I turned to Osh, but Nicolette stood pinching the bridge of her nose. She glanced back at me.

I pointed to the space Angel just vacated. “Angel doesn’t like the sight of blood.”

“Let me get this straight,” she said, suddenly annoyed.

I straightened in alarm. What’d I do now?

“We broke into a plasma center so I could draw blood from everyone for … an art project?”

“Yep.”

Walter furrowed her brows. “I thought you said we were stealing a blood collection van.”

“Nope. Too easy to track down.”

“And this is going to save Pari’s life?” Nicolette asked.

“And ignite her creativity. Two birds. One stone.”

She planted both her palms on a desk as though for strength. “You do realize I could have stolen the supplies from the hospital and done this at, say, your office? For example?”

I gaped at her. “Seriously? We didn’t need to risk felony charges and a life behind bars?”

She let a humorless smile thin her mouth and shook her head. Well, everyone in the room shook their heads, seeming a little frustrated with me. Everyone except Osh. He’d found a machine that made pretty sounds when he pushed the buttons on it.

“You said you couldn’t steal blood from the hospital.”

“I can’t. That doesn’t mean I can’t take a few supplies. It’s still illegal, but it can be done.”

“You could’ve said something thirty minutes ago,” I said under my breath.

“You didn’t let me in on the plan until now.”

“Told you,” Walter said, gloating. She was so not getting invited to the office Christmas party.

“Well, crap.” I glanced around. “Okay, so how about we just steal the supplies from here and go back to Pari’s?”

“That works,” Nicolette said, suddenly her perky self. She hurried to the supply room, which Pari also picked, and took everything she’d need to drain us all dry. If she were a serial killer, or a vampire, this would be a prime opportunity for her.

When we finished plundering the place, I dragged Osh out of a reclining chair in which he’d fallen asleep and we filed outside, no worse for the wear.

I sprinted to the front of the building and knocked on the glass doors. Both Garrett and the security guard looked up at me, Garrett confused and the security guard miffed.

They walked to the doors, and she unlocked them. Before she could say anything, I began the show.

“Garrett! Oh, my God!” I rushed forward and threw my arms around him. “What happened? Who did this?”

“I was mugged.”

“Do we say mugged in Albuquerque?”

He glared at me.

“I’m so sorry. I’ll take you to the hospital.”

Disappointment lined the guard’s face. But it quickly transformed into confusion. “Wait, I thought you said your name was Reyes. Reyes Farrow.”

After I gaped at him for an eternity, an eternity in which he struggled to conceal mischievous grin, I turned back to her. “It is. It’s Reyes Garrett Farrow. Not Reyes Alexander Farrow.” I snorted and waved a dismissive hand. “That’s another guy altogether.”

She wrinkled her forehead in suspicion.

“Gotta go,” I said, hurrying him along. “Have to get this man to a hospital for multiple stab wounds.”

“He was stabbed?” she asked with a concerned gasp.

“Not yet, but the night is young.”

Garrett wrapped an arm around me, and I helped him to his truck, where Osh was sitting. In the driver’s seat. He started to order him out when I said, “We have to make this look good,” and led him to the passenger’s side.

“That was fast,” he said. “Did you get what you needed?”

“We did. We just got the supplies, because apparently that was an option, and Nicolette is going to draw our blood at Pari’s place.”

“The mighty Charles Davidson stole?”

“Hey,” I said, offended. “I’ve stolen before.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Also, I left a hundred on the desk with an apology note, but don’t worry, I disguised my handwriting.”

He deadpanned me. “Did you disguise your fingerprints?”

Crap.

12

If I were a Jedi,

there’s a 100% chance I’d use the Force inappropriately.

—TRUE FACT

“This is the weirdest idea you’ve ever had,” Pari said when we got back to her apartment. “I love it.”

I giggled. “I figured you would.”

Nicolette took a little blood from all of us, and Pari mixed it, along with a dash of CAM phosphor, into a paint that matched her office walls. She then, with the help of a black light, created a beautiful mural right on top of the blood splatters that were already there, because no amount of cleaning ridded a scene of forensic evidence like that. Ever. Not without replacing the wall, anyway.

Pari applied a few more strokes, then did a test. She turned off the black light and turned on the regular lights. The new paint blended into the old, barely noticeable. One would have to be hard-pressed to figure out where the old paint ended and the new paint began.

But when the lights were out and the black light turned on, a gorgeous motif of bold strokes and sharp edges, punctuated by a skull here and there, shone through. It was an insanely cool effect.

“Camouflage,” Walter said before washing down a bite of pizza with her beer. “Genius.”

We all sat around Pari’s office and the back room of her thriving tattoo business, watching her work. I sat on the floor and used Osh’s leg as a headrest. He’d claimed the sofa in Pari’s office, and Nicolette, having completed her mission and safely disposed of the hazardous materials, sat on the armrest on the opposite end. He’d moved his legs so she could sit down, but Nic was too shy for that.

Garrett had stolen Pari’s office chair and was busy tearing into a slice of double pepperoni when Pari pinned him with her best inquiring stare.

“Well?” she asked him.

He nodded, then swallowed hard. “Incredible. You need to come to my house.”

“Yes, you do,” I said. “It’s very brown.”

“I like brown,” he said, defending his domain.

“I like brown food,” I offered. “Coffee. Chocolate. Caramel. How about you, Walter?”

“Tell you what,” she said with a humorous smirk, “you stop calling me Walter, because if you don’t, it will stick for years, and I’ll let you name the girls.”

I perked up. Literally. I pushed off Osh and sat up straight. “For reals?”

“Yes. Just leave me my dignity.”

“What? Dignity’s overrated.”

“That’s the deal.”

Damn, she was a hard negotiator. “Oh, hell, yes.” I jumped up and started pacing. “So many options.” I stared at her girls, a.k.a. her breasts, a long moment, and brainstormed. “Thelma and Louise? Sonny and Cher? Laurel and Hardy? Oh, my God. My brain is going to explode.”

One of Pari’s artists was giving an older woman her first tattoo. The woman was not taking it well. Her screams of agony were mucking up my concentration.

“You know,” Nicolette said, taking a sip of her own beer, “if any of us die under suspicious circumstances, Pari is screwed. She has our DNA all over her walls.”

Pari stopped and turned toward me with a gasp. “She’s right. What if you guys are murdered?”

I sat back down in front of Osh, leaning against the sofa, forcing him to scoot his legs to one side. “If something untoward does happen, we’ll just have to make sure we’re murdered far away from here. Right, guys?”

Everyone raised a beer in salute.

“No getting Pari convicted of our murders,” Osh said.

Pari, pleased with our solemn-ish oath, went back to work. “You know, this could be my new gig.”

“Painting blood on people’s walls to cover up a crime scene?”

“While that does have a morbid sense of coolness to it, no. Creating paintings with CAM phosphor. To the casual observer, they could be everyday scenes. You know, boring crap. But once the black light comes on, they could be dark and broody and ominous. Only in neon.”

“I would expect nothing less from you. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?” I looked back at Cook with hope in my eyes.

She thought a moment, then shook her head and took another bite.

Not giving up, I went back to work. “This could take a while.”

“I know what you’re doing,” Garrett said. Only he was standing right over me.

I looked back at his former seat behind Pari’s desk and then back at him, wondering if he’d gained some kind of supernatural ability of which I should be made aware.

He sank to the ground next to me just as Osh’s legs wrapped around my torso, jump-starting my suspicions.

I put down my pizza and offered them my full attention. “I take it this is some kind of intervention.”