The Missing Ink

Chapter 57

This game had gotten so old. I drove slower than the speed limit, and I could see he was trying to force me to go slightly faster. After a few blocks, I couldn’t take it anymore. I slammed on the brakes; the Mustang skidded around, wedging itself perpendicular to the Dakota so the truck couldn’t move forward. I didn’t let myself think as I jumped out of the car.

The driver tried to swerve around me, but I was on top of him before he could, pounding on the window like a crazy person.

The Dakota’s window rolled down and a bald head emerged. But it wasn’t the bald head I’d been encountering. It was a strange bald head, devoid of any tats. His ears were fringed with salt-and-pepper tufts, his face totally unfamiliar except for the rage I saw there.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

All of my anger melted away into embarrassment. I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else,” I said contritely.

He didn’t seem to notice the apology. He reached for the door latch, and the look on his face told me that while I might have escaped Matthew relatively unscathed, I might not be so lucky now.

I hightailed it back to my car and spun it around and down the street, leaving yet another angry man in my wake. I hoped this wasn’t going to be a trend.

The diamond flashed like a white laser across Tim’s desk.

“You’re wearing it?” Tim was doing his hunt-and-peck typing as he wrote up the report of my kidnapping.

“I didn’t want to lose it,” I said.

“Just give me the ring,” he said, holding out his hand.

Reluctantly, I slipped it off my finger. “You realize I’ll never wear anything like that ever again.”

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Tim said, turning it over and over, watching the prisms of color that slashed through it as the fluorescent overhead light hit it.

“See?” I asked. “It’s got powers.”

“But are they good or evil?” he asked, sticking the ring on his desk next to his computer.

“What are you going to do with it?” I asked.

“I’ll call Bruce Manning about it.”

“What if Manning is lying about it being stolen? I mean, she was engaged to his son; it’s an engagement ring. If Chip gave it to her, then it’s hers, right? She can’t steal what’s hers, right?”

Tim looked like he wasn’t paying attention to me as he studied the computer screen. After a few seconds, he looked up at me. “Oh, by the way, just thought you’d like to know there was no big, bald, tattooed guy walking around Summerlin. Two cruisers were out looking.”

My chest constricted. They hadn’t found him? Where had he gone without a vehicle?

“What about the motorcycle? The one at the In-N-Out?”

“Brett, you really have to tell me every detail so I can cover all the bases.”

Right. He’d just turned this around so I was at fault. And I’d been the one to get kidnapped.

We went over everything about three times, and he finally got it all typed up.

“You should go straight home,” he advised as he walked me to my car. “Don’t stop anywhere; just go home and lock the doors, and I’ll be there in a couple hours.”

My watch told me it was almost time to meet Simon Chase. I told Tim as much. “I didn’t cancel,” I added.

“Call him and cancel, then,” he said.

I made a sort of nodding motion with my head, but it wasn’t really a commitment. “I’ll go home,” I said, giving him a hug and a little wave good-bye.

As I started the engine, I knew Tim was right. I should just go home, even though my head was toying with the idea of meeting Simon Chase anyway. But how stupid was that? He might have been the one to rescue Matthew from Summerlin, and he might decide to bring him to my shop.

I turned down Las Vegas Boulevard. It wasn’t the most direct route home, but it was going in the general direction. I saw Goodfellas Bail Bonds on my left, Murder Ink next door. Sylvia was walking down the sidewalk.

The Bright Lights Motel’s parking lot beckoned, so I pulled in and parked. I honked the horn just as I climbed out, but Sylvia didn’t turn around.

I jogged down the sidewalk, jaywalking when I caught up with her. I reached over and tapped her on the shoulder.

“Hey, Sylvia,” I said, panting from the heat, not the jog.

She turned, her smile bright. “It’s good to see you, dear. How’s your big friend?”

“Fine,” I said, figuring she was referring to Joel. “How’s Jeff?”

Her face clouded. “He’s not happy with me. He said it’s my fault things are being stolen from the shop.” She leaned toward me, whispering conspiratorially, “I told him he could take the gun. He didn’t steal it.”

I stiffened. “Who?”

“Your big friend.”

Dementia rears its ugly head again. I wondered if Jeff had thought about assisted living. This could only get worse.

“Why would Joel want Jeff’s gun?” I asked.

Confusion crossed her face. “Oh, dear, I didn’t mean your homo friend.”

Okay, so she had dementia and she was politically incorrect at the same time. I guess when you get old, you can be whatever you want to be. Halfway through that thought, it dawned on me: If it wasn’t Joel, who did she think was my “big” friend?

“Sylvia,” I said, “who exactly are we talking about?”

Her smile was so pure, her face shining.

“Why, dear, Matthew, of course.”