“I was bringing it to Tim,” I started.
“You’re not exactly in the neighborhood,” he reminded me.
“I needed to make a stop first,” I tried.
He started leading me toward the cruiser.
“Can I at least get my bag?” I asked.
He let go of me, went to the Jeep, and got my bag for me, but he didn’t hand it to me. He indicated I was to keep heading toward the cruiser.
“Can I lock it up?” I asked, indicating the Jeep.
Willis sighed, as if I was the biggest pain in his butt all day. I probably was. He allowed me to get the keys and lock up the Jeep before he stuffed me in the back of the cruiser and we headed back downtown.
Willis put me in one of those concrete interrogation rooms you see on TV. It’s really like that, except possibly more uncomfortable. I waited there about twenty minutes before the door opened and Tim stepped in. He was not happy with me.
“Where did you get the gun?” he asked without saying hello.
I told him everything. About Sylvia giving me the receipt this morning and then going to see Jeff and finding the box at That’s Amore and deciding to go see Rosalie first.
Tim took it all in, pacing back and forth in front of me as I spoke.
“I couldn’t find your registration,” I said. “I thought it was in the glove box. Why don’t you keep it there?”
Tim stopped pacing and shook his head. “You’ve got an illegal gun in my Jeep, and you’re worried about the registration?”
“You can call Jeff Coleman so he can corroborate my story,” I said.
“Don’t worry; we’ll do that,” Tim promised.
“So am I free to go now?” I asked.
“I’m not letting you go by yourself,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“First off, my Jeep is somewhere in Summerlin. You have no way to get anywhere. Second, you obviously can’t be trusted on your own, so I’m going to have to take things into my own hands.”
“Take things into your own hands? What does that mean?”
“That means you go to work and you go home, no stops in between.”
“Like I’m under house arrest?” While I’d been having panic attacks with Willis, now my heart was pounding with anger.
“Exactly.”
My eyes filled with tears, and I struggled to keep them at bay. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I tried.
“You’re putting yourself in danger. What if someone else had found that gun in the car with you?”
I shrugged. “No one did.”
“Because Willis stopped you first.”
A knock on the door interrupted us.
Detective Flanigan stepped in. Might as well make it a party. It would be the only one I’d be able to go to for a while, it seemed.
“So, Miss Kavanaugh, you seem to find yourself in interesting predicaments, don’t you?” Flanigan asked before turning to Tim. “Have you told her?”
“Told me what?” I asked as Tim shook his head.
“I haven’t had a chance yet.”
Flanigan took a deep breath and leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. My throat tightened. Whatever it was he was going to tell me-well, I knew it wasn’t going to be good.
“Your brother here is taking a couple of days off. To make sure you stay out of trouble.”
Chapter 35
I stood up and faced Tim, ignoring Flanigan.
“You’re going to be my babysitter?”
Tim nodded. “That’s right.”
“I’m not a child who needs watching.”
“That’s what you think.”
With a huff, I plopped back down into the chair, my face in my hands. This was so not cool.
“It’s for your safety,” Tim said softly. “Someone already tried to run you down, too.”
Logically, I could understand his concern. Maybe I was getting too involved with all this. But this gun thing, well, that wasn’t my doing. I didn’t go looking for it.
“That should be that,” Flanigan said. “Hopefully, all this will be over soon.”
It was the way he said it that made me take pause, and I lifted my head up.
“Do you have a suspect?” I asked.
Tim rolled his eyes, and Flanigan shook his head as he left the room.
“What?” I asked Tim.
“What?” he mimicked. “This is exactly why this is a good idea.”
“But you’re using vacation days, and you wanted to go hiking in Alaska.”
“I’ll still get there. I’ve got time.”
Super.
“I have a client, you know. I have to get to the shop.”
“I’ll take you.”
I was about to argue, then realized he was right: The Jeep was in Summerlin, and my car was somewhere being probed by the police. I did need a ride.
I felt like such a loser.
As we settled into Tim’s department-issued Chevy Impala, which had all the personality of a dishrag, I asked, “Did Flanigan tell you that you had to watch me or did you volunteer?”
I saw it in his expression. This wasn’t voluntary.
He knew I knew. “It’s for your own good. I don’t want to have to explain to Mom and Dad how you got killed because you were too nosy. They’d end up blaming me, and I’d have to live with it.”
“So that’s why you agreed to this? So you won’t feel guilty?” Sister Mary Eucharista would be proud.
He turned down Las Vegas Boulevard. “You know, Brett, some nosy people are satisfied just poking into other people’s medicine cabinets and bathroom drawers.”
“So sue me. I’m not just some nosy person.”
Tim wanted to laugh. His jaw muscles twitched, and the faint hint of a smile tugged at his lips. “Maybe you should’ve become a cop,” he suggested.
“And maybe you could tell me how I could explain that to Mom.”
“It wouldn’t be any harder than explaining the tattoos.”
Touché.
“So if you’re hanging out babysitting me, maybe I should give you some ink,” I said slyly. Tim didn’t have a tattoo. He said he didn’t know what he’d want marked permanently on his person, so he wouldn’t get anything at all. “I’ve got books with ideas at the shop.”
He ignored me.
Bitsy’s eyes widened when Tim followed me into the shop.
“Hey, Bits,” Tim said jovially, heading toward the staff room and disappearing inside.
“What is he doing here?” Bitsy asked in a stage whisper.
“He’s my new babysitter,” I said, quickly telling her what had gone on since I’d hung up on her.
“You had a gun in your car?”
Oh, right. Forgot to tell her how I came to possess a firearm. So I did.
As I spoke, the door swung open, and I looked up to see Will Parker coming in. I’d almost forgotten about him, but surveying the jeans and the button-down shirt and the way his blond hair flopped across his forehead, I figured I could have a lot worse ways to spend the next hour.
Tim, unfortunately, chose that moment to stick his head out of the staff-room door. Will Parker spotted him, and he did a double take.
“That’s my brother, Tim,” I said.
“The cop?” Will had a deer-in-headlights look about him.
I chuckled. “He’s not going to arrest you until after I work on your tattoo. My room’s this way.” I led him down the hall and pointed to my room. “Wait a sec, okay?” I continued to the staff room, where Tim was riffling through a file folder with some stencils in it.
I grabbed the folder from him and put it back on the light table.
“You can’t check out all the clients,” I hissed. “You’ll scare them away. I’m going to be about an hour, so you can go get a drink or lunch or something if you want. You can bring something back for all of us.”
Tim was grinning. “Okay, fine, don’t get all mad. I’ll go get food.”
He started out, and I remembered something. “Joel’s on Atkins. He needs some sort of meat.”
“Really? It looked like he’d lost some weight. But don’t people on that diet gain it all back later anyway?”