Bare-Naked Lola (A Lola Cruz Mystery) (8 page)

“No!” I reached for it, but the waitress scurried off to deliver a drink to one of the high-priced seats.

Damn. I’d been going for a super-smooth pluck off the waitress’s tray. Utter fail. Even worse, they’d noticed.

Geneva and Nicole stared at me.

“What’s wrong with you?” Nicole, the only other Hispanic dancer on the team, snarled. There was no Latina camaraderie for her. In fact, she seemed to have the most disdain for me, her expression turning to a scowl whenever I was around.

“I thought you tossed that by mistake. I can go grab it back for you.” I cringed at how bad the lie was, but I had no choice but to go with it. I started to walk past them, keeping an eye on the waitress, but she disappeared into the crowd.

Victoria’s voice was like a rope pulling me to a stop. “Line up,” she said, followed by a quick succession of claps. “Time to wow the crowd with some Black Eyed Peas.”

The music blared in the arena and Jennifer led the dancers back out. I fell into line, searching for the waitress as I left the tunnel. No luck. She was gone, and short of Dumpster diving in all of the arena’s garbage bins, I doubted I’d ever find the note Geneva had crumpled and thrown away.

The clue had slipped right between my fingers.

Chapter Six

I spent the next day tracking down Rochelle Nolan, the woman who’d quit the Courtside Dancers. Finding her address—a sprawling custom home out in Granite Bay—was easy. Getting past the security guard for the gated community wasn’t. I’d brought along my poor, neglected Boxer, Salsa, and poor, neglected Reilly for the company, but now I was wishing I’d come
sola
. It would have been easier to try to sweet-talk my way past the guard if I’d been by myself.

Reilly, with her newly colored orange hair (to celebrate autumn, she’d said) and slinky black leggings paired with a colorful patchwork swing blouse, filled me in on all her Neil
chisme
. She didn’t leave out a single detail. Not one. By the time we reached Granite Bay, my eyes had glazed from too much information.

Salsa panted from the cargo area of the CRV as I drove, her tongue hanging out the side of her drooping mouth. What if I had to sneak in? How was I going to do that with Reilly and Salsa in tow?
¡Ay, caramba!
What had I been thinking?

“I know, baby,” I cooed, glancing at her in the rearview mirror. “I’ll take you for a run later, promise.”

“What now?” Reilly asked, twirling a strand of her hair.

“You and Salsa can wait here while I try to find a place to hop the fence,” I suggested.

She wagged her finger at me, looking for all the world like she was going to say, “Uh-uh, no you didn’t.” But instead she said, “You’re
loca
.
Loca
. First of all, I did not come all this way to the ritzy part of town only to sit in the car with your dog. No way. If this is how the other half lives, I wanna see it. Like up close and personal. And second of all, I want to see what kind of woman lands herself a professional basketball player. I mean, it didn’t work out so good for Vanessa Williams, if you know what I mean, and what about Kobe Bryant? ’Course that’s the Lakers, so that may be the problem, but I think they’re all serial cheaters. I mean, what about Wilt Chamberlain?”

“But look at Lamar Odom—”

Reilly wagged her finger at me. “Oh no, don’t even get me started on Lamar and Khloe. They’re bucking the odds.” She rapped her knuckles on the car’s plastic interior. “Knock on wood.” She kept talking, as if I hadn’t interrupted.

“So if your girl…Rochelle, right?” I nodded, and she went on, working herself into a tizzy. “If your girl Rochelle landed herself one of the few monogamous players out there, I just want to take a gander at her,
entiendes
? You cannot make me stay out here. Uh-uh. No way.”

“So what about climbing the fence?” I asked her, but I knew the answer. Exercise wasn’t one of her favorite pastimes. Yes, she was usually game for any sidekick P.I. duty, but that didn’t mean she was willing to risk her freedom by breaking into the gated community in broad daylight.

“Uh-uh, no way,” she said again, and then she flashed me a flirty grin. “I save my athleticism for my teddy bear.”

Salsa’s floppy ears perked up, but I peered at Reilly and said, “
¿Qué dices?
No, no, no.
T.M.I.”

She shrugged. “I’m just saying…”

“A few months ago you were head over heels in love with Antonio. Don’t you think you’re moving a bit fast with Neil?”

Her mouth gaped open. “No way,
chica
! When you know, you know. Antonio was a diversion. He was eye candy. Nothing but a one-night stand—”

“But you didn’t
have
a one-night stand with him!”

“Your brother is smokin’ hot, Lola, but Neil? Neil is the real deal.” She winked and added, “He knows just what to do.”

“
¡Ay, ay, ay!
” I muttered, shaking my head. The girl had it bad. “I just don’t want you to be hurt.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m good. You just worry about Jack. What happened to him, anyway?” She turned in her seat, staring at me as if I were Jennifer Lopez. “Oh no! You didn’t break up, did you? Oh, tell me you and Jack are together.”

I patted the air with one hand. “
Cálmate
.”

She rolled down the window of my CRV, sucking in a deep breath. “I’m calm,” she said, turning back to me. “Now, tell me.”

Poppies growing on the side of the road gave me an idea. I turned onto Auburn Folsom Road and headed back the way we’d come, searching for a grocery store. “We’re not together,” I said, “but we’re not
not
together.”

Salsa whimpered in the back as Reilly harrumphed. My peanut gallery. “Um, what does that even mean?”

Buena pregunta.
“Good question,” I answered, and then debated how to answer. “I told you about the Sarah thing. She’s like a disobedient child. Her family keeps coming to get her, but then she goes off her meds and sneaks away—”

“To Jack,” Reilly finished.

“
Exactamente
.”

“And he takes her back, or what?”

“No.” To his credit. I knew he was trying to cut ties, but the girl was crazy. “He’s kicked her out.”

“So what’s the problem? You know he’s into you.”

Leave it to Reilly to cut to the chase. I gripped the steering wheel, wishing I could avoid the question. In the rearview mirror, I met Salsa’s melancholy eyes. She scooted forward, resting her jowls on the backrest of the seat. Sweet girl. She thought she was human, and sometimes I wondered just how much she really understood.

“Come on. Spill it.”

But I didn’t have to, at least not quite yet. I spotted a Bel Air Market and whipped into the parking lot. Saved by the grocery store. The Indian summer had finally given way to cool autumn temperatures, so I cracked the window and left Salsa in the car to hold down the fort. Sixty dollars later, I owned a lovely flower arrangement, and five minutes later we were heading back to Rochelle Nolan’s gated community.

“Clever,” Reilly said, holding onto the flower vase.

“It’s worth a shot.” We’d come all this way. To go back to Sacramento with nothing to show for our time wasn’t going to earn me any P.I. points at the office.

“So,” Reilly said after a spell. “Nice try, but what’s the answer?”

Damn. She was nothing if not dogged. “What was the question?”

“That Jack Callaghan is into you, so what’s your problem? Have you, you know”—she lowered her voice, as if there were children in the car who she didn’t want to hear—“done the deed?”

Any good Catholic girl would have blushed at that question. I was a very good Catholic girl. My mother would’ve been proud. “
Híjole
, Reilly. What kind of question is that?”

“Curious minds, and all that.” She grinned like she thought she knew the answer.

Which she didn’t.

“
Pues
, truth?” I finally said.

“
¡Sí, sí, sí!
” She angled herself more toward me, as if I were going to give her all the down and dirty details of Jack and me.

Only there were no down and dirty details.

“No.”

There. I’d said it. If only there were a few flies in the car she could catch with her open mouth.

The flowers started lilting right. “Wait…what?”

“Reilly!”

I grabbed for the vase, but she managed to straighten it before the flowers fell out, never even blinking. The girl was single-minded. “But you were with Sergio, and—”

I threw up my hand, stopping her short. I did not need a rundown of my past sexual exploits. “
¡Cállate!
With Jack, it’s different. Ever since high school, I knew—”

“Lola. This isn’t high school.”

Boy, did I know that. When I was a nubile sixteen-year-old, Jack was the sexiest teenager I’d ever laid eyes on.
Pero
now? At thirty-one, he was downright irresistible. How I steered clear of him on a continual basis was a mystery. “If it’s going to happen, I just don’t want there to be any baggage.”

Reilly, the newly anointed relationship expert, scoffed. Scoffed! “There’s always baggage, right? Take Neil. All his contacts, like the DMV girl, and the courthouse girl, and the Caltrans girl? Not just friends. Uh-uh. They’re all
exes
. He’s got loads of baggage, but he’s still the right one for me.” She paused, the flowers listing again, a momentary frown crossing her lips. “Pretty sure he is, anyway.”

“That’s my point,” I said, turning onto the gated drive of Rochelle’s development. “If it’s going to happen, I want to know for sure. I don’t want to wonder.”

She shook her orange-haired head. “You never know for sure. You have to take a chance every now and then.”

As I rolled down my window, I glanced at Reilly, wondering when she had become the voice of reason in my romantic life.

…

Reilly squealed as the security guard opened the gate and waved us through. “I can’t believe it worked!”

“Yeah, easy.” Some security station. Either the guard was horrible at his job, or they had loose rules about delivery people coming in and out. Either way, it didn’t give me confidence that paying top dollar to live in a gated community was worth the extra money.

We wound through the rolling hills of the neighborhood, searching for the address I’d found for Rochelle. The sprawling estates with their waterfalls, fountains, cobbled driveways, and turrets made me feel like I was on a movie set rather than in a suburb of Sacramento. So this was how the rich lived.

Finally I turned onto a private cul-de-sac.

“Holy macaroni!” Reilly blurted.

She’d taken the words right out of my mouth.

I tossed a rawhide bone to Salsa, cracked the windows again, and told her to be good.

A minute later, Reilly and I stood on the driveway staring at the monstrous house with its enormous fountain, lion statues, and the soaring ceiling of the porch. I marched past the fountain, Reilly on my heels, and rang the doorbell. A tune chimed from inside. I tapped my booted foot, finally ringing the bell again when no one came.

“Darn. After all that, she’s not home?” Reilly said, but the words had barely left her mouth when a figure appeared from behind the beveled glass and the door swung open.

Rochelle Nolan stood before us, a pristine white Maltese in her arms. Now that I was standing in front of her, I recognized her from past publicity shots. She was every bit as glamorous as she was supposed to be, considering she was Sacramento’s version of Khloe Kardashian. The thrill of being near a celebrity went through me. My knees wobbled. Imagine what it would be like to actually meet Juanes. Or Jennifer Lopez. Or Selma Hayek.

I shut the door on those thoughts and got to work. Rochelle’s stick-straight blond hair was like a perfect sheet of golden ash. It made me wish I’d taken even just a second to run my fingers through my hair instead of haphazardly clipping it up in the back with a claw. Being painted and primped for the basketball games had made me want to do pretty much nothing when I wasn’t at a game.
Au naturel
, that was my new motto.

From behind me, I heard Salsa give an exploratory bark. Rochelle’s dog responded instantly, straining in her arms. It yelped, and Salsa’s deep, baritone bark responded back in a full-on barking frenzy.
Oh boy.

Rochelle peered over my shoulder. “You bring your dog on your deliveries?”

“Sometimes,” I said. “A girl and her best friend.”

“Ah,” she said, as if she knew exactly what I meant. She pointed to the flowers. “Are those for me?”

“What?” Reilly stared blankly at her.

“The flowers,” I said under my breath. Reilly was a total reality-show junkie. She was starstruck.

“Oh! Yes. Sorry. Flower delivery!” She thrust the arrangement toward Rochelle, but the former dancer didn’t take it.

She lifted one shoulder, showing us her yapping Maltese. “Do you mind putting it there?” she said, turning to point to a brass-rimmed glass occasional table.

Reilly hesitated, but I put my hand on her lower back and gave a shove. Getting into Rochelle’s house was exactly what I wanted, and she’d invited us in.

Reilly put the flower arrangement on the table, stepping aside as Rochelle bent over them and breathed in. “No card?” she asked, straightening.

“Oh? I guess not.” I forged ahead before she could question us about who’d sent the flowers. “You were on that reality show, weren’t you?” I said, infusing admiration into my voice.

It worked. She stroked her hair with her free hand, preening. “Good memory,” she said. “I’ll give you an autograph if you want.”

I gave a thrilled smile. Rochelle Nolan’s autograph was the last thing on my mind, but it was a handwriting sample. Booya! I dug my notebook out of my purse. “Very exciting! I’ve never met a real live celebrity before.” I handed her a pen and as she scrawled her name across the page, I cleared my throat. “You’re not on the Royal Courtside dance team anymore, are you?”

Her face tensed, almost imperceptibly, and she shook her head as she scrawled her name. All loops and curlicues.
Not
the note writer. Damn. “I’m not, no.” She held out her left hand. Reilly and I stumbled back, nearly blinded by the sparkling rock on her ring finger. “I’m engaged—”