Talent to Burn (Hidden Talent #1) by Laura Welling Page A

trying to find some similar art.”
    Girlfriend. Hmmm.
    “Every one of ours is unique,” the girl said proudly, clicking her tongue ring against her teeth. She had a wide variety of odd facial piercings, and her halter neck top revealed a startling collection of bunny tattoos, perhaps selected to match her large front teeth.
    “Do you have information about the artists?”
    “Sure, hon,” she said, pulling out a brochure and handing it to Jamie. “Let me know if you want to talk to Elton or Bobby and I’ll see if they’re free.”
    Jamie settled himself on one of the couches and immersed himself in the brochure. I perched next to him on the black vinyl.
    “What are you doing?” I muttered.
    “I have a feeling we should hang out a little longer,” he said. He gave me his lopsided grin, dark eyes sparkling. “Want to get some ink?”
    My retort never got past my lips as the girl from the motel came in the front door. She didn’t react to us, and headed straight through to the back. I guessed she probably didn’t know who we were. She had a skimpy pink top on, and as she walked out through the back door, I saw the phoenix tattoo.

Chapter Ten
    I got up and went to the desk. “Who’s that girl? That’s exactly what I want.”
    “Aw, honey, that’s not a good tattoo. She didn’t get it done here, besides. Justine rents the apartment upstairs. I can show you some much nicer designs.”
    I pushed my lips out into a pout. “I suppose. I might think about it for a while.”
    Jamie slung his arms around my shoulders. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Why don’t you get that big ole Celtic knot you were looking at?”
    I didn’t have to feign screwing up my face. “Thanks, but no.” I turned and headed out of the store. Jamie smoothly followed me, his hand at my back. We went up the street a little, and I turned to him.
    “Now what?”
    “We watch her for a while, follow her. I bet she knows where Eric is. For all we know, he could be up there in her apartment.”
    “You think so?” I peered over his shoulder, looking at the upper story of the tattoo store. Curtains blocked the windows even though it was morning, and I couldn’t see a thing.
    “I don’t know, Cat. I don’t feel like we’re really close anymore.” Jamie rubbed at his eyes with one hand. “That Finding feeling isn’t coming to me.” He looked tired, his aura fading to a lighter shade of gray.
    “Come on,” I said. “We should follow her anyway. We might learn something. Let’s wait and see if she comes back out, see where she goes. Besides, we don’t have any better leads.” He’d been encouraging to me thus far—now it was my turn to cheer him along.
    We found a table in the window of the trendy café across the street. I was still completely unhungry after the giant Bavarian breakfast, but I ordered green tea and played with it while we waited. Jamie added four sugars to his coffee, and then another three. The waitress started to give us dirty looks after the third refill. I wished I had a laptop or a book to stare at, because patrons with those seemed to do better at tuning her out.
    After a couple of hours of staring into space, Jamie kicked me under the table. “There she goes.”
    Justine had reappeared outside the tattoo store. “She’s got a suitcase,” I said. “Where’s she going?”
    “Let’s find out.”
    Jamie threw money on the table and we went out into the street in time to see Justine climbing into a generic black car.
    “Limo?” he said.
    “Could be. Can we follow her?”
    We scrambled into the rental car and followed along. Traffic was pretty good at this time of day and we stayed behind the car through the suburban streets, back toward the Strip, and then finally turned off in a direction that surprised me.
    “The airport?” I said.
    “You get out and follow her, see if you can find out where she’s going. I’ll park and catch up with you inside.”
    I looked at him doubtfully. “Aren’t you the