Read Nightmare Ink for Free Online Page A

eyebrows.”
    He nodded as if she’d confirmed his worst fears. “You did not just say that to the head of the Acts of Magic investigative unit.”
    She sighed, subsided into the chair, and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You know who comes through the doors of Nightmare Ink. It’s not all soccer moms and sailors.”
    Steve drew in a slow breath that drew him up straighter. “You’re worried about the gangs.”
    “And all of the other people in the shadows who make rare use of my services. If the AMBI takes my computers, the people we least want wandering the city with Ink going bad will avoid me,” she said. “They’ll go to the hacks.”
    “And if the AMBI examines your files on-site, it’s clear that it’s just a fishing expedition,” Steve surmised. “All right. I’m making a phone call, but I can’t guarantee anything.”
    “Not asking you to.”
    “No booby traps?”
    She shook her head.
    “Good. It ruined my day to put you in jail when you were seventeen. I don’t ever want to have to do it again.” He walked away.
    Pausing in the doorway, he looked over his shoulder. “I care what happens to you, Isa, but if Agent Macquarie realizes I do, I can’t guarantee she’d replace me with someone who understands what you do.”
    She groaned. “Agency versus department politics? I don’t know how to play those kinds of games, Steve.”
    “It’s reassuring you know the line we’re walking.” His taut expression eased. “It has been a rough couple of days. Are you okay?”
    “I think so.” It wasn’t a complete lie. What blood had oozed earlier had begun drying into an itchy crust on her leg. That counted as okay, right?
    “You take care of your mom,” he said to the dog. Then he met her gaze. “Take it easy.”
    He left.
    She rubbed her temples, hoping it would ease the certainty that she was a complete screwup, even if she couldn’t quite identify how.
    Opening the computer, Isa returned to digging through the Live Ink Association’s library. She found plenty of information about Live Ink—getting tattoos, the laws regarding tattoos, the usual cautions about going to certified and registered Live Ink artists, even a few mentions of the more lurid deaths associated with Live Ink going bad in the old days before the Acts of Magic laws. She saw nothing at all on capturing rogue Ink. Very little mention of rogue Ink, in fact.
    While Isa rubbed her eyes and contemplated the wisdom of giving up, Nathalie knocked and let herself in without waiting for an answer. “Thanks for leaving the door unlocked for me,” Nathalie said as she entered. “Given anymore thought to giving me a copy of your key so I can help take care of the critters?”
    “No need.”
    Gus bounded out of his bed at Isa’s feet and tried to bowl Nathalie over with his greeting.
    “Hey, Gus,” Nathalie said, rubbing the dog’s ears. She scowled. “Ice. When I first joined Nightmare Ink, you spotted me two month’s rent until I got up and running. You hosted that baby supply party for Cheri and Troy when they ran short of cash.”
    When Troy and Isa had signed the lease a year ago, she’d had no idea that she’d gotten the muscular, soft-spoken man’s shiny-eyed, artist wife, Cheri, in the bargain. Until she’d gone into labor with their son, Cheri had spent hours at Nightmare Ink’s reception desk, sketching when she wasn’t chatting up customers or writing about the shop on an art blog she hosted.
    Isa’s flat ink business had doubled.
    “We want to help,” Nathalie said. “Why won’t you let us?”
    Isa gaped at her. It hadn’t occurred to her that anyone wanted to help or even could. “My keys are in my coat pocket. Where are you going to go to get copies in this winter wonderland?”
    “Bitter about the snow much?” Nathalie said, grinning as she fished for the keys. “Troy drove his POS truck. I have no idea how he got off Queen Anne in this mess, and I have no intention of asking. He said he’d