Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  About This Book

  Complimentary Download

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Sneak Peek from Insanity

  About Simon Says…

  Author’s Note

  Complimentary Download

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  About This Book

  Tasmin’s business isn’t for everyone. Yet she recognizes the value she offers for grieving families. Still, the subject isn’t something most people are willing to talk about. However, over time, her business has grown through word of mouth—much to the horror of her family.

  Until a detective walks in, inquiring about a piece that had been stolen overnight. This is the first inkling she has that someone is out to destroy her business. Unfortunately it won’t be the last …

  Detective Hanson MacGyver isn’t sure what to make of Tasmin, yet he understands the need for licensed morticians. However, how she got into the process of preserving tattoos for grieving family and friends is something he has never seen before and isn’t comfortable with. Live and let live works for him as a motto, but, when her works in progress start showing up in public locations and not in a good way, he knows they have someone who hates what she is doing … or hates the owners of the tattoos.

  Something’s off about the whole mess. And that’s just on the surface. When both Tasmin and Hanson dig deeper, a whole lot more is going on underneath. And none of it is normal or nice …

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  KILL OR BE KILLED

  Part of an elite SEAL team, Mason takes on the dangerous jobs no one else wants to do—or can do. When he’s on a mission, he’s focused and dedicated. When he’s not, he plays as hard as he fights.

  Until he meets a woman he can’t have but can’t forget. Software developer Tesla lost her brother in combat and has no intention of getting close to someone else in the military. Determined to save other US soldiers from a similar fate, she’s created a program that could save lives. But other countries know about the program, and they won’t stop until they get it—and get her.

  Time is running out. … For her. … For him. … For them …

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  Chapter 1

  Tasmin Baker opened up the shop door, twisting the sign to Open. Then she propped the door wide open to let out some of the formaldehyde fumes, turned on the lights and headed to the back room, where she put on the coffeepot. When she turned back again, a man, a huge presence, filled the room. Yet she felt no fear.

  He stared at her and asked, “Tasmin Baker?”

  “Yes, that’s me.” She walked toward him with a cup in her hand. “What can I do for you?”

  “I understand you run a very unique business.”

  She snorted at that. “Yeah, something I fell into.”

  He hesitated and then asked, “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me how?”

  “No, not really. What are you, a reporter?” Such disgust filled her voice that she immediately tried to change her tone. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it quite that way.”

  “I’m not a reporter. I’m a cop.”

  At that, she froze, looked up at him, and frowned. “I have a business license, and everything is in order. Even my taxes are paid.”

  He held up a hand. “That’s not why I’m here.”

  “Sure,” she quipped. “In my experience, cops don’t usually come by for any good reasons.”

  He relaxed slightly. “That may be, but I’m not trying to make your life more difficult. However, I do have a few questions for you.”

  “Yeah, about what?”

  He hesitated and then added, “One of the pieces that you’re preserving.”

  She groaned. “Look. A licensed doctor did the cuttings. I have all the paperwork, including the legal stuff,” she stated. “Man, I have more paperwork than you can shake a stick at,” she declared, her tone somewhere between mildly irritated and pissed. “It’s all legal, I assure you. Who is it you’re talking about?” She looked around. “I have quite a few cuttings here. As I told you, I keep a lawyer on tap to help me with this.”

  “I get that,” he replied, then looked at one of the framed pieces. “That’s your uncle, isn’t it?”

  “I hate the way you say that,” she admitted. “That is a piece of my uncle’s artwork, yes,” she stated cautiously.

  “Right.” The cop turned and looked at a couple others on the wall. “Have you ever had any bad press over this?”

  “Lots,” she answered succinctly. “People don’t want to see tattoo preservation as an art form.”

  “It is very personal,” he noted, looking at her, “and it crosses all kinds of boundaries that make people uneasy.”

  “Yes, I get that, but what does that have to do with you?” He hesitated. She wrapped one arm around her ribs then took a sip of her coffee, her eyes watchful.

  “Has anybody tried to stop you from doing this?”

  She shrugged. “Not really. Most people don’t know all the details, except for those interested in having their ink preserved.”

  He nodded. “So there have been no attacks on your shop or anything like that?”

  “No. Why?” she asked curiously. She looked around and frowned. “I mean, everything seemed normal when I opened this morning, but I haven’t really had a chance to get started. This my first cup of coffee since I was a little late coming in, but now you’ve got me worried.”

  “Could you take a look around, please?”

  She stared at him for a moment, then slowly nodded. “I gather you won’t tell me anything until we get that far.”

  “No, it would be nice if I could clear something up first.”

  She put down her coffee cup and glared at him but walked around, checking to make sure everything was as it should be. Then she headed to the back room, to her workshop.

  When she got into the workshop, she flicked on all the lights, looked around, and said, “It looks okay in here.”

  “What about artwork?” he asked.

  “I’ve got four pieces in progress right now,” she stated, as she turned to look at the pieces she had saved. “I’ve got two that are here.” She pointed them out. “Then I’ve got another one in the drying room.”

  She walked into the drying room, frowned, and looked back at him. “That one’s missing.”

  “Missing?”

  “Yes,” she cried out. “Oh my God, it’s missing-missing.” She frantically went through the shop. Then she turned slowly, looked at him, and asked, “You knew it wouldn’t be here, didn’t you?”

  He hesitated.

  “Stop,” she cried out. “I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t know what this has to do with you. I don’t know anything about it, but I’m missing a piece that matters a lot to somebody, and I will wind up in a shitstorm if I don’t find it.”

  “I think I can help you with finding it,” he said, “but it might have been damaged.”

  She stared at him, then he pulled out his phone and showed her an image of a beautiful tattoo.

  She nodded. “Yes, that’s it,” she cried out in relief. Then she looked at him in shock. “What do you mean, damaged? How did you get it?”

  “It was found in one of the fountains downtown,” he explained, “stretched out and nailed into the bottom of the fountain.”

  She stared across the room, her bottom lip trembling, her gut twisting at the image. Ever-so-slowly afraid she’d break and rage at him, she whispered, “What?”

  He nodded slowly. “Somebody decided that preserving the art was the right thing to do, but private it was not,” he noted, “and he put it out for public display. Do you want to tell me who this artwork belongs to?”

  She swallowed hard. “A model, a beautiful model who ended up with cancer and died twelve days ago. I got the legalities taken care of on behalf of her family, with all the paperwork, and the surgeon cut the tattoo off her back, and it was sent to me to preserve for her family.”

  He nodded. “So, do you have any explanation as to how it went from your shop to a fountain where this model’s tattoo is now on display for the rest of the world to see?”

  To say she didn’t have an answer was one thing, but, as she stared at the craggy features in front of her, she realized he wasn’t really looking for those kinds of answers. She took a second, then spoke. “I don’t know what to say.”

  He produced his business card, as a way to formally introduce himself. Then he continued with his questions. “Do you have a security system?”

  She nodded. “An alarm, and it was on when I opened up this morning,” she said cautiously.

  At that, his gaze narrowed. “And you got here to Inked Forever at what time?” He pulled
out a notebook and started to ask her questions.

  She knew she had to answer but didn’t have much to give him. She provided as many details as she could. “I came in at eight a.m., unlocked the door, and disarmed the system. I put on coffee and came back out to find you had walked in,” she said quietly.

  “Who knows the security code?”

  “Lorelei, who’s my sister, and my mother, who both come in to cover for me every once in a while. I’ve had others but no one recently.”

  She pondered the question for a moment. “Obviously the security company has access to it—through their system, I would think—but other than that, I’m not sure,” she said. “I did have a repairman in last week though.” She considered that for a moment and shuddered. “I didn’t honestly think very much about it.”

  “Do you know what company it was?”

  “Not offhand, but I do have an invoice,” she said, walking to the back.

  He followed behind, stopped at the threshold to her small back room, her workshop so to speak, and studied the surroundings.

  “I’m not sure what you’re looking for,” she said, as she glanced up from her paperwork, “but I really don’t do much of the work here.”

  At that, his gaze zinged back toward her. “Are you the one who actually does the preserving?”

  “I work with a mortician.” She stopped and said, “Look. Just in case you didn’t know this, I’m also a licensed mortician myself. It’s just not the field I prefer to work in. My family owns a funeral home, and, once I started doing this preservation work, it became my passion. I don’t do anything else at the funeral home unless, … unless I get called in because they’re really short-handed, but it’s not my preferred line of work.”

  “Yet you went into it as a career.”

  She gave him a ghost of a smile. “For a lot of reasons that I won’t bore you with,” she said, “but I will state that there can be an awful lot of family pressure sometimes.”

  His lips twitched at that. “I’ll give you that. I can’t imagine, particularly in this field, that bucking the family business would be easy.”

  “Well, this field isn’t any different than any other, and, no matter the career, there’s always been that expectation to take over the family industry.”

  “And what about your sister?”

  “My sister did take over the family industry,” Tasmin confirmed, with half a smile. “My parents have no sons, which is where the expectation would hopefully land. As such, my father still works there with Lorelei, and my mother runs the storefront and the office work side of it.”

  “And you’re the one who walked away?”

  “I’m the one who walked away,” she said, with a slightly darker tone.

  “Any problems over that?”

  She pondered that question before answering. “I’m sure my family felt a degree of disappointment, even some aggravation, but this was something I needed to do.”

  “And how do they feel about your chosen field now?”

  “Well, one is disgusted by it, and the other understands—or at least she says she does. Then there is my father. He won’t step foot in my store. He is extremely religious, and, in his mind, when a body is dead and gone, it’s dead and gone and meant to be returned to the ground,” she said quietly. “To him, my preservation business is on the edge of sacrilegious.”

  He studied her for a moment in surprise.

  She shrugged. “There’s just no understanding sometimes, even among family members.”

  “No, I imagine there isn’t. I guess I’m wondering if anybody here in your world would actively be trying to set you up.”

  She stared at him in surprise and then immediately shook her head. “I can’t imagine why, or who, but just because I can’t imagine it doesn’t mean it can’t exist as a possibility,” she said. “It would be extremely disappointing if that’s what happened, but … I suppose it’s possible.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “There was some outcry when an article was done on my business last year, yet an awful lot of people were fascinated by the process, and some were just curious. I did refuse any and all follow-up interviews, mostly because I didn’t have time and just didn’t want to fuel the fire and deal with the fallout again.”

  “What kind of fallout was it, and who did the interview?”

  “It was just the local paper, but the online version went viral, so it kicked up quite a fuss,” she muttered.

  “And I presume it wasn’t in a good way.”

  “Well, I’m not sure there is a good way when it comes to a fuss of that nature. Most people would say that any publicity is good publicity, but I’m here to tell you that it’s not quite true.”

  He nodded. “Particularly in something so controversial.”

  “Exactly, but I’m also an artist, so a part of me really understands why somebody would want to keep their ink forever.”

  “Sure,” the cop agreed. “I guess I can understand why the actual owner might want his ink to last forever, but why would somebody other than the person who was wearing it want someone else’s ink to last forever?”

  At that, she smiled up at him. “Because a lot of people do even weirder things when it comes to losing their loved ones,” she said. “There are people and stories that would make your skin crawl about what people are willing to do to preserve a part of their loved ones,” she said. “We get all kinds of requests.”

  “Such as?”

  She stared at him for a moment. “As long as you aren’t going to ask for names or details, I can tell you that we’ve had people requesting that body ornaments be removed or wanted special things added to body ornaments. One woman wanted a special note added to her husband’s cock ring. Another gentleman, who absolutely loved his wife’s ears, wanted the ear lobes taken off and preserved, so he could have them for himself. Really no way to know how people feel about various aspects of their personal relationships.”

  He stared at her in shock.

  She shrugged. “Nothing stranger in fiction than the actual truth itself.”

  “Yeah, and who said that, some famous poet or something?” he asked, with a note of disgust in his voice.

  “No,” she said. “It was me. And, as an artist, I understand and would like to have things I create survive beyond my life, as a gift to humanity, if anybody saw it that way. But I paint on canvas, not skin, and I paint for the ages. I don’t paint for today.” She could tell that he didn’t quite understand that.

  He gave her a headshake. “I guess there’s no figuring out humans, is there?”

  “No, there sure isn’t,” she said succinctly.

  “Why did you leave the funeral home industry?” he asked, his tone piercing and more abrupt than before.

  She glared at him. “It has nothing to do with this.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe not, but I’m curious, and, if it’s related, I need to know.”

  “I just said it’s not related.”

  “But it’s you, and something is going on here that I don’t quite understand, so I’m not exactly sure I believe you.”

  She shrugged. “You’re a cop. I’m sure you’ve checked the files, but I don’t know if you’ve run my name,” she murmured. “If you do, I’m sure you’ll have all the answers you want.”

  His eyebrows rose ever-so-slowly, as he stared at her. “And you’d rather I go check it out for myself first.”

  “Absolutely, and preferably not come back,” she said, her tone harsher than she intended.

  He nodded. “Fine, I’ll do that. And, if I need to come back, I will. You can count on that.”

  And she had absolutely no doubt that he would.

  “So, the next question is, if you do all this work at your family’s workplace, when did you last see that stolen piece?”

  “I brought it here from the funeral home yesterday and was all set to frame it today.”

  “And what would that entail?”

  She looked at him in surprise. “After preservation, these pieces are almost like parchment paper. They’re a lot more durable and could handle the water in the fountain just fine probably, at least I hope so,” she said, with a wince, as she glanced at him. “How badly damaged is it?”

  “It’s got extra holes along the perimeter. But, outside of the fact that I know what it is, it is a beautiful piece of artwork.”