passenger door shutting on its own with the force of the car.
“Hey!” I said.
We took a couple of turns, and I peered out the front window to see that we were only three cars away from Terri. How did he do that? I looked out the back window to see Joel lumbering along the sidewalk toward the apartment house. I hoped he was going to be okay. But there are definite positives to being his size and looking the way he did. He also knew a lot of people in this city, and I knew he’d have people to call on if he got into a jam.
I didn’t want to sit in the backseat like a kid.
I folded myself up and squeezed my way into the front seat, shifting a little so at one point I felt Jeff Coleman’s hand on my butt, steering me in the right direction. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
As I settled into my seat, though, I didn’t have time to ruminate about where his hand had been. Because Terri was slowing down. In front of Murder Ink.
“Do you think she’s the one who left the flamingo?” I asked.
Jeff shrugged, said nothing. When Terri started to move again, he made sure we were well behind her but close enough so he wouldn’t lose her.
I didn’t want to boost his ego by telling him how good he was at this. He knew it, anyway, didn’t need me to tell him, and if I did, he’d take that as more proof of our alleged
“What if she’s the one who’s behind all this?” I asked, unable to shut up. I couldn’t explain my sudden need to voice my thoughts. But the silence was killing me. Not to mention the intense way Jeff was watching that car. I’d never seen that expression before, and it scared me a little. Made me wonder if I shouldn’t have been the one staying behind with Ann rather than Joel.
“She’s pretty, isn’t she?” I now said, disgusted with myself.
Jeff’s head snapped around and he barked, “Kavanaugh, I get it. You’re jealous. Okay. But if this is the chick who’s been impersonating you and leaving flamingos all over the place, then maybe you need to refocus.”
It was a really good thing it was dark, because he couldn’t see the deep flush I felt move through my face and down my neck. Jealous? Is that what he thought?
“I’m just nervous,” I tried.
“And I’m just going to throw you out of the car if you say anything else.”
Was this our first fight? We’d never really fought. He teased, and I got upset, and then we went back to our familiar banter.
But before I could think about that further, I realized something. He really did think this girl was the one behind it all. And he was angry. Really angry. Probably more angry than I’d ever seen him.
I settled back in my seat. I thought about the rather benign conversation we’d had with Terri earlier, how Joel had offered to tattoo her at a discount. How she’d stayed outside the apartment while Bitsy and I were poking around inside. How she’d then shown up at the shop and given me the once-over that was so intimate I thought maybe she was coming on to me. Now I knew. She was studying me. Seeing how accurate she’d been when pretending to be me.
We never actually saw her go into or come out of an apartment, either. Maybe she didn’t really live there. I had an idea.
“What’s her license plate number?” I asked Jeff, my voice tearing into the silence, and I worried he’d blow up at me again.
But without question, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone and handed it to me before reciting the plate number. He knew I was calling Tim. That was the eerie thing about us. I decided to stop reflecting on it as I punched in Tim’s number.
“Tim, it’s me,” I said when he answered. “I’ve got a license plate you need to run down.” I gave it to him, and then I told him what was going on.
Instead of scolding me for not “staying put” at Murder Ink, he merely asked, “Where are you?”
We were on the Strip, and Terri’s car suddenly swerved. I saw now where we were going, and the irony didn’t escape me.
“We’re at the Flamingo,” I said.
Terri pulled up into the circular drive under the tiny white lights in the ceiling of the entryway. Jeff had pulled the Pontiac over to the side of the driveway, just out of sight, but we could see the front of her car.
“Should we follow her?” I asked Tim.
“Yes. I’ll be right over there.” He hung up.
I wasn’t quite sure how he’d find us; it was a big place. But he was a detective, after all, and it was his job to find people, so I was sure he would, eventually. And then it struck me: He’d given me permission to follow her. Had aliens taken over my brother?
When the valet drove her car past us, Jeff pulled the Pontiac into the driveway.
“Where do you think she went?” I asked. She had at least five minutes on us and could be anywhere by now.
“Keep the faith, Kavanaugh,” he said, but his voice was tight.
I didn’t like it that we were handing over the keys to the valet. What if we needed to get to the car quickly? This was why I liked the self-parking so much better. The only comfort was that she’d also left her car with the valet, so she wasn’t making any sort of quick escape, either.
Jeff was already at the door. I scrambled up to him, and he held the glass door wide. We went up the escalator.
We scooted around the hotel “lobby,” which was really just a long counter, passing a few people waiting in line with their suitcases. We stopped next to the familiar bronze flamingo statue-I didn’t want to see any more flamingos, but it was inevitable here-as we scanned the casino, and I spotted her, over on the far side, near the doors that led out to the aviary and gardens.
“There she is,” I said, pointing.
Jeff grabbed my hand, and we moved through the casino, bypassing the slots and the table games and cocktail waitresses balancing trays of drinks. As we slowed a little, I yanked my hand out of Jeff’s. He glanced back at me with a sly smile. I rolled my eyes at him, because I knew what he was thinking. About that
She’d pushed the glass door open, stepping outside.
We’d been here before: when we’d seen Harry and Ace meeting before their tattoo party. There had been a girl here then, too. Was it the same one?
“Remember, we couldn’t see her. There were too many people,” Jeff said when I asked the question out loud.
Everything had started to blur into one big memory. It was all happening so fast that I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to make any sense of any of it after all, even though there had been so many times over the last couple days that I’d thought I’d figured it out.
Should’ve known better.
She was walking briskly through the gardens, not even paying attention to the flamingos, ducks, and other birds that wandered freely along the pathways. The waterfall backdrop for wedding pictures was straight ahead, but she didn’t stop there.
She veered around the path and went underneath a fuchsia canopy, some sort of statue or something at the end.
“What’s that?” I asked out loud.
“Bugsy Siegel,” Jeff said. “You do know who that was, right?”
I rolled my eyes at him. Of course I did. Bugsy Siegel was the mobster who built the Flamingo back in the 1940s.
