I peered around the side of the house and saw Matthew almost straight ahead, bent over, his hands on his knees. He was breathing heavily—I could hear him, the air was so still. I was lucky I was just wearing a tank and a light, billowy skirt. He had on jeans, a T-shirt, and the jean jacket with the sleeves cut off. Too much clothing for a run. I didn’t wish bad things to happen to most people, but right then, I wanted him to pass out in the worst way.
I had a feeling Sister Mary Eucharista would be okay with that.
I had nothing that could help me except the heat and the sun. No phone. No people around. Too late I realized this development was still under construction, and no one had moved into this section yet.
I was alone out here with Matthew, a sitting duck. He could kill me and either leave me here or dump my body in the desert just across the street, and I wouldn’t be found until the next batch of houses were going up.
It was not the most reassuring thought.
Matthew straightened up again, and I ducked behind the house again just as he swiveled his head around, searching for me. I held my breath, waiting to see him pop around the corner, but nothing. I risked peering out and saw him running in the opposite direction.
I had a plan.
He was going away from the road. I would go toward it. I sneaked around the backs of the houses, furtively zigzagging from one to the next. I felt a little like John Belushi in Animal House when he’s sneaking around the women’s sorority house.
When I got to the last house, I didn’t even stop. I made a mad dash around the fence and out the entrance and turned the corner. My car sat where I’d left it and Matthew.
He hadn’t even turned off the engine.
I didn’t have time to think. I had no idea where Matthew was, but I wasn’t going to check. I ran to the car, throwing open the driver’s door, and jumped in. No time for seat belts; I just slammed my foot on the clutch, threw it in first, and pressed down as hard as I could on the accelerator. The Mustang shot off onto the road like a Bullitt.
Chapter 56
Matthew was in the rearview mirror, getting smaller and smaller as I drove. I’d hung a U-ey and was now going toward downtown on Charleston.
About three miles later, my heart stopped pounding like it was going to come through my chest, and I managed to slip on my seat belt. My bag was on the floor in front of the passenger side, all its contents strewn about. It looked sort of like the way I felt: all discombobulated, shaken up.
He hadn’t had a gun. Or a knife. At least not one he’d shown me. His ultimate weapon was his size and how overpowering he was.
I was trembling, holding on to the steering wheel for dear life, because if I let go, I’d come apart.
For a second I thought about going up back to Red Rock, despite the heat, just to get a little of that chi balancing effect that it always managed to give me. I couldn’t risk it, though. Matthew was in that direction, and Red Rock would be a worse place to get stuck alone when a murderer was after you.
Asking about Kelly had brought out Matthew’s anger even more than when he’d been trying to get the diamond back.
The diamond.
I reached down under the seat belt and patted my pocket, feeling the rock’s sharp edge under the cotton material. At least I hadn’t lost it. Although I wasn’t quite sure just what to do with it. It seemed everyone was after it. Everyone except Elise, who’d gotten rid of it.
I got a little hostile thinking about that. She caused a lot of problems for me. For Ace. Maybe she didn’t deserve to get it back after all.
Thinking about Elise made me think about Kelly again, how she’d designed the eagle ink. She was talented; Jeff and Sylvia had trained her well. Too bad it wasn’t enough for her.
Why had she called Elise in Philadelphia? What had she said that lured Elise here?
Again, the link between the two women was Simon Chase. I kept coming back to him. Not that he wasn’t a nice place to visit, but it would’ve been nicer if we’d met under better circumstances.
Or if I didn’t have so many questions about him.
Twisting all this around in my head helped calm me slightly, distracting me.
The clock on the dashboard told me it was just after six. The gas gauge showed I needed some fuel, so I pulled into a Terrible’s. I also picked up a water while I was there. It was long overdue. As the tank filled, I went through the stuff from my bag. I didn’t have my cell phone, but I had Simon Chase’s BlackBerry. I punched in Tim’s number.
When he answered, I didn’t bother identifying myself. I just said, “Matthew Masters is walking along Charleston Boulevard, up near the exit for Red Rock, in Summerlin. He kidnapped me at the In-N-Out and took me up there, but I managed to get away.” The words jumbled together, like it was one big sentence.
“What?”
“I was at the In-N-Out burger. Matthew came in, grabbed me, took my car keys, drove up to Summerlin. I jumped out of the car and got away. You have to go get him.”
“Did he hurt you? Did he have a weapon?”
“I didn’t see one. He just grabbed me, pulled my hair.” My heart started its rat-a-tat-tat again. I took a couple of deep breaths.
“Are you all right? He didn’t hurt you?” The panic rose in Tim’s voice.
“I’m okay,” I said, trying to reassure myself as much as him. “But he must still be out there. He didn’t have a car or anything. I saw him walking as I drove away.”
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
I did.
“He kidnapped you?”
I didn’t want to get into the whole motorcycle thing, so I left that part out. “Yeah.”
“I’ll send a cruiser out there. Hold on.”
I waited a few minutes before he came back on the line.
“Where are you now?” he asked.
“Terrible’s. On Charleston. Heading back downtown.”
“You said you found something.” Tim reminded me that I’d started to tell him what before Matthew took my phone.
“I’ve got it,” I said. “I think it’s why he kidnapped me.”
“What is it?”
I pulled the ring out of my pocket. The stone flashed white, almost blinding me.
“It’s a diamond. Elise Lyon was wearing it when she came into the shop, but for some reason she stuck it in my orchid.”
“Excuse me?”
So now I had to explain about the plant. “This is what they’re looking for, I think. It’s got to be.”
He was quiet, then, “Bruce Manning said she stole it.”
“What? Wasn’t it her engagement ring?”
“There are things about this that the media doesn’t know. That you don’t know, Brett.” He paused. “We’ve been treating this as a missing persons case, but Manning’s convinced she took off with this other guy and planned to hock the ring. It’s worth two million.”
“Two million dollars?” I’d slipped the ring on my finger, and I stared at it. It was hypnotic. Even more so now that I knew how much it was worth. I needed to get rid of it before I lost it.
“Where is it now?”
“I’ve got it,” I said.
“With you?”
“Yeah. It was in my pocket. Matthew didn’t know I had it.” As I said it, I was struck by how stupid this was. I should’ve brought it to Tim from the get-go. I had another thought. “Is Elise missing because of this ring?” Or maybe she was still alive because she knew where it was and no one else did.
“We still don’t know why Kelly Masters called her in Philadelphia.”
The words hung between us.
“Or why she was using Kelly’s name when she was here,” I added. “You have to get Matthew Masters. He had her last night. I hope she’s okay.”
“He didn’t say anything to you?”
“He’s not exactly Mr. Sociable.”
“We’ve got a cruiser out now in that area, looking for him. I’ll let you know when we get him. In the meanti
me, bring me the ring.”
I bristled at that, not because I was getting comfortable wearing it, but because I had this crazy idea that if I kept it, I could find Elise and give it back to her. But Tim was right. I had to turn it in.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Come to the station. We can file an official report, get a warrant. Put out a bulletin, find this guy, and arrest him.”
Sounded like a plan. But I hesitated.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m meeting Simon Chase at eight. I saw him with Matthew. A couple of times. I think they’re in on it together. Maybe you could wire me again, and I could see what I can find out.”
“You think Simon Chase wants to steal that ring? Why?”
He had me there. I had no clue. “He knows Matthew,” I repeated.
I heard him sigh. “I can’t wire you again. My boss wasn’t happy that we did that yesterday and nothing came of it. We’ve got cruisers out looking for Matthew. You come in here, file a report, we’ll arrest the guy. Forget about Chase. Stand him up.”
“But he—”
“Forget about him.”
Easy for him to say. I finished filling up the tank and put the gas hose back, hitting the button for a receipt. Something in his tone made me frown.
“Why? Do you know something I don’t?”
“No, no.”
He was lying. I grabbed the receipt and climbed into the car, turning over the engine while I still held the BlackBerry to my ear. “I’m going to start driving now. I’ll be there as soon as I get there.” I’d see what I could get out of him when I saw him. I put my hand on the steering wheel and watched the diamond glisten. I kept waffling between wanting to get rid of it and wanting to spend more time with it. Like a guy you should break up with, but you don’t want to end up alone on Saturday night, so you let him stick around.
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 g
un? 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.
The Missing Ink: A Tattoo Shop Mystery Page 24