Melissa Bourbon Ramirez - Lola Cruz 01 - Living the Vida Lola (20 page)

My whole body trembled as he wiped my stomach with alcohol swabs—not exactly the trembling I would have liked to experience, considering Jack’s arms were still around me.

A dull ache radiated from my belly.

“Clean it twice a day,” Zod said. He handed me an instruction sheet and stood back while Jack slipped one arm under my body and propelled me up. My shirt fell over my stomach, but my pants were still undone. I didn’t even care. The pain precluded any possible pleasure I might experience being in the vicinity of Jack. It looked like the piercing was going to be my chastity belt tonight.

I slung my purse over my shoulder and gingerly stepped through to the front room, laying my cash on the counter. To
think I was actually paying for this pain. And the information I’d gotten for it was negligible at best.

Lucy was
still
searching the binders. God, I hoped she’d managed to snoop while I was getting tortured. I should have communicated that to her somehow. “I can’t decide,” she said.

“You shouldn’t get one today,
Glenda
.” I was not putting Lucy’s life in danger. Wait and see if I died first. Anyway, I seriously doubted that Zac wanted the mother of his children sporting a tattoo.

“Glenda?” she mouthed, but she seemed to get the point and slammed the binder closed. Truth be told, she looked a touch relieved. She didn’t really want the tattoo; she just wanted to do something wild. “Let me see you!” Before I could stop her, she pulled up my shirt. I looked at Jack and saw him swallow hard as his gaze drifted over my navel and my still-unbuttoned pants.

The pain was already dissipating, and I was feeling pretty good with the piercing. Or at least with the effect it was having on Jack. The ends sometimes justified the means.

The bell on the front door of the shop dinged. Lucy dropped my shirt, and we all turned our heads to look at who’d come to be tortured.

Allison Diggs skulked into the dim shop.

Her jaw dropped, and she pointed two fingers at me, a burning cigarette clutched between them. “What are
you
doing here?”

“What are
you
doing here?” Good comeback, especially considering her proclivity for tattoos.

Zod, Lucy, and Jack just stood there, looking puzzled. “I work here,” she said.

Even better. Another dot to try to connect. “Small world,” I said. My brain whirled. Emily’s daughter, Allison, knew
Zod
, who may have had something to do with
Garrett’s
allegedly fatal tattoo. Muriel had said Emily had messed in other people’s
business. Had she pissed Zod off with accusations of murder? God, my head hurt. This case was like a bad
telenovela
.

She frowned. “Like I said, what’re you doing here?”

I flashed a bright smile. Go with the truth, or at least a modified version of it… . “I just got my belly button pierced. Remember? I told you I wanted to.”

She rolled her eyes. “Right.”

“Really.” I lifted my shirt, just a little bit excited about my new body jewelry. “See?”

Zod knocked a cigarette out of his pack and offered it to Allison. “You know her, Ally?”

Total mental head thump.
A L L Y
. Those were the upsidedown kindergarten letters on Zod’s knuckles. Were they love tattoos? Were these two a couple?

She took the fresh cigarette and lit it with the dwindling old one before crushing the stub out under her shoe. She sucked in a deep drag of the new one. “She’s the private investigator I told you about. She came to see me about Emily.” She gave him an irritated look. “I went with her to see Sean. Tell me you didn’t talk to her.”

“Why shouldn’t he? Does he have something to hide, Allison?” Obviously the candle I’d lit for her hadn’t given her any peace yet.

Zod pushed his stringy hair back behind his ears and suddenly looked menacing rather than just mangy.

“Emily’s dead, by the way.” It was callous, I know, but I wanted to see her reaction.

She started, and her face seemed to crumple slightly. But then she recovered, deadening her eyes until she looked indifferent.

When she didn’t respond, I blew. “Damn it, Allison, she was your mother. Don’t you care, even a little bit? I know you have a heart. I saw you with Sean.”

She lifted her leopard arm and pointed to the door. “Get out.”

I crossed my arms and looked from one to the other. “Where were you last night?”

“Why?”

“Someone tried to run me over.” Lucy gasped, but I ignored her. “Where were you?” I repeated.

“I didn’t try to run you over,” she said, but her voice cracked, just slightly, and I wondered if it stemmed from anger or sadness.

Of course she hadn’t run me down, hence my need to drive her to the zoo the other day. “Where were you?” I repeated.

“She was here,” Zod said. “Getting a new tat.”

It was my turn to be skeptical. Was he covering for her, or making up an alibi for himself? I peered at her. “You don’t have a square inch of bare skin left.”

She whipped down her stretch pants, turned around, and mooned us. I slapped my hand over my mouth. Oh. My. God. One cheek was—big surprise—covered in leopard print. On the other side of her flat behind was a rectangular white bandage.

Jack coughed. “Classy,” he muttered from behind his hand.

“Holy guacamole, Batman,” Lucy said.

Allison pulled her pants back up. “Satisfied?”

Not even close. Jack had me hot and bothered, and Little Miss Sunshine and Zod, the Tattoo Man, were each other’s alibis. I was extremely unsatisfied—in every way—but I smiled sweetly at Emily’s daughter. “Was anyone else here with you?”

Allison shot a nervous look at Zod. Her hard-ass exterior seemed to be cracking just a little. She shook her head. “We were alone.”

“Convenient,” I muttered. “One more question.”

She huffed, but crossed her arms and waited.

“How many tattoos did Garrett have?”

Her beady eyes studied me, probably trying to discern if it was a trick question. I wish it was and that the answer would reveal the killer. In truth, it was just curiosity. I wanted to know if he had been as rebellious as his sister. She shrugged, then looked to Zod for the answer. “How many?” she asked him.

The chain at Zod’s hip jangled as he moved. “I already told you. Four,” he said.

“Where were they?”

Allison smirked. “That’s another question.”

God, she was annoying. “Indulge me.”

Her smirk deepened, but she looked at Zod again. “One on each gun—”

“His biceps,” Jack translated when I raised my eyebrows.

“—one on his forearm, and the last one he did was above his knuckle.”

I thanked God I hadn’t been insane enough to have gotten a tattoo in place of my new piercing. Boundaries, I reminded myself. The line blurred sometimes, but I had them, and Allison and Zod had become my temporary moral compasses.

“Thanks,” I said to them, adding, “I’ll be in touch.” As soon as I figured out what had happened to Emily, and assuming Zod, or whoever the killer was, didn’t get in touch with me first.

J
ack dropped Lucy and me off at the downtown mall. He rolled down the driver’s window. “I might need to check your belly button later, make sure it’s healing properly.”

He seemed to have a voice set aside that he pulled out for seduction. It dropped to a low come-hither tone and drew me in until my insides were melting. I was going to have to use super strength to keep myself lucid tonight and not fall into his arms. As much as I wanted to lose myself with him, never allowing myself to be a one-night stand was one of my hard-and-fast rules.

I raised my eyebrows at him, and he added, his voice like black satin, “Research. I need to get every detail and fact correct for my article.”

“Of course you do.” Despite my reservations about Jack’s motives—and my own willpower—I added some flirt to my smile. “If it’s in the name of research, then I’m sure I can’t deny you a belly button inspection.”

The second he drove off, Lucy grabbed my arm and whirled me around. Her California tanned face blotched red with pent-up curiosity. “Oh. My. God. Spill it! What’s going on, Lola?”

“Nothing’s going on. He turned up as part of my
investigation—that’s all.” I started walking toward Macy’s. “We’re going out tonight, which I’m afraid,” I added, “might be a mistake.”

“A mistake?” She squealed and yanked me back. “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. He’s not a settle-down kind of guy. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

She sputtered, clearly holding in her laughter. “You’re going to have fun! You deserve it. And who cares if he doesn’t want marriage and children? He’s gorgeous.”

I stared at Lucy. “Who cares? I’ve seen him love and leave plenty of girls. I have no intention of joining their company. I want marriage and children someday. Why waste my time with someone who doesn’t?”

“People change, Lola.”

“Not all people. Look at Antonio. He’s the same as he’s always been. Noncommittal.”

We started walking again, but Lucy kept on. “You know Jack well enough to know that’s how he feels?”

It was a fair question, and the truth was that I didn’t know… Jack. Maybe I was just trying to protect myself.

“Look,” Lucy hurried on. “You’re going out with him. Just have a good time. Now, what are you shopping for? Where are you going? Do your folks like him?”

It was hard to get a word in edgewise, but I managed to answer her questions in order, ticking them off on my fingers. “I’m looking for a whole new outfit, we’re going to Club Ambrosía, and my parents like him, although they don’t know that we’ve been—” I dropped my voice to a heavy whisper. “—somewhat
intimate
.”

She dug her fingernails into my flesh. “What! You just said he’s noncommittal and you don’t want to waste your time. And you’ve been intimate?”

God, I was a mess. I pulled away and jabbed my finger at her. “I know, Lucy! That’s what I’m talking about. I lose all control around him.”

She wasn’t laughing. “What’s the scoop, Lola? I need details.”

I managed to laugh. “Well,
intimate
may be a stretch. He’s seen me in my pajamas.”

“Oh.” Her face fell. “Is that all?”

What had she been expecting? “It was a thin white top. He got an eyeful.”

“So he’s hot for you. Lola, just let loose, for goodness’ sake.”

Maybe she was right. What would it hurt to really do myself up and let my boundary lines blur? With new intent, I pulled open the door. Cool department store air washed over us. We made a beeline for the shoe department, and I immediately zeroed in on a four-inch stiletto. After examining it this way and that, I put the shoe back and moved on. I didn’t want to break an ankle on my first night out with Jack.

“Look! Mulberry!” Lucy practically ran through the racks to pick up a displayed Birkenstock. “I don’t have one like this,” she said.

I laughed. Lucy and her Birks. I flagged down the saleswoman for her and looked around. Not a minute later, a ray of light seemed to shine from the ceiling and onto the perfect red, flirty heel. It had straps that wound around the ankle, and most important, a three-inch heel that would put my lips in perfect proximity to Jack’s. “This is it,” I announced, holding it up as if it were the Holy Grail.

Lucy cocked an eyebrow at them. “Those look like strip shoes.”

“What?”

“Strip shoes. You know, like you’d use for your strip list.” I stared blankly at her, and she looked at me like I was straight
out of the loony bin. “Don’t you have a strip list?” she asked, sounding horrified.

“What is
that
?”

“A list of guys you’d strip for?”

An image of me dancing around a pole in the red shoes and sexy lingerie, with Jack’s smoldering eyes taking in every slow, deliberate move, slid into my mind. “Uh, no.” I swallowed. “Do you?”

Her face flushed. “Never mind. Forget I mentioned it.”

Gladly. I didn’t want to know who Lucy would strip for. I went back to the shoes, but she’d got me thinking. I could go the distance getting a piercing for my job, but strip for Jack on the second date? What
were
my limits?

I bought the shoes. I had no plans to strip for him tonight, but shoes were a state of mind, and I was gearing up for salsa dancing. “Come on,” I said to Lucy. Now I need an outfit to go with them.”

“I need to make one more stop,” I said to Lucy. It had taken less than an hour for me to find the perfect red-and-black flamenco-like outfit. Now I was ready to get back to business.

“Where to?”

I pulled George Bonatee’s business card from my purse. “It’s three blocks from here.”

“I’m digging this detective stuff. So cool.”

I put my finger to my lips. “It’s confidential, though.”

She closed her mouth and turned an imaginary key. “Mum’s the word.”

We started down the sidewalk, hauling our shopping bags with us. By the time we reached the law offices of Bonatee and Craig, I’d reviewed the nuts and bolts of the case with Lucy. “I’ll do the talking,” I said.

She frowned. “Again? But I want to participate.”

She looked so dejected that I gave in—a little. “Let’s play it by ear.”

The lawyer was in, and even though it was an unscheduled visit, Mary Bonatee’s father, Emily’s landlord, agreed to see us. We stashed our bags behind the mousy receptionist’s desk, and she escorted us into the man’s office. Bonatee was finishing a phone call. Law books lined the dark wood shelves, and photographs of the family on vacation—on a boat, in Old Sacramento, with the current governor—were strategically scattered here and there.

“That doesn’t matter. It’s over. You want me to say it’ll be all right? Fine. It’ll be all right.” He paused, flashing a practiced smile, and held up a finger to us. I was immediately taken by his charisma. It seemed to fill the room, as if he exhaled pheromones. His skin was the color of milk chocolate, his tightly wound hair cut close to his head. And his eyes—as expected, were like amber just like his daughter, Mary’s, and plain gorgeous. “Right. Me, too.” He smiled at Lucy and me again, but spoke into the phone. “I’ll see you then.”