Category: Book Excerpts

Living the Vida Lola   Prologue When I was fourteen years old, I snapped pictures of Jack Callaghan doing the horizontal salsa in the backseat of a car with Greta Pritchard. That’s when I knew for sure I’d grow up to be a private eye. I’d stooped to low levels in order to spy on him: disguising myself as a substitute custodian and pushing a mop cart into the boys’ locker room as the team dressed for baseball practice; borrowing my uncle’s car and following Jack at a safe distance as he went to work at the music store where he gave guitar lessons; and even calling him up, pretending to be a girl he knew, and making a fake date with him at an outdoor café. I had one goal: to surveil and take photos of Jack for my own personal enjoyment. It had taken a month of steadfast determination, and at least four rolls of film, before I’d captured images of Jack that were still burned into my memory: him, messing around—no, having sex—with Greta while he was supposedly dating Laura something-or-other. My mother called him un mujeriego—a player. I didn’t care. I just wanted him to do to me what he’d done to Greta. Back in high school, Jack and my brother, Antonio, made their way through the cheerleaders, then the Future Female Leaders of America. But Jack didn’t give me, little Lola Cruz, the time of day. “I’ll never get to do that with him!” I’d wailed to my sister, Gracie, when I showed her the pictures I had of him and Greta. She’d looked longingly at the photos. “Yeah,” she sighed heavily. “But at least you can look at him whenever you want and imagine.” Then she got serious. “And, more importantly, you discovered what you’re good at. Now you won’t be stuck working at Abuelita’s for the rest of your life.” Gracie was right. If it hadn’t been for my relentless pursuit of Jack Callaghan, I might never have discovered my proclivity for surveillance and undercover work. My favorite picture of Jack, taken that fateful night, still had a place in my dresser drawer, fifteen years later. He stood bare-chested, his business with Greta done, a look of contentment on his face. The edge of his mouth lifted in the smallest smile. He was just seventeen years old, and his smoky blue eyes seemed trained directly on me, as if he were staring straight through the shrubs to where I was hidden. I was pretty sure Jack Callaghan didn’t know I’d been a teenage stalker, and even though I still had a secret longing to feel him pressed against me, my embarrassment at invading his privacy and my anger that I’d never be anything more to him than Antonio’s little sister had kept me far, far away from him. I avoided him at all costs so that I wouldn’t break down and confess in a moment of guilty Catholic repentance. I’d been in and out of relationships, but those old photos of Jack reminded me of what I’d lost, even though I’d never had it. Or him. He was still my favorite fantasy, as well as a reminder of how I’d gotten to where I was now. Still, while Jack—and his untamed libido—had never given me an orgasm (well, at least not person-to-person), he had done something earthmoving for me. I was Dolores Cruz, aka Lola, PI. Thanks to him, I’d answered my calling. Chapter 1 Caliente. Hotter than hell. There’s no other way to describe Sacramento summers. I checked my reflection in the window as I approached Camacho and Associates, the small PI firm where I worked. I frowned and flicked at a stringy strand of hair. What the hell. Being a black belt in kung fu did not, apparently, prevent me from completely wilting. Nothing—not my ability to kick ass or even my eighty-five-dollar coppery salon highlights—could withstand triple-digit valley temperatures. And it was barely ten in the morning. An alarm beeped as I opened the front door. Inside the office, I wiped the dust from a leaf of the sad little artificial palm that sat on the floor against the wall. It looked shabby, which was no small feat for a plant that didn’t need sun, water, or tender love and care. After four years, I would have thought my ritualistic token of attention would spruce it up. It hadn’t. I waved to the camera that was mounted in the ceiling corner. It was no secret that my arrival had been monitored. Neil Lashby was the video go-to guy of the operation. He owned more cameras than I did Victoria’s Secret lingerie. Sorta frightening when you thought about it. I walked through the lobby—which really wasn’t a lobby—and passed into the main conference room. Reilly Fuller, our six-hour-a-day secretary and a full-fledged—not to mention full-figured—J. Lo wannabe, had a little table in one corner of the conference room where she spent her time typing reports, transcribing tapes, filing, and doing whatever other menial jobs the associates handed her. Being a licensed PI, I was above her on the food chain. But I liked to type my own reports and do my own filing, and as a result, she liked me. Important, since Neil Lashby, one of the agency’s associates, was a nonverbal, ex-football player, ex-cop Neanderthal-type PI; Sadie Metcalf, the second associate, was hot and cold toward me and I hadn’t yet figured out a rhyme or reason to her temperature changes; and the boss, Manny Camacho, was, well, he was just plain dangerous—hot in a dark, sinister, attractive-to-every-woman-with-a-pulse kind of way. Reilly was a good ally. I raised a questioning eyebrow at her as I passed her desk—as much a reaction to her newly dyed blue hair as to get the scoop on the new case we were meeting about. “Hey, Reilly.” She did a complicated maneuver at me with her own mousy brown brows and mouthed something. I peered at her, but try as I might, I couldn’t decipher her silent words. She bugged her eyes, clamped her mouth shut, and went back to her computer when Manny walked out of his private office. He approached the conference table, a brown file folder clutched to his side. His mouth was drawn into its typical tight line, his square jaw interrupted by a slight vertical cleft. Manny’s crew cut hair was the color of dark roast coffee, which pretty much described his personality, too. He wasn’t quite bitter, but he wasn’t smooth either. Even the scalp that showed through his close-cut hair was burnished. He was intense and needed a bit of cream to mellow the flavor. Unfortunately, he and his cream had divorced. And that’s all I knew about his personal life. The associates had already gathered around the conference table. “Morning,” I said, nodding to all two of them. He checked his watch. “Cutting it close, Dolores.” His deep voice held the hint of an accent. The way he said my name—low, gravelly long o and rolling r—made my legs wobble. I couldn’t help but wonder what it would sound like if he called me Lola instead. Breathing deeply and pushing the wayward thought away, I mustered a smile and glanced at the wall clock. The minute hand clicked up to ten o’clock. I felt my eyebrows pull together, and I pressed my fingers to my forehead to smooth the creases away. “Right on time, actually.” His jaw was set, and I could tell he was clenching his teeth, holding his tension deep in his bones. He held out a file folder to me. Something about me bugged him—I just didn’t know what. I took the folder from his grasp and slipped into a vacant chair at the conference table. Truth was, I didn’t really want to know. Sadie sat directly across from me. As usual, her strawberry blonde hair was styled to perfection, a precise work of casual messiness. “Dolores,” she said. “You really should arrive a few minutes early for meetings.” Okay, so today was a cold day for Sadie. God, she acted like she owned the place. Why did Manny put up with it? I flashed her an eat shit smile and then opened my file folder. The agency’s standard information sheet was secured to the folder with metal prongs. I looked at the photo that was clipped to the top and ticked my observations off in my head. Female, mid to late forties, dark brown hair with a tuft of gray springing from her temple, deep eye sockets with nearly translucent irises that hinted at the color of sand, full pink lips, pale skin. Despite her tired look, she was still stunning. Exotic. Manny sat down and slid a pile of papers to the center of the table. I snatched the last sheet from the table as he said, “Missing person.” I shifted my focus back to the file folder. “Emily Diggs, age forty-two, mother of three: daughter Allison, twenty-one years; son, Garrett, eighteen; son, Sean, six. Last seen on the morning of August twenty-third.” My heart thumped. A missing mother. Getting emotionally involved in a case was Manny’s number-one taboo. It was also the first rule I always broke. After five seconds, this woman was just Emily, no last name needed. Her haunting face burned behind my eyelids. Neil grunted before asking, “The client? Police?” He tended not to speak in complete sentences. I’d learned to fill in the blanks in my head. Who’d hired us, and are the police involved? Two very good questions. Neil was always on top of things. Manny gave a succinct nod. He read between the lines, too. “The police are working the case but have zero so far. Their immediate reaction is that she bolted. Walter Diggs, the brother, and our client, has temporary custody of the boy.” Neil shifted his linebacker body in his chair. “Anything else?” “Mother and son left their P Street rental house around seven a.m. last Tuesday. Kid was stranded after school with no pickup. Emily Diggs never showed for work that day.” Manny tapped his index finger against the table, ready to field the next question. “Kindergarten or first grade?” I asked, wanting to get in the game. “First.” He had no need to double-check the information. He’d already committed it to memory. What a pro. “Maybe drugs—,” Sadie began. I shook my head. She always thought the worst about people. “Yup, could be into something bad,” Neil said. Okay, maybe thinking the worst came with the profession. I just wasn’t jaded yet. Give me another ten years. “Too soon to tell. Our client says his sister shut everyone out of her life after her youngest son was born. They stayed in contact, but he didn’t see her often. She wanted to keep the boy to herself.” Manny looked at each of us, pausing for a second when he got to me. I bristled under his scrutiny and studied the folder more intently. He was waiting for me to make a brilliant comment, I realized. “Have they always lived in Sacramento?” “According to our client, yes, but they recently moved. The address in the file is the most recent residence.” What would make a woman distance herself from her family? I couldn’t, even if I tried. They’d hunt me down. “How old is the photo?” “Two months,” Manny said. “Client said it was taken last time they all went to the zoo.” “She looks sad to me, not addicted.” “Hard to tell from a photo,” Sadie said. I ignored her. “Her kids must be devastated.” No response. I had to stop myself from sliding down in my chair. “I’ve broken down assignments,” Manny said, pulling out another sheet of paper. Don’t pair me with Sadie, I willed. We’d worked the firm’s last surveillance gig together, and I was still decompressing. “Status quo with our active cases,” he continued. “Lashby. Status?” Neil