Hold 'Em Hostage Part 9

"Sure it is. There are volumes written and more legends told than we have time for today."

Joaquin's voice sounded like he'd been smoking some of the incense burning in a pot in the corner of the room. He pulled out a pad and started sketching with a charcoal pencil.

"Wow," I breathed. "I wish we had all night to talk about it."

"We do, baby, you got a lot of skin just waiting for my instrument."

Ook. I stifled my gag in a cough. Milne patted my back. "Do you want an arnica smoothie to soothe your throat, dear?"

"No, thanks. I'm going to be okay." I sucked in a breath to fortify myself to address Joaquin again. "What does a dragon/snake/shark creature mean?"

"Where is it?"

I told him.

"That's quite unusual. I have heard of it, but let me give you some background. The Western dragon is wicked, a destroyer, representative of greed, wealth. But in the East, it can represent great wisdom and power. The shark is the pure predator, vicious, often striking with no provocation and without mercy. The snake is the most difficult to discern. How was he represented?"

I paused to remember, then explained the head, the open mouth. "The snake is probably the most controversial of all tattoos-it can reflect a myriad of meanings. It can reflect the evil in the Bible, but even there, the snake was very smart as well, wasn't he? It can represent wisdom. Gangs can use them to show their ferocity. Or, convexly, it can reflect the positivity of nature. Even poisonous snakes rarely strike unless provoked, so what does that mean? It's a popular tattoo because it's difficult to interpret. Many don't want you to know why they wear on their skin what they do."

Wow. I was impressed with the deep meaning behind something I'd always considered a bit of a boneheaded, often drunken branding. "Thanks for your insight. You said this tattoo I mentioned was unusual, but you'd heard of it?"

The door clicked.

"I think I've found him." Ben said as he let himself back into the room.

Thank G.o.d. The suspense of whether I was going to finish asking the questions first or he was going to finish the sketch and move to the needle first was killing me. I relaxed only to feel a burning sensation on the small of my back.

"And I thought the pigs were bad." Joaquin shook his head as we walked down the hallway, following Ben.

"Very funny," I muttered. I'd screamed when the tattoo needle hit home. I would be the only woman in the world with a single dot of ink on the small of my back because I had news for everyone-I was never ever, ever doing that again. I hadn't had the guts to look, even though Joaquin had offered the mirror.

"No, it wasn't funny, actually. I think my eardrums are bruised," Joaquin groused.

"Oh?!" Milne appeared at his elbow. "Do you want an arnica salve?"

Joaquin sent her off with a polite refusal. I looked at him with raised eyebrows. He shrugged. "She thinks arnica is a cure-all, kind of like my grandmother thought of Phillips' Milk of Magnesia."

Ben and I both smiled. So even this new age hippie tattoo artist and I had something in common besides two legs and two arms. Huh. Go figure.

"Now, who do you think you know in our gallery?" Joaquin asked Ben.

Ben led the way in the opposite direction from the way we'd entered. Around a corner was a collection of portraits with particular themes. Stars, b.u.t.terflies, flowers, frogs, moons, Celtic art, Chinese, it was a huge s.p.a.ce full from floor to ceiling with photos. Ben walked over to the freestyle tattoo wall and pointed. There he was, Dragsnashark.

Joaquin pursed his lips then turned to us. "It's the tattoo of the Medula, a low-profile but powerful gang. I don't know what they want it to mean. They designed it and keep their own in-house tattoo artist. You take what I told you and I'm sure it's supposed to mean all that and more."

Ben refused to tell me how far Joaquin had gotten with the needle on my back or what Frank had asked for in the first place. My skin still burned where the needle seared it.

We made it to the seventeenth floor, and I let us into the room. Frank held his cell phone to his ear as he paced. He acknowledged us with a pa.s.sing glance, then did a double take, especially at my arms. Oops. I'd forgotten about the Harley s.h.i.+rt. I heard the caller trying to get his attention, but Frank remained silent as he walked sh.e.l.l-shocked over to us, sparing a glance that bespoke both amazement and irritation at Ben.

Running his hands from my elbows to my wrist he found the seam and lifted it, still not convinced that I wasn't a hogette convert. He apologized to whomever was on the other end of the line and pulled at the fabric one last time. Finally satisfied, he spun me around and peeked under the s.h.i.+rt at the small of my back. He raised his eyebrows in question.

"It's a long story," I mouthed.

Frank looked like he probably didn't want to hear it. Then, he urged the caller to continue, kissed me on the top of the head and stalked back over to the window where he looked out at The Strip, not seeing anything but what the caller was saying, forgetting there was anyone else in the room. I sighed, envying that ability to compartmentalize at the same time as hating being the victim of it. Mult.i.tasking was way overrated, if you asked me. I think it's generally bad for my mental health and my physical beauty. Look at Frank, for instance. Sure, he had wrinkles, but they were the s.e.xy kind-not the worrywart, ugly kind like I had from trying to juggle too many things in my mind and my emotions at once.

Ben marched straight to the bedroom I was sharing with Shana and knocked at the door. When there was no answer, he let himself in. He'd become distracted again on our journey back to the Mellagio. Fleetingly, during our foray into tattoo land, he'd seemed himself. Now he was back to Brooding Ben, a brother I didn't know and didn't know how to deal with. I realized I constantly complained about having a narcissistic twin but I have to admit, I have learned to manage him in a way I've become accustomed to. This mute time bomb was scaring me.

"Where is Shana?" he demanded, bursting from the room.

"Last I heard she was playing in a small tournament at the Egyptian. Don't worry, although I don't know why you should. Ingrid is with her. If Ingrid could say no to sleeping with you, I feel confident she could effectively repel the worst kind of terrorist and keep Shana safe."

Ben responded with a glare as he punched a number into his phone.

"Who are you calling?"

"None of your business."

I'm sure that wasn't true, but I was tired of that game. I helped myself to a Perrier as Ben snuck into the bathroom to make the call. It gave me the opportunity to watch Frank and wonder why I wasn't wary about the man I thought I loved. Yes, I admitted as I watched him grind his jaw at something the caller said, watched his biceps flex and his mouth harden into a thin line, the fact that Frank Gilbert could kill wouldn't surprise me. The way it had been described did. That Frank Gilbert could leave a wife didn't surprise me. That it was because she was a cripple did. I had to remind myself I'd been stupid before about men, most especially about silly, shallow Toby whom I'd come dangerously close to marrying, so perhaps trusting my instincts wasn't the best option.

Frank turned to me, his face softening, as he slid the cell phone into the back pocket of his snug-in-the-right-places Levi's.

It would have been comfortable to share my evening with him. It would have been fair (and probably smart) to give him a chance to share his evening with me and ease into my meeting with his old nemesis.

"Frank, do you know a man named Rudy Serrano?"

He didn't have to answer. The look on his face said it all.

Twelve.

"This was here when I got back," Frank said, motioning to a paper on the coffee table as he turned his back on me. I studied him for a moment, great stone man (was he breathing?), then looked at what he'd pointed to.

"Don't touch it," Frank said. "I'm sending it to one of my techs after you see it."

"Aren't you going to answer my question?" I demanded as I looked down and gasped.

Aunt Bee, Do what they tell you to do, please. I want to see you again. Sorry.

Love,

Aph

The note had been written on regular copy paper in alternating red and yellow ink. The "o" in love was shaped like a heart.

"Isn't that kind of immature for a teenager-to write in colors like that?"

"It would be for Affie," I answered, thinking.

"It's probably a fake then."

"What is that supposed to mean?" I snapped.

"You have to be realistic, Honey Bee." Frank's voice softened. "Affie may be gone. We have to accept that possibility and not put you in danger for nothing. Part of any effective investigation is realizing all options. That is the only way to find the truth."

"But, that is her handwriting. The colors, because they are out of character, have to mean something. She is sending me a clue, I just need to figure out what it is." I paused, then added, "Don't kill my G.o.ddaughter yet, Frank."

Frank paled, glared and said: "Bee, that's not fair."

"None of this is fair, Frank," I said, suddenly tired. "Especially the fact that you won't answer my question."

Frank turned, met my gaze, and I felt the pain in his face burn through me like a blowtorch. I steeled myself against it as he said quietly, "I know Serrano. I don't know what you know about him or why."

"I know the story of you and Monica."

Frank's jaw tightened. He broke eye contact and I felt suddenly bereft, as he stated flatly, "You know his side of the story. In time, you'll know mine."

"If I still have time to hear it by the time it gets told," I answered, willing myself to stay strong, turn around and not find those hypnotic coffee-colored eyes again.

The knock at the door surprised both of us. Frank looked through the peephole, threw the deadbolt and let Joe in. He looked at me and Frank and back again. "Is everything okay?"

I waited to let Frank answer and wondered how much history Joe and Frank shared. Did Joe know Serrano? Did Joe know Monica and the kids? Not that Joe would tell me. He was, as far as I could tell, dead loyal to Frank. He'd do anything for me but rat out the boss, I'd guess. Still, I'd try, later. I'm hardheaded that way.

"Bee just saw the note," Frank explained, although, of course, that only accounted for half the discord in the room. Joe accepted that with a nod, although I think he would have treated a nonsensical response like "Billy goats eat rainbows" equally if Frank had said it.

The two of them donned some surgical gloves that Joe plucked from his back pocket and loaded the note into a plastic lab bag. Frank filled out some paperwork as some synapse in my brain made sense of Affie's color scheme. "Red and yellow-catch a fellow," I murmured, remembering all the times we'd chanted it from first grade to last week.

Joe and Frank shared a quizzical glance then looked at me. "And that means?"

"That's what Affie and I used to say that when she would like a boy. I would tease her to catch a guy you have to wear red and yellow."

"It may just be a coincidence," Frank cautioned.

"But what kind of guy would she be catching while she's kidnapped? Or is it who I should be catching?"

"I'd think you already have your guy," Frank put in, sticking out his lower lip.

I wasn't going to justify his pout. "She must mean it a different way. Police catch criminals. Maybe it's the criminal I'm looking to catch."

"Big clue since eighty percent of criminals are men."

"There's got to be more to it. I'll figure it out."

"Or maybe it's coincidence, she's bored and that's all she had to write with."

"Maybe," I allowed, just to keep Frank quiet.

Ben emerged from the bathroom, brooding again. Joe used his reappearance as an opening to retreat and take the note to the lab. He and Frank huddled at the door for a moment before Joe waved and departed.

"Has anyone heard from Jack?" I asked.

"Jack is undercover, under something," Frank said, shooting me a non sequitur questioning glance I wasn't about to answer. "We'll hear from him when he can communicate."

I knew he was right, but I still worried. I could be the poster child for Guilt-R-Me. The door opened again and in walked Shana and Ingrid. Frank leaned in to me, sliding a loose tendril of my hair behind my right ear. "The revolving-door atmosphere of this suite is wearing on my nerves."

"Go stay in your own suite then," I advised.

He raised his eyebrows, then jogged them up and down.

I shook my head.

Frank sighed and turned to the women. "How did your tournament go?"

Ingrid yawned. She didn't play poker. She shopped and shot people and created websites and looked unrealistically gorgeous.

Shana shrugged. "I won about twenty-seven hundred. I used it to hire a medium to find Affie."

"What?" Ben and Frank and I blurted simultaneously.

Shana looked at all of us. "You all are wearing out the evidence angle. I can't add any expertise there. You send me off-out of sight-so I can't get in your way with all my tears and emotion. So, I thought I would cover an angle none of you would think of, so I took my winnings and hired Moon to feel what she can of Affie."

We all turned to Ingrid. She was on the couch, perfect knee (an oxymoron for every woman in the world but Ingrid, trust me) crossed over perfect knee, flipping through the latest Time. Finally, she realized all eyes were on her. She looked up, blinked, c.o.c.ked her head and shrugged. "She seems to know her stuff."

"What?" Ben yelled. "What? The medium knows her what? Alignment of the stars, ghost talk and crystals? How is that going to help Aphrodite?"

Shana stuck out her lower lip. Bad sign of a Filipino meltdown. I cringed.

"I am helping my daughter the only way I can, right now," she raged, flipping her sheet of dark hair around a pet.i.te doll-like face twisted in frustration, talking with her neon pink fingernails, stomping with her size five and a half stacked heels. "And anyone who doesn't like it can just give up, because I'm willing to do whatever it takes to find Aph. I'll sell my soul to the devil to do it, if I could find his cell number. I'd sell my body to the highest bidder if it got my baby back."

"Shana! You can't mean that," Ben cautioned sharply. His handsome face was twisted and red. What? That was more shocking than the psychic hiring.

When did he become such a prude?!

Shana stuck a fist on her hip. "You wanna bet?" They began a staring contest.