Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit (6 page)

She couldn't believe it.

“We thank you for your interest but—”

She'd lost the hottest PR account in town to . . . Crawford Buchanan, fellow freelance flack and part-time gossip guru for KREP-AM radio! Pronounced
KREEP
in her book, as anything relating to Buchanan was.

Nattering Nabobs of Negativity! This was so unfair.
She had the background—former TV news reporter, former PR director for the prestigious Guthrie Repertory Theater in Minneapolis, current PR rep for the classiest
hotel in Vegas, the Crystal Phoenix. What was there not
to prefer over Awful Crawford? Plus she was a
girl,
and
you'd think that would be an advantage on an account
like this for once!

Temple
stared at the hot pink headline over the bad black-and-white news.

CALLING ALL TEEN QUEENS!
The letters were an inch high and as curly as her natural red hair.
TV'S HOTTEST
NEW REALITY SHOW HITS VEGAS! FROM 'TWEEN IDOL TO LEGALLY LIVE BAIT! THEY COMPETE FOR THE GUY, THE GOLD, AND THE GOOD LOOKS!

And the sleaziest PR hack in Vegas, not to mention the
biggest lecher on Las Vegas Boulevard, would be han
dling all the publicity, not to mention the contestants if he
could.

Temple
shook her head. She hadn't been entirely at
ease with being head flack for a reality TV show anyway.
Especially one that would turn the twenty-four-hour spy cameras on vulnerable young women of tender years. If you could find any of that breed around these days.

She deposited the letter in the wicker wastebasket near her living room sofa.

The position paid spectacularly well, and she certainly could have done a better job with it than Crawford, even with one manicured hand tied behind her back, but
que sera, sera.
She was probably better off out of it. The potential PR headaches were as big as the payoff.

The possibilities unscrolled in her mind.

Number one, permissions. You don't put underage kids on TV without parental permissions up the wazoo. Then, too, how do you run a peep show involving minors with
out getting hit with child endangerment or abuse
charges? More parental permissions.

Then there was the financial tangle of who would bene-
fit from any resulting prizes or payments. Kids, or parents?
Not to mention the ugly matter of stage parents who push their kids into this kind of media exposure for their
own needs, otherwise known as JonBenet syndrome. One
thing that ugly unresolved investigation had never made clear was where that offbeat name came from. That answer might explain a lot.

Kids tote a heavy load of parental expectations, Tem
ple
mused. Cats too. Maybe Louie hadn't really wanted
to be a TV commercial spokescat.

Nah. Louie had been born to attract attention, unless he
was sneaking around, up to feline mischief, and then he was Mr. Invisible.

Chapter 5

Mail Call

Lieutenant C. R. Molina was doing a surprise inspection
of her clothes closet and not liking what she saw. Not that
any of her wearable troops were out of uniform and disorderly. Quite the contrary.

A row of black, navy, and brown pantsuits in ser
viceable twill for winter alternated with a row of taupe, navy, and charcoal gray pantsuits in sturdy cotton for summer.

They weren't cheap, but they all came from conservative career clothing for women catalogs, where she could
find styles long enough for her five-foot-eleven-inch
frame.

At the other end of the closet hung the limp folds of a
few choice silk-velvet evening gowns culled from vintage
stores in Los Angeles and Las Vegas over the past fifteen years.

She looked from one end of the closet to the other.

“
Lieutenant Jekyll and Ms. Hyde," she muttered. She moved down to flip through the vintage gowns representing her years as Carmen the chanteuse. The rich velvets seemed to echo the tones of her bluesy contralto voice:
dark mossy forest green; shimmering black, ruby-
burgundy, deep magenta, blue velvet.

Her hand paused in pulling out that last gown. Couldn't
even remember buying it. Usually she knew the where
and when of every costume . . . even, or especially, those
found during her L.A./Rafi Nadir period. Her mind
danced away from summoning those dread days beyond recall but her hand clung to the blue velvet. Was she losing it? She let the fabric fall away. No, just too much on her mind that was much more important nowadays, in
cluding Her Hormonal Highness, the periadolescent
Mariah. Oh, for the pigtails and skinned knees and kiddish enthusiasms of yesterday!

But this inventory of her closet had nothing to do with
Mariah. It had to do with one uppity narc. A date! Was he nuts? Was she nuts? Because here she was: single mother
cop with teenage child, looking down the barrel of forty thinking she could go on a date. Just like that. When she didn't have a thing to wear. Neither Jekyll nor Hyde was cut out for a dinner date. What the heck had she been thinking?

For some reason the image of Matt's friend, Janice
Flanders, popped into her mind's eye. Okay. Also a single
mother and no kid herself. Tallish. One dignified lady. A wardrobe role model? No . . . those New Ageish artsydrapey clothes with cryptic images weren't her, whoever "her" was.

She slid the closet doors shut and went to the living room. Caterina and Tabitha, the tiger-striped cats, were curled into yin-yang formation on the sofa, dreaming of electric mice. Mariah was off at another one of her extracurricular activities . . . band or chorus or just something way too girly for her tender thirteen years . . . at her new friend Melody's house.

Carmen heard the grinding gears of the mailman's mini-Jeep outside and moved into the hot morning sunshine, hoping for a catalog with some outfit labeled "middle-aged single mother dating ensemble.”

She got three catalogs, with cover images that made some hitherto untapped fashionista in her soul go "yuck." And a letter. Addressed to Mariah.

Carmen frowned, staring at the unthinkable type in the
sunlight.
What?
Now they were trying to push credit
cards on middle-schoolers? Were there no limits? No. It must be a magazine solicitation, going by the fancy type in the return address, which looked vaguely familiar. Mariah had suddenly become a huge consumer of
Seventeen
magazine and a whole new slew of its ilk.

Shaking her head, Carmen went in, blinking in the dimness of her living room, automatically snatching the letter opener and slitting through the taped flyers for new air conditioning units et cetera, even through the flap on the envelope addressed to Mariah.

The pitch letter was two-color: pink and black. Carmen
shook her head. What would her so very "now" daughter think if she knew that color combo was even older than
her mother. "It Came From the Fifties" ... Carmen
chuckled.

And then she read the letter. And sat down. And read the letter again. She looked at the return address. The headlining "sell" graphics.

She took a very deep breath. She wondered who she could call.

No one.

She wondered what she would do.

Whatever it was, it would be disastrous.

Lose-lose.

Oh, hell.

Chapter 6

Undercover Chick

Temple
was hammering out a new proposal on her computer, trying to forget about Awful Crawford and reality TV shows and all their satanic ilk, when her doorbell did its vintage doo-wap on her ears.

Matt? Something more to say before he left?
Hmmm.
Max wouldn't ring, and Matt usually knocked, so maybe Electra, the landlady. . . .

Optimistic, as usual, she swung the door wide open,
and found a figure as high, wide, and unwelcome as she could remember filling the doorway.

“Lieutenant."

“Miss Barr. May I come in?"

“You have a warrant?"

“You have nothing to fear. This is a personal consultation.”

Temple
stepped aside to admit a woman who was almost a foot taller than she into her humble domain.

Thank goodness Temple had resident "muscle" on the premises.

Molina stopped cold in the archway to the living room.
"Him."

“
Louie lives here," Temple said. "No doubt he's thinking
'her'
at this very moment."

“Actually, I like cats." Molina crossed the invisible barrier between entry and living area to loom over Louie. "What a handsome fellow.”

Louie was buying none of it. He fanned his long, curved
nails and licked dismissively between his spread toes.

“
What can I do for you?" Temple asked, making
small talk.

Molina's laser-blue eyes fixed on her insincere face.
"A great deal. Can we talk where you have seating units not claimed by alley cats?"

“My office?"

“Better than mine.”

So Temple led her into the spare bedroom-cum
office, wondering madly what this was about. She heard
Louie thump assertively down to the floor as he fol
lowed them.

Temple
indicated the casual wicker chair opposite her computer desk and sank into the comfortable sling mesh of her teal Aereon size A chair.

Louie leaped up on the computer desk and sat there like a silent partner, switching his long black tail over the side.
"I didn't expect a familiar," Molina said.

“Think of Louie as Paul Drake, and of me as Perry Mason."

“
Not possible." Molina's lips suddenly quirked. "What?"

“
I could buy Nora Charles and Asta."

“Oh. I could do
The Thin Man!
I do so love vintage clothes and vintage quips.”

Louie growled.

“Louie, however," Temple added airily, "does not do dogs.”

Molina spread her hands, dismissing the parallels.
"Perhaps Bucky Beaver, then. I need to hire your ser
vices."

“
A PR person could do a lot for your department.”

“For me."

“For you?"

“And not PR."

“What for then?"

“You've shown some . . . zany aptitude for undercover work."

“Me?"

“Tess the Thong Girl ring a bell?"

“Well, that was just—"

“
I know. You were just Little Red Riding Hood with a basketful of thongs trying to save the Big Bad Wolf from the Evil Huntsman."

“Max isn't a Big Bad Wolf! Although you're an excellent candidate for the Evil Huntsman. You probably went after Snow White for the Evil Queen too."

“
Let's set personal issues aside, Miss Barr.”

Temple
saw those laser eyes shift, eyeing the room and
conceding to Temple's domain for the first time.
"You really do want to hire me?"

“Yes."

“For what?"

“I want you to enter the Teen Queen reality TV show competition."

“
What!" Temple leaped up from her chair. "I'm too
old!"

“That leap says not. The upper age limit is nineteen. You can pass."

“But—"

“You can pass. You think I don't know who can go undercover and how well? You're a shoo-in.""Get Su! She's small for her age."