Ink Flamingos by Karen E. Olson Page A

glanced at my watch. It was almost two. Taking a deep breath, I slid my key in the lock and opened the door.
    Tim stepped out in front of me. “You’re home.”
    I tried to act nonchalant. Anything except drunk. I went into the kitchen and dropped my bag on the kitchen table. “I can stay out if I want,” I said belligerently.
    I heard him sigh behind me. He wasn’t angry. It was something else, but I couldn’t tell what.
    “Why were you out drinking absinthe with that guy? And kissing him? His hands all over you?”
    It was concern.
    But how did he know?
    “Were you following me?” I asked, anger rising.
    Tim shook his head and pointed to the laptop, which was open on the table. “Take a look.”
    I peered at the screen. It was that blog. Skin Deep. Ainsley Wainwright’s blog.
    And there were pictures of me. Me and Harry. At the bar. Drinking absinthe and kissing like we would never kiss ever again. Kissing again on the bridge. Getting into the cab.
    It took a few moments to sink in. Maybe because I was still high. But when it finally dawned on me, I faced my brother, my heart in my throat.
    “She was following us.”

Chapter 14
    I remembered now. All the flashes going off. Thinking that it was tourists, like it usually is in Vegas.
    “I was checking it out again, waiting for you,” Tim said, “when the first picture popped in.”
    I looked more closely at the posts. The time they were posted. She was posting them when she took them. “Camera phone?” I asked, my brain surprisingly clear now.
    “Seems that way.”
    I told him how I’d seen the flashes go off. He frowned. “Camera phones don’t usually have a flash,” he pointed out.
    True. So maybe those flashes really were tourists. Ainsley Wainwright was much more discreet.
    “So you didn’t see her?” Tim asked.
    I tried to think, but the absinthe got in the way. “No. It wasn’t until I’d already had one drink, and, well, that stuff is pretty potent.”
    “Why were you drinking it at all?” Tim asked, a tiny bit of anger seeping into his tone.
    “It seemed like the thing to do at the time,” I said. “How was I to know she was going to be taking pictures of me drunk?”
    “And hanging all over that guy,” Tim added.
    It was a really good thing I’d come home. It would’ve been far worse if I’d stayed with Harry. At least I’d had some sense tonight.
    I looked back at the computer screen. “I wonder why she’s taking pictures of me,” I said, not wanting to get into the whole Harry thing right now. “She already took pictures of me without my knowing about it. This is sort of like stalking, isn’t it?”
    “Yeah, it’s sort of like stalking,” Tim agreed.
    “But why? I never met that girl till today.”
    “You knew Dee Carmichael.”
    It took me a second, but I saw where he was going with this. “And she’s dead. After pictures of her tattoos showed up on this blog.” I paused. “You know, all the pictures on this blog are just of the tattoos. Not the person. You can’t make out who it is, only the tattoo. But the pictures she posted earlier of me, and now these—they’re of me. You can see me. My face. Not just my tattoos.”
    I could see by Tim’s expression that he didn’t know the significance of that, either.
    “Should I be worried?” I asked him.
    “Cautious,” he said. “Be cautious.” He leaned over and gave me a kiss on the top of the head. “Go to bed now, and we’ll talk more in the morning. You look like you need some sleep.”
    Sleep was now the last thing on my mind, but he closed the laptop and shut the light out. I went into my bedroom and changed into a pair of pajama bottoms and a big T-shirt, then climbed into bed.
    I must have been more tired than I thought, or maybe the absinthe was wearing off, because I fell asleep almost immediately.
     
    Tim had left me a note on the table when I awoke.
    “Had to leave. We’ll talk later.”
    I looked out the window into the empty driveway. My