Chapter 3
Carter
Entering Savage Ink, I walk straight behind the desk where our clients files are stored, completely ignoring Pete who is on his knees scrubbing something under the desk.
I flip through the pages until I find what I’m looking for.
I turn the page tagged for Michelle Collins and there it is, her ID photo.
“Car-Car, I’m talking to you.” I finally register Pete’s words and turn my head to look at him just to be met with a sour face.
“You’re happy now?” He gesticulates to his white shirt.
It’s a gloriously frilly white masterpiece, with more ruffles than your grandma’s curtains and cuffs so fancy you’ll suddenly feel the urge to sip tea with your pinky finger raised.
The high collar practically whispers Count Dracula.
And don’t get me started on the high wig he’s sporting on his head and the pale effect on his face. Wow, he went all in.
The problem is there are brown splotches on the white material and that’s what he probably wants me to see.
“Trouble, this costume is fantastic but should the shirt look like that?” I ask genuinely, to which he huffs and puffs. His face’s getting redder with every second.
Gavin appears on the other side of the counter with his arms crossed over his chest, looking at me like my time on the punishment chair is long overdue.
“He got scared of the spiders and spilled his coffee all over.” Oh the spiders, I totally forgot about that.
“Oh, you found them.” My smile is ginormous but it only makes Pete’s eyes start to water.
“Gav, I think it’s time to look for a new artist,” he says to his husband but looking me dead in the eyes. “I don’t like this one anymore.”
“Now, now, Trouble.” I put the open file on the counter and turn to face Pete.
“Go and dry it in the bathroom. We’ll make great blood stains out of it with red ink.
Instead of being a hungry vampire you’ll be one with a full belly.
I’ll even make fang marks on my neck and you can tell everyone I’m your blood bitch. ”
He chuckles but after a few seconds the sound changes into an evil one and when he speaks he does it with an accent, sounding like a Romanian vamp. “Come on then, blood bitch, I’m thirrrsty.” We all laugh after that.
I reach for the papers but stop in my tracks noticing a red fingerprint in the right corner. I look closer and it seems like the print was made with some kind of thick substance, so not with ink. Was it there before?
“What’s that?” I jump at Gavin’s voice and shake off the weird feeling of something being not right.
Freaking Muscles. He put this idea of her being a ghost in my head. But is she now haunting me? Why?
“Wait isn’t that Michelle? The girl you tattooed with her grandma portrait?”
“Ooooh, Roman sent me a post about her, I didn’t realize it was your client at the time and I did some digging on the case on our way here.” Pete interjects with mischief in his eyes. “People swear they saw her in different places after she died, they say she always leaves a sign behind.”
The devastation on Gavin’s face is apparent. They talked a lot during our session. Pete starts explaining to him what happened but I tune them out.
I think about the girl I saw at the cafe and the cup, with the name on it, which no one claimed and it makes me wonder… Nah, no way. Ghost stories are fun and all but they’re just that — stories.
“Hey what did you do with the file?” Pete asks, grabbing the folder from me. “Is that blood? Did you cut your finger or something?”
He grabs my hand then the other, looking for traces of life juice. “If it is, it’s not mine.”
“Oh my God, that’s creepy as fuck.” He backs away from the papers. “Burn it Gavin, it’s bad juju, if you ask me, and I don’t need more of it here today with all the creepy decorations.”
“Why don’t we just put it back. It’s probably only an ink stain. No bad juju here.” Gavin explains calmly, grabbing the file.
“No, I don’t want it in my work space. Take it with you if you want, I’m not keeping it here.” He states and moves out of the reception. “It better be gone when I'm back from the bathroom and you —” he points his finger at me. “You better start prepping for remaking my outfit, blood bitch.”
Laughing, I reach for my phone which just pinged with a message.
“Ohh, look Gav.” I turn my phone so we can both admire the picture Ro sent me.
“Those guys are crazy.” There’s a bunch of superheroes, police officers and even a dinosaur which kind of looks like a giant dick.
Ha, a dickosaurous. “Hey Ry, take a look at these Avengers.” I walk over to his station and shove the phone in his face.
“That’s neat but that Catrina mask is out of this world.” He takes the device from my hand and enlarges the photo.
“What? Where?” I grab it back and there it is again, in the background behind them. The same blond hair and the same mask as at the coffee shop. I can’t tell in the caption if the person has a tattoo on their shoulder but it’s a big fucking coincidence.