We ended the call, and even though there were still too many questions, talking to my brother had calmed me down.
Until I saw the white Dodge Dakota behind me.
Chapter 57
This game had gotten so old. I drove slower than the speed limit, and I could see he was trying to force me to go slightly faster. After a few blocks, I couldn’t take it anymore. I slammed on the brakes; the Mustang skidded around, wedging itself perpendicular to the Dakota so the truck couldn’t move forward. I didn’t let myself think as I jumped out of the car.
The driver tried to swerve around me, but I was on top of him before he could, pounding on the window like a crazy person.
The Dakota’s window rolled down and a bald head emerged. But it wasn’t the bald head I’d been encountering. It was a strange bald head, devoid of any tats. His ears were fringed with salt-and-pepper tufts, his face totally unfamiliar except for the rage I saw there.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.
All of my anger melted away into embarrassment. I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else,” I said contritely.
He didn’t seem to notice the apology. He reached for the door latch, and the look on his face told me that while I might have escaped Matthew relatively unscathed, I might not be so lucky now.
I hightailed it back to my car and spun it around and down the street, leaving yet another angry man in my wake. I hoped this wasn’t going to be a trend.
The diamond flashed like a white laser across Tim’s desk.
“You’re wearing it?” Tim was doing his hunt-and-peck typing as he wrote up the report of my kidnapping.
“I didn’t want to lose it,” I said.
“Just give me the ring,” he said, holding out his hand.
Reluctantly, I slipped it off my finger. “You realize I’ll never wear anything like that ever again.”
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Tim said, turning it over and over, watching the prisms of color that slashed through it as the fluorescent overhead light hit it.
“See?” I asked. “It’s got powers.”
“But are they good or evil?” he asked, sticking the ring on his desk next to his computer.
“What are you going to do with it?” I asked.
“I’ll call Bruce Manning about it.”
“What if Manning is lying about it being stolen? I mean, she was engaged to his son; it’s an engagement ring. If Chip gave it to her, then it’s hers, right? She can’t steal what’s hers, right?”
Tim looked like he wasn’t paying attention to me as he studied the computer screen. After a few seconds, he looked up at me. “Oh, by the way, just thought you’d like to know there was no big, bald, tattooed guy walking around Summerlin. Two cruisers were out looking.”
My chest constricted. They hadn’t found him? Where had he gone without a vehicle?
“What about the motorcycle? The one at the In-N-Out?”
“Brett, you really have to tell me every detail so I can cover all the bases.”
Right. He’d just turned this around so I was at fault. And I’d been the one to get kidnapped.
We went over everything about three times, and he finally got it all typed up.
“You should go straight home,” he advised as he walked me to my car. “Don’t stop anywhere; just go home and lock the doors, and I’ll be there in a couple hours.”
My watch told me it was almost time to meet Simon Chase. I told Tim as much. “I didn’t cancel,” I added.
“Call him and cancel, then,” he said.
I made a sort of nodding motion with my head, but it wasn’t really a commitment. “I’ll go home,” I said, giving him a hug and a little wave good-bye.
As I started the engine, I knew Tim was right. I should just go home, even though my head was toying with the idea of meeting Simon Chase anyway. But how stupid was that? He might have been the one to rescue Matthew from Summerlin, and he might decide to bring him to my shop.
I turned down Las Vegas Boulevard. It wasn’t the most direct route home, but it was going in the general direction. I saw Goodfellas Bail Bonds on my left, Murder Ink next door. Sylvia was walking down the sidewalk.
The Bright Lights Motel’s parking lot beckoned, so I pulled in and parked. I honked the horn just as I climbed out, but Sylvia didn’t turn around.
I jogged down the sidewalk, jaywalking when I caught up with her. I reached over and tapped her on the shoulder.
“Hey, Sylvia,” I said, panting from the heat, not the jog.
She turned, her smile bright. “It’s good to see you, dear. How’s your big friend?”
“Fine,” I said, figuring she was referring to Joel. “How’s Jeff?”
Her face clouded. “He’s not happy with me. He said it’s my fault things are being stolen from the shop.” She leaned toward me, whispering conspiratorially, “I told him he could take the gun. He didn’t steal it.”
I stiffened. “Who?”
“Your big friend.”
Dementia rears its ugly head again. I wondered if Jeff had thought about assisted living. This could only get worse.
“Why would Joel want Jeff’s gun?” I asked.
Confusion crossed her face. “Oh, dear, I didn’t mean your homo friend.”
Okay, so she had dementia and she was politically incorrect at the same time. I guess when you get old, you can be whatever you want to be. Halfway through that thought, it dawned on me: If it wasn’t Joel, who did she think was my “big” friend?
“Sylvia,” I said, “who exactly are we talking about?”
Her smile was so pure, her face shining.
“Why, dear, Matthew, of course.”
Chapter 58
I felt like someone had punched me in the gut.
“Sylvia, Matthew isn’t my friend.” It was all I could do to keep my voice from shaking. Post-traumatic stress, and all that. I could end up worse than Pavlov’s dogs; just mention the name Matthew and I’d crumble into a million little pieces. At least the dogs got to ring a bell and then forget about it. “When did he take the gun? And why would he set Jeff up for Kelly’s murder?”
“Oh, he didn’t set Jeff up. He just took the gun.”
“But the gun was found in Kelly’s car. So how did it end up there?”
Her smile turned a little sad, like she thought I’d become too dim-witted for this conversation. “Why, he gave it to Kelly, of course.”
I thought my head would explode.
“What for?”
“She never liked having the gun in the shop, you know.”
We were on a carousel, going round and round but heading nowhere except on Sylvia’s own little Magical Mystery Tour. I didn’t think it would do any good to pound my head against the wall.
“How do you know that Matthew gave the gun to his sister?”
“That’s what he told me he wanted to do.”
Just when you think there’s no logic in anything, something coherent pops up.
“Any reason why?”
She patted my forearm. “He said Kelly had gotten into a little trouble.”
That coincided with what Matt Powell had told Jeff. But if her brother gave her a gun, that might indicate something a little worse than just deciding to be a single parent and not bothering to tell Jeff that she was confiscating their embryos for her own use.
We’d walked all the way down to the courthouse, and Sylvia abruptly turned on her heel and started walking back.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Oh, I just like to walk now and then.” She hooked her arm around mine, patting my hand. She was so little; I towered over her. But her hand was warm, comforting. After the day I had, I didn’t mind having a little TLC, even if Sylvia was a little nuts.
“You should let me ink your arm,” she said after a two-block silence as we approached Murder Ink.
I thought about Napoleon. “I’m going to do a stencil,” I said
. “I’d love it if you could do it.” I told her what I planned.
She snorted. “Dear, you’re a six-foot-tall woman. You don’t want a five-foot-two man on your arm. Let me do something more appropriate.”
I didn’t want to argue the issue. I wasn’t in the mood. I let her reel off the possibilities as I wondered why Kelly Masters would need a gun.
“I’m going to close up the shop now, dear,” Sylvia was saying as we stood in front of Murder Ink. She unhooked her arm. “Thank you for walking with me. You’re a nice girl.”
“How’s Jeff?”
“He’s fine. I’m sure you’ll hear from him soon.”
I was sure of it, too. He’d become my new best friend. Well, except for Sylvia.
I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, her skin thin and transparent, her wrinkles rippling across her cheeks. Her face was the only place that wasn’t inked.
I glanced back at the shop when I reached my car and watched Sylvia pull open the door.
I was concentrating so much on her that I didn’t see it until it swerved into the Bright Lights Motel lot. The Dakota spun around my car faster than I could move, blocking me from the door so I was trapped.
Chapter 59
I just couldn’t deal with road rage right now. If it was that guy I’d stopped earlier, I might as well just throw my hands up and surrender.
“Brett Kavanaugh?”
I didn’t think that guy knew my name. And, anyway, it wasn’t a guy. It was a woman’s voice that came out of the truck.
I walked around the massive hood, noticing the scratches on the roof. This was the Dakota that had chased me in the Versailles garage.
The window was rolled down, and she stuck her head out.
Elise Lyon. Elise? She was the one driving the Dakota?
Her eyes skipped all around me before landing on my face.
“Get in,” she said.
I sighed. “Listen, Elise, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not. Why don’t you get out and we can talk here?”
A gun barrel peeked out beneath her face.
“It’s not an option.”
Kidnapped twice in one day. Go figure.
I walked back around the truck and opened the door, climbing up inside. A blast of cold air hit me in the face and I shivered, welcoming it. I’d been outside long enough so I’d almost gotten used to the heat.
I shut the door after me and turned in my seat to see Elise Lyon still holding the gun on me.
“You know, people have been looking for you. Where have you been?” I asked.
“There are a lot of places to stay in Vegas, and not just on the Strip.” Her expression changed slightly. “We’re going to your shop,” she said, although she seemed perplexed as to how she’d drive and still manage the gun.
I shook my head. “It’s too late.”
The gun whipped up and the barrel rested on my forehead. My heart missed a couple of beats.
“What do you mean?” she demanded.
“I found it. The ring. And I gave it to my brother.”
“Your brother?” She was confused a second, then, “The cop?”
I nodded. “I didn’t want it. He said Manning said you stole it.”
The gun moved off my forehead and circled up toward the ceiling. “What? I can’t believe it. Chip gave it to me. It was my engagement ring. It was mine.”
“That’s what I said.” I hoped that by offering some sort of support she’d feel kindly toward me and stop waving that gun around. “But he wanted it anyway. He’s my brother. What was I supposed to do?” I had no idea whether she had siblings, but I took a shot that she’d know what I was talking about.
She lowered the gun and put it on the console between us. I felt my heartbeat going back to normal.
I was about to ask her why she was following me around when suddenly she floored the accelerator and we were flying out of the parking lot, going down Las Vegas Boulevard toward the Strip.
“We’re going to your shop,” she said again.
“But it’s not there.”
“I don’t care. You’re going to give me that tattoo.”
“Huh?”
“If the ring’s gone, well, there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ll figure out something. But I want that tattoo. I need it. I need it to get me through this. To give me courage.” She was babbling, but I understood the basics of what she was saying. I’d do the ink and she’d leave town, leave everything behind and move on. It was her rite of passage.
I nodded. “Okay. I can do that. But just tell me: Are you the one who’s been chasing me all over town?”
“You didn’t have to go so fast in that garage.”
“Why have you been chasing me?”
“I needed to know if you found the ring. Or if it was still at your shop.”
“Why couldn’t you just call and be straight with me? Then we wouldn’t have gone through all this.”
“I couldn’t risk that. Everyone’s looking for me. Bruce Manning thinks I’m a thief and would throw me in jail, and it’s my word against his.”
I remembered how Manning had treated me at Versailles, gripping me so hard but making it look like we were just having a casual conversation. Elise and I were in the same boat: Who would believe us when one of the richest men in the world gave his version of reality?
Elise was still talking. “I couldn’t risk going to your shop; someone might see me. Simon said he’d get it tonight, when he saw you.”
“You told him about it?” So that was why he wanted to meet me at The Painted Lady. He wanted to feel up my orchid.
Elise’s eyes left the road for a second as she gave me a long look. “Of course. He and Mattie are the only two people I can trust.”
I didn’t want to remind her that Matt Powell was dead. That she was talking about him in the present tense.
“Simon lent me the truck,” Elise said.
Nice of him, I thought. Chivalrous as usual. I wondered if he knew she used it to follow me.
“How did you know Kelly Masters?” I asked, changing the subject.
Again with a look, then she was staring straight at the road, her jaw tense. “Chip. Chip was having an affair with her. She called me. She wanted to meet me, and when I came out here, she told me she was pregnant.”
I let that digest a little as we stopped at the light next to the World’s Largest Gift Shop. I’d never been in there. I’d never needed any Large Gifts.
I took a shot. “Chip said you had an affair, and you told him it was over.”
She snorted. It was not attractive. “He thought Simon and I hooked up again. He was so wrong.” The light turned green. “Simon likes the chase, you know, but he’s not a long-term sort of guy.” She glanced at me as she pressed down on the gas. “Be careful.”
“I think I can take care of myself.” I bristled.
Elise chuckled. “Every woman thinks she can change him.”
I didn’t want to change him. I wasn’t sure what I wanted.
She kept talking. “He thinks you’re exotic, you know, all those tattoos. Like Kelly.”
I didn’t much like being compared to Kelly. And he’d talked about me with Elise? This was just getting stranger and stranger.
We were quiet a few minutes, and finally she reached the Venetian, pulling into the valet parking lane.
“I hate that garage,” she tossed at me as she scrambled out of the truck.
I was close on her heels, realizing I had absolutely no idea what was going on except that I had an unexpected client. Before long I was leading the way, since I could get around the Venetian with my eyes closed. We followed the canal to the shop, a gondola just ahead of us.
The Painted Lady had been imprisoned behind the gate. I unlocked the glass doors, leaned down and unlocked the gate, and lifted it up, letting it rise over our heads, disappearing into the ceiling.
I led Elise into my room, where I set up my inks. I took a disposable razor out of a packa
ge and wet a washcloth.
“Where do you want it?” I asked automatically, although I already knew.
Without any ceremony, Elise pulled her shirt over her head to reveal a lacy pink bra that barely covered her nipples. She pointed to a spot just above her left breast. “Here.”
The hair on her skin was fine, but I’d still have to shave it. My hands were shaking slightly, though; the day’s events and an ever-lowering blood sugar level weren’t good for tattooing. I still had the stencil I’d made in the staff room, so I told Elise to wait in the chair while I got it, stalling for a few minutes.
I found half a meatball sub in the fridge, and I picked out one of the meatballs and chewed it whole as I rummaged through the files, finally finding the stencil in a folder marked Kelly Masters.
While I wasn’t keen on devotion tats, this was a memorial. Not unlike the kid who had Jesus on his back.
I grabbed a handful of disposable needles, still in their packages, from a box in the closet. The meatball had erased my shakes. I was running through the whole process in my head, my own little ritual, so when I finally started back to my room, it didn’t register for a moment.
But when I heard him say, “Trust me,” and I heard the whirring of the tattoo machine, my first thought was that I should’ve put that gate down and locked it after us.
Chapter 60
My second thought was, How did Chip Manning learn how to use a tattoo machine? Because, as I peered around the corner into my room, I saw he was drawing a heart on Elise Lyon’s bared breast.
His back was to me, and the machine was loud enough so he didn’t hear me approach. Elise saw me, though, since she was facing the door, and she opened her mouth, but I put my finger over my lips to silence her. She shut her mouth and looked at Chip’s hands. He hadn’t even put on a pair of gloves.
Scratcher.
The Missing Ink Page 24
