“It was a red heart.”

“So?”

“So it was plain inside. Just red. Gabriel Wire would then take a Sharpie and write in the name of the girl he was pursuing. He would pretend that he had gotten the tattoo especially for that particular girl.”

“Wow.”

“Yes.”

“Talk about diabolical.”

Big Cyndi sighed. “You wouldn’t believe the things men will do to land some of us hotties.”

Myron tried to process this. “How did it work exactly?”

“It would depend. If Gabriel wanted to close the sale immediately, he would actually take the girl to a tattoo parlor that night. He would tell her he was going to the back room and to wait for him. Then he’d draw in the name. Sometimes he would do it before a second date.”

“Sort of, say, ‘I care about you so much, look, I got a tattoo with your name on it’?”

“Precisely.”

Myron shook his head.

“You have to admit,” Big Cyndi said, “it is sort of genius.”

“More like sick.”

“Oh, I believe that was part of it,” Big Cyndi said. “Gabriel Wire could have any girl he wants—even young ones. So I ask myself, why would he go to all that trouble? Why not just move on to the next girl?”

“And?”

“And I think, like many men, he needed the girl to truly fall for him. He liked them young. So my guess is he was developmentally stunted, stuck in that stage when a boy gets off breaking a girl’s heart. Like in high school.”

“Could be.”

“It’s just a theory,” Big Cyndi said.

“Okay, this is all interesting, but what does this have to do with the other tattoo—the one that Suzze had too?”

“The design appears to be original artwork of some kind,” Big Cyndi said. “So Ma Gellan theorized that Suzze and Gabriel became lovers. Suzze got the tattoo and—to impress or fool her—Gabriel got one too.”

“So it was temporary?”

“There’s no way to know for certain,” Big Cyndi said, “but it is certainly, based on his past, a strong possibility.”

Esperanza was standing in the doorway. Myron looked over at her. “Thoughts?”

“Just the obvious,” Esperanza said. “Suzze and Gabriel were lovers. Someone posts a tattoo that both of them wore with a message about the paternity of her child.”

“Kitty admitted that she posted it,” Myron said.

“That might add up,” Esperanza said.

“Why’s that?”

The office phone rang. Big Cyndi moved back to her desk and put on her sugary-sweet voice. “MB Reps.” She listened a moment and shook her head at them, pointing to herself: She could handle it.

Esperanza signaled Myron to follow her into her office. “I got Suzze’s mobile phone records.”