The Missing Ink (24 page)

Bitsy waggled her fingers at me as she turned her attention to an Elvis who’d come up behind her and started chatting. Joel pocketed the twenty and asked for another drink before leaning over and air-kissing my cheek.

“See you tomorrow, hon,” he said cheerily.

I did a quick look to try to find Simon, but when it seemed futile, I wandered back out through the black-lit hall and pushed the door open. The sun had almost set now, streaks of red and yellow dancing across the desert sky, the air almost comfortable.

I climbed into the Mustang and turned the key in the ignition. As I waited a few seconds for the air-conditioning to kick in, movement in the rearview mirror caught my eye.

Simon Chase was coming out of the bar. He hit a button on a key fob and opened the door to his vehicle.

A white Dodge Dakota.

Chapter 42

I watched it ease out of the lot, and I didn’t waste any time. While I hadn’t followed it before, I certainly wasn’t going to miss the opportunity now. Especially since Simon was driving, and even if he were mixed up in something criminal, I didn’t think he’d hurt me.

Of course, that’s what abused wives always tell themselves, too.

I pushed my concerns away and concentrated on the Dakota in front of me. He was going about ten miles above the speed limit, which was ten miles above my comfort zone, but I wanted to keep up. I also didn’t want him to see me behind him, so I kept a couple of cars between us. The Mustang was low enough to the ground and the Dakota high enough off it so maybe I was out of his line of sight.

He turned toward downtown, and soon we were heading along the Strip.

I knew where we were going.

The Dakota pulled into the Versailles entrance, and I parked along the side of the road with my flashers on. Pretty anticlimactic. I shouldn’t have assumed he would lead me to Elise and Matthew.

But then a thought crossed my mind.

What if he had?

What if he was hiding them in plain sight?

He was the manager. He could give them a room easily. Granted, Chip and his father were also at Versailles, but the place was enormous. How hard would it be to stay out of someone’s way?

I told myself that as I made an executive decision to go back in there. Even though I was banned. But this time I wouldn’t go through the lobby. I’d go into the casino, where there were plenty of people to mask my arrival and plenty of slot machines to hide behind if I needed to. Granted, I was taller than most women, and I had tats, short bright red hair, and rows of piercings in my ears, but odder-looking people than me hung out in casinos. It was worth a shot.

The room was buzzing with activity, the cocktail waitresses barely able to keep up and keep their bosoms in their corsets. I thought about Robbin, the girl I’d met in the ladies’ room. She had a hot date with the guy who ran the place. Was that why Simon had come back?

A short man with a bad toupee bumped into me.

“Excuse you,” he muttered, wandering away.

I weaved around the slot machines, the flashing lights making me blink, the little musical dinging sounds bouncing off the ceiling. Sheryl Crow was singing about leaving Las Vegas, piped in from undisclosed speakers, no one really hearing it—it was background noise to replace that of the coins dropping into metal bins. I was a little dizzy as I approached the blackjack tables, Tim’s old stomping ground. He could still count cards, but only if there was a one- or two-deck shoe. It looked like these tables had at least six decks. No way to win, every way to lose.

I didn’t like casinos; they had never managed to win me over. I used to like the heavy feel of the plastic cups holding five or ten dollars’ worth of quarters or nickels, slipping the coins into the machines. But now that they’d done away with the coins—you just put in a bill and got back a little ticket that you slipped into a machine like an ATM to get your meager winnings—it had lost any magic for me it might have once held. There were other things I’d rather throw my money away on, like Kenneth Cole shoes. While I’d be poor, at least I’d look hot.

Hot like Simon Chase, who was standing about fifty feet away from me as I stumbled around a slot machine that wore a guillotine hat. Quickly, I ducked back behind it, peering over the top. The woman playing it didn’t even notice, she was so intent on pushing that little PLAY AGAIN button. Another downside to the new ticket system: Put in a bill and there was no reminder of just how much you were losing.

Matthew approached Simon, who looked like he’d been expecting him. They shook hands, Simon nodding, Matthew’s mouth moving. I can’t read lips, so I was at a loss. I could read expressions, and Simon’s was exasperated as he straightened his shoulders and stood taller. I could see his mouth form the word “no.”

So maybe I could read lips a little.

Add it to the résumé.

I scanned the room, looking for Elise. The way Matthew had pushed her out of Viva Las Vegas worried me. Maybe she was in a room upstairs somewhere, locked in, these two guys arguing about her fate. Would she die like Matt Powell? Like Kelly Masters?

As I thought those things, I realized that people didn’t just get murdered for nothing. What did Kelly and Matt know that they had to be killed to keep them quiet? Kelly was pregnant; who was the father? Matt was in love with Elise—the tat told the story.

I couldn’t see Matthew killing his sister. But he might kill Matt. And he had enough tats so he probably knew how it was done.

But the ink was too good, too well drawn.

As my thoughts spun around like the Scrambler, Simon started walking away from Matthew, who began heading in the opposite direction.

Whom to follow?

“You go after Chase; I’ll follow Matthew.” The voice made me jump, and I turned to see Jeff Coleman standing next to me. Some detective I would make; I hadn’t even noticed him there.

“Meet you back here in half an hour,” Jeff said.

I just stood there, and he frowned at me.

“If you don’t go now, Kavanaugh, you’ll lose him.”

As he spun around the slot machine, the guillotine came crashing down and the bells and whistles rang in my ears.

Chapter 43

Jeff was right: I didn’t have time to stand here and contemplate how he’d gotten there and why he’d barked orders at me. Simon’s head bobbed among the crowd, and I kept my eye on it as I weaved in and out among the slot machines. Soon I was past the slots and amid the tables: blackjack, roulette, craps. People huddled over them, their eyes wild with hope and despair.

I could get cynical, but I can’t lie. Vegas is a great place for a tattoo shop, and I make a lot of money off those dreamers who came here looking to win big but didn’t. They wanted to go home with something, and saying, “Hey, I got this tat in Vegas,” sort of made up for it.

Sure beat a T-shirt.

I wondered what Simon Chase would look like in a T-shirt. So far I’d only seen him in a suit and tie.

And as I had that thought, I realized now I couldn’t see him at all.

I stopped and scanned the room, all the heads looking identical to one another, even the bald ones. They became a blur, and I blinked a few times to get my focus back.

There he was, leaving the casino, going toward the lobby.

Not a good place for me. Not enough places to hide. All those mirrors.

I sped up slightly, because I didn’t want to lose him again, even though my heart had started pounding with the possibility of getting caught by Bruce Manning again and, if not, how I would approach Simon about why he was following me around in a Dodge Dakota for the last couple of days.

Somehow I hadn’t pictured that as his vehicle of choice. I saw him more as a Ferrari sort of guy, maybe a Maserati. Something cool, like those guys on
Entourage
would have.

He was a little older—sort of like Kevin Dillon but way better-looking. I could so see him in
Entourage. Entourage International
, maybe.

I reached the hallway that led to the lobby, where the mirrors started. I had no choice but to just boldly forge ahead.

Simon Chase was standing by one of the big, lush floral displays, talking to a young woman in a skintight black dress, her dark hair all tousled in that fashionable way, her long legs stretching into those same Kenneth Cole shoes I had my eye on.

I didn’t like her.

Simon Chase seemed to, however. He was laughing, leaning toward her, whispering something in her ear. He squeezed Skinny Girl’s hand and walked away, whistling. Whistling. Yikes.

Simon began chatting up the concierge, and I saw the futility in this quest. I wasn’t going to catch him in anything. I didn’t exactly want him to know I’d followed him, either, but he’d put two and two together if I approached him casually and said, “Fancy seeing you here.”

“You got the hots for him, Kavanaugh?”

Jeff Coleman sneaked up behind me, making me jump.

“Don’t do that,” I hissed.

His leer made me squirm.

“He’s smooth, but I’d stay away from him.”

“Oh, yeah? And who do you think you are, my father?”

Jeff clicked his tongue and shook his head sadly. “He’ll break your heart. He’s broken others.”

“Kelly’s, for one,” I said before I could stop myself.

But Jeff wasn’t exactly waxing sentimental about his ex-wife tonight. “Yeah,” he said absently before changing the subject. “Can you find out if your brother’s still looking for me?”

“He is,” I said. “You should just go talk to him. Tell him the truth.”

He snorted. “Like he’d believe me, Kavanaugh. You and I are not the upper end of society, you know. You just got a pass because he’s your brother, or you’d be sitting in a holding cell right now for that guy’s murder.”

“They fingerprinted me,” I said.

“They had to. The guy got stuck with a needle. One of ours.”

“I remember. You don’t have to tell me. I saw him.” I shuddered as I pictured it in my head. “You know, he was in my shop. Wanted a devotion tat, like Elise Lyon. He didn’t show up at your shop after that, did he?”

Jeff’s expression changed, but I couldn’t read it. I never liked to look that closely at him anyway.

“Not that I know of,” he said. “I can check with my mother. She’s been holding down the fort.”

“Hey, what about Matthew? Did you see where he went?”

Jeff shook his head. “Lost him.”

I wasn’t quite sure how you could lose a six-four, bald, heavily tattooed man, even in the casino crowd. But before I could make a snide remark, he surprised me.

“You can’t sing.”

“What?”

“That karaoke thing, tonight, at Viva Las Vegas.”

“You were there?”

“I got a call.”

“What? You got a call? A call from who?”

Jeff shrugged. “Someone left a message to meet you there.”

“Meet me—” I stopped. Someone had texted me to have me meet Simon Chase and it was a lie. I told Jeff about that, and added, “Do you think someone’s setting us both up?”

Jeff sighed. “I’ve thought about this, Kavanaugh, and I just don’t see why. I mean, I haven’t seen Kelly in a long time. I don’t know this rich bitch everyone’s looking for. I just do my job. What’s the motive?”

I was stuck on that, too. Unless it was totally random. Whoever was moving all the pieces had found us and decided we’d be part of the game. The tattoo needle fit into that theory.

“Listen, Jeff, I’m tired. I need to go home and get some sleep and get up and go to work tomorrow. I’m tired of this cat-and-mouse crap. Let’s call it a night.”

“Don’t tell your brother you saw me,” he said, just before turning and walking away, back into the casino.

I had to go that way, too, so I could get my car from the lot.

It had cooled down to about eighty degrees, and I felt like I could even use a sweater. Go figure. I put the top down on the Mustang, eager to enjoy the night air, and eased out of the lot, heading the car toward home.

The flashing lights bounced off the rearview mirror. Familiar lights, and not of the neon-sign type.

I pulled over, grabbing my license and registration out of my glove box.

Chapter 44

The flashlight in my eyes blinded me, and I put my hand up to cover them.

“Yes, Officer?” I asked, ready to drop Tim’s name so I could get out of here as soon as I could.

“Do you have any idea why I pulled you over?”

I shook my head, the light still keeping me from seeing anything but his silhouette.

He dropped the flashlight to his side, and in the headlights from his cruiser I could make out his shape. He looked remarkably like a fireplug.

Willis?

I flashed a smile. “Fancy seeing you here,” I tried. Better here than outside my shop again.

He scowled. “One of your taillights is out,” he said matter-of-factly, as if he didn’t recognize me.

Not that I wasn’t recognizable with the tats. So that was the way he was going to play it.

“I had no idea,” I said. “I’ll bring it in to get serviced first thing in the morning.”

He flipped out a pad. “Have to give you a citation.”

“Not just a warning? I mean, I didn’t know.” I was not above tears in situations like this, so I made my voice go all trembly in anticipation of my next move.

“You have to realize that just because your brother is a detective we can’t give you any special treatment.” His voice was still flat, but at least he acknowledged me now.

“I didn’t ask for any,” I said belligerently, knowing it was not the right tone, but it was late and my emotions were all over the place like Mexican jumping beans.

He scribbled on his pad, then ripped off the page and handed it to me. “You’ll have to go to court.”

“Court? For a taillight?”

“You were also driving very recklessly. So I’ve got you down for that, too.”