Heat Wave

by Jill Marie Landis

  “What?” she hedged.

  “You found something and you’re driving down to check it out.”

  There was no way she could outright lie.

  “Listen, Ty, this may be a dead end. There are hundreds of names on that printout. It’s something kind of close. And I do need to go down to Long Beach.” Okay, so that part was a stretch. “I just didn’t want you to get your hopes up.”

  “Any higher, you mean?”

  “There’s no telling what I’ll find. Besides, if it is her, it’s not such a bad idea to have a go-between. Did you ever think she might not want you popping into her life? That she might have a life of her own and a sudden appearance by a father she never knew might just screw it up?”

  “What do you think she’s got going, Kat? You found her name on the welfare rolls. At the very least, I’m a meal ticket. That might be my kid out there and she might need me.”

  “She might not.”

  “Maybe not. You’re right, but when you find her, I want to be there. Promise me you won’t go to L.A. until I can go with you.”

  “Ty—”

  “Hey, you work for me, remember? Promise, or I’ll blow this company thing off and pick you up right now. You’ll have to live with the guilt of all those unhappy A-list campers sleeping out in the open without tents this summer.”

  “Now, that would be a real tragedy.”

  “Yeah. It would be.”

  She tried to find the will to protest, but there was not only insistence in his voice, there was hope and a rock-solid determination. She knew he’d keep badgering her until she agreed.

  It was his hope that won her over. That and the anticipation of spending time alone with him on the drive south.

  “Okay, I’ll wait.”

  “I’ll get on this and stay on it all night if I have to so that we can take off for L.A. bright and early tomorrow morning.”

  “I’m not ever very bright when it’s early. Today was an exception.” She wondered if she’d be lucky enough to sleep through the night again. Maybe there was something to fresh air and peaceful surroundings—or maybe it was just being around Ty.

  “Kat?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. There’s no telling what we’ll find.”

  Chapter 6

  San Fernando Valley

  Los Angeles, California

  IT WAS HARD to hide three hundred people out in the open—even in the dark. Big crowds added to the winnings, but they drew a lot of police attention.

  With too many people around—along with too much booze and drugs—the danger quotient went up and so did the chances of an accident or a bust, or both.

  The risk was high, but one she had to take, now more than ever, so she didn’t think about the crowd. She couldn’t let her mind go there at all. There was too much at stake.

  It didn’t matter that she was one of the only females involved tonight. She was good at what she did and she knew it. This was a level playing field, where a girl could challenge the big boys and make as much as she wanted to.

  It wasn’t might or brawn that counted here, but split-second timing, experience, and guts.

  Guts or stupidity, depending on your point of view.

  Her right hand rested on the gearshift, her foot on the accelerator. She revved the engine, kept her eye on the starter, her left hand on the wheel. When her heart started whooshing in her ears, she began to take slow, deep breaths.

  Acres of parking lot were jammed with cars. Deep bass thumps pounded out of boom boxes—tribal, primal, frenetic. In the distance the night sky was stained gray by city lights. The air was filled with fine dust that had yet to settle.

  A mix of nitrous oxide and gasoline exhaust was the perfume of the night.

  Someone wolf-whistled, shrill and high. She blocked the sound, shifted around in the low-slung leather seat.

  She stroked her left hand over the steering-wheel cover. This wasn’t her car—she could never afford anything like this, not now anyway. But guys begged her to race their rods for them. They wanted the bragging rights.

  Not just anyone could entice Sunny Simone behind the wheel of his car. The choice was up to her. It had to be the right car and the right night.

  She revved the engine again. Cut her eyes to the Asian driver in the Rice Rocket beside her. They’d competed before. He was real good, too. But he wasn’t hungry. His dad had a huge bankroll.

  He wasn’t desperate.

  She was.

  She concentrated on the starter. Refused to let the crowd down. They were chanting her name now. A low, steady repetition that picked up the pace until it kept time with her heartbeat.

  Sunny. Sunny. Sunny.

  She couldn’t see the starter’s eyes, but instinctively she knew when he was going to give the signal. She hit the accelerator at the exact instant he waved his arms.

  Chapter 7

  L.A. WAS L.A.; SMOGGY and crowded.

  The heart of the city beat with an underlying Latin tempo. Wannabe stars, panhandlers, and illegals selling bags of oranges and crates of strawberries shared the corners of palm-lined boulevards with the rich and famous.

  Ty drove all the way with his stomach in knots, wondering what they’d find, if and when they found Sunny at all.

  “You think I’m crazy for wanting this?” he asked Kat.

  “No. Not crazy. I understand completely.”

  “But you don’t sound very sure.”

  “Legally, she doesn’t have to have anything to do with you if she doesn’t want to. She might tell you to take a leap.’

  “I know, and I appreciate your honesty, but I have to find her. She’s family. She’s mine.”

  The idea that they might not find her today was bringing him down, so he concentrated on the city as he drove. He hadn’t been to Southern California for years and the changes were dramatic. Hollywood was nothing like it had been portrayed in the movies.

  Tinseltown had spilled over into Burbank, Studio City, and Culver City, where the major studios were located. The industry had moved and left behind Mann’s Chinese Theatre and its footprints of the stars preserved in cement.

  Now tourists, mimes and clowns, pimps, hookers, and panhandlers—not to mention a cluster of transvestites outside the Frederick’s Lingerie Museum—all mingled on the Walk of Fame stars on Hollywood Boulevard.

  Growing up in Twilight Cove and living in Alaska hadn’t helped Ty hone his city driving skills. Thankfully, Kat navigated with a Thomas Guide in her lap as they wound their way along Hollywood Boulevard to Franklin Avenue.

  Ty made a right, and out of nowhere a low, black BMW came at them, headed across double-double center lines. As he hit the brakes, Kat drove both her feet into the floorboard and threw her hands up over her face. The map book flew off her lap and slammed into the dash. Ty honked and swore as he swerved, avoiding a collision.

  He immediately pulled into the parking lot outside a 7-Eleven convenience store and cut the engine. Kat’s face was already drained of color and she was staring straight ahead, shaking violently. It had been a close call, but not that close.

  “Kat?” He reached for her shoulder, but she rocked away from his touch. When she bumped against the passenger door, she seemed to snap out of it.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out.

  He asked again if she was all right. It was obvious she wasn’t, but he had no idea what to do.

  Slowly she began to nod her head yes.

  “I’m okay,” she whispered. Then in a stronger voice, echoed, “I’m okay. Really.”

  “No you’re not.”

  She bent to retrieve the map book from the floor.
She laid it in her lap and then rested her bandaged hand atop it.

  “Yes.” She nodded again, as if to assure herself more than him. “Yes, I am. I’m fine. Let’s go.”

  “I’m sorry, Kat, but that guy came out of nowhere.”

  “I know. It wasn’t your fault. I’m just a little . . . I was in a pretty bad accident a few years ago. It left me a little . . . a little . . . shaken up.” She took a deep breath, making a real effort to smile, but failed miserably.

  He glanced at the traffic whizzing by on the crowded street. The BMW was long gone.

  “Let’s go. I’m okay,” she urged.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Just drive.”

  He took it slow as they pulled into traffic again. When they hit Fair Avenue, they started looking for Sunny’s address. It was two o’clock and he was starving. It had been his idea not to stop for lunch. Now it was too late and he regretted it.

  “There it is.” Kat’s voice cut the silence she’d maintained since the near-miss and startled him so that he had to slam on the breaks again to keep from rear-ending a Volvo wagon in front of them.

  But this time Kat didn’t flinch. Instead, she let go a shaky laugh. “Now I know why you preferred the wide-open spaces. You drive like crap.”

  He pulled in behind a Harley chopper parked alongside the curb in front of a classic California courtyard apartment comprised of a two-story building built around a central garden.

  Giant bird of paradise plants filled each corner of the garden. Groupings of old metal lawn chairs, once painted in bright rainbow hues, were rusted and peeling. Two faded pink plastic flamingos guarded an empty, lopsided birdbath.

  Ty released a long, deep sigh but it didn’t help calm him. He wished he could jog a mile or two and let off some steam, but inhaling all the smog would probably kill him.

  Before he could step out, Kat reached over and touched his hand.

  “It’ll be okay,” she assured him. “Either way. If we haven’t found her, we’ll keep looking.”

  He closed his hand over hers and gave it a squeeze. She reacted by blushing, and he pulled away.

  All business again, she grabbed her straw bag, slipped the leather straps over her shoulder. Noting the protective way she tucked the bag under her arm, he didn’t have to ask if she was carrying her handgun.

  She turned to him. “Ready?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.” When he glanced out the window at the apartment building, nausea and anticipation hit him. Again he wished he’d pulled over for a quick bite. At least then there would be something besides acid churning in his stomach.

  “Number six? Right?” He knew the apartment number like he knew his phone number but he just had to ask to make this more than surreal.

  “Right. Six.”

  “Well. Okay, then.” When he reached for the car handle, his damn hand shook. He desperately wanted this, but it was such a shot in the dark. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 8

  AS THEY WALKED along the narrow sidewalk, Kat pressed her bag into her side, thankful for her .380.

  The place was run-down, which didn’t necessarily mean trouble, but after what happened to her in an upscale, pricey neighborhood like Seal Beach—in the company of an upstanding, wealthy housewife—she wasn’t taking any chances.

  Fate was like lightning. It could strike anywhere, anytime.

  She let Ty lead the way as they passed the birdbath. Not only were the faded flamingos beside it, but a beheaded statue of St. Francis. The saint’s cement head smiled up beatifically from where it lay in the dirt.

  Kat glanced at Ty. His tension was infectious. Still shaken by the close call with the Beemer, she took a deep breath and forced herself to relax as Ty knocked on the arched, solid oak door, a reminder of California’s Spanish heritage that certainly wasn’t standard issue on houses anymore.

  An elderly woman with bleached-blond hair wound in a bun and held in place by a chopstick opened the door.

  “Hi. I’m Happy!” she chirped.

  “That’s great.” Ty cleared his throat. “Does Sunny Simone live here?”

  “Donny Leon? I’ve never heard of Donny Leon.” The woman craned her neck and looked up, her blue eyes focused on Ty. “You’re a big one, arentcha?”

  “Sunny. Sunny Simone.” Kat raised her voice and leaned close to the woman. “Do you know her?”

  “She doesn’t live here.”

  “Do you know her? Do you know where she lives?”

  “Sure. I know what gives,” the woman shouted back. “They never get married anymore. Wear those tight clothes and let their belly buttons hang out. Bunch of tarts, if you ask me. Hussies.”

  “Do you know anyone named Sunny? She’s nineteen.”

  “Try across the walk. They got a bunch of ’em in there.”

  “Which apartment?” Ty asked.

  “Nine.”

  They crossed the courtyard. Kat waited while Ty knocked. She was thinking about how much she liked all the doors when the one he’d knocked on was partially opened by a thin young woman with limp, dishwater-brown hair and green eyes that were far too big for her face.

  A beaded black choker was clamped around her slender neck; a long-sleeved black knit top and black jeans covered most of the rest of her. She looked like a candidate for an anorexia clinic. Sure enough, her bejeweled belly button floated in the middle of a concave abdomen.

  “Yeah?” Clinging to the edge of the door, the girl stared at Ty for a second, then at Kat.

  Apparently, Ty had suddenly been rendered mute, so Kat made direct eye contact with the girl and donned her best P.I., no-nonsense persona.

  “We’re looking for Sunny Simone.”

  “If that idiot Gomez sent you about the rent—”

  “No one sent us. We’re here on a personal matter. It’s about Sunny’s mother.”

  “Sunny doesn’t have a mother.”

  Pay dirt. “So you’re not Sunny Simone?”

  Miss Anorexia slowly shook her head. “Not even. If you tell me what you want, maybe—”

  Suddenly the door swung open to reveal another girl. She, too, wore black jeans and a tight tank top, which showed off her well-defined arms, one of which was tattooed with a thin, barbed-wire design around her biceps. The tattoo showed off the kind of sleek muscle definition Kat envied.

  Her hair was long, a vibrant chestnut streaked with red highlights. Her eyes, heavily outlined with black liner, were as blue as a smog-free summer sky. She was a few inches taller than Kat, long and lean, and altogether stunning.

  She had Ty’s coloring, and maybe a hint of his features, but Kat realized she might be seeing what she wanted to see, hoping for Ty’s sake that this was Sunny.

  Kat sensed from the way Ty had stiffened when the girl first appeared that he recognized something in her, perhaps something that reminded him of Amy.

  “I’m Sunny.” She gave them a quick once-over. “What’s this about my mother?”

  Kat, distracted by a repetitive squeak, turned in time to see the old woman with bleached hair pulling a collapsible aluminum shopping basket down the walk. She waved and called out to Kat, “Flea market today!”

  Kat focused on Sunny again. “Can we come in for a minute?”

  Sunny Simone sized them both up in a quick glance, nodded, and stepped back. As they cleared the door, they heard a wail from a back room, a child’s cry. The thin, mousey-brown-haired girl took off down the hall. She wasn’t over fifteen.

  The apartment was small and cluttered, but all the furniture appeared to be expensive and fairly new. One wall was occupied by a big-screen television tuned to One Life to Live. The TV was surrounded by the latest in home entertainment equipment.

  Kat tried to ignore the cries of the fussy chi
ld in the background and concentrate on the exchange between Ty and Sunny Simone instead.

  Sunny didn’t ask them to sit down. “Are you police?”

  Ty shook his head, found his tongue. “No. My name is Ty Chandler. I’m from a little town up the coast. Twilight Cove.”

  “So?” If Sunny had heard of the place, she didn’t let on.

  “Was your mother Amy Simmons?” he asked.

  “Why?”

  “If she was, then I’m your dad.”

  Kat winced. Nice going, Ty. Real finesse. Why not just hit the kid over the head with a two-by-four? She couldn’t keep her heart from going out to him as she watched him flounder.

  The girl’s expression barely changed.

  “You’re shittin’ me. I don’t have a dad.”

  “You do now, if Amy Simmons was your mother. Were you born at a place called River Ridge?”

  “Yeah. I lived there until they busted up the place. My mom died.”

  “And you ended up in foster care—”

  “But not for long.”

  “Were you adopted?”

  “Fat chance. I was eleven. I hung around a few years, then I ran away.”

  “How old were you?”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  Ty glanced around the cluttered room, met Kat’s eyes for an instant. He looked like someone had sucker-punched him.

  At that point the younger girl walked back into the room with a green-eyed toddler on her hip. She crossed the living room and went into the kitchen.

  They heard her open the refrigerator. Glass bottles and jars clinked together before she walked back into the living room and sat down on a low-slung leather couch littered with tabloid newspapers, clothing, crumpled fast-food bags.

  She set a cold jar of baby carrots on the smeared glass-and-chrome coffee table, plopped the wide-eyed, curly-headed little girl down beside her.

  The toddler lost her balance and let out a whine while the teenager paused to twist the top off the jar. Then the teen righted the little girl and fished a plastic spoon out of the mess on the table.