Polly was the first one of us to regain speech. What she said was: “Jas, stand behind me. I think I’m going to faint.”
Followed by Roxy saying, “It—it’s everywhere. The entire interior is covered with it. Floor, seats, even the ceiling. I know this is Las Vegas and things get out of hand here, but it’s just so—”
“Purple,” Tom said now, shaking his head over his breakfast menu. “It was so incredibly purple.”
It was true. Every surface on the interior of the car had been covered in purple shag carpeting. Which was both hideous to behold and extra inconvenient. Shag carpeting meant no fingerprints. And since there was nothing in the car, no custom-made shirts or business card cases, at first I’d thought there was nothing to help us.
Look at the whole picture. Pay attention to what is there, not what you see, my mother’s voice in my head reminded me. And just as I was about to get snarky with it—PURPLE SHAG, MOM. THAT’S WHAT I SEE—I got what she was saying. Because I’d been so busy looking for something, I hadn’t realized what I was looking at. Which was a supreme environment for trapping tiny pieces of evidence.
After that, I spent fifteen minutes quickly going over the car while Tom, Roxy, and Polly stood guard, and then we moved to the hotel coffee shop to eat brunch and plan our next move.
At least, everyone else was going to eat brunch. Delicious griddle cakes, savory bacon, fluffy omelets—these were not for the likes of Jas. No, although I hid it behind a Brave Face, a carefree laugh, a winning smile, and of course my normal savoir faire, I was in pain. Soul-searing pain.40
Because there could no longer be any doubt. The night before, when Alyson blurted that she’d seen a man with a beard driving, I had started to hope that maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe it had been a man with a beard, like Caftan Man. Maybe someone other than Jack had it in for me. Maybe Jack had no part in this at all.
I know. There’s a table for one waiting for me at the Fantasyland Diner.
Little Life Lesson 40: If you’re lucky enough to visit the Fantasyland Diner, try to stay as long as possible because their desserts are all no-calorie, and also, the real world sucks.
Naturally, the first thing I saw in the Purple People Maimer, trapped between the cushions and the seat belt of the backseat, was a square brown button. Just like the one on Jack’s blazer.41 And as if that weren’t enough, I found dark hairs like Jack’s on the headrest of the driver’s seat.
Little Life Lesson 41: Pinning any hope on Alyson is like wearing leg warmers (Even cute ones.42 With unicorns on them.43 Or frolicsome dolphins.44) around Polly: a Very Bad Idea.
I’d collected the hairs up, along with similar ones we found on the steering wheel. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them, but it was great to know that if I did need evidence of Jack’s corrupt soul, I had plenty of it.45
Roxy was finishing my breakfast as Tom said, “You know, Jas, I don’t think those were Jack’s wheels. It seems like if you were going to try to kill someone, you wouldn’t use your own car. Plus, purple shag seems kind of feminine. Like maybe it’s a woman’s car. I just don’t see Jack cruising in that on a regular basis. Do you?”
“I wouldn’t even know. We haven’t really gotten past the whole ‘You’re evil,’ ‘Perhaps,’ patch of dialogue,” I told him. Bitterly. And yet with a hint of great inner fortitude. Because that is the kind of woman I am.46 “Do you think he stole the car?”
“It doesn’t look messed with. I’m thinking he borrowed it. Did you notice all the cars around us also had that sticker Veronique mentioned? I think we were in the employee parking section. Maybe we can use that to find out who owns the car and get a line on your magic man.”
“He is not my—never mind.”
“You mean like Jack got close to someone who works here to find out where Fred and Fiona were?” Polly asked. “But how do we find out whose car it is?”
Roxy swallowed the last of my pancakes and said, “That’s easy. We just have the head of hotel security make a few calls.” She looked at Tom. “Right, Mr. Curtis?”
“You’re only young once,” Tom said, doing a perfect imitation of L. A. Curtis’s voice. “Nothing happens in my hotel I don’t know about.”
We decided that it would be better to impersonate the head of security on the phone from a more private location than the hotel coffee shop, and I wanted to put the evidence we’d collected into envelopes, so we went back to my room. In case I was worried my day couldn’t get any better, when we got there we found the Thwarter snooping around. Fortunately I’d decided to store all the magazine articles and the evidence we’d collected so far in Polly’s backpack, so it was safe from his patented ThwartVision. The shoe box fuming chamber was poking out slightly from under the bed, but from his relatively pain-free expression I deduced he hadn’t found it yet. When we came in he scowled at me for a moment, then launched into one of his loving father-daughter chats:
Thwarter: Where have you been?
Jas: Breaking into cars in the parking lot.
Thwarter: Is everything a joke to you, Jasmine?
Jas: Actually right now I am suffering from a secret sorrow so heavy my organs are being smashed by it.
Thwarter: (snorting) Sherri! and I are having brunch with your aunt and uncle. Don’t forget that our final family dinner is tonight at eight o’clock.
Jas: I’ll be there if I’m not dead by then.
Thwarter: You’ll be there. Period.
Which left me with the cheery knowledge that my father would want to spend time with me even if I were a cold, stiff corpse. Not every daughter can say that, I bet!
Once he and Sherri! were safely out of the room, Tom, who was our sherpa because his carpenter pants had the largest pockets, dumped the hairs and button we’d collected on the desk and went to the phone to make his call.
“Hey, Jas, your message light is blinking,” he said.
“I bet it’s the Hench Twins looking for you, Tomás,” I said. “Could you play it on the speakerphone?”
I’d just finished writing EVIL BOY HAIRS FROM DEATHMOBILE on the outside of an envelope when the sound of the voice leaving the message stopped me cold. It wasn’t Alyson’s voice. It was a little boy’s voice. Fred’s.
And he was scared to death.
He was whispering and sniffling at the same time so it was hard to hear him, but it sounded like he said, “Jas, you said everything would be okay, that you would keep him away but now he’s here. Mad Joe is scared, Jas. He’s trembling and he wants you to come help him. Jas, you promised…I’m so scar—”
Click. Dial tone.
It had happened. Red Early had come for Fiona and Fred.
“Should we call back?” Roxy asked.
But I didn’t stay to answer. “I’m taking the stairs, you take the elevator, meet me at room 40215.”