That Touch of Ink (2 page)

I hurried around to the back of the building. The barking grew more agitated. It pained me to think an animal was in trouble. I scanned the back windows and found one that was missing the screen. I checked the windows but they were locked. I looked by my feet for something heavy and settled on a rock about the size of a misshapen baseball. In my high school days, I’d played baseball and although it had been thirty years since I’d pitched a no-hitter, I hoped it was like riding a bike.

I stepped about fifteen feet away from the window, shrugged my shoulders front and back to loosen them up, took a deep breath, and threw a stinger. The rock crashed through the glass, making more noise than I anticipated. I used a second rock to knock away enough shards around the edge to allow me to feed a hand through the window and unlock it, then pushed it up and crawled through.

The small, dirty dog met me at the doorway to the house, tracking paw prints of marinara behind him.

“Shhhh, it’s okay. I’m trying to help you,” I said. I reached down, and he stepped away from me. He was scared. I took two steps into the room and held out a hand so he could sniff me. He turned away and scampered into a dark room that I hadn’t been able to see earlier. I tiptoed into the room with him and tripped over something lying on the floor. I pushed myself into a sitting position and blinked a few times, forcing my eyes to adjust to the darkness.

The room smelled like spaghetti sauce. Something wet soaked through my pink corduroys and I shifted my legs, feeling around the floor through spilled tomato sauce to find out what I’d tripped over.

I screamed when my hand connected with a leg.

TWO

Furiously, I kicked my heels against the hardwood, trying to push myself away from the leg. The leg didn’t kick back, didn’t move. I reached out and felt an arm. I shook it. It was stiff, rigid. I felt up the arm, over the shoulders, to the neck, where I loosened a necktie and undid the top button on a white collared shirt.

The man’s head rolled to one side. There was a bullet hole through his forehead. A trail of blood snaked from the hole toward his temple and pooled with the marinara that chugged from the pot on the floor. I felt for a pulse by his throat but I knew I wouldn’t find it. I knew from the second I’d tripped over him he was dead.

My rubber soles skidded against the floor, denying me traction. After too many failed attempts I flipped myself onto all fours, fought the sickening sensation in my stomach, and pushed myself up to a standing position.

I tripped over my own feet, caught myself on the corner of the desk, and felt around until I found the phone. I dialed nine, then one, then stopped. I was alone in a house where I had no business being. I had broken a window to gain access. I was covered in marinara and blood and a man was dead. I had a strong feeling that his death had not been an accident.

I had a stronger feeling of being sick. This time I lost the battle against the nausea and threw up in a wastepaper basket in the corner.

I found the dog by the back door. I scooped him up and carried him to my car. Whether or not it was the right thing to do, I called the one person I knew in law enforcement: Lieutenant Tex Allen.

“Allen,” he answered.

“Lieutenant Allen, this is Madison. Night. This is Madison Night.” There was a pause. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block the scene inside Paper Trail. It didn’t work.

“Madison Night,” he said. “To what do I owe the honor?”

“I need to see you,” I said. Before he had a chance for an inappropriate counterpoint, I kept talking. “There’s a man at a shop called Paper Trail on Garland Road. He’s been shot. I couldn’t find a pulse. Whatever you’re doing, stop it and get here. Now.”

“Did you call 911?” he asked, the flirtation gone from his voice.

“I called you.”

“Shit, Night.”

Lieutenant Tex Allen was a local detective I’d met during a recent homicide investigation. He’d come on strong, grating on my every nerve with his playboy attitude. Circumstances threw us together; a difference of opinions kept us at odds. He had been with me the day I learned the truth about Brad. That was the last time I’d seen him. In the brief time our paths had crossed, he’d hit me over the head with bravado, pick-up lines, and the unexplained notion that, despite me being an independent woman in vintage apparel who had modeled her life after Doris Day, and he being a homicide detective with a revolving door by his bed, one day we’d date. Whether it was the calm after the storm of his investigation or the knowledge that my past was alive and kicking, we’d gone our separate ways. On more than one occasion, I almost missed him. That surprised me the most.

I hung up the phone, then wondered who exactly I thought I was, hiding five thousand dollar bills from my ex-boyfriend, throwing rocks through windows to rescue abandoned dogs, and commanding homicide detectives to react to my beck and call. The sick-to-my-stomach sensation returned, and I ran from the car to a patch of dry grass. My empty stomach responded only with heaves.

Tires on gravel sounded within minutes. I heard a door slam.

“Night?” Tex yelled.

I took a deep breath and called back, “Behind the building.” The effort of yelling sapped what little energy I had, and I collapsed onto the concrete beam that marked the parking space next to mine.

Tex rounded the building with a purposeful stride. He had on a dark brown suit and tie. It was a more business-like appearance than I was used to from him, having mostly seen him in jeans. I thought about asking him what the occasion was, but didn’t.

Before I could speak, he held up a hand.

“I ask, you answer. I don’t want extraneous details. What happened?”

“I came here to meet with Stanley Mann to find out about a five thousand dollar bill I received in the mail.” I searched Tex’s expression to see if he wanted an explanation for the bill. I wasn’t sure how I’d explain it if he did. His face was unreadable. “He didn’t come to the door. I saw a dog inside. He acted funny. I broke a window and went in. I found a body.”

He dropped his head and ran his thumb and forefinger over his eyes. “Then what?”

I glared at him, ready to defend my decisions. Instead, I calmed my voice. “I checked for a  pulse. I threw up. I carried the dog out to my car. And then I called you.”

He pushed his dirty blond hair away from his forehead and looked at the building. When he turned back to face me, his blue eyes were cold and sharp. “Stay here. I’m going inside.”

He walked away. I sat back down on the concrete beam next to my car and ran my hands over the dog’s fur. I didn’t want to watch Tex go into the house. I didn’t want to hear him feel his way through the dark rooms. I didn’t want to watch him find the body I’d tripped over.

Out of some kind of respect for the awkward position I’d put Tex in, I waited for him to return. I didn’t know how much time passed before he finally did. Could have been minutes or hours.

“Night, listen to me. Do you know that man’s identity?”

“I think he’s the man I came here to meet.”

Tex held his hand palm-side up. “Give me your keys.”

I reacted automatically and set my keys in Tex’s palm.

He went behind my car and opened the trunk. Seconds later he slammed it shut and came back with a beach towel in his hand. He spread it over the driver’s seat of my convertible. He handed my keys back and sat next to me on the concrete beam. 

“I called it in. We have about ten minutes until the cavalry arrives and starts processing this as a crime scene. You have to stay because your presence spoiled the crime scene, and it’s better for us if we know what you did than for you to lie. We’d waste time figuring it out anyway. Right now I want to know as much as you can tell me before anybody gets here. This time don’t edit out details.”

“I received a five thousand dollar bill in the mail.”

“From who?”

“Brad Turlington—my ex, Brad. It had to be him. There was a phone number on the newspaper it was wrapped in. A Philadelphia phone number. I didn’t call it. I wasn’t going to do anything about it, but he showed up at my apartment. Here. In Dallas.”

Our eyes connected and held. I wondered how clearly Tex remembered that day, nine months ago, when he sat next to me in a darkened theater as I learned the truth about Brad.

“Night, I know what you found out about him took you by surprise. It surprised me too. But you didn’t have to walk out of the theater. I would have been there for you if you wanted to talk.”

“It was my past, Tex. My issues. My baggage to deal with.”

“Nobody said you had to deal with it alone.” He paused. “Sorry. Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions. Maybe you didn’t deal with it alone.”

An eerie calm came over me at Tex’s inference of Hudson James, the contractor I relied on for furniture repair and maintenance to the apartment building I secretly owned. After finding out the truth about Brad in that dark theater, I’d withdrawn from life. And then Hudson started coming over.

First, it was to check the smoke detectors in the building. When he said they were due for inspection, I didn’t question him. A week later it was a tear in the carpet on the back steps. When he showed up the following week with a box of energy-efficient light bulbs for the hallway, I met him with two glasses and a bottle of merlot. From that point on, I created the projects, and we worked on them together. We never talked about the homicide. I never told him what I’d learned about Brad. We’d simply enjoyed each other’s company. Slowly, in the months that followed, I’d started to deal with what I’d learned to be the truth about Brad.

Over two years ago, in the middle of a passionate relationship, Brad had surprised me with the news that he was a married man who wasn’t going to leave his wife for me. We’d been on the top of a ski slope in the Poconos. I left him there, turned my back on him and skied down the slope, barely in control. My ski caught on a patch of ice. My tears clouded my vision. My reaction time failed. I fell. I blew out my knee and spent the rest of my vacation in a hospital room.

But that day, last May, in a darkened theater in Dallas, with Tex at my side and a government official in the wings, I learned that Brad’s bombshell had been the real lie.

Brad had never been married. He lied because he was involved with bad people—that’s what he called them—and he knew they’d come after me if I were a part of his life. He’d lied to drive me away—to protect me, not hurt me—but I didn’t know what to do with the cauldron of emotions I felt as a result.

I’d established a new life when I moved to Dallas. I volunteered at a local movie theater and swam laps most mornings alongside senior citizens. I established a business and adopted a puppy. I got along just fine.

And then I met Tex. Despite the conclusions he’d jumped to, I set out to prove that I was an independent woman who could take care of herself. I saved Hudson’s life, helped solve a cold case, and stared down a killer. But the vulnerability I felt after watching Brad’s confession was an arrow through a chink in my armor. I had excused myself from the theater and left without saying good-bye. I hadn’t returned to the theater. I hadn’t returned to my morning swimming routine.

I hadn’t seen Tex again. Until now.

“How did Turlington know you were here?” Tex prompted.

“I don’t know. I haven’t heard from him since—I don’t know. The last time I heard from Brad was the message we watched in the theater.”

“Keep going.”

“I had to do something. I called the numismatist—”

“The who?”

“Stanley Mann. He specializes in collectible currency. He owns Paper Trail. I called him and asked if I could meet with him even though it was late. As soon as he heard about the five thousand dollar bill, he told me to come over. Nobody answered the doorbell when I got here, but I saw the dog inside. He was barking like something was wrong. I broke in because I thought he was hurt.” I kept my hand on the dog’s head. He was shaking.

I was barely making sense to myself, but I felt the pressure of the ticking clock and, like a contestant on the twenty-five thousand dollar pyramid, I babbled out every fact that had brought me to this spot in the hope Tex could process the oil spill of screwed-up logic.

“There’s a bowl of water out front. There’s a toy on the floor. So I looked through the glass on the front door when nobody answered the doorbell. The dog came out from the kitchen, tracking footprints of something. I saw the tipped silver stock and the sauce on the floor. I went around to the back and there was one window where the screen was missing so I used a rock to break the window and climbed in and the room was dark and I tripped over—” I halted abruptly before continuing. Sirens sang—
weeooo, weeooo
—filling my silence. More tires disturbed the lot out front. The whole time Tex kept his icy blue eyes trained on me. “—the body.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s the highlights.”

Tex stood up. He held out a hand and, after a moment of hesitation, I took it and stood next to him. He leaned close, his face inches from mine. “I’m not going to lecture you about what you did. I’m not going to question your motives.”

He turned toward the small army of cops and EMTs who had arrived at Paper Trail. I turned the other direction and stared at the field behind the building.

“Right now, I’m going to go explain what happened here. Soon, I’m going to bring someone over here to take your statement. You are going to tell them what you told me. The truth. That was the truth, right?”

“Of course it was the truth,” I said, turning to face him again.

“Okay.” He started to walk away then stopped and turned back. “Listen to me, Night. Before any of that happens, I want you to do me one favor.”

I stared into Tex’s face, caring less about what his favor would be than the fact that I was in a position where I was required to grant it. “What is it?” I asked quietly.

“I want you to call your boyfriend.”