backpack and threw it out the school bus window. The bus driver wouldn’t stop. I cried all day, and after school, Tim went to Zack’s house, brought him to where my papers were still littering the side of the road, and made him collect them and come and apologize to me. I never knew exactly what Tim said to him, and no one ever mentioned the bruise on Zack’s cheek, but after that, Zack Turner left me alone.
I took off my red heels. My feet immediately expanded and began to throb. I plopped down into a chair at the table. Tim grabbed another plate and gave me some of the eggs. I dug in, giving myself a few minutes to formulate what I was going to say.
“I don’t know what’s going on with Simon Chase,” I said when I finished the eggs. “We had lunch, but then he got a call from Elise to meet her at that bar, and I went over there, and he saw me and made me sing karaoke; then we talked in the parking lot, but then he disappeared. And I saw him get into a Dodge Dakota.”
Tim’s confusion was clear. “What does his truck have to do with this?”
I told him about the white Dakota following me around.
Tim immediately became concerned. “Have you gotten a plate number?”
I shook my head, biting into a piece of toast. “No.”
“Why would Chase be following you?”
Matthew had been following me, too. Or at least watching me. I told him how I’d seen Chase and Matthew talking at Versailles. “Maybe he and Matthew think I know something I don’t.”
Tim rubbed his chin. “Possibly. Did Elise say anything to you that night she was in the shop, anything at all that they might think would implicate them in something?”
I’d been over it a hundred times, with Bitsy, too. “No. I’ve got nothing.”
“What about that tattoo on Matt Powell?” Tim asked. “Any idea who might have done that?”
“No.” I almost told him I’d seen Jeff Coleman, too, but decided to keep that out of this conversation. “Elise looked scared tonight. I don’t know where she is, but she’s definitely alive. Have you found any other connection between her and Kelly Masters other than that they both dated Simon Chase?”
Tim pursed his lips in a way that told me he very well might have found something. And that he certainly wasn’t going to tell me.
But I can be a pit bull when I want to be.
“Come on, Tim. I’ve got people following me around. Maybe knowing what the connection is might help me figure out why.”
He was wavering.
“If you tell me, I might have some information about Jeff Coleman.”
That got his attention.
“Do you know where he is?”
“Not at the moment,” I said. That was true. I didn’t know when or where Jeff might actually show up, either, so I’d be useless on that front as well.
“What do you know?” He could be a pit bull, too. It was in the genes.
“If I tell you, you’ll tell me what you’ve got, too, right?”
Tim sighed. “Okay, fine, but you have to promise to stay out of it.”
“As much as I can,” I said, crossing my fingers underneath the table so he wouldn’t see.
“You first,” he instructed.
I didn’t think I had a choice. I told him how Jeff showed up at Circus Circus, how I saw him tonight at Versailles, how he was as baffled as I was, that I believed he didn’t kill Matt Powell or Kelly Masters.
Tim snorted when I got to that last part.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Your friend Jeff Coleman, who tells you he’s so innocent? That he hadn’t seen his ex-wife in years?” He paused.
“We did a DNA test. Kelly Masters’s baby was Jeff Coleman’s baby.”
Chapter 45
After a second of being stunned by this news, I thought of something else. “How do you have Jeff’s DNA?”
“He was a suspect a few years back in a sexual assault case. We took his DNA. He didn’t do it. Seems the woman had a grudge against him. He didn’t want to marry her.”
“But you’re sure that this baby is his? He and Kelly couldn’t get pregnant; it split them up.”
Tim was surprised to hear this. “Really?”
“That’s the story I got.”
“Well, someone’s lying.”
And we both knew who that was. Jeff must have seen Kelly in the last few months, otherwise she wouldn’t be pregnant with his baby. But that still didn’t explain what was up with Elise Lyon and why she was using Kelly’s name.
I was really disappointed in Jeff Coleman. While we hadn’t ever been on very good terms-all that “Kavanaugh” stuff, and him constantly making references to me thinking I was better than he was just because I didn’t have a street shop or flash-I had begun to believe and trust in him on this. He’d seemed genuinely sincere, and genuinely surprised about Kelly being dead.
“Next time you see him, you have to let me know. Keep him wherever you are and call me so we can come get him.”
“You really did find his fingerprints on a gun in her car?” I asked. Tim nodded. “So he really is a suspect?” I thought a moment. “Why would Jeff kill her if she was pregnant with his baby?”
Tim sighed. There were way too many questions and not enough answers. “I have no idea,” he said. “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
“So then what’s the link between Kelly and Elise? You promised,” I said.
“Do you promise to let me know if Coleman contacts you again?”
I nodded. “Okay, sure. No more stalling-what’s up?”
“Kelly Masters called Elise Lyon in Philadelphia the day before Elise disappeared.”
“Really? What for?”
Tim shrugged, getting up and clearing away our dishes. “We don’t know. But something made Elise run, and that’s the only thing out of the ordinary that happened in her last few days there. Other than that, it was wedding business as usual.”
I helped Tim load the dishwasher, pondering why Kelly would call Elise.The presumption was that they didn’t know each other before they met up in Vegas. Or did they?
“Had they met at all?” I asked Tim.
He shook his head. “No clue. We can’t find anything else, except Simon Chase, and he swears that they never overlapped in his life.”
Tim wiped down the counter, then started for his bedroom. He paused at the hallway. “Remember, any word from Coleman…” His voice trailed off.
I nodded. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you,” I said as I went into my own bedroom and changed into my cotton pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. I tossed the white trousers in the hamper, but they seemed to be a lost cause. Too bad. They’d grown on me.
In the middle of brushing my teeth, I heard my cell phone blasting Springsteen. I didn’t want it to bother Tim, so I bounded across the bedroom, toothpaste in my mouth, and took the phone out of my bag, flipping up the cover, not recognizing the number.
“Yes?”
“Kavanaugh?”
Jeff Coleman.
“I’ve got to talk to you,” I started.
“No time. But I think I know what’s going on.”
“I really need to talk to you,” I insisted.
