Ink Flamingos (20 page)

But would that be reason enough to set me up like this? To create that blog? To break into my house and splash red paint around?

I’d like to think that one of my employees was not that crazy.

But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered.

“Where was Ace last night?” I asked Bitsy.

She knew what I was asking: Was Ace working last night or was he out of the shop, taking pictures of me and Harry and then posting them on a blog?

Bitsy bit her lip and took a swig of wine. This wasn’t good.

“He left early. Not long after you did,” she admitted. “His last client canceled. Or so he said. I didn’t talk to the client, but Ace said he’d intercepted a call earlier when I was out getting lunch.”

So he had opportunity. And maybe motive.

“Where was he when Daisy was killed?” I asked. Flanigan had come by the shop to find out where I had been, not anyone else.

Bitsy shrugged. “I would have to check. I think he was there, but I’m not a hundred percent sure. And then he does disappear sometimes, but usually to that oxygen bar.”

We stared uncomfortably at each other, not wanting to think the worst but thinking it anyway.

Finally I shook my head and said, “Listen, it can’t be Ace. It’s ridiculous to think that.”

Bitsy started clearing up the cheese and crackers. “You’re right. It’s late, and our imaginations are running away with us. Ace is a good guy. He’s a little impulsive at times and gets a little too high on his horse about that so-called art he creates. He’s not a murderer.” She snorted. “Maybe we should all just go to bed. We’ll have clearer heads in the morning.”

I helped her bring the wineglasses in while Joel pulled out the sofa bed. I wondered about sleeping arrangements, if Joel really was staying over, too.

“Joel’s going to be in the spare room,” Bitsy said when I asked. “I’d put him on the sofa bed, but I’m afraid it might not be sturdy enough. If you get my drift.”

I did, and I said I didn’t mind. I started to go back out into the living room, but she caught my arm and stopped me.

“I know you’re uncertain about Jeff,” she said.

I opened my mouth to say, well, I wasn’t sure what I was going to say, but I didn’t have to because she put her finger up to stop me.

“He’s a good man,” Bitsy continued. “He’s got his own business. He’s settled into the community. He’s got a healthy relationship with his mother. He cares about you. You could do worse. In fact, you’ve done worse.”

I hated hearing it in such black and white terms, but she was right. I just wasn’t sure I was ready to take my relationship with Jeff to another level. Although that kiss had been a real surprise. In more ways than one.

She took her hand off my arm and patted it. “Think about it. He won’t push you; you know that. He’ll back off if you want. But I wouldn’t make any rash decisions just yet.”

I didn’t think I could, with this stalker blogger out there somewhere. I pushed Jeff Coleman and his kiss out of my head, although admittedly, it lingered somewhere in my subconscious; it wouldn’t go away altogether.

I pulled on my pajama bottoms and big T-shirt, brushed my teeth, and went back into the living room and crawled under the covers. The sofa bed was surprisingly comfortable, sans that metal bar that usually cut into someone’s back. As I closed my eyes, I heard something familiar. A little dinging sound.

A text message on my cell phone.

I grabbed my bag off the plush armchair next to the sofa and took out the phone. When I looked at the display, I caught my breath, my hands beginning to shake as I read the message.

“Brett, I know you did this to me. You won’t get away with it.”

I checked the display again. It was Daisy’s number.

I
put the phone down and pulled my legs up to my chest, my arms around them, my head down on my knees. I needed to call Tim, who was no doubt still trying to clean up the mess at our house, but I felt as though I’d fall apart if I let myself go. Literally let myself go. So I sat there, rocking slowly, trying not to think about the person who was trying to make me crazy.

The light in the hall went on, and Bitsy’s shadow appeared.

“What’s wrong, Brett? I heard something.”

Couldn’t get anything past Bitsy.

She came in and sat down on the edge of the bed. I cocked my head toward my phone where I’d tossed it, and she picked it up, hitting one of the buttons so that the display shone like a Christmas tree. She read the text, her eyes wide.

“What is this? Who sent this?”

I shook my head, unable to speak.

“Did you call your brother? Someone’s got Daisy’s cell phone. I didn’t know she had your number.”

We’d exchanged numbers at one point, and I keyed her number into my phone. I supposed she’d done the same thing.

Joel lumbered out, wearing a big terrycloth bathrobe.

“What’s up?” he asked, and Bitsy handed him the phone.

When he read the message, he came around and sat in the armchair, leaning over to rub my back. He’d been doing that a lot lately.

What was wrong with me? I was acting like some sort of victim. Which, of course, I was, but this was ridiculous. I pulled my arms away from my legs and reached for the phone, punching in Tim’s number.

“You okay?” he asked when he answered.

I told him about the text message.

“You’re sure it’s from her number?”

I was acutely aware of the four eyes watching me. “Yes. It’s her number.”

“No one saw a cell phone in the hotel room where she was found,” Tim said thoughtfully.

So whoever killed her and wanted to frame me could’ve taken it and planned this. Or taken it and decided just this very moment, hey, here’s another way to make Brett Kavanaugh insane. As if the blog pictures and Ink Flamingos weren’t enough already.

This really was personal. But who on earth hated me this much?

Or who wanted Tim and the cops to concentrate on who was harassing me and not on who actually killed the poor girl?

I voiced my thoughts, and Tim grunted.

“I need your cell phone.”

Great. I’d had to give up my car in the past, but this was a first. “When?”

“Morning. Can you drop it by for me at the station?”

I thought about the hassle I would have with the wireless company about getting a new number, after all their promotions about how you can take your phone number with you whenever you get new service or a new phone.

I said okay and hung up, Bitsy and Joel still watching me.

“You’re creeping me out,” I said, irritation lacing my tone.

“Like we’re any creepier than that,” Bitsy said, indicating the phone.

“Okay,” I sighed. “Sorry. I’m on edge. I have to bring Tim the phone tomorrow, so I guess we can all get some sleep.” I picked up the phone and shut it off, so I wouldn’t get any more messages from the dead.

They shuffled off to their respective beds, and I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling, not sleeping until about an hour before I had to get up.

 

The three of us were in Bitsy’s car. This was not an easy feat. Bitsy was the only one who was comfortable in her Mini Cooper. Joel had squeezed himself into the front seat, “squeezed” being the operative word. I was in the back, all folded up across the backseat, my knees almost hitting the ceiling, my head grazing it.

It was like a clown car.

Bitsy had fed us bagels and coffee, and we were on our way to pick up more coffee before we dropped off my cell phone to Tim and then went to the shop. The text message from the night before seemed a long way away in the light of day. The only good thing about it was that it pushed Jeff Coleman’s kiss way to the back of my mind.

The kiss. Right. Something else I’d have to deal with. Or not. Knowing Jeff, he wouldn’t mention it. But what if he decided to do it again?

I noticed we weren’t headed in the right direction.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

Bitsy and Joel had been mumbling something this morning when I’d gotten out of the shower, but I was afraid they were talking about me and I didn’t want to know. So I’d ignored it. Now, however, it seemed that maybe they’d been hatching a plan.

“We’ve been doing a little thinking,” Bitsy said.

Uh-oh. That might not be the best thing.

“And we thought that we should try to find out a little more about this blogger, you know, the one who’s been . . .” Joel’s voice trailed off.

He didn’t need to finish the sentence, because we all knew what Ainsley Wainwright had been up to. Except that she wasn’t the one doing it. I said as much.

“That’s why it might be a good idea to poke around a little,” Bitsy said. “Go back to the beginning. See who might want to impersonate her, and then decide to impersonate you.”

It wasn’t a bad idea. I’d been so wrapped up in me that I hadn’t thought about her. It might be a good thing to concentrate on someone else for a little while. It would take the pressure off.

“So what’s the plan?”

“We go to her place. Start there.”

“How do you know where to go?” I asked. Bitsy seemed very sure of the direction we were heading.

“I did a Yahoo! People search. Gave me her address, so then I Google-Mapped her.”

Always thorough, that was Bitsy. But it made me wonder why the cops hadn’t done that. Or maybe they had. Maybe that’s the way they finally found her. That’s right. Knocking on doors, Tim had said.

Ainsley Wainwright lived in an apartment building off Fremont Street, in a rather run-down area. The white stucco, three-story building had faded to gray. The windows were covered with bars, even on the third floor. The parking lot was in the back, so Bitsy turned in and parked. We scrambled out of the car as well as we could, and I was happy to stretch my legs out.

The entrance wasn’t locked, so we let ourselves in. The hallway smelled like old gym socks and cigarettes. I wrinkled my nose and said, “So which apartment?”

Bitsy was already halfway up the stairs. Joel and I shrugged at each other and followed.

The crime scene tape had been torn, and it hung in two pieces on either side of the door. Looked like we weren’t the only ones who were going in uninvited.

Bitsy reached into her bag and pulled out a pair of latex gloves.

“What are you doing?” I hissed.

“I thought we might need them,” she said, handing some to me and Joel as well before she put her hand to the doorknob and turned.

To our surprise, the door easily swung open. Bitsy looked up at me, raised her eyebrows, and stepped inside.

That’s when we heard the footsteps come up behind us.

“I
wish you people would go away,” a voice said.

I turned around to see a young woman with short, spiked, bleached blond hair and wearing extremely short denim shorts and a tank top standing on the landing.

It took me a second, but I finally figured “you people” meant she thought we were cops. Right. The latex gloves.

“Didn’t you get everything already?” she continued. “And when are you going to catch her killer? I mean, on TV they catch the killers right away.” Her eyes flickered at me, narrowing slightly. I felt as though she recognized me, knew about the blog, that she, too, thought I was guilty.

“This isn’t TV,” I heard myself saying, still keeping up the charade that I really was the cops. The girl’s expression changed a little then—maybe she was having second thoughts about me, maybe she wasn’t quite so sure about me now.

Tim would totally kill me for this, and I wondered if they would cart him off to prison or decide it was justifiable homicide.

“Did you know Miss Wainwright?” Joel asked her. Sadness crossed her face. “She was amazing. So nice to everyone.”

Of course she was. All victims were saints after they were dead, weren’t they? Sister Mary Eucharista would say so.

“She was beautiful, too,” she said. “She had red hair, like yours,” she added, looking at me. “But her hair was long.”

I absently ran a hand through my short hair.

The young woman was frowning. “You sort of look like her, though. Weird.”

I knew I didn’t look like the Ainsley Wainwright I’d met in Sherman Potter’s hotel room. She was a lot more voluptuous and had that long horse face with those spectacular eyes. What had this Ainsley Wainwright looked like?

Suddenly there seemed to be an overabundance of redheads in Vegas. And at least one other who wasn’t a redhead but wore a wig to pretend to be me.

I had a real need to go inside now, see if I could find a picture or something of this Ainsley Wainwright, but I was unsure about leaving Joel out here alone with this girl. I mean, she was young, yes, but not stupid. She’d soon figure out that this large tattooed man with the long braid down his back and chains in his pockets wasn’t a cop. Unless she was more used to narcotics undercover officers. But then again, if they were undercover, she wouldn’t necessarily know they were cops.

Oh, he’d figure out how to deal with her. I nodded at Joel in what I hoped looked like a very professional way and went through the door.

The apartment was fairly Spartan but not very clean. Piles of newspapers were stacked in one corner; books spilled off shelves onto the floor. Kitschy little items lined the mantel of the faux fireplace: snow domes from the Flamingo and Caesars, shot glasses from the Bellagio, New York New York, and the MGM. You’d think because she lived here she wouldn’t buy the souvenir stuff.

I didn’t see any photographs.

Bitsy was in the bedroom, and I joined her in there. She wasn’t touching anything, just looking around.

“The cops were here,” she said, indicating the fingerprint dust.

“That’s their job,” I said, even though I didn’t have to. I was too distracted by the bed.