Karen Olson: The Missing Ink

Despite my first impression that he was devoted to Elise, it now seemed that Chip was more like a spoiled little boy who was just trying to get a possession back. He was more petulant than passionate about trying to find Elise. That affair she had still bothered him; that was clear.

The door was wide open now. I willed him to walk through it.

“Thank you, everyone,” he said, but stopped short of leaving.

“Is there something else?” I asked, trying to keep impatience out of my voice.

He looked up and down the walkway, shaking his head. “He’s not here.”

“Who?”

“My driver.”

For being his “best friend,” Chip didn’t seem to be on a first-name basis with the guy.

“Maybe he’s window-shopping,” Ace suggested.

Chip pulled a cell phone off his belt and punched in some numbers. “Where are you?” he asked, still half in, half out of the shop.

I shrugged at Bitsy and was about to go finish my sketch when Chip ended his call.

“He’s at the food court. How do I find that?”

He was helpless.

“Which one?” Joel asked. “There are two.”

Chip sighed. He punched numbers into his phone. “Matt? Which food court?” He waited a few seconds, stuck his phone in his pocket, and said, “Wherever the Nathan’s hot dogs is.”

Joel gave him directions, but I wasn’t paying attention. My brain was buzzing.

His driver’s name was Matt?

“Matt?”I said when Chip finally left, the door shutting behind him. “Matthew? Don’t you get it?”

“You think his driver is the guy from the devotion ink?” Bitsy asked.

“Why not?”

I wanted to ask him myself and started for the door. Joel beat me to it. “I’m coming with you,” he said.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him he’d slow me down, but he knew.

“You had that guy watching you,” he reminded me.

“So you’re going to be my personal bodyguard?”

“What’s going on?” Bitsy didn’t know about the tattooed guy.

I shook my head. “Tell you later. Hold down the fort.” I looked at Joel. “Okay, come on.”

As we speed-walked, Joel asked, “Do you think this Matt’s the one she had the affair with three months ago?”

“Seems likely,” I said. “It probably wasn’t really over.”

“But then why agree to go through with the marriage?”

Joel didn’t understand. Wedding plans are made, and sometimes it seems like it would just be easier to go through with it than to cancel and suffer the embarrassment and the questions.

I didn’t have a problem with the latter.

I just moved across the country.

Paul hadn’t even tried to come after me. At least Chip was trying to find Elise.

My family-with the exception of Tim-thought I was running away. Maybe I was, but not in the way they thought. I was running to a new life, a place where I’d have my own identity again. It was so easy with the wrong person to lose that.

I didn’t even need therapy to figure all that out.

I couldn’t walk down memory lane now. I wanted to find Matt and have a little private word with him. Getting Chip out of the way might be challenging, but between me and Joel, we could probably do it.

We passed the Lime Ice Frozen Bar, glanced around at the Häagen-Dazs, Rice & Noodle Works, New York Pretzel, and finally Nathan’s. Joel’s mouth started watering at the sight of the ice cream, but I tugged on his arm and scanned the crowd.

We didn’t see Chip anywhere.

“Maybe Matt met up with him and they took off already,” Joel said.

“You just want to go get some ice cream.” I sighed. “Okay, go, but get me something, too.” Nothing like ice cream before lunch. “I’m going to keep looking.”

Joel scurried off as fast as a heavy man could.

I ventured beyond the food court and went back out toward the Palazzo shops that extended just beyond the end of the Venetian’s canal. I took the escalator down, feeling the coolness from the waterfall that splashed into a large circular area at the bottom. I scanned the customers at the gelato place-there weren’t many, since it was still early, but a couple diehards were scooping the creamy Italian ice cream out of cups. I had issues with five-dollar scoops of gelato. Just like I had issues with that waterfall.

I didn’t have time to get on my environmental soapbox. I looped around the back of the escalators to where the box office for the Blue Man Group squatted in the corner. Not a soul back here. A full circle later and I was going back up the escalator, conceding defeat.

I felt deflated. I’d missed my chance to find out if Chip’s driver was the subject of Elise’s devotion ink.

A nudge at my elbow, and I saw Joel’s extended hand offering me a mint-chip cone.

“Thanks,” I said, absently licking it.

“Did you see them?”

“No.”

My eyes skirted around the tourists as we went back toward the shop, but everyone just blended into everyone else and it became a blur.

Bitsy was scribbling in the appointment book, the phone tucked against her cheek. Ace was in with Jonathan Roth berg, a client who was in the middle of getting a complicated Harry Potter sleeve-the entire cast with the Death Eater tat from the fifth movie at its center. Because there was so much to it, this was Jonathan’s second visit for the same ink. He had told us he was a rocket scientist, and we couldn’t tell if he was joking. Probably not. Everyone was getting tats these days.

Joel and I went into the staff room.

“What was she like?” Joel asked. He leaned against the wall next to me, slurping the ice cream out from the bottom of his cone. I knew he was asking about Kelly, or rather, Elise.

“Rich girl,” I said simply. “You know the type.” They came to Vegas in droves, the twentysomethings who partied all night and brought their cocktails into the pool with them the next day after a few hours’ sleep. Hair of the dog and all that. But Elise wasn’t drunk; I wouldn’t have made the appointment with her if she had been. And she didn’t have the usual girl pack hanging around outside to see if she’d really go through with it. No, Elise was different. I think she really was going to surprise Matthew. Instead, the tables got turned somehow, and Chip was the one who was surprised.

“What if she’s dead?” Joel asked too loudly, interrupting my thoughts.

I put a finger to my lips. “Sssh,” I whispered.

He leaned toward me, folding his arms across his chest. “So what if she’s dead?” he repeated in a stage whisper.

“The cop yesterday told me she wasn’t.”

“How does he know?”

How did he know? She could be dead, or she could be in Los Angeles or Hawaii or New York now.

Another thought made me pause.

“She could be married to Matthew by now,” I said.

“What?”

“Maybe after she left here, she and Matthew got married.”

“But you said she wanted the tat for her wedding night.”

“Maybe she couldn’t wait. Maybe she found out Chip had found her here, and she and Matthew took off.”

It was all speculation. And if Chip’s driver Matt was Kelly’s Matthew, it seemed unlikely, since Matt was with Chip. I had no clue what happened to Elise. I just hoped that wherever she was, she was alive and happy. She obviously had her reasons to leave Chip at the altar, and it wasn’t for me to make judgments about that.

Voices echoed from the front of the shop, and Joel and I instinctively both reached for the door at the same time. Bitsy pushed it open and peered around it, blinking a couple of times before focusing on me.

“Brett? You might want to come out here.”

I’d had enough disruptions for one day and it was still early. But it might be Tim.