Dark Ink Tattoo: Ep 3 by Cassie Alexander

Chapter 1
     
    What could Bella have wanted with members of the Pack?
    I drove away from Paco’s house – I hadn’t gone inside to be tempted. His place was isolated enough, I left his keys under his doormat and the magician’s shirt inside the car with a note that said, “Wash me,” as if the smell of sex on it wasn’t warning enough.
    Playing with the Pack wasn’t like her. She’d always seemed too smart for that, she didn’t need drugs to get high, she saw enough strange things without them, like auras. Maybe the Pack’d promised her a lead on ayahuasca. I snorted, and took the exit toward my apartment. I wanted to dowse again, to see where the blood would lead, but it was too close to dawn. Hopefully I’d still feel Paco’s blood tomorrow.
    It wasn’t till I pulled into my parking spot that I looked at my phone. A short note from Paco, sent two hours after I’d left, I must’ve missed it with all the fucking.
    check ur email
    was all it said, and I rushed inside.
    Sugar was excited to see me, talking at me in Siamese. I picked her up to pet her and went for my desk. I did most of my drawing at Dark Ink on the nice drafting table, but I had a small set up here that included paints and a computer. I didn’t have much cause to look at porn anymore now that I was living my so-called-life, but I still kept it connected to the internet, mostly to scan my art in. I logged in and checked my email, and sure enough Paco’d sent me one, empty of everything except extensive attachments.
    Crime scene photos. He did have the hook-up, after all, even after midnight. I downloaded them one by one, watching the last images of Bella resolve, and flipped through them slowly, looking forsomething, I didn’t know what. I stayed on the last one, her face vacant, dark hair spilled across the carpet like a mirror of her blood.
    There had to be a reason she overlapped with the Pack – and they didn’t seem like the type who wanted their palms read. I worried at it as long as I could, looking for something in the photos I hadn’t seen already in person, finding nothing. It was almost dawn when I emailed Paco back.
    Thanks.
    What’ve you got on the Pack?
    I let the cursor blink there for a moment and added: (also really make sure you wash that shirt) and hit send.
    After that I took a long hot shower and crawled in between the wooden walls of my bed-fortress, pulling the lid on before dawn rose.
    * * *
    I woke up the same way I’d died, with Sugar scratching outside my coffin. “Hey,” I reassured her, and went for my computer.
    Paco’d come through again.
    Shirt’s clean but from the smell of it you’ll never be able to wash the stain off your soul.
    Here’s what you wanted -- let me know why. The Pack’s bad news. Don’t mess with them. I mean it.
    This time the attachments were even more extensive.
    A lot of them were things I’d heard already, bikers, guns, drugs, and a lot of interesting suppositions – mysterious disappearances they weren’t able to tie to the club due to missing bodies. Of course a member of the Pack would run girls.
    But why would Bella let herself be run?
    I searched the documents for the names Amber’d given me, Wade, Murphy, Jonah, Daziel and all of them had been in and out of jail, manslaughter, smuggling, lighter charges. The only one who’d ever gotten caught truly red handed was their leader, Gray, and he was ‘safe’ in prison, protected by Las Vegas’s PD.
    I rocked back from the desk and wiped my face – it was only nine PM, and I didn’t have much more to go on than I did twelve hours ago. I was going to have to go back to the biker bar but I could guarantee nothing nefarious was going to happen there before midnight.
    Sugar meowed up at me.
    “Yeah, you think so?” I asked her, reaching down to knuckle her head. “I agree. It’s time for laundry.” 
    I gathered up the things I’d been wearing for my past few encounters and came up with a pile of worn-in dark denim