Page 25 of Christmas Ransom

She’d been sitting cross-legged at the end of the couch, but now she rolled up onto her knees and crawled toward him. He tried not to flinch when she jerked back the collar of his shirt to expose the tattoo.

“Why is your neck all red?” she asked, as if afraid to touch it.

“I told you—the Santa costume gave me a rash. I was itchy. I had to scratch or go crazy.”

She made no comment, simply ran the tip of her finger over oneJ, then the heart. He was waiting for her to finish by tracing the otherJwhen she said, “What’s that at the bottom of the heart?” as if she’d never paid much attention to the tattoo before.

He’d gotten the painful tattoo forheras a symbol of his love. He bit back the bitter taste in his mouth that urged his tongue to lash out at her. “It’s another, smaller heart.”

“It looks black, but it has something in it. Something squiggly. Maybe it’s just a mistake, but it looks like a snake.”

“What is your point?” he snapped and pulled away from her, buttoning up his collar as he tried to tamp down his growing impatience with her. He’d gotten the tattoo for her, he’d robbed the bank for her, he’d gone back to work instead of taking the money and leaving—all for her. So things hadn’t gone as planned. That was life. Learn to live with it. He had.

“Who did your tattoo?” she asked, after going back to the other end of the couch and picking up her wineglass. Even that annoyed him. She couldn’t drink beer with him and had to have wine like she was someone he really doubted she was. But even as he thought it, he realized he didn’t know much about her.

He couldn’t help but think about what Cora Brooks had said. Was it possible her family had lived up in the mountains around here? Cora had made them sound like survivalists or criminals or squatters. Nothing good. Jesse had never wanted to talk about her family.

Then again, maybe Cora didn’t know what she was talking about. Maybe Jesse came from money. Maybe all her relatives drank wine. She could have been royalty for all he knew.

Except that she was with him, which told him she didn’t come from money any more than he did and there wasn’t a royal bone in her body.

“It was just a shop on the street in Butte. I don’t even remember its name.” There was no reason not to tell her. Then again, she didn’t have to know everything, especially about that night.

“You don’t remember which shop.” Clearly she didn’t believe him. She turned to glare down the length of the couch at him. “You might not remember the shop, but there will be paperwork. Paperwork with your name on it.”

He wondered how she knew so much about tattoos, since as far as he knew, she’d never had one. But now she had him worried. He tried to remember what information he’d given the tattooist. He vaguely recalled signing something. A consent form? Had he shown his driver’s license? Maybe—he wasn’t sure. He’d had way too much to drink, and his friend had plied him with more as he’d egged him on. Jud had been feeling no pain—at first—and had been glad that he hadn’t had enough money for Jesse’s whole name. He’d gotten what he could afford. Something simple and quick. So who cared what was at the bottom of the heart?

“Maybe you should try to remember and get to the artist before the feds do, don’t you think?” Jesse said.

Only if the feds find out where I got the tattoo, he thought. What were the chances?

Jesse sighed and asked as if reading his mind, “Haven’t you taken enough chances?”

He didn’t bother to answer. He could tell that nothing he could say would make a difference. Only one thing would appease her. He shook his head, even as he knew he would do whatever she asked. Worse, she knew it.

Chapter Fifteen

Davy had little hope that they could track down the person who’d given the man the tattoo, but they had to try. The tattoo was simple, nothing unique about it that he could tell from the sketch Carla had drawn.

He’d had to park off Main Street because of the lack of parking with Christmas so close. Even the sidewalk was fairly crowded as they headed to Lonesome’s only tattoo shop. He found himself looking at everyone they passed and trying to keep himself between them and Carla. Earlier, he’d considered just emailing all the tattoo parlors within a hundred-mile radius with an accompanying shot of the tattoo, but he’d learned that people were more forthcoming in person.

The shop wasn’t much more than a hole-in-the-wall with one chair and one artist. The sign in the window read only Tattoos. The owner’s name was Big John, a burly former state-champion wrestler who’d done time in Deer Lodge for check fraud. It was in prison that he’d apparently gotten hooked on injecting ink under other people’s skin, where it stayed forever.

“Davy Colt!” Big John bellowed when he saw him. “You finally decided to get a tattoo.” He laughed uproariously and slapped him on the back before saying hello to Carla. It was a small town and Big John had gotten his start-up loan at her bank, she’d told Davy before they entered the shop. “Not afraid of an angry bull, but a little needle...”

Davy had heard all of this before. Big John had been trying to get him and his brothers tatted for years. He hoped to get this over with as quickly as possible. He pulled the sketch from his pocket and held it out to the tattooist.

“This is what you want?” Big John asked with a chortle.

“No, I need to know if you did this design.”

The man looked insulted. “A child could have done that.”

“So I’m taking it that you didn’t. Who might have done it?”

The tattoo artist was shaking his head when Carla spoke up. “I know it’s really basic, but I think that little squiggle at the bottom inside the tiny black heart could be a trademark or just a slip of the needle.”

Davy shot her a look, surprised she knew something about tattoos.

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