Pretty In Ink (26 page)

Lester Fine and his wax twin. Great. I couldn’t get away from the guy for some reason, and now there were two of him.

In a cynical moment, I had the thought that if he were running for public office, this might not be the perfect time to unveil his doppelganger.

But wasn’t it ideal to have this photo op outside, so everyone could see it, rather than just the people who paid big bucks to see all those other wax figures inside?

I mentally slapped myself, glancing down for a second so I wouldn’t bump into the spandex-clad woman in front of me. When I looked up and over at Lester Fine again, I caught my breath.

He was staring at me.

I blinked a couple of times just to make sure I wasn’t imagining it. But he was. He was staring at me. And then beckoning me to come over.

“There she is,” he said loudly to the reporters. “That is the young woman who was involved with the incident at the Windsor Palms yesterday.”

I froze as the crowd stepped aside in unison to let me pass.

“Yes, yes, you, dear,” Lester Fine said, walking toward me and taking my arm, pulling me toward the wax figure.

I yanked my arm away, but Lester Fine would not be dissuaded. He smiled at me, although there was something behind his smile that totally was not sincere.

The wax figure had been forgotten. I was his new photo op.

I was not a happy camper.

The reporters were shouting at me all at once. I couldn’t make out their questions, until I concentrated on the woman standing closest to me. She was blond, familiar.

Leigh Holmes, Channel 6. We’d crossed paths before, and she’d mistakenly thought my brother would give her classified information if she slept with him. She’d had no idea that he just wanted the sex and had no intentions of sharing any sort of information. He was a guy.

“Can you tell us what happened yesterday?” she asked, the microphone bobbing so close to my nose that I stepped back slightly so as not to get hit with it, but I was now invading Lester Fine’s personal space. He didn’t seem to mind.

“What can you tell us?” Leigh Holmes insisted.

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, no comment.”

I could feel Lester Fine’s hot breath on the side of my neck. And when he asked, “Where is it?” his voice was so low I knew no one could hear him but me.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“Where is it?” he hissed.

“What?”

“You know.”

“No, I don’t.”

He blew air through his nostrils. “Miss Kavanaugh—”

The moment he said my name, it reminded me of something. How his personal assistant, Rusty Abbott, had also said my name. Without my ever telling him what it was.

Granted, Colin Bixby could have told him yesterday. Frank DeBurra could have. But I wasn’t a hundred percent sure about that. Even though I was having doubts about Bixby right now, those HIPAA laws would have protected me, as he’d told Fine yesterday. And DeBurra, well, he wasn’t exactly the cooperating type.

I gave Lester Fine the look I’d given Cory Michaels when he told me he hadn’t stolen my lunch money out of my desk.

“How do you know my name?”

The smile was smooth, practiced, and solely for the cameras, while his tone was threatening. “If I don’t get it back—”

I snorted. Which might not go over well on the TV. A camera was aimed right at me.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, stepping away.

That’s when I saw Rusty Abbott on the moving incline, coming toward me.

L
eigh Holmes wasn’t about to let me get away, even though I took another step. She was in my face again with that microphone.

“We understand an employee of yours was involved with the ricin poisoning at the Windsor Palms,” she said.

That stopped me. I stared at her for a long second. How did she find out about Charlotte?

“I still have no comment,” I insisted.

But she was onto me. She knew that question had sparked something.

“And the police are interrogating another one of your employees as we speak,” she said, a hard edge in her voice.

When I didn’t say anything, she added, “So what sort of business are you running, Miss Kavanaugh?”

“Maybe you should sleep with my brother again to see if you can get answers to all these questions,” I said loudly.

Under the five inches of caked-on makeup, I believe Leigh Holmes turned white. She waved her hand in front of the camera lens frantically, the microphone now drooping toward the ground by its cable.

While she was distracted, I glanced around and saw that Rusty Abbott was almost to the top of the incline. He must have followed me here from Trevor’s apartment. I wasn’t interested in an up-close-and-personal encounter, so I scrambled through the crowd and got on the incline going back down. I caught Abbott’s eye.

He pointed to the bottom of the incline. “Wait for me,” he mouthed as he moved his shirt to the side and I saw that gun again.

What, was he kidding?

I swiveled my head to see him start to stride up the incline, and when he got to the top, he turned around to come right back down again. He was gaining on me.

I pushed my way down the incline and caught purchase on the pavement at the bottom. I ran around the fountain and toward the entrance to the lobby of the Venetian.

I usually didn’t go in this way. There was no need, since I could get to the Venetian Grand Canal Shoppes through the parking garage around the back. After living in Vegas for two years, going on three, you’d think that I’d be used to the decadent, over-the-top opulence in the resort lobbies by now.

Everything dripped gold. I almost slipped on the shiny Italian tiles on the floor as I bounded through the palatial walkway. Flags advertising
Phantom of the Opera
—I’d never seen the show; somehow watching a man sing with a plate on his face didn’t appeal to me—fluttered in the air-conditioning just below the arched ceiling sporting Renaissance-style paintings in gold frames. Marble columns topped with gold stood sentry, flanking the walkway that led to the globe fountain, to which golden statues clung.

It was gold overload.

I turned and started to run through the casino, but a security guard appeared out of nowhere, stopping me with a raised hand.

“What’s your hurry?” he asked.

I glanced behind me. “Someone’s following me,” I said, my breath coming out in spurts. I didn’t realize how hard I’d been running.

The guard looked behind me. “No one running but you.”

I peered past the fountain to the marble columns. I didn’t see Rusty Abbott. Maybe he’d lost interest. I could only hope. I looked back to the guard and nodded. “Okay, fine. I just have to get to the Grand Canal Shoppes.”

He pointed to my left, and the escalators were there, ready to take me to my shop. I thanked him and power walked toward them, sneaking looks behind me as I went.

Still no sign of Abbott.

At the top of the escalators, I was in the Great Hall. Talk about over the top. More ceiling paintings, more elaborate theme park-like illusions of actually being in Venice. Without the stench of the canal, of course. I’d been in Venice once, in July, and I thought I’d landed in the middle of a sewage plant. I got over it, or probably just got used to it, as I wandered the streets and bridges.

I was doing the same thing here, skipping past the restaurants and shops. It was like being in Oz, but instead of a yellow brick road, there was a minicanal with gondolas filled with tourists.

As I walked, I pondered what it was Lester Fine thought I had. Did he know I’d been to Trevor’s apartment? Did he know about the money? Did he think I took it?

I shook the thoughts away. How would Lester Fine know about Trevor’s money? No, it had to be something else. The queen-of-hearts pin, maybe? Rusty Abbott had the makeup case, so he most likely knew now that the pin had been removed. Could he think I’d taken it?

I was circling the runway but had nowhere to land.

The Painted Lady was at the opposite end of the canal, squeezed in between Barneys New York and Jack’s Gallery. Across the waterway was a Godiva chocolate place. I needed a little chocolate right about now, so I crossed over one of the footbridges and found myself pointing out various truffles that the kind girl put into a box for me. Armed with sugar, I scooted around the end of the canal and the line of people waiting their turn for a gondola ride and pushed open the door to my shop.

I took a deep breath as the door slowly closed behind me. Bitsy was sitting at the front desk and looked up at me expectantly. I handed her the box of chocolates.

Her grin was immediate.

“Godiva!” she exclaimed.

Joel’s head poked out of his door. “Did you bring Godiva?” he asked.

I nodded.

Bitsy had already opened the box and was popping a truffle in her mouth,
mmm
ing as she savored it. Joel came out of his room a few seconds later and bounced over to the desk, grabbing the box.

“Do you have a client?” I asked.

His mouth was already full of truffle. He nodded. “Needed a break anyway,” he said as chocolate smeared across his teeth.

I grabbed one because I knew they could be gone in seconds, and when the chocolate hit my tongue, I sighed again.

“You should get poisoned more often,” Joel said, taking three truffles back to his room with him.

Bitsy cocked her head toward his back. “He’s off Weight Watchers. Said he gained five pounds and can’t afford any more.”

“Too bad,” I said.

“Yeah.”

We both knew he’d join up again in about three or four months.

I had my back to the door, and when it opened, I jumped a little, but it wasn’t Rusty Abbott. It was my client.

I was feeling almost normal again as I inked the pinup girl on Herbie Nelson’s upper arm. She had unnaturally large breasts with the nipples peeking out of a low-cut shirt and legs that any showgirl would die for. Herbie wanted her to be a blonde, so she had a huge bouffant of yellow curls cascading over her shoulders. When Herbie flexed his biceps, the breasts got even larger. He loved it.

I wasn’t so sure. This was old school, the kind of ink Jeff Coleman would do. I didn’t do many like this—usually left it to Joel, who was better at it than me. But Herbie was a regular. I’d already inked him five times, and he’d fallen in love with the Japanese geisha that I’d done just a few months back on his other arm. Granted, he’d wanted a more scantily clad geisha, so the kimono was short and open in the front. Herbie liked sexy women on his person. I hated to say it, but it might be the closest he would ever get. Who was I to turn him away? Plus, he paid top dollar, and considering the economy, we needed as much money as we could get in the till at the end of the day.

The gloves were feeling a little clammy, and my hand started to cramp about an hour into Herbie’s ink. I lifted my foot off the pedal and the machine stopped. I looked at Herbie’s face, and he had tears running down his cheeks. Herbie always cried. I was used to it now.

“A break?” I asked, pulling off my gloves before he could answer.

Herbie nodded, and I handed him a box of tissues so he could clean himself up before round two.

I stepped out of the room. Bitsy was still at the front desk, going over the appointment book. She looked up when I came out. I walked over to her and noticed that the box of truffles was empty. I raised my eyebrows at her, and she chuckled.

“Joel enjoyed them.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s got half an hour between clients. I think he’s out getting something else to eat.”

Figured. It was lunchtime. I hoped he’d bring something back for me and Bitsy.

“Oh, by the way,” Bitsy added, giving me a sly smile I couldn’t read. “A few minutes ago someone came in and made an appointment. He’s going to be back in a couple hours to go over what he wants with you.”

I nodded. “Okay.” I leaned over her shoulder and looked at the appointment book.

When I saw the name she’d penciled in, I froze.

Colin Bixby.

“Y
ou look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Bitsy said. “I thought you’d be happy about this, Dr. Sexy coming in for a tattoo. You might be able to see a part of his body that you’ve just thought about seeing. And he looks even sexier without that lab coat on. He’s got a nice tight butt in those designer jeans.” Her eyebrows bounced up and down as she grinned.

I chuckled nervously. “It’s just, well, I found out he’s already got a tattoo, but he told me in the hospital that he didn’t have one, that he was afraid of needles.”

Bitsy looked at me like I had three heads, but before I could explain, the door opened and Joel came in, carrying take-out bags from Johnny Rockets.

I prefer In-N-Out Burger, but Johnny Rockets would do in a pinch.

“Lunch has arrived,” Joel announced.

I glanced back at my room. I had to get back to Herbie, but my stomach was growling. I reached in one of the bags and grabbed a burger, peeled back the paper, and took a couple of bites. I indicated my room. “Gotta get back,” I said, talking with my mouth full. Sister Mary Eucharista would have made me write “I will not talk with my mouth full” on the blackboard fifty times for that.

I took another couple of bites, wadded up the paper, and put it in the trashcan under the desk. “Thanks,” I said to Joel before heading back to Herbie.

My head was distracted with thoughts of Colin Bixby as I finished the pinup girl, and he still hadn’t arrived by the time Herbie and I emerged from the room. Herbie paid Bitsy, and we sent him on his way. I looked nervously out the glass doors at the canal and to the right and the left, but there was no sign of Bixby.

“You’re acting like a girl on prom night,” Joel commented as he came up behind me, startling me.