“Do you think you’ll catch him?” She couldn’t quite wrap her head around anything other than her immediate danger. Clearly she did not suffer from ADD.

“I’m going to do my best, hon. Cross my heart.”

“I’m so tired of feeling helpless. Guess I should’ve taken karate or something, huh?”

I liked her thought process, but even martial arts didn’t guarantee a long and prosperous life. “Don’t beat yourself up over this, Harper. There are crazy people out there. People you can’t reason with or even begin to understand without being a licensed psychotherapist. There’s no telling what set this guy off.”

She nodded, acceding to my expertise on crazy people. I grew up with one in the form of Denise Davidson, the stepmother from hell. She could teach the son of Satan a thing or two.

“Here it is,” I said, pointing to a screen door. Remnants of red paint framed the wood around the back entrance.

Harper stopped and looked around the alley. We were at the back entrance of a seedy tattoo parlor. Her confidence in me seemed to wane a bit.

“It’s totally safe. I promise.”

After a hesitant nod, she said, “Okay. I trust you.”

Maybe she really was crazy. “And Pari has a really cute apprentice.”

A shy grin spread across her face. She seemed so innocent and unworldly, yet she was simply beautiful. I wondered what her life had been like. Hopefully, I’d find out as the case went on.

“A teacher.”

I was just about to open the door when she’d spoken. “I’m sorry?”

“A teacher. You asked me what I’d always wanted to be. A teacher.”

I gave her my full attention. “Why didn’t you become one?”

She shrugged and looked elsewhere. “My mother didn’t approve. She wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer.”

While I couldn’t imagine her as a lawyer, I could definitely see her as a doctor. She seemed the nurturing type. Then again, doctors weren’t all that nurturing. Maybe a nurse. Still, I could definitely see her as a teacher. She would’ve made a great one. “I hope all your dreams come true, Harper.”

“Thank you,” she said in surprise. “I hope yours do, too.”

I offered an appreciative smile. “Most of mine involve a man who is more trouble than he’s worth, but it’s a nice thought.”

She laughed softly, covering her mouth with a hand. Her mouth was too pretty to be covered.

We stepped inside Pari’s shop. She had a desk up front, but her office sat in the back, past the studio, a corner space the size of a moth’s testicles with a nice view of the Dumpster across the alley. I heard a few huffing sounds coming from underneath the desk, so I strolled in, half hoping to catch her doing something illicit. Her apprentice was hot.

She had computer guts scattered over her desk. Wires and gadgets of all shapes and sizes littered every available inch of counter space.

It seemed like every time I walked into her parlor, she was busy with something technical, which seemed to go against the grain of her artistic nature. Then again, she always was a little grainy.

A thumping sound wafted toward me, eliciting an evil grin. I was such a perv. “Hey, Par,” I said, hitching a hip onto her desk to peer over it nonchalantly.

After a mighty struggle that involved a sharp crack and a few gurgling sounds, she popped her head up. Her hair, a thick black mop that some would call a mess while others—namely me—would call a work of art, seemed to have grown attached to the wires she was working on. She spit out a microscopic piece of plastic while fishing the wires out of her do with one hand and shielding her eyes with the other.

“Fucking hell, Charley.” She closed her eyes and felt around her desk blindly for her sunglasses. Pari had been able to see what normal folk referred to as ghosts since she’d had a near-death experience when she was twelve. She couldn’t make out the shapes or communicate with the departed. She just saw them as a gray mist, so she always knew when one was near.

But me she could see from a mile away. My brightness seemed to grate on her. It was funny.

After inching her sunglasses away from her reach a third time, she opened her eyes and glared at me. It must have been painful. I could only hope she didn’t have a hangover.

She sighed and ducked back under the desk.

“Is your guy down there with you?” I asked.

“My guy?” She grunted, apparently trying to reach something. “I don’t have a guy.”

“I thought you had a guy.”

“I don’t have a guy.”

“You have an apprentice.”

“That’s not a guy. That’s Tre.”

“Who is a guy.”

“But not that kind of guy. How did you get in here? My office door was locked.”

“No it wasn’t.”

She popped her head back out and glanced around. “Really? It should have been locked.”

After she ducked back down, I asked, “Why? What are you doing?”

“… Nothing.”

She’d hesitated far too long. She was totally up to something. I leaned over to inspect her work. “Looks to me like you’re rewiring your phone line.”

“No, I’m not,” she said defensively. “Why would I do that?”

If liars were the main course at a Shriners convention, she’d be a pork chop.

“Okay, fine, don’t tell me. I need to leave a client with you a few days. Can we use your spare room?”