Ink Flamingos (24 page)

“He’s pulling in right now. I have to hang back a little.”

“Pulling in where?” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, counting to ten so I wouldn’t explode.

“The Golden Palace. The hotel where they found your friend’s body.”

“I
’m on my way,” I said, turning around to go to the parking garage.

“I’ve got it covered. Stay where you are.”

“I’ll be there in a few,” I said, tossing my phone into my bag.

It only took me about six minutes to get to my car and find my way out of the parking garage. As usual, I turned left, so I’d go down to Koval rather than up to the Strip. I could take Tropicana past New York New York, although it was rush hour now and the traffic was backed up at the light at the Strip. As I inched forward, I glanced down to the left and saw a long row of cars waiting in that direction, too. The airport was mere minutes away, and the infamous Las Vegas sign was down that way. The city had finally created a rest stop at the sign, complete with parking spaces, so people wouldn’t have to risk their lives to take their picture under it.

It dawned on me as I finally sailed through the light that trying to find Jeff at the Golden Palace might not be the easiest feat, the only saving grace the fact that he drove a bright orange metallic car. Which begged the question: How on earth could he tail anyone in that and not be seen? Except I kept forgetting that despite his declarations otherwise, I suspected he’d been some sort of covert operative in the Marines during the Gulf War. Not to mention that he was a sneaky sort of person. Someone I absolutely wanted on my side while trying to track down my impostor.

I turned into the Golden Palace’s driveway and drove around the parking lot only once before I spotted the orange Pontiac. It was the only one I saw, so it must be Jeff’s. I’d never seen another car that color anywhere.

I parked next to the Pontiac, got out, and locked the doors, swinging my bag over my shoulder and wondering where I might find Jeff now. As I started to pass the Pontiac, a hand shot out of the back window and grabbed me.

I froze; the fingers wrapped around my forearm were tight as a vise. My heart began to beat so fast I could barely hear anything over it.

Except something did get through.

“You’re late.”

I looked down to see Sylvia Coleman’s face peering out at me. Her white hair was piled high on her head, little rhinestone butterflies clipped throughout. As if she needed any more adornment than the body art she sported.

“What do you mean, I’m late?” I asked.

She released her grip and pulled her hand back inside the car, the door opening just seconds later. She stepped out, her small figure looking much taller than it was because of the way she held herself.

“Took you long enough.”

“Traffic. What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.”

Okay, so that one was a no-brainer, but it still didn’t answer my question. “No. I mean, Jeff brought you along? Who’s at your shop?”

“No one. We closed up. We don’t do a lot of business anyway until later.”

After the kids were out partying and decided to get tattooed. I understood. They were close to Fremont Street, which had a little different clientele from the one I had over at the Venetian.

She still hadn’t answered my question, though, and I wanted to know why Jeff would’ve brought her along on his spy mission. But knowing Sylvia, we could go around and around on it and I’d never get an answer, so I merely asked, “Where’s Jeff?”

“He said to wait for you.”

“So that’s why you’re here?”

“He knew you’d come, and that someone would have to meet you.”

He knew that, did he? I hated it that he knew me so well, that he knew I wouldn’t stay put even when he said I should. But then, most people knew that about me, so it didn’t make Jeff Coleman any more special than anyone else. So there.

Sylvia swung a cheetah-print tote bag over her shoulder, tucked her hand in the crook of my elbow, and said, “Let’s go find the bad guy.”

We weren’t that far from the Golden Palace entrance, and as we approached, I could see the familiar facade made up to be like a Chinese palace, with golds and reds swirling about in columns that stretched up over our heads to meet in an entryway that looked like those friendship gates you’d see whenever you went to a Chinatown.

We went under the gate and crossed over a driveway to the revolving doors.

“I hate those things,” Sylvia muttered. “You go first.” She let go of my arm and gave me a little nudge toward it.

I stepped inside, and she crowded behind me, holding on to my waist as we took baby steps around until we reached the other side. I took her arm and helped her through.

The Golden Palace kept the Chinese theme here in the lobby of the hotel, with gold and red sashes looping above the front desk. All the employees were wearing Chinese-style clothes: the men wore blue Mao jackets; the women wore bright red dresses with Mandarin collars. But despite the attempt to mimic the theme hotels on the Strip, the Golden Palace couldn’t erase the telltale signs that it wasn’t even a second-rate resort, rather more like third or fourth. White orchids sprung from plastic vases that looked as though they were picked up at the local Walmart, undermining the attempt at elegance, and a large gold Buddha whose paint was peeling stood sentry in the middle of the lobby. Another problem was that no one working here was Asian. Couldn’t they find any Asians in Vegas? Couldn’t they steal them away from the Chinese restaurants?

Maybe that was the start of the Golden Palace’s problems.

I glanced around but didn’t see Jeff anywhere. “I wonder where they’d go,” I mused.

“Maybe to the casino.” Sylvia pointed up to a red sign with gold script, pointing out the direction we had to walk to get there.

I wasn’t sure, but we didn’t have any clues to where we should head, so why not? Sylvia’s hand found its way back to my elbow, and I had to slow my pace a little so our steps could be in sync. She was almost a foot shorter than me, although pretty spry when she had to be. She swam every other day at the pool in Henderson, where I swam in the summer months when it was too hot to go hiking up at Red Rock.

We’d reached the casino now, and it was more of the same here: reds and golds and buddhas scattered among the table games and the slot machines. I took a glance around but didn’t spot Jeff anywhere. But I did see someone familiar: Harry Desmond.

He was walking briskly through the casino like a man on a mission, his eyes focused straight ahead, his hands in the pockets of his plaid Bermuda shorts.

“What’s
he
doing here?”

I whirled around to see Jeff Coleman standing behind us.

“No clue,” I said. “Where’s Sherman Potter?”

Jeff studied my face for a second before answering, and I wondered if he was going to stonewall me, but finally he said, “He’s upstairs. In a room.”

“But he has a room at the Venetian. Doesn’t he?” I asked.

Before he could answer, Sylvia piped up. “I’d love to stand here all day, but I’m hungry. Can we go get something to eat?”

I didn’t want to point out the obvious: We weren’t here to eat, but to see what Sherman Potter was up to. Find out whether he was behind everything that had been going on the last few days.

But Jeff didn’t seem quite so focused on that right now. “Sounds like a plan,” he said to Sylvia.

Huh? He’d gotten me all the way out here, and now we were just going to eat?

We were standing outside a restaurant. The sign said to wait to be seated, but Jeff took his mother’s arm with one hand and grabbed my hand with his other one and led us into the restaurant anyway. He nodded at a waitress, who came over with menus; Jeff pulled out a chair for Sylvia, who sat, and then he turned to me.

I plopped down into the chair before he could do anything chivalrous. He raised one eyebrow at me.

“I can seat myself,” I said.

“I see that,” he said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. I ignored it.

There had only been two chairs at the table, and he grabbed one from another table and pulled it over, closer to me than to his mother. I resisted the urge to give myself a little more personal space. I didn’t want to hear his sarcastic comments.

“So while we’re sitting here,” I said after we’d all ordered coffee and Sylvia ordered a slice of lemon meringue pie, “will Sherman Potter take off on us?”

Jeff shook his head and leaned back in his chair. “No.” “And how are you so sure about that?”

“He put a DO NOT DISTURB Sign on the door.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“It does when he’s gone in there with a woman.”

I sat up a little straighter. “What?”

He let the smile come out now. “Figured that’d get your attention.”

“Who is she?” I asked.

“Please?”

I took a deep breath but didn’t say anything. “Okay, Kavanaugh, if you must know. She’s a tall redhead.”

I
t had to be Sherman Potter’s Ainsley. I said as much, and Jeff nodded.

“The room was in her name. Wainwright.”

I frowned. How did he know that? He saw my expression and smirked.

“I told you, Kavanaugh, I have my ways.”

Instead of getting irritated as usual, though, I remembered how Daisy had been found in a room that was reserved for Ainsley Wainwright. I reminded Jeff of that.

“And since Ainsley Wainwright is dead, the girl you saw must be her twin sister.”

“She’s got a twin?” Jeff asked.

Oh, right, I hadn’t told Jeff about that yet. I nodded.

He chuckled. “How on earth do you know these little tidbits of information, Kavanaugh?”

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

He laughed out loud.

I rolled my eyes. “Maybe we should go up there,” I suggested. “Maybe it’s time to find out what’s going on.”

“You think they’ll tell you?” Jeff asked, taking a drink of his coffee.

Who knew? But it would be better than sitting here, doing nothing.

Jeff stood up. “Okay, let’s go.”

What?

“Let’s go up there,” he said. “Let’s find out what this is all about.”

I thought he was joking, until he put his hand under my elbow and pulled me up. “Come on.”

I looked over at Sylvia, who was still eating her pie. She waved a hand at us. “I’ll hold down the fort here. I might try the peach pie next.”

Sure. Why not? Jeff and I walked out of the restaurant and toward the lobby.

“You’re sure they’re up there,” I said.

“I saw them go in.”

“So tell me how you found out the room was in her name.”

Before he could answer, a young, petite blonde scurried toward us, a big smile on her face. As her eyes flicked to me, the smile faded slightly; then it blossomed again when she looked at Jeff.

“Do you need any more help?”

So that’s how he’d done it—how he’d found out the room was in Ainsley’s name. He had a mole at the front desk. A woman who clearly had the hots for him. What was it with women who worked at hotel front desks? Were they really so easily swayed by a flash of a smile that they’d give up room information? Although frankly, I could understand giving up information to Harry. He was young and had those swaggering good looks. But Jeff?

For the first time I attempted to see Jeff Coleman through another woman’s eyes. We’d started out antagonistically as competitors, when he was all caught up in his ex-wife’s murder and I helped him out, and then we slowly, very slowly, became friends. So I’d never looked at him objectively before.

I knew what he looked like, of course. He was a little shorter than me—not that that bothered me, and it was obvious it didn’t bother him, either—with a salt-and-pepper buzz cut, maybe ten years older than my own thirty-two years. The lines in his face showed that he’d lived hard at some point, not to mention the cigarettes, but they gave his face some character, I realized. He’d bulked up a little bit in the last months, as though he’d been working out, but I never said anything because I knew he’d twist it all around and say something all smart-alecky about it. But looking at him now, I saw a different Jeff, a guy who was in good shape, good-looking in a rugged sort of way, actually, someone I might have noticed if I hadn’t been so competitive and he hadn’t been so annoying to start out.

And I felt a flush crawl up my neck when I thought about that kiss again. I had liked it more than I was letting on to myself.

Which was probably why I felt a sudden flash of—dare I say it—jealousy as this young, cute woman batted her long black eyelashes at Jeff and he flirted back.

The emotion caught me by surprise, and I caught my breath. And wouldn’t you know it, Jeff was on to me. He winked at me before turning back to the blonde. I’d totally missed her name, but it’s not as though I’d ever need it.

“We’ve got a singer in the nightclub here tonight,” she was saying, clearly an invitation. For him, not me. She hadn’t given me another look.

“Anyone I know?” he asked. His voice had gotten softer, and there was a distinct Southern lilt to it now. Great.

I wasn’t in the mood for idle chitchat. I shifted from one foot to the other, but almost fell over when she answered.

“The Flamingos’ new lead singer. She’s doing a solo gig.”

“Ainsley?” I croaked.

It was as though she’d just noticed I was there. “No, not Ainsley,” she said, frowning. “It’s Ann. Ann Wainwright.” She studied my face for a second, then said, “I know you, don’t I?”

Uh-oh. I hoped she didn’t read the blogs. Or the newspapers. I tugged on Jeff’s shirtsleeve. Time to go.

Fortunately, he agreed with me. He nodded at her and said, “I’ll see if I can make it.”