I’d have to rehearse what I was going to say to him when he called me back. If he called me back. I frowned at my phone. He better call me back.
The Forty-niner was a dive, but it was clean, cheap, and not usually crowded. Gold rush memorabilia decorated the place, and crooked pictures of Sutter’s Fort and Old Sacramento hung on the walls. Inside, I spotted Reilly immediately. She sat at a lacquered table and looked nervous and out of place with her Crayola-colored blue hair.
“Spill it,” I said to her after a quick hello and some small talk. I wanted to go home and crawl into bed. Maybe with an old picture or two under my pillow. “What’s the lowdown?”
She leaned forward, her slightly chubby hands curved around a tall drink. “First of all, her name’s Isabel.”
Huh, not Lara Croft. Isabel. I rolled the name around with my tongue, saying it as I knew Manny would: Isa-bel with the I sounding like a long e. I hadn’t laid eyes on the woman, but somehow the name fit. I couldn’t see Manny with anyone less than perfect.
“So, what do you have on her? Are they serious?”
Her eyes widened and she ran her words together in speedtalk. “I couldn’t tell exactly, but she walked into his office like she owned the place, and then he hurried up and shut the door. I could sorta hear them talking, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. It was all very double-oh-seven. Maybe you need to help me investigate them. You might be able to find out more scoop—” She refilled her lungs and took a drink before zipping on. “—Then I didn’t hear anything at all for six minutes. Six whole minutes.”
What was she getting at? “Okay.”
“That’s a long time for total and complete silence. Then—” She clapped her hands and I jumped. “—a crash! I think they were, you know—” She leaned forward. “—doing it.”
I slapped my hand over my mouth. Not Manny. Not in his office. “No. I don’t believe it.”
Reilly gaped again. “I totally can! He’s a take-charge, throw-a-girl-on-the-desk kind of man. Every morning when I see him, that’s the first thing I think about. I wonder what it would be like. What he’d be like.” She fanned herself with her hand. “Is it hot in here?”
Roasting. I took her Long Island iced tea and gulped down a long drink. “I don’t think they were doing it.”
She looked at me funny. “What world do you live in? People do that sort of stuff.” She leaned closer again. “Sadie’s done it.”
My mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding. You saw her?”
Reilly shook her blue head. “I heard her. Moaning and stuff.” She scrunched her eyes like she was trying to block it out. “I had to leave. Just got up and walked out.”
“When was this?”
“Oh, gosh.” She tapped her finger against her pudgy cheek. “A good month—maybe six weeks ago.”
I flattened my palms against the table and stared at her. “And you’re just now telling me? How is that possible? You can’t keep secrets.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “I was too weirded out.”
I was speechless. “I just can’t picture it,” I said after a minute of silence. “Who was she with? What man in his right mind would—?”
Reilly darted her gaze around as if she were at the office and someone was lurking around the corner. “I think it was Neil,” she finally said. “They were in the Lair.”
“Neil’s Lair? As in the tech room? Are you serious?”
She nodded. “Totally serious, amiga.”
Amiga. Dios mío. I jumped again when she blurted, “Lola, please set me up with your brother!”
I choked and spewed my mouthful of alcohol. “What?”
“Your brother.” She ran a napkin over the mess I’d made on the table and looked at me like I was mentally deficient. She slowed her speech. “Your brother that stopped by the office last week. I want you to set me up with him.” She leaned across the table, her enthusiasm catching up with her again. “Does he like Jennifer Lopez?”
It was my turn to stare. “Why?”
She pshawed and waved her hand at me. “ ’Cause I look just like her, loca.”
Loca. Ha! I was so not the crazy one if she thought she looked like J.Lo. But I played along. “You do?”
“Of course.” She ran her hand over her hair. “In a slightly frumpier way.”
Actually, I was a much better approximation of Mrs. Marc Anthony—minus the ass—than Reilly Fuller. “Um, doesn’t Jennifer Lopez have brown hair and olive skin?”
“Like I couldn’t have brown hair if I wanted it.”
“Yeah, but she pretty much keeps hers brown, and while I’m sure you could have yours brown, I’ve never actually seen you with hair remotely resembling the color of a tree trunk.”
She ignored this obvious point and started rambling. “Lola, your brother’s totally hot. But not scary like the boss.” Her eyes grew concerned. “Would he go out with me? Your brother, I mean. Not the—how do you say boss in Spanish?”
She was so random. “Jefe.”
“Would your brother—what’s his name?”
I held in a laugh. I’d worked with her since she’d been hired, two years now; she thought my brother was hot and wanted to go out with him, but she didn’t remember his name? “Antonio?” I said, my voice lifting at the end. Like, hello?
“Right. So would Antonio go out with me?”
I tapped my finger on my chin to buy time. It would be a really tough sell. Reilly wasn’t Antonio’s type—although he wasn’t one to turn down an opportunity for fun. “I don’t know—”
“Come on, Lola. I gotta have him.”
What did that mean? “Have him how?” I couldn’t, in good conscience, set Reilly up with Antonio knowing he might take advantage of her. I didn’t want her to get hurt, and I knew my brother. But then again, if Antonio was going to be stalked, even by Reilly, I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, either. After all, I was a reformed stalker, and living the life wasn’t pretty, forget about the invasion of privacy to the target.
“I’m not going to sleep with him right away, if that’s what you’re worried about. Give me some credit, Lola. I’m not a Friends With Benefits kind of person. I just know what kind of man I want.”
Well, knowing what kind of man she wanted was more than I could say about myself. “What’s right away? One date? Two dates?”
“When the time’s right. If we like each other. I’m a consenting adult.”
I wasn’t convinced that Reilly wouldn’t turn from consenting adult to blathering child the second she laid eyes on Antonio again. “I guess I can try,” I finally said, knowing it’d take some serious bargaining on my part to make a date between Reilly and Antonio happen.
“Yeah?” She slapped her thighs. “He won’t think I’m too chunky?”
He might. And her extra curves might help keep her out of his bed. But I smiled brightly—I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. “More to love—that’s always been my motto.”
She grinned. “Excellent motto. When will the date be? I’ll have to get a new outfit. Will you come, too? Just to, you know, break the ice. I don’t think I want to be alone with him at the beginning. We can have a code word, something like, I don’t know, macaroni. So if I say macaroni, you know things are going great and you can leave. But if I say—” She paused for a second. “—penne, then you know I don’t want you to leave.”
She wanted me there, which was good. I could keep Antonio in line. And it’d be fascinating to see how she was going to work the words macaroni or penne into normal conversation. If anybody could do it, I thought, it’d be Reilly. “Tuesday is Club Ambrosía’s salsa night. We can go there and try it out.” Now that they were prostitute-free, thanks to me.
“I’ll come with you.” A stringy-haired guy that had been sitting a few tables away pulled up a chair next to me and plopped down, knees flopping open, a smarmy grin on his face.
Oh, brother. This guy was not what I wanted to deal with right now. “You’ll come where?”<
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He made disgusting smoochy sounds with his lips jutting out a solid half inch. “I’ll come anywhere with you.”
Jeez. Was this guy serious? “Really? Anywhere?” Like to visit my grandmother where he’d be tortured by her saying one hundred rosaries, all ten decades, slowly, and in Spanish?
The creep leaned toward me and winked. “Where d’ya wanna go, baby? My car’s right outside.”
Like I’d get into his car without a gun pointed at my head. I let a slow irritated smile slide onto my face before I took another healthy gulp of Reilly’s Long Island. Then I made my voice icy as I stood up, menacing in my pink sandals and ruffled blouse. “Forget it, dude.”
“I’m never going to forget you, baby. We’ll have fun.”
Baby? All he needed was a giant L tattooed on his forehead. This guy was no George Clooney. Oh God, maybe I needed the L on my forehead. Did losers attract losers?
Reilly’s gaze traveled over my shoulder. “Oh my gosh, Lola,” she said. “Maybe your brother’s not for me. I kinda want that one.”
I felt someone’s presence behind me, and then I heard a man’s voice say, “Problem here?” My knees went rubbery. I knew that voice. That voice, and the man who it belonged to, lived and breathed in my dreams.
The loser in front of me glared. “No problem, man. Butt the hell out.”
Feeling like I was moving in slow motion, I turned and looked into the smokiest blue eyes I’d ever seen, and promptly lurched backwards. “Jack Callaghan,” I breathed.
His mouth twitched on one side and lifted into a grin, and damn it if that same tiny little dimple he’d had in high school didn’t embed itself into his cheek. It had given him a mischievous edge back then. Now it was just tauntingly, dangerously magnetic. “Lola,” he said, all postcoital-like. “Been a long time.”
“Yep, long time,” I agreed, managing to straighten up, but I backed into loser dude, who promptly wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me in tight.
“I knew you’d come around, mamacita.”
He butchered the word with his pathetic Spanish accent. I bristled. “Excuse me?” I said, my fingers clawing at his arms. I was nobody’s mamacita.
Jack’s dimple vanished. “Let go of her, man.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him. What, did he suddenly think he was my knight in shining armor? “I can handle this,” I said.
Jack folded his arms across his chest, all machismo-like. “Oh, you can? Like you handled Megan Crabtree?”
“Megan Crabtree?”
He gave me a gimme a break look. “Yes, Megan Crabtree. You put chile or something in her soup at your folks’ restaurant.”
I did a mental head-thump. “Oh,” I said, trying to hide the small grin that quirked the corner of my mouth. But it hadn’t been malicious. I mean, Jack had brought Megan Crabtree to Abuelita’s a measly week after he’d been with Greta Pritchard. And he’d supposedly been dating Laura whatever-the-hell-her-name-was. I’d spiced up Megan’s soup for her own good. I’d saved the girl’s reputation, for goodness’ sakes. “I forgot about that.”
Loser dude tightened his arm around me. “You’re spunky. I like that.”
Ick. Enough was enough. I hauled my knee up, then slammed the heel of my shoe down on his foot. He howled, loosened his grip, and I took the opening to grab his wrist and yank it down and around until I had his arm cocked behind his back and he was doubled over. “Are you done now?” I said. “Ready to take a hike, Romeo?”
He groaned. “Yeah.”
I released and pushed the guy away. “Good,” I said, and then I turned back to Jack Callaghan, giving an acknowledgment wave and smile to the women in the bar who clapped for me.
The dimple was back on Jack’s cheek. He gave me a good long look before bringing his gaze to Reilly. Her mouth hung open, her double chin in full form. “Hi,” Jack said, and he held out his hand to her.
Reilly slammed her teeth together and slid back into her chair. “Hi.”
The years fell away, and all the old indignation I’d felt in high school from Jack’s indifference toward me—and girls in general—surfaced. Of course, all the old lust was front and center, too. “Jack Callaghan, Reilly Fuller,” I said.
“Reilly Fuller,” Jack said, shaking her limp hand. “Any friend of Lola’s is a friend of mine.” He sat down opposite her, and she gulped. “Nice to meet you,” he said.
Reilly stammered. “Yeah, n-nice to m-meet you, t-too.” I wondered if she’d ever wash that hand again.
“You’re looking great, Lola. I was surprised to hear from you.” He looked up at me and raised his eyebrows. “Little Lola’s a detective. Interesting job choice.”
I bristled. Little Lola, my ass. I was more woman than he could handle. I eyed him. “How’d you find me?”
“I’m a reporter—”
“So—”
He grinned. “I have my sources.”
Well, it hadn’t taken him long. “I don’t like being watched.” And I didn’t. Made me un poquito uncomfortable. Now, when I was the one doing the watching…
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He gestured toward the chair next to him. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
I sat down—in the chair next to Reilly. “I’m investigating a missing woman, and I found your business card in with some of her things.”
He cocked his head and knitted his eyebrows together. “Who?” he asked after a beat.
“Emily Diggs.” I watched him, gauging his reaction. It had been years and years since I’d laid eyes on the man. For all I knew, he could be a serial killer.
His eyes didn’t change. “Doesn’t sound familiar.” He leaned forward, forearms folded on the table, and a lock of his cinnamon-colored hair falling over his forehead. No receding hairline for Jack Callaghan. No receding anything. He had a harder edge about him, wary eyes, and a magnetic draw that had me reeling. “She’s missing?” he said, and it felt like there was no one else in the bar.
I leaned forward, my body’s reaction to him palpable. Our eyes locked. “How would she have gotten your card if you never met her?”
“Yeah,” Reilly said. “That’s weird.”
I’d almost forgotten she was there. I nodded, hardly daring to blink for fear of breaking the connection between Jack and me. “A little too weird.”
Jack pulled back. “What, do you think I kidnapped her or something, and conveniently dropped my card as I left the scene?”
No, the thought had never seriously crossed my mind. “Did you?”
He shook his head matter-of-factly. “If I was a kidnapper, I’d be a hell of a lot smarter than that.”
“So, Emily’s not, say, in the back of your car? Like Greta?”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “Like Greta? What?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly, chastising myself and my mouth for spitting out the words before my good sense could kick in. “Never mind.”
“So what do you know about your missing woman?”
“Not much so far, but I’m a private investigator. I’m paid to ferret out the truth.”
“So you said on your message. Lola, PI. Catchy.”
It was more seductive than catchy, coming from his mouth. “I go by Dolores at work.” Can’t imagine why I needed to clarify that, but I wanted him to take me seriously, and my name somehow factored into that.
“Dolores,” he muttered, my name rolling off his tongue. But he gave his head a little shake and said, “Can’t do it. You’ll always be Lola to me.”
My palms grew clammy. Would I always be Lola, as in his buddy’s little sister, or could I be Lola, the woman who haunted his dreams the way he’d haunted mine all these years?
He tapped two fingertips against the table, his gaze unwavering. “So, how’s Sergio, Lola?”
“History,” I said, bristling at the change of subject. “Ancient.”
He nodded and looked satisfied. “Ferreted out the truth about him. Glad to hear it.”
; Reilly cleared her throat. “So, I take it you two know each other.”
“That’s right,” Jack said, his lips curving up. “We go way back. High school.”
I was lost in his brown hair, those amazing eyes, his swarthy Irish complexion. I suddenly questioned my motives for sabotaging Megan Crabtree’s soup. Maybe I’d wanted Jack for myself after he’d dumped Greta Pritchard.
I swallowed, tamped down my wandering thoughts, and forced myself back to business. “So you’re telling me that you don’t remember talking to Emily Diggs?”
He shook his head. Was it my imagination, or did he look a little apologetic? “I didn’t talk to her, but I’ll look into it from my end.”
I just nodded. What else could I say? Are you dating anyone? Still single? Wanna have your way with me? I had lots of questions for him, but not many were related to my case.
He smiled at me as if he knew just what I was thinking.
Reilly gathered up her purse. “Um, I gotta go.”
Jack notched his chin up. “Nice meeting you, Reilly.” Then he looked at me again, a little too intently.
I gulped. “Okay,” I said, standing up. Time to end this little reunion. “It’s been a blast from the past. Thanks for stopping by, Jack.”
“How’s Antonio?” he asked, rising and walking by my side toward the door.
Reilly jerked to a halt. “Antonio? You know him?” She slapped her thigh. “Of course you know him. High school buddies, right?”
Jack nodded.
“I’m going out with him, you know. Lola’s setting it up.” She threw her arms up and shimmied. “Salsa dancing.”
Jack’s smile deepened and spread to his eyes. He looked back to me. “Is that right?”
“Antonio’s fine,” I said, going back to his question. “He basically runs the restaurant now.”
“I keep meaning to stop by. I’ll give him a call.”
“Yeah, you do that,” I said, heading down the stairs behind Reilly. “See you around, Callaghan.”
Melissa Bourbon Ramirez - Lola Cruz 01 - Living the Vida Lola Page 4