The Missing Ink (32 page)

“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 package 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.

“Did you really believe that I would love her more than you?” Chip was asking. “Did you think I’d marry that slut instead of you? You should’ve just stayed home, and we would’ve been married right now.”

“I couldn’t marry you.”

“Oh, that’s right. Matt was the love of your life. I thought he was being a good friend, offering to come out here to find you, and the next thing I know you’re getting a tattoo with his name on it.”

“That’s—”

I crinkled the needle package in my hand by mistake. The machine stopped.

“Is she coming back?”

I couldn’t risk peering around the door again.

“Maybe she’s in the bathroom,” Elise suggested.

The machine started again.

“Owwww. Watch it.”

“Did you think it wouldn’t hurt, Elise?” I wondered if he was talking about the tat or about Matt Powell. “Finding out that my best friend was my fiancée’s secret lover?” Okay, question answered. “What did you think I was going to do? Sit around and watch him take you from me?”

“You had Kelly.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“She meant nothing. That’s why I did what I did, to show you that she was nothing. She was to me what Chase was to you. We had it all, Elise, and you destroyed it.”

“I didn’t kill Simon, though. But you killed her. I was glad she told me about you, how you met in L.A. and couldn’t keep your hands off each other. She was pregnant, Chip.” Desperation laced Elise’s voice.

He didn’t seem to notice. “With her out of the way, you and I can get married. Anyway, I found out it wasn’t my baby. It was her ex-husband’s. I got lucky that she had his gun. Now everyone thinks he killed her.”

“But without Kelly, I wouldn’t—” She stopped suddenly. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to put my name in this heart. That way you’ll never forget your promises to me.”

“It’s too late, Chip.”

“My father will fix it. He fixes everything.”

“Did he fix Matt? Was that him, or was that you?” I heard a catch in her voice. “Matt was innocent, Chip.”

I didn’t wait around to hear his answer, figuring that the machine’s noise would mask my footsteps. I heard more talking, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Simon Chase’s phone was in my bag on the light table. I took it out and saw that the screen was blank. Uh-oh. Guess it hadn’t been charged in a while. We didn’t have a landline extension back here, since someone, usually Bitsy, was always in the front of the shop to answer the phone.

It might not be that hard getting out of the shop. Chip was one guy. He wasn’t nearly as big as Matthew, and I’d managed to slip past
him
—well, it wasn’t easy, but I did it.

I opened one of the packages I’d set down, sliding the long, silver needle out of its casing. While I hoped I didn’t have any use for it, I had to have something, and Elise had left that gun in the truck.

I walked as quietly as I could, stopping just outside the room again.

“Tell me where the diamond is,” Chip was saying.

“The police have it.” Elise’s voice was stronger now, anger weaving through her words.

I peeked around the door to see Chip finishing up the heart; it was rough around the edges. Elise’s voice had been firm, but her eyes were laced with tears. It was possible she’d been too jittery, moving too much.

Elise caught my eye, shaking her head slightly.

Before I could duck back, the machine cut off and Chip swung around in the chair. I turned to get away, but he was fast. He grabbed the back of my shirt and yanked me into the room as he held the machine over my face.

“Have you ever tattooed someone’s eyeballs?” he hissed.

He fell onto me then and I twisted my head slightly, the needle in the machine raking me just behind my ear, sliding on my hair. After a second, I realized what had happened: Elise had lunged toward him, and they both ended up on the floor, the impact knocking the machine out of Chip’s hand.

I stood over them, hesitating for a second.

It was too long. Chip threw Elise off him, grabbed the machine again, and plunged it into my thigh, but its design kept it from going in too deep.

The needle in my hand, however, had no restrictions. I swung it around and stabbed Chip’s shoulder. The needle went in the front and stuck out the back. Sort of like a live shish kebab.

He made a yowling sound, dropping the tattoo machine—but not before it slid across my calf, drawing a crooked black line—his hand reaching around to pull the needle out of his shoulder. He screamed as blood spurted across his chest.

I grabbed Elise’s hand and pulled her out the door, to the front of the shop, toward the doors. I glanced back to see Chip holding the needle, chasing us.

I reached for the front door handle when everything got dark.

Matthew Masters stood on the other side of the glass, glowering with anger. He pulled the door open and stepped inside. But to my surprise, he pushed us aside and went after Chip, who’d stopped suddenly. Matthew grabbed the shoulder I’d stabbed, causing Chip to scream again and drop the needle.

Matthew turned and looked at me, studying my face for a second before his eyes moved to Elise. I saw what he saw: Elise’s bare torso, the bra hanging open, exposing her breasts, the beads of blood slipping down over the black outline of the heart and the start of the “C” that Chip had drawn.

“Are you okay?”

His voice wasn’t what I remembered from our earlier encounter. While it still had its gravelly tone, the roughness was replaced with a gentleness. His eyes matched his voice as he gazed at her, and Elise began to sob, reaching her arms out to him.

He shook his head, but I saw a glint in his eye, too, a tear in the corner that he blinked away as he yanked harder on Chip’s shoulder.

“You,” he said loudly to me. “You—call the cops.”

Before I could move, though, the door swung open and Simon Chase came into the shop.

Chapter 61

He took one look at Matthew and Chip and muttered, “I may have to find another job.” He then looked at me, at Elise and put his arm around her. She clung to him, the sobs more audible now. “Brett, can you call the police?” he asked, his eyes again moving to mine.

Everything started falling into place. I’d seen it in Matthew’s expression when he looked at Elise, when she reached out to him.

He
was her Matthew.

When I’d seen her with him at Viva Las Vegas, she wasn’t afraid of
him
—she was afraid of me finding her. It all made sense now.

I went to the phone on the desk and dialed Tim’s number.

“You have to come to my shop,” I said when he answered.

“Why aren’t you at home?” he demanded.

“Let’s just say I got sidetracked.” I paused, looking at Matthew, who was still clutching Chip’s shoulder. “Your murderer is here, if you want him.”

“What?”

“It’s Chip. Chip Manning. He killed Kelly Masters. He might have killed Matt Powell, too.”

I told Tim the rest as quickly as I could, and he finally interrupted me to tell me he’d be right over with the cavalry. I hung up and looked at Matthew Masters.

“Who killed Matt Powell?”

“Kelly did,” he said quietly.

Everyone stared at him. It was possible no one else had known this until just now, from their expressions.

Matthew sighed. “He threatened to tell Chip about the baby. How it wasn’t Chip’s. Kelly couldn’t let him do that. Her plan was to tell Elise about her and Chip, the baby.”

“And she thought Chip would marry her?” I looked at Elise.

“She thought that if I knew, I would break it off. And then she would get Chip because she was pregnant.”

Seemed like a simple plan, but what went wrong?

“I wanted to meet her, see if she really was pregnant. Kelly was all for it; she even sent me her ID so I could get an airline ticket under her name, because I didn’t want anyone knowing where I was going. I figured I’d be back the next day. I went to D.C., because I didn’t want to run the risk of anyone seeing me in Philly at the airport. Matthew picked me up here at McCarran, and we got to talking. He told me everything Kelly said was true. By the time we got to the hotel and met up with Kelly, I was so done with Chip.”

“What hotel?” I asked.

She shrugged. “We’ve been staying off the Strip.” She gave Matthew a sidelong look that told us what they’d been doing when they weren’t following me around.

Elise didn’t seem to have a problem jumping from one man to the next.

“Kelly went to Matt Powell’s room to try to talk him out of telling Chip about the baby,” Matthew said, taking over. “She ended up killing him while they were fighting about it. She said it was self-defense.”

“But she had a tattoo needle on her?” I asked.

Matthew sighed. “She had a case with her. She was going to give Elise her tattoo after she met with Matt. But when she realized Matt was dead, she figured she could protect Elise and me, and she gave him that tat.”

“How did he get to Chip’s suite, though? He wasn’t found there until the next day.”

Matthew nodded. “I moved him. Made it look like I was helping a drunk friend to his room, so anyone watching the cameras wouldn’t catch on.”

“And who had the brilliant idea of setting up Jeff Coleman?”

Matthew actually looked embarrassed. “Never liked the guy,” he admitted.

Well, who did? Except for Sylvia, of course. But that wasn’t a reason to frame a guy for murder. Two murders.

“I knew about that client of his,” Matthew continued. “And I knew he’d been in town. Kelly told me. She’d inked him, too. It was easy to arrange.” He looked apologetically at Simon. “I used Simon’s phone.”

“So you set Jeff up to be in that room, but instead of Jeff,
I
ended up there,” I mulled out loud before having another thought. I looked at Elise. “Why didn’t you just have Kelly do your devotion ink in the first place, instead of coming here?”

Elise gave Matthew a small smile before answering. “I told you; I wanted to surprise him. If I had Kelly do it, he’d know. But someone had seen me here, and then the cops were all over the place, and I couldn’t come back.”

Seemed reasonable. But one thing didn’t. “Why did you kidnap me today? Why didn’t you just tell me you were with Elise?” I asked Matthew.

“I was going to try to scare you into telling me where the diamond was.”

He’d scared me, all right, but he hadn’t had a chance for negotiations after I jumped out of the car.

“Who left me that drawing on my car?”

Elise and Matthew exchanged a look, both of them shrugging.

“You were sticking your nose in where you shouldn’t.” Chip, the peanut gallery, had spoken.

“Did Matt Powell show you that sketch I did for Elise?” I asked.