Authors: Karen E. Olson

Pretty In Ink (22 page)

BOOK: Pretty In Ink

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Why the heck would a car company call a car a Gremlin?

“Earth to Kavanaugh,” Jeff was saying.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. I’m a little tired.”

I saw his hand twitch on the steering wheel, like he wanted to maybe reach out and touch me but stopped himself in time.

I studied his profile. Even though he was a couple inches shorter than me and possibly way too old, he wasn’t a bad-looking guy if you looked close enough. The salt-and-pepper buzz cut made him look a little military. Hmmm.

“Were you in the army?” I asked.

His expression changed slightly; he clenched his jaw and his eyes narrowed, but he kept staring straight ahead at the road.

“Marines,” he said, so softly I had to lean over to hear him. “Gulf War.”

Suddenly this was way too much information.

“I found fifty thousand dollars in Trevor McKay’s boots,” I volunteered, eager to change the subject.

Jeff slammed on the brakes, and my body jerked forward, only to be jerked back again by the seat belt.

“Hey!” I said, clutching the dashboard.

He pointed up. “Red light. Sorry. So what was this? Fifty thousand dollars? Boots? Kavanaugh, it’s no wonder someone’s trying to ground you. Where’s the money now?”

“I left it there.”

He did look at me now, with an expression of such incredulity that I started to laugh. “You should see yourself,” I said.

His face didn’t change. “You left fifty thousand dollars in some guy’s boots in his apartment? And he’s dead? And you found a dead guy this morning? And my tires got slashed? What else?”

I managed to ease down to a couple of chuckles. “What else? What do you mean, what else?”

“I’ve never known anyone who had more things happen to her than you, Kavanaugh.”

“Why do you always call me Kavanaugh?” I asked.

He just shook his head and put his foot on the accelerator, and the car shot forward, forcing me this time against the seat back.

“Watch it!”

“Where does this guy live?” Jeff asked casually. Too casually.

I knew what he was up to.

“We don’t have a key. Kyle’s got it, and he’s all MissTique’d up at Chez Tango right about now.”

“Do we need a key?”

It was the way he said it that made me take notice. Like he
didn’t
need a key. I was exhausted and wanted to go home in the worst way, but at the same time curious about what he had in mind. I wasn’t eager, either, to face Tim’s wrath. Or possibly find Frank DeBurra parked on my doorstep.

So I told him where Trevor lived.

It was late afternoon and the sun had started to fall, casting a glare across the windshield and causing me to squint. I wished I had my sunglasses, but they were in my bag somewhere with the police. I flipped down the visor, but the rays peeked underneath.

Jeff and I settled into a companionable silence on the way. I was running over all the day’s events; I had no idea what Jeff was thinking. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

I indicated the apartment complex. Jeff pulled into the lot and eased the Gremlin into a visitor’s space.

On the way up to the apartment, I stopped suddenly.

“What?” Jeff asked.

“I left Trevor’s laptop in the Pontiac,” I said. “That was stupid.”

“We’ll just stop and get it on the way back,” Jeff said. How could he be so calm and levelheaded?

We reached the door and Jeff tried the knob. Locked, as I’d said.

“Kavanaugh, you might want to turn around for this,” he said, reaching into his back pocket.

He was right. I didn’t want to see what he was going to do. I stepped away from the door and leaned my back against the wall just to the left of it, eyeing the Gremlin in the lot. It really was an ugly car, and it had been a rather bumpy ride. The Pontiac was much smoother. But then again, it wasn’t half a car.

I was so distracted by the Gremlin that when I heard it, I didn’t recognize it for what it was, and all of a sudden Jeff Coleman was on top of me, forcing us both to the ground, his arms around me, my head shoved against his neck.

The second gunshot registered.

Chapter 35

I
could feel Jeff’s heartbeat against my chest, going in synch with mine. My face was smothered, and he smelled like cigarettes and ink and baby wipes. Comfort smells.

And then I felt his hand in a place where I never wanted Jeff Coleman’s hand to be.

I tried to shrug him off, but his grip grew tighter.

“They’re shooting at us from inside the apartment,” he whispered, his breath tickling the side of my face.

“Who?”

“This is your movie, Kavanaugh, not mine. You tell me.”

I had a flash of Rusty Abbott’s warning that accidents happen.

But an accident is falling off a ladder, getting hit with a baseball, having a fender bender.

It’s not being shot at outside a dead drag queen’s apartment.

At least not in my world.

“We have to get out of here.” Jeff was still whispering.

“How?” I was afraid if we got up, they’d start shooting again.

Before he could answer, however, we heard the sirens. One of the neighbors probably had heard the shots and called the cops. Of course, whoever it was didn’t feel compelled to come outside and see what was going on.

Two police cruisers rolled into my line of vision. We were just one story up, and I could see them between the slats in the railing overlooking the parking lot. They stopped just below us. Right in front of the Gremlin. That wouldn’t do.

Another shot rang out, and while Jeff had loosened his grip a second ago, he now clutched me again. But I wasn’t caring much at the moment. I didn’t want to be in the middle of a firefight.

“You up there!”

It took a second for me to realize one of the cops was shouting up at us.

“Get out of the way!”

Right. Like that would be easy. Didn’t he think we’d be out of the way if we could? And I didn’t much like it that he was alerting those inside the apartment that we were out here, huddled on the ground.

Jeff started shimmying a little away from the apartment door. I had no choice but to shimmy along with him.

It was awkward. I was on my back, Jeff on top of me, and my movements were crablike, while his were similar to a crawl.

It took us ages to move about six inches. We were closer to the railing now, and I could see the cops barricading themselves behind their cruiser doors. One of them had a bullhorn.

“Police! Surrender!”

It was a little like when the wicked witch told Dorothy to surrender by writing it in the sky. It had the same effect, anyway. Nothing.

At least they’d stopped shooting.

Jeff slid off me onto his stomach next to me. I rolled onto my stomach, too, and we watched through the railing as two of the uniforms dashed out from behind their doors and toward the building. We waited for more shots, but none came.

I pulled myself up onto all fours, rocked back onto my heels, and slowly stood, backing up as I did. Jeff was mimicking me.

There was another stairway just a few doors down. We backed up until we reached it, then ran down the stairs two at a time. My heart was pounding again as we reached the bottom, which led into the pool area.

I took a couple of deep breaths, leaning over and putting my hands on my knees. I felt a hand massaging my back.

“You okay, Kavanaugh?”

I nodded and looked up to see Jeff staring at me with a worried expression.

“This was a bad idea,” I said. “I told you we shouldn’t come here.”

He stepped back and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Okay, so it was a bad call. But who knew?”

I was about to give him a smart-aleck comment back when movement to my left caught my eye.

Someone was lowering himself off the corner balcony. He wore a backpack and a baseball cap.

“What the—,” Jeff muttered.

The guy dropped to the ground, rolled over, and landed on his feet in a total James Bond way. The cap had come off, and I saw dark hair, a raised hand like a wave hello.

I took a step on instinct, but he shot off like the Road Runner being chased by Wile E. Coyote.

Jeff was already shouting at the cops.

I was speechless. Because I’d recognized him.

But it wasn’t a him.

It was Charlotte.

Chapter 36

I
didn’t wait around to explain; I just ran after Charlotte. My sandals gripped the pavement as I ran across the pool deck, leaping over the diving board. The latch in the fence kept me busy long enough for Jeff to come panting up beside me.

“You should lay off those butts,” I admonished just as the latch let go and the door swung open. I went through, Jeff on my heels.

But when we got to the other side of the fence, we didn’t see anyone except a group of teenagers loping along the sidewalk. Cars whizzed past on the main road, their engines muffling the sound of the fountain in the center of the courtyard.

I turned to Jeff.

“It was Charlotte,” I said softly. “That’s who came over the balcony.”

I looked behind me to see whether any of the cops had come out after us, had seen Charlotte, too, but nothing.

Until another gunshot rang out.

Jeff and I looked at each other. I had been pretty certain that Charlotte was the one doing the shooting, and from the look on Jeff’s face, he’d thought so, too. There was no other reason why she would have made such a dramatic escape from the apartment building. Was there?

“Someone else was in there with her,” Jeff said.

I nodded. “Yeah. But who?”

We started back through the pool area again and saw cops taking the steps two at a time, their guns drawn.

Jeff took hold of my upper arm. “I think we should stay where we are,” he said.

“Sounds fine with me,” I said, noting that he did not let go of my arm. I made a point of looking at his hand and then looking at his face. “Do you mind?” I asked.

He pulled his hand away and rummaged in his breast pocket for his pack of cigarettes. He took it out, and I laughed. It looked as though it had been run over by a steamroller.

“Maybe someone’s telling you something,” I said.

He managed to get a cigarette out of the pack and used his thumb and first finger to try to round it out. He did a fairly good job of it, and then he stuck it in his mouth, using a lighter he took from his jeans pocket to light it.

He sucked on the cigarette, took it out of his mouth, and let out a long cloud of smoke.

I coughed.

“You one of those reformed smokers, Kavanaugh?” he said.

I shook my head. “Never smoked a cigarette in my life,” I said.

“Why am I not surprised?” he said.

We could hear banging on a door and shouting not very far away.

“What do we tell the cops about your employee?” Jeff asked after taking another hit off his butt.

“I’m not sure she’s still my employee,” I admitted. I’d pretty much had it up to here with Charlotte Sampson. She was up to something, something that may have gotten her friend Trevor killed and something that definitely got Wesley Lambert killed. And now she was in Trevor’s apartment, with all that cash, with someone who was shooting at us, at the police.

I just hoped it wasn’t Ace.

The minute I thought that, I stiffened. What if it
was
Ace?

“Do you have a cell phone on you?” I asked Jeff.

More shouting from above, and now the sound of wood splintering. The cops must be breaking the door down.

Jeff’s gaze was somewhere off behind me, and I realized he was checking whether someone else was going to be coming down that balcony route, like Charlotte had. He didn’t tear his eyes away even while he dug into his pocket and produced a cell phone. He handed it to me.

“Thanks,” I said, punching in the number of the shop.

“The Painted Lady.” I had never been so happy to hear Bitsy’s voice as I was that minute.

“Bits, it’s Brett.”

“Where are you?”

“That doesn’t matter right now, but what does is where Ace is.”

“Ace is here,” Bitsy said, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Do you want to talk to him?”

“Yeah, I do.”

A few seconds passed; then I heard, “Brett?”

“Ace, what’s Charlotte up to?”

“What do you mean?” His tone was defensive, almost icy.

“I’m at Trevor’s apartment building, and she just shimmied down off a back balcony here like she was Spider-Man. This was after I got shot at from inside Trevor’s apartment.”

“Hold on, Brett, what are you talking about?” He sounded genuinely confused. I was glad to hear it.

“Charlotte, your main squeeze, is involved with something that doesn’t seem good for her health or for mine. Where is she hiding out?”

“I . . . uh . . . I don’t know. Really, Brett, I don’t. She won’t answer my calls; she’s not at her place. Bitsy told me what went down this morning at that guy’s condo. I’m worried about her.”

“That’s nice, Ace, but I think we all should have maybe listened a little more to that cop who told me she could be in some sort of danger because of her association with Wesley Lambert. Because you know what? She was, and is, but she’s also up to something herself.”

“Brett?” Jeff’s whisper was hurried. My back was to him, and as I turned around to see what he wanted, a hand came down on mine, the one holding the phone.

But it wasn’t Jeff now.

It was Frank DeBurra. And as he wrenched the phone out of my hand and closed it, he said, “Miss Kavanaugh, I think we have to have a little chat.”

Chapter 37

I
looked to Jeff for support, but he just shrugged.

DeBurra nodded. “And your friend, here, is coming with us, too.”

BOOK: Pretty In Ink

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