She searched through her files as Hemi Colfax’s name triggered something in the back of her mind. She’d seen some of his artwork. Where?
Then she got it. She’d been a judge at a contest, and she was sure he’d submitted one of the semi-finalist entries. Did she still have a copy of it? She dug through the emails to find the links. Clicking on the website that showed the original entries, she quickly scanned through the images. With Morgan leaning over her shoulder, studying the images along with her, she flicked from page to page. Hemi had a natural talent but it was raw and as yet unrefined.
He needed more practice, but he had the potential to be excellent. She’d been fascinated by his talent but couldn’t see any resemblance to the images she’d posted. There. She enlarged his entry and studied his techniques. It was a dragon. And his whorls were clearly evident. His shading was interesting but also not quite there yet. He hadn’t gotten into the finals, and given his talent, he might have considered the results to be unfair that he might hold his lack of standing against her.
Her name had been on the website as she’d been listed as one of the judges.
Easy to see. Easy to track down. “I wonder if someone who wasn’t happy with his standing would be pissed off enough to come after us.”
“Meaning this Hemi guy?”
“Not him per se, but someone else in the contest maybe.” But even to her, the motive was lacking the punch to do what had been done to them. And if killing Billy was added to the list, then this persona had to be seriously pissed.
“How big a deal is this contest?” Morgan asked, studying the page intently.
She shrugged. “Not really, but it’s big enough that people do get hurt and upset over the results. Pissed enough to kill? I doubt it, but who knows?”
He nodded. “Right. And this Hemi guy?”
“It’s not him.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Damn. What about the other one? Mark Sanders.”
“I don’t see the name here.” She quickly searched for the name, adding the words tattoo artist. Up popped dozens of pages. She scrolled carefully to the first one.
“This might be him.” She pulled up the listed webpage and sure enough, there was another artist using a similar dragon tattoo as hers. She frowned. Good thing she’d decided not to do these anymore. This guy wasn’t very good, but the designs were unique. They were too unique to be the ones she’d seen, but it was close enough that she could see why this guy came to mind for the other forum members. But she’d bet her career that he wasn’t their stalker.
As she stared at the tattoos, she realized something else. Even though this guy was up and coming and his stuff was a little in need of finesse in various points, he was way better than the tattoos she’d seen in the multiple images they’d been given. They’d been really rough. As in very amateur. Her friends and peers were professionals. They were looking in the wrong places. She explained quickly to Morgan.
“So what do we do?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. There are many groups and other forums where we could post this, but I’m thinking before we do a widespread posting like that we should confirm that the police are okay with it.”
Instantly Morgan pulled out his phone and texted the cop. The response was immediate. Yes.
She shrugged. “Okay then.” And proceeded to go through the various forums and groups she’d belonged to over the years asking if anyone knew the artist of the tattoo. If they were lucky, they’d get a hit somewhere.
Otherwise, she could potentially try to do a Google image search, but she felt it was too blurry to work. Trying wasn’t an issue, but the fact that Google was likely to return hundreds if not thousands of related images for her to wade through was daunting. Still, it wasn’t that hard to try. The cops would likely have better equipment to clean the image up and scan it themselves but hey, she’d give it a shot.
She put the image into her image program and cleaned it up slightly. She didn’t want to make too many changes, knowing that it would affect the results.
When she was done, she used it in Google to find similar and exact images.
The search results were almost immediate. Except there were thousands of them.
With Morgan, now fascinated, sitting beside her, she started to scroll down the page. There was nothing in the first scroll, so she hit see more and kept on scrolling. She didn’t know how long they were looking when Morgan snapped his finger against the screen and said, “Stop.”
*
“What did you see?” she asked as she slowly retraced her steps, scrolling up to where he’d thought he’d seen a similar image.
“That.” He tapped the monitor lightly and said, “That’s the same image.”
She leaned closer and gasped. “You’re right.”
Opening the image in a new tab, she also opened the home page of the image in a new page. The image appeared to be identical. And came for a website called www.creepyscenes.com.
“What the hell,” Morgan exclaimed. “Where did they get that image from?”
“I don’t know, but if these other images are of the same guy, he’s dead.” In fact, they looked to be morgue files, but she had no idea from where.
“If so, how did this image get out on the Internet?” he demanded. If they had one image did this site have others? He hated to think of his brother’s body lying up on the Internet open for any curiosity seekers to come and view. Like that was just creepy.
“The Internet makes anything and everything available, even morgue photos, and just because they were supposed to be from a respectable facility, it doesn’t stop people from being people.”
“That doesn’t make it right.” Still, they’d found something major, and he was already sending the website to the cop.
They could take it from there. Morgan couldn’t help but think she’d done enough. But she couldn’t leave it. He watched quietly as she searched the website and after seeing way too many pictures he’d rather not see of dead bodies, she turned to her files and pulled up the image they thought was Billy. She ran it through her image program and set it up for a search on Google.
It was a long shot, but she was good at those, too.
Then so was he. Look at what he’d achieved getting Jazz to trust him again.