She opened her door and stepped outside. It was a hot day, but she felt cold. “Dr. Solov isn’t our client. His wife is. And I didn’t mention his name.”
“It could splash back on her,” he said.
She locked her door and set the alarm.
“I think a bigger problem might be that we can’t do surveillance on Dr. Solov any more. He’s seen us both. And the Tesla. Our cover is blown.” She liked using spy terminology. “On the very first day.”
“We can follow in a different car. And Brendan can do the close stuff.”
Even though the ocean was a gorgeous blue-green, it wasn’t having its usual calming effect. “Brendan will love that. You’re already on his good side.”
She started walking toward the parking lot. Aidan kept pace.
“He’s been grouchy ever since you left,” Aidan said.
“Or, alternately, ever since Priscilla arrived,” she pointed out.
“He loves Priscilla!” he said, apparently indignant that anyone might not adore Priscilla as much as he did.
Sofia would have had to finish the entire bag of peanuts off that. Instead, she unlocked the Tesla and used the towel to dry off the seat as best she could, then draped it over the leather. Hopefully, the towel would absorb any water that had seeped into the seat so her pants wouldn’t get wet. Or she’d be walking around with a wet butt. That was the kind of thing that got her picture on the Internet.
A pretty quiet ride back to the office. Well, not actually quiet, since she turned up the music full blast, rolled down the windows and used all her driving skills. It had been worth all the track time to learn how to drive like a maniac because it terrified Aidan. He held onto the dash with both hands, which meant he had to stop texting. Two birds with one stone. She poured on the speed.
She slid into the parking lot on an emergency brake turn. The only car there was Brendan’s Crown Vic.
“I swear your driving gets worse every single day.” Aidan got out and walked across the parking lot on legs that were pretty wobbly.
One time she’d got him so rattled he’d actually kissed the ground when they parked. She’d have to try harder next time. She cracked the windows and hung the towel across the passenger seat to dry.
Nothing else to do but pick up her peanuts and go into the office.
The painters had finished the grapefruit walls. They’d also put some kind of sealant on the concrete floor and it gleamed like it had had several coats of wax.
The new floor and the walls brightened up the room and made it more welcoming than the dirty white. Priscilla knew her stuff. Sofia wondered if her thinking that comment merited a peanut. She decided it did, and ate one.
“I want my desk back.” Brendan and Aidan stood face to face on the shiny floor. “And I want the walls to go back to their original color. Not pink.”
“Grapefruit,” Aidan pointed out. “Before, these walls were off-white with streaks and random dents. This looks more professional.”
“Sure,” Brendan said, “if you’re running a nail salon. I want the walls to be white. Like normal walls.”
Sofia thought back to Bambi’s Malibu nail salon. The walls were a soft lavender, but grapefruit would have worked, too. Maybe she ought to take pictures in case Bambi ever wanted to redecorate.
“Priscilla says people expect a certain level of class in an office,” Aidan said. “How about a nice ivory? Or maybe a light taupe?”
“Ivory?” Sofia said. “Taupe?” Those words hadn’t been in his vocabulary a month before.
“Even a few shades off of bright white can make a big difference,” Aidan said.
That had to have come from Priscilla. Sofia ate a peanut. She wished she had a desk. She’d be able to sit down, work, put on headphones, and stop eating peanuts all the time. It might be the only way to keep from turning into an elephant.
“I don’t know what’s happened to you, son.” Brendan stared glumly at the grapefruit walls. “And another thing: I want my desk back.”
“It’s old and ratty!” Aidan protested.
“I’ve been using that desk since before you were born. Your mother picked it out.”
Aidan looked a little remorseful. Maybe Priscilla hadn’t painted his conscience taupe yet.
“I bet you can get it back from storage,” Sofia said. “Right?”
Aidan fidgeted. “Well—”
“Where did you take it?” Brendan roared.
“Goodwill picked it up yesterday,” said Aidan.
“You can go right over to their store, get it back,” Sofia said. “Explain what happened.”
“Or buy it back,” Brendan said. “Use your own money.”
“I’ll call Priscilla from the parking lot,” Aidan said.
“Yes. You will.” Brendan glared at him.
Aidan glared back, but only for a second. Then he turned and went outside.
He and Brendan rarely fought like this. Sofia didn’t like it. It made her nervous.
“Hey,” she said to Brendan.
“Why is your hair wet?” Brendan asked. “Did you take a shower in the middle of a workday?”
“I rescued a teenager drowning in a pool at the party we ended up at after following Solov.”
“How about you give me a verbal report?” Brendan gestured to where the desks had been. “I don’t think we’ll be doing written ones for a while.”
She filled him in. Brendan seemed distracted while she was talking, so she wrapped it up pretty quickly.
“What does he see in that woman?” Brendan asked.
“Boobs,” she answered, without thinking. Brendan was pretty strict about foul language, and she wasn’t sure where “boobs” fell on his grading scale.
Brendan kept going like he hadn’t heard. She added boobs to the list of words that bothered him. She’d assumed all his years with the Los Angeles Police Department would have made him more tolerant of bad language, but it seemed to have had the opposite effect. “I’ve never seen him like this. How long do you think she’ll last?”
She thought back to Aidan’s dreamy expression when he’d talked about his future with Priscilla. “You never know. Maybe we’d better get used to her.”
“You’d be perfect for him,” Brendan said. “I’ve always said that.”
“I have a lead on what Dr. Solov might have been doing at the party.” She changed the subject. “Fred might have footage on his bird cam.”
“Who’s Fred?”
“He’s a seagull who hangs out around Nirvana Cove. I feed him.”
“Fred is a bird? An actual bird?” Brendan looked at her as if she’d gone off the deep end. Not that she blamed him. Technically, she’d dived off the deep end no more than an hour ago.
“It’s a long story,” she said. “But I’m going over to Marmalade Café for lunch and to use their Wi-Fi to see if he’s downloaded any footage.”
“Go ahead.” Brendan waved his hand. “No point in any of us staying around here.”
She glanced over her shoulder as she headed out of the door. He stood in the very middle of the pink room, staring toward his office, probably thinking about his desk.
Aidan had better get it back.
9
Sofia liked the Marmalade Café. The air-conditioning was always set to just the right temperature, and the food was good. She admired the river-rock façade and the doorframe that looked like it was made out of driftwood. She imagined the wood had never come any closer to the ocean than right where it was, but she liked it anyway.
She pushed open the heavy door and stepped inside. The waitress waved.
“Hey, Taylor!” Sofia called.
Taylor smiled and led her to her usual table in the back. The Maloney Investigations team usually came there for their weekly status meetings. That was why they sat in the back. Brendan and Aidan always liked to be able to see the door whenever they ate anywhere. Cop training. As someone who hoped not to be recognized, Sofia liked to face away from it. Ce
lebrity training. At least it meant they never argued over the seating.
“Will the guys be joining you?” Taylor asked.
“Just me today,” Sofia said.
Taylor’s face fell, and Sofia felt guilty. She’d tried to fix Taylor up with Aidan, and it had worked for a while, but then he’d lost interest. She didn’t know why. Taylor was much better than Priscilla. Heck, she’d be able to give up peanuts if he and Taylor ever got back together.
“I’ll take a peach iced tea and a grilled artichoke,” Sofia said, without opening the menu.
“You got it. Iced tea.” Taylor laughed. Too much peach iced tea had led to the unfortunate peeing-in-public incident on her first stakeout. Aidan must have told Taylor the story. Or she’d seen the YouTube clip, like a few million other people.
Sofia decided to ignore the laugh. She sat with her back to the door and settled her laptop on the wide wooden table next to the salt and pepper shakers. The oversized wall clock said two thirty so the lunch rush had come and gone. She could hang out awhile without feeling guilty.
She connected to Wi-Fi, headed over to YouTube and searched for the channel Jeffery had mentioned that morning: fred’s flights of fancy. Exactly the kind of name Jeffery would come up with.
Several videos popped up, and she recognized Fred immediately. Maybe she wouldn’t have without his purple leg. Jeffery had been clever to dye that leg—she had to give him credit for it.
“Have you seen those bird’s-eye videos?” Taylor set the iced tea on the table. “That bird gets the greatest shots. He even got the first picture of Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher’s new baby right when they were bringing it home.”
“Really?” She dumped a packet of sugar into her iced tea and stirred. “Anything else on celebrities?”
“A few pool parties,” Taylor said. “And that snooty trailer park where all the millionaires live. What’s it called?”
“Nirvana Cove.” That was where Sofia lived. “Thanks for the tea.”
Jeffery was playing with fire. What were the legal issues around birds stalking celebrities? Whatever they were, he’d probably skirt them as closely as humanly, or birdly, possible. Jeffery was clever about things like that. Too clever.
But what kind of danger was he putting Fred in? After all, he’d been shot at today. Then again, maybe that was because he was eating expensive caviar and making a mess and his camera had had nothing to do with it.
She did a quick search and was relieved to find that shooting seagulls was illegal in California. Not that there would be a police investigation if Fred disappeared or turned up with a bullet in him. She shuddered. She needed to find him before that happened.
Maybe the videos would have a clue. Some had millions of views. With over an hour of total material and only a two-week runway, Fred had racked up more views than most YouTube stars. That bird was earning the good caviar. She started watching.
She had to admit that Jeffery was doing a great job cutting the footage together—the videos had good flow and moved along nicely. How long did Fred’s bird-cam battery last? A couple of hours, probably.
Jeffery was culling the best three to five minutes each day. In the first video she recognized her own trailer, the trailer park, and the ocean. Her railing looked about to collapse and the top of her trailer was filthy. Did people wash up there? Maybe she ought to get to it with a hose, especially if it was going to show up on YouTube all the time.
Her phone dinged. Better than a moan. Much better.
Gray Cole. He owned the trailer next to hers in Nirvana Cove. One of her best friends, he was also one of the most famous movie stars in the world. Crazy famous. A thousand times better known than she was, Gray was lusted after by women around the world. But he only had eyes for men.
She read his text. Are you back from the Titanic yet?
She grinned. Funny you should mention that. Van . . .
No spoilers. Free for late lunch?
@ Marmalade already.
There in 10. He followed that up with a kissy emoji.
She munched the artichoke Taylor had slipped onto the table while she was texting, and made a list of locations in the video. Easy to do, because she recognized them all—her trailer, the Malibu Pier, a dumpster she was pretty sure was behind Nobu’s Malibu restaurant, and cliffs that looked like the ones by Point Dume. She tried to arrange them chronologically, based on the shadows thrown by the people and objects Fred filmed.
It looked like her naughty seagull stuck to the same locations. He had a pretty busy itinerary. Caviar in the morning, fresh fish guts at the pier for brunch, leftover sushi for lunch, a turn around the cliffs, and back to her house for dinner. Some days he soared over various celebrity mansions and captured good candid footage.
It was an interesting channel. It was illegal to film people via drone without their consent in California but there weren’t any laws on bird-camera operators. Quite a loophole that Jeffery had found for himself.
Excited whispers from the entrance caught her attention, but she didn’t look. She knew who was at the door. One of the few people famous enough to provoke that kind of reaction everywhere he went, even in a town as jaded as Malibu. She put the finishing touches to her list and waited.
“Sofia!” Gray had made his way across the room pretty quickly. He’d had to stop twice to take pictures with people, but luckily it was a slow day at Marmalade.
“Hey!” She stood, and he swept her into a long embrace. She hugged him back. It had been more than two weeks since she’d had any kind of fun physical contact with a guy. She missed Jaxon, but fitting herself against Gray for a good long time wasn’t so bad.
Gray let her go, held out a chair for her, then slipped into his. “How was the cruise? I heard about the fight club.”
“Violet called you?”
“You know it.” He grinned and looked like a movie poster. As near as she could tell, he didn’t have a bad angle. The camera wasn’t the only thing that loved him. “Sounds like you and your sister had to smooth a lot of things over. Is it nice to be home?”
“At least for the first few hours.”
Taylor stopped next to the table. She held a menu clasped to her chest and stared at Gray like Fred stared at caviar. “Mr. Cole?”
“I’ll drink whatever the lady’s drinking,” he said. “And a glass of water, please.”
Taylor stood stock still. Her eyes were glassy. Gray had that effect on women. Men, too.
“And maybe a piece of cheesecake, to split,” Sofia said. “OK, Taylor?”
At the sound of her name, Taylor looked at Sofia. She blinked twice.
“Right,” Taylor said. “Tea and cheesecake.”
Sofia wondered if they’d get a piece or an entire cake. Before she could say anything more, Taylor turned and walked back across the restaurant, running into a tall guy with a well-trimmed gray beard, who was also staring at Gray.
Gray pointed at her computer. “Is that Fred’s YouTube channel?”
“You knew about this?” Go on vacation for two weeks and this was what happened. Everyone in Malibu knew but her.
“I saw Jeffery heading over to your trailer when you were gone, so I followed him.” Gray was a good neighbor. “He put a harness on Fred, but Fred didn’t seem to mind. I’m not sure how I feel about it.”
“I don’t like it,” she said. “Some guy shot at Fred this morning and I’m worried for him. He might have something incriminating on his camera.”
“Figures Jeffery would get him into trouble.” Gray didn’t seem outraged enough.
“Shot at him. A gun,” she said. “Aidan and I were right there.”
“Since you said ‘shot at’, I’m assuming Fred is fine?”
“That isn’t my point.”
“Fred’s a pest. I bet this isn’t the first time someone’s taken a potshot at him.”
She couldn’t deny it.
Taylor was back with the water and an iced tea. Sofia’s glass was empty, but s
he didn’t figure Taylor was likely to notice, not with Gray so luscious in a white shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest and an artful amount of stubble on his face. But Taylor also had a piece of cheesecake, so Sofia forgave her.
After Taylor had wandered off again, Gray gave Sofia his most charming look. The look that most women in the world fantasized about.
“What do you want?” She took a bite of cheesecake.
“Can’t I have a laid-back lunch with my good friend and wonderful neighbor?” He picked up his fork and tasted the cheesecake. “Yum.”
“Uh-oh,” she said. “This sounds like favor territory.”
“The cheesecake is divine.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“The Oscars are coming up,” he said.
“So they are.” She didn’t like where this was going. “But you’re not nominated for anything, right?”
“I have to go anyway. And I was wondering if you might be interested—”
“What about that woman you’re dating?” she interrupted. “Victoria?”
“Her name isn’t Victoria. She’s a model for Victoria’s Secret.” He put his hand on top of hers. “And she’s not nearly as beautiful as you.”
Gray was using his extreme sexiness to mess with her concentration.
“A color,” Sofia said. “Isn’t she named after a color?”
“Indigo,” he answered.
“I remember. She vibrates at a different level than the rest of us.”
Gray laughed. He had perfect teeth and an infectious laugh. People two tables away laughed, too. Nobody could help themselves around him. “Yes, that one. But she had to cancel. She has a photo shoot in South Africa. Spring catalog.”
She groaned. She’d been down this road before. “That’s a whole day of my life I won’t get back. Pick out a dress, be fitted, pick out jewelry from the jeweler. Then drive around for waxing and manicures and pedicures and a hairdresser and makeup—”
“I’ll pick out the dress, the jewelry, the staff. All you have to do is come to my place three hours before and they’ll go to work on you. You’ll come out looking like a goddess.” He cut another bite of cheesecake and held it in front of her mouth.
F is for Fred Page 5