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
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
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.”
Chapter 58
I felt like someone had punched me in the gut.
“Sylvia, Matthew isn’t my friend.” It was all I could do to keep my voice from shaking. Post-traumatic stress, and all that. I could end up worse than Pavlov’s dogs; just mention the name Matthew and I’d crumble into a million little pieces. At least the dogs got to ring a bell and then forget about it. “When did he take the gun? And why would he set Jeff up for Kelly’s murder?”
“Oh, he didn’t set Jeff up. He just took the gun.”
“But the gun was found in Kelly’s car. So how did it end up there?”
Her smile turned a little sad, like she thought I’d become too dim-witted for this conversation. “Why, he gave it to Kelly, of course.”
I thought my head would explode.
“What for?”
“She never liked having the gun in the shop, you know.”
We were on a carousel, going round and round but heading nowhere except on Sylvia’s own little Magical Mystery Tour. I didn’t think it would do any good to pound my head against the wall.
“How do you know that Matthew gave the gun to his sister?”
“That’s what he told me he wanted to do.”
Just when you think there’s no logic in anything, something coherent pops up.
“Any reason why?”
She patted my forearm. “He said Kelly had gotten into a little trouble.”
That coincided with what Matt Powell had told Jeff. But if her brother gave her a gun, that might indicate something a little worse than just deciding to be a single parent and not bothering to tell Jeff that she was confiscating their embryos for her own use.
We’d walked all the way down to the courthouse, and Sylvia abruptly turned on her heel and started walking back.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Oh, I just like to walk now and then.” She hooked her arm around mine, patting my hand. She was so little; I towered over her. But her hand was warm, comforting. After the day I had, I didn’t mind having a little TLC, even if Sylvia was a little nuts.
“You should let me ink your arm,” she said after a two-block silence as we approached Murder Ink.
I thought about Napoleon. “I’m going to do a stencil,” I said. “I’d love it if you could do it.” I told her what I planned.
She snorted. “Dear, you’re a six-foot-tall woman. You don’t want a five-foot-two man on your arm. Let me do something more appropriate.”
I didn’t want to argue the issue. I wasn’t in the mood. I let her reel off the possibilities as I wondered why Kelly Masters would need a gun.
“I’m going to close up the shop now, dear,” Sylvia was saying as we stood in front of Murder Ink. She unhooked her arm. “Thank you for walking with me. You’re a nice girl.”
“How’s Jeff?”
“He’s fine. I’m sure you’ll hear from him soon.”
I was sure of it, too. He’d become my new best friend. Well, except for Sylvia.
I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, her skin thin and transparent, her wrinkles rippling across her cheeks. Her face was the only place that wasn’t inked.
I glanced back at the shop when I reached my car and watched Sylvia pull open the door.
I was concentrating so much on her that I didn’t see it until it swerved into the Bright Lights Motel lot. The Dakota spun around my car faster than I could move, blocking me from the door so I was trapped.
Chapter 59
I just couldn’t deal with road rage right now. If it was that guy I’d stopped earlier, I might as well just throw my hands up and surrender.
“Brett Kavanaugh?”
I didn’t think that guy knew my name. And, anyway, it wasn’t a guy. It was a woman’s voice that came out of the truck.
I walked around the massive hood, noticing the scratches on the roof. This was the Dakota that had chased me in the Versailles garage.
The window was rolled down, and she stuck her head out.
Elise Lyon. Elise? She was the one driving the Dakota?
Her eyes skipped all around me before landing on my face.
“Get in,” she said.
I sighed. “Listen, Elise, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not. Why don’t you get out and we can talk here?”
A gun barrel peeked out beneath her face.
“It’s not an option.”
Kidnapped twice in one day. Go figure.
I walked back around the truck and opened the door, climbing up inside. A blast of cold air hit me in the face and I shivered, welcoming it. I’d been outside long enough so I’d almost gotten used to the heat.
I shut the door after me and turned in my seat to see Elise Lyon still holding the gun on me.
