I was stuck between that rock and hard place.
As we squeezed ourselves back into the little Mini Cooper for the ride to the police station, I told Bitsy and Joel my dilemma.
Bitsy snorted. “Why don’t you just tell him that you found it in that Hummer you and Jeff stole last night, and you forgot all about it because there was a flamingo with a tiara covered in red paint on your bed?”
This was why I paid her the big bucks. Because she came up with ideas I would never have thought of. Granted, it was still a little weak, but if I played it right, Tim would be none the wiser.
“Do you think for sure that she’s the one impersonating you?” Joel asked.
I thought for a moment, not certain. While the young woman at the apartment building said I looked like Ainsley Wainwright, I knew I didn’t, but Jeff said the woman he met didn’t look at all like me. But that woman didn’t really have red hair, because she’d left it behind in the ladies’ room.
“I’m not sure.” I thought about meeting the other Ainsley in Sherman Potter’s hotel room. Her sister must have been dead by then. Did she know?
“I still don’t understand why someone would do this to you,” Joel said.
That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? Because even though this felt personal, I didn’t know Ainsley Wainwright. I had never met her. And it had been a fluke that I met her sister when she was with Sherman Potter. I’d never met him before, either, although Daisy had told me about him. So why? Why would anyone go to all that trouble to set me up? To set up that fake blog? To take my picture? To put a flamingo on my bed? To text me, pretending to be Daisy?
I still had way more questions than answers. I wondered if Tim could help with the phone issue.
“What are you going to do about Ace?” Joel asked.
Now that was a tough one. We’d pretty much charged and convicted him last night, but in the light of day, it wasn’t quite so easy. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I shrugged. “I need to ask about the moonlighting.”
“Do we have rules against that?”
The way he asked made me wonder if Joel hadn’t been moonlighting, too. “No,” I said, “but if you want to, it might be best to tell me or Bitsy so at least we know.”
That seemed to satisfy Joel, who was probably having the same issues with our discussion last night as I was. Bitsy, I noticed, was oddly silent.
Tim wasn’t at the police station, and no one would tell me where he was. Flanigan wasn’t there, either. I could assume they were out somewhere together, since they’d seemed a bit joined at the hip lately. Maybe they had a lead on the case.
Listen to me. I sound like I watch too much TV.
I didn’t leave my cell phone with the sergeant, like he suggested. There was way too much possibility that it would get lost or something, so I took it with me when we left for the shop.
Ace was hanging around out front when we showed up. He was holding a white box that caught Joel’s eye. The gate was still down over the glass door.
“Lost my key,” he said apologetically.
I didn’t like the sound of that. If he’d lost it, then someone could find it and get into the shop. Since my house had already been broken into, I didn’t want the shop suffering the same fate.
“You’d better find it,” I snapped sharply.
“I’ll launch a full-blown search in my apartment later,” Ace said, an edge to his tone that indicated I might have held back a little. I’d never talked to him like that before, and immediately I could hear Sister Mary Eucharista reminding me that everyone’s innocent until proven guilty.
I unlocked the gate and pulled it up and out of sight, then unlocked the door and let everyone in. We all headed to the staff room, where Bitsy and I stashed our bags and Ace put the box on the table, breaking the tape that held it shut.
“Pastries,” he announced.
We all leaned over to check them out. They were from Bouchon, a bakery downstairs that was affiliated with the fancy Thomas Keller restaurant of the same name up on the eighth level of the Venetian Grand Canal Shoppes. Bouchon pastries were something special. I peered over at Ace, feeling even guiltier. He had taken one but hadn’t started nibbling on it yet.
Joel hadn’t waited that long. His was already half gone.
My pastry would have to wait. I needed to talk to Ace now. I gave Bitsy and Joel a look, and they got the message so they filtered out. Ace was following them when I said, “Ace, can I talk to you a minute?”
He paused at the door, flipping back his dark hair. He was incredibly handsome in a Greek god sort of way. Everything was symmetrical, even his tattoos, down to the fleur-de-lis on the tops of his hands.
“What’s up? I told you I’d look for the key.”
“It’s not about that. I know you’ll find it.” I sounded a lot more confident than I felt. “Are you moonlighting?” Might as well get it out in the open right away. Didn’t want to pull any punches.
Confusion crossed his face, then dismay. But he didn’t want to admit it. “What are you talking about?”
I might as well come clean. “I saw you last night. At the Flamingo. You were there with Harry Desmond. You had your case.”
He frowned. “So what of it?” A little more belligerent now.
I sighed. “I know Harry does parties. He used to work for Jeff; do you know that? And Jeff fired him.”
All pretense left his face. “He shouldn’t have, you know. Fired him, I mean. Harry’s a good tattooist. I told him he should ask for a job here.”
Like I’d hire him after what Jeff told me. After the other night. I felt myself blush a little as I thought about those kisses, how I’d almost gone home with him. And then out of the blue I thought about Jeff. I struggled to push the thoughts away and keep my focus on the matter at hand.
“Jeff fired him for a reason,” I said, making my voice all professional-like, the blush gone now. “I’m not sure you want your name associated with his, considering. And he never even told me that he’s a tattooist. So how could I hire him? He lied to us, said he got laid off at one of the casinos. It was all one big fabrication.”
Ace slumped a little, running a hand through that perfect hair. I could see he was debating something with himself, then finally he spoke.
“Today’s my last day.”
I didn’t think I heard him right. “What?”
Ace sighed. “I’m quitting.”
I hadn’t meant for this to happen. “Why?” I managed to sputter, totally thrown off. “Not because of this?”
“I need more time to devote to my painting,” he said. “And I can make a lot of money at those tattoo parties.”
A lot? How much? I wanted to ask, wondering if this wasn’t a ploy. “Do you want a raise?” I asked, worried about what he’d demand. He made less than Joel, which was only right, because he hadn’t been with the shop as long, starting only a year before I bought Flip out, whereas Joel had been with Flip from the start, about ten years. I couldn’t possibly give Ace more and have it all be fair. And while business was still good, the recession had hit us a little, and I didn’t want to overextend and have to give everyone raises.
Ace shook his head. “No. I just want to leave. This isn’t my thing anyway; you know that. I really need to concentrate on my art.”
I thought about his comic book renditions of famous paintings. We’d sold a few, but not enough to warrant a full-time gig.
“I’m going to try to set up an exhibit,” he continued. “I need to establish myself, and I can’t do it here. Harry says-”
Little red lights went off in my head. “Harry? What does Harry have to say about this?”
“He says he knows someone who owns a gallery, who might want to set up something for me.”
