.

They were Detective Ethan Drake’s eyes.

Oh, God. I’m going crazy.

Her hand shook so much that she put down the tattoo gun.

“Just need a sip of water,” she told her client, and rushed to the washroom. She locked the door.

She pressed a wet paper towel to her cheeks and studied her face in the mirror. The koi, curling protectively around her neck, was exactly the same.

And yet she knew that her life had changed. The police were investigating. The media was riding this story full tilt.

The tattoo had been discovered.

But that wasn’t what caused the terror twisting her intestines.

It was the drawing that John McNally had sent this morning.

He was telling her it was time to strike again.

Her breath stopped in her throat, her heart jumping into overdrive as a thought hit her.

McNally wanted to kill Kate Lange.

She could kill two birds with one stone.

She would pretend to go along with him in this ridiculous fantasy to re-create Imogen Lange’s death.

She would let him kill Kate Lange.

And then she would kill him.

A murder-suicide. The police would think that McNally had killed Kate, and then killed himself.

God.

That would be perfect.

This koi would always survive the waterfall.

33

W
hen Ethan arrived at the war room, Ferguson, Liscomb and Lamond were clustered together, sifting through photos. Ferguson glanced up. Her eyes gleamed. “Ethan, FIS struck gold.”

Liscomb grinned. “We found a hair.”

“Where?”

“Inside the rubber Halloween mask. If you recall, since the victim’s skin had slipped—” it always seemed a strange term, to Ethan, although a very blunt description of the epidermal layer literally slipping off the dermal layer of skin “—her hair was no longer attached to the scalp. A fair amount of it still remained inside the mask. Rigby’s hair was shoulder-length and medium-brown. But we found a hair that was three inches longer, and under microscope, revealed pigments of pheomelanin, which produces
red
hair color.”

Ethan’s pulse leapt. “Can you get any DNA?” That would be the evidentiary clincher.

Liscomb shook her head. “Unfortunately not. The hair follicle appeared to be in the
telogen
phase.” That meant the hair had been in the phase of hair growth, where the hair fell out naturally from the scalp. “You only get a DNA sample when there is some tissue still attached to the follicle, and in this case, even if the hair had been pulled out, it is doubtful any DNA could have been recovered.”

Without DNA evidence, hair samples could be used to differentiate or place individuals at the scene of a crime, but they could not stand on their own to convict a person. The ability of the hair examiner, the age of the evidence, and the environmental factors created too many variables for a case to rest on one single microscopically examined hair.

“Still, we now have a hair that could place Kenzie Sloane at the scene of the crime.”

Ferguson nodded. “She checked out of her hotel last night. She is, at present, working at Yakusoku Tattoo.”

“Where’s she staying?”

Ferguson gave him a look. “With a dog walker named Finn Scott.”

Are you kidding me?
“What’s the connection?”

“She tattooed him. And he walks her dog.”

“And now she’s moved in with him? Man, that’s some service he provides,” Lamond murmured.

Ethan wondered what Kate thought of that turn of events. He knew that Finn, Kate’s dog walker, spent a lot of time at her house. She couldn’t be happy that the woman who had lured her sister into drugs was now his houseguest, even temporarily.

“I say we bring her in,” Lamond said.

Ethan caught Ferguson’s eye. They could arrest her without a warrant and detain her for twenty-four hours for questioning. After that, they would have to lay charges in front of a judge—or let her go. If they arrested her prematurely, they might not have enough evidence to get her charged.

But she knew something, Ethan’s gut was sure of it. And if she left Halifax, they might never find Heather’s killer.

Especially if the killer was Kenzie.

“I agree with Lamond,” Ferguson said. “Let’s bring her in before she flies the coop.”

Ethan nodded. “Send Redding to Finn Scott’s and arrest her.”

Redding was not part of the investigating team, and thus would protect them if Kenzie Sloane’s defense lawyer claimed that the accused had been questioned at the scene, which created the risk that further statements would be declared inadmissible. Plus, given Finn’s relationship with Kate, Ethan did not want to be the arresting officer.

“We should have Ms. Sloane back at the station by supper time,” Ethan said. “I’ll do the interview. Lamond, you can be the monitor.” The monitor was the person who watched the interview on a video stream and would give the interviewer feedback to help direct the course of the questioning.

He pushed back his chair. “Everyone eat. This is gonna be a long night.” He hurried outside. He needed to call Kate and tell her he wouldn’t be over tonight.

* * *

Kenzie broke down her workstation, her movements precise and methodical. She had erased McNally’s text, but she knew he would find her tonight.

And then…

She shivered.

You can do it.

You’ve done it before.

She rolled Foo’s blanket and stuffed it into her bag. Foo pawed at her leg. She picked him up.

“By tomorrow, we’ll never see this hellhole again,” she murmured into her pug’s ear. He gave a long exhale of contentment. His warmth, his solid little body, his heart beating against hers—it never failed to soothe her.

She knocked on Yoshi’s office door.

He looked up from his drafting board. “Hey.”

“Hey.” She closed the door behind her. “I have to leave tonight.”

“What’s up?” His gaze was concerned, but not surprised.

He’d been expecting her.

“I’m heading home. I’m sorry to bag on your clients.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “But this has been the visit from hell.”

He put down his pencil. “What’s going on, Kenzie?”

She couldn’t confide in him, as much as she wanted to unburden herself. “Sorry, it’s personal.”

“Listen, I heard the police question you yesterday. And they were in a few days ago with a drawing.”

Her body went still. “A drawing?” She cleared her throat. “What was it?” But she knew. She knew what it was.

She had seen it, raw and bleeding at the base of Heather’s neck.

She had felt every line, had known every angle, had exulted in the knowledge that the waiting was now over.

Heather had been marked.

Let the games begin.

“It was a raven,” he said, his voice soft.

His eyes held hers. He remembered the raven tattoo on the base of her neck—over which she had asked him to tattoo a peony years ago. He would have realized that Heather’s was an identical design.

“Did you tell them it was a raven?”

He ran his hand over the bristle on his head. “I’m sorry, Kenzie. At the time, I didn’t know the connection… .”

She jumped to her feet. “There is no connection. None. Lots of people have similar tattoos.”

“And that is what I will tell the police if they ask me,” he said, his voice calm. “I didn’t tell them I’d seen that design before.” He let his words sink in. “Are you in trouble, Kenzie? Can I help you at all?”

She shook her head. “No. I just need to go home. Everything will be fine.”

“Safe journey.” Yoshi hurried around his desk and gave her a hug.

“Thank you, Yoshi,” Kenzie whispered. “You’ve always been a true friend.”

She scooped Foo into her arms and strode out of his office.

It took a minute for her brain to comprehend what her subconscious had already registered: that one by one, the tattoo machines had stopped buzzing. The room fell silent. Except for the sounds of two men walking toward her. One was a uniformed police officer. The other man, who was extremely tall, wore a suit.

Foo wriggled in her arms. He began to bark.

She put him down. “Quiet, Foo.”

The tall man stood in front of her, effectively blocking her path. The uniformed cop walked to her side. Foo angled his body between the men and Kenzie’s foot and glared upwards, his brow furrowed. If it had been any other moment but this, Kenzie would have smiled.

“Kenzie Sloane?”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

“I am Detective Constable Redding of the Halifax Police Department.” He held out his badge. “You are under arrest for the murder of Heather Catherine Rigby.”

There was a gasp from a customer in the front of the shop.

Oh, fuck off.

The rest of what the detective said was so clichéd—Kenzie had heard something similar on all those
CSI
shows—that it didn’t truly register that the words were meant for her until the detective asked her to repeat it.

“Me?” she asked. Why would he want her to repeat it?

She couldn’t.

He repeated himself, and asked her to tell him what he said. It was only then that she could paraphrase the caution that he had read to her.

The patrol officer snapped handcuffs on her wrists. And that snapped her out of her disbelief.

“Foo! What about my dog?” she asked the detective.

He glanced around the shop. “Can someone look after Ms. Sloane’s dog for twenty-four hours?”

Kenzie searched the onlookers for Yoshi. He stood to one side, his eyes round with dismay behind his John Lennon glasses. Her face flushed with shame.

“Yoshi, can you call Finn and ask him to take Foo?” There was the slightest tremble in her voice. She held out Foo’s leash.

Her old, trusty friend hurried over. His expression was so sad, a little piece of her heart broke.

But it couldn’t compare to how she felt when she saw the panic in Foo’s eyes as the police led her away.

He pulled so hard on his leash that he began to choke. She threw a worried glance over her shoulder. “It’s okay, baby,” she called.

His eyes beseeched her.

Come back.

Her heart broke.