Allison perched on the edge of a saggy black velour couch. A leopard-skin throw lay haphazardly over the back. Big surprise. She gripped a fresh cigarette between her teeth. I searched for the resemblance between this young woman and Emily. It was difficult to find under the angst, but I detected similar cheekbones and the same deep-socketed eyes.
“So?” she said as she flared up a blue mini Bic lighter. The cigarette sizzled fiery red at the tip as she puffed it to life.
Right. Cut to the chase. “Thanks for talking with me,” I said. “I’m looking into the disappearance of your mother.”
“So they haven’t found her yet.”
Dios mío, where was the concern? “No, they haven’t.”
“So?” she said again.
I watched Allison, looking for the smallest sign of interest. Nada. “Emily is your mother?”
She gave a snide laugh. “If your definition of mother includes purposefully keeping a child from their father, then yeah, I guess she’s my mother.”
Okay, so Allison had been kept from her father, but Emily had fed her, wiped her bum, had the purse where Allison had probably stolen the money for her first pack of cigarettes. “Great, glad that’s established,” I said, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice.
“She gave birth to me. That’s about it.” She took another drag, and her eyes rolled upward. She readjusted herself on her broken-down sofa. “What makes you think she wants to be found, anyway?”
Not another skeptic. “You think she walked out on Sean?”
She jabbed her finger in the air at me. “Who the hell are you, anyway? And who gave you permission to talk about my brother?”
My gaze dropped to the card on the floor. Hadn’t she spent a couple minutes reading it? She reached to pick it up, and I filled in the blanks, speaking slowly. “My name is Dolores Cruz. I’m investigating the disappearance of your—of Emily.”
“Yeah, right. I got that part. Who hired you?”
“Your uncle—Walter.”
She stopped middrag and leveled a stare at me. “Well, that figures. So, where is he?”
“Walter’s going to meet me—”
“Not my uncle,” she snapped. “The kid. Sean.”
A second ago, he was her brother. Now he was “the kid”? I was hesitant to give away information for free, but Allison didn’t look like the bartering type. I figured I’d have to ante up first and maybe she’d soften. “Sean’s with your uncle. I’m going to see him”—I checked my watch—“in about half an hour.”
Her eyes looked glassy, but she seemed to focus. The vein that had started to pop on her forehead subsided, and her face relaxed. “They’re together?”
“That’s right.”
In a series of quick, jerky movements, Allison stubbed out her cigarette, snatched a black purse from the floor beside the couch—finally, something without spots—and headed toward the front door. I stared after her. What the hell, was the interview over?
She whipped her head around and stared at me. “Are you coming, or what?”
Okay, had I missed a vital part of the conversation? “Uh, coming, where?”
“I’m going to see my brother,” she said, her voice incredulous as if we’d just spent the past ten minutes discussing just that.
“Right now?” I gaped. Allison had gone from the most disinterested person I’d ever met to being—what? A caring sister?
“Yeah, right now.” And she actually smiled. And her teeth weren’t too terribly yellow—at least not from this distance. “I’m coming with you. The kid needs to see a friendly face.”
By whose stretch of the imagination was Allison’s face friendly? I blinked and wondered how Manny would handle this. “Uh, Allison, I don’t know—”
“I want to see Sean,” she said again. She adjusted her weight to one hip and peered at me. “If you want to keep talking, you’ll take me with you.”
As my mother would say, Allison had me by the huevos. I didn’t have a clue how she’d managed that when she probably couldn’t even remember my name.
She smiled again, a full-on twisted grin. “I have some things I could tell you. About Emily.”
Okay, she had me by the huevos, and now she was squeezing. I pushed past her and, with a quick look around for the mutant rat, speed-walked down the walkway. If I couldn’t take the lead in conversation, at least I could take the lead to my car.
Allison locked the dead bolt, let the screen door slam behind her, and followed me, climbing into the passenger seat. I started the engine, and she immediately dug in her bag, pulling out a mashed box of cigarettes and knocking one out.
I leaned away from her, jutting my chin forward. “You can’t smoke in here.” No way. I was not disinfecting my car and my hair from her death sticks.
She hissed through her teeth, but jammed the cigarette back into the box.
“Thank you,” I said.
She snorted.
Accommodating girl.
I’d arranged to meet Walter Diggs at the zoo in William Land Park. It was a relatively short drive from Del Paso Heights, and we had time to kill, so I drove slowly. “You’re twenty-one, right?” I asked, figuring that was, what, like 147 in cat years.
I caught her nod from the corner of my eye as we got on the freeway. She better not have gone back to her nonverbal mode.
“And your brother’s eighteen?”
“Sean’s six.”
“I meant Garrett.”
Her voice went flat. “Garrett’s dead.”
I stared at her for a beat, and my gut twisted. A layer of creepy, unsettling brightness settled on her face. I had a feeling this case was about to get more complicated. “What happened?” I asked, not surprised that my voice had gotten softer.
“Your investigation didn’t turn up anything about him?”
“It just did.” Her sarcasm didn’t do anything to endear her to me, and I had to bite my lip to stop myself from lashing out. She had information I needed. And maybe I could head her off before we actually got to Sean at the zoo. I definitely wasn’t convinced that her friendly face was one he needed to see. “How’d he die?”
Her voice lost tone again. “Heart infection.”
Heartache, I knew about. And a broken heart, I’d experienced. But a heart infection? “How’d he get it?”
She glared at me. “None of your business.”
Hello? Earth to Allison. “Like my card said, I’m a private investigator. Your mother is missing. Everything’s my business.” I jerked the car to the shoulder of the freeway. A horn blared behind me. “If you don’t want to talk, you can get out any time you want. I’ll say hi to Sean for you.”
She knocked a cigarette out of the box again, twisting it between her fingers, popping it between her lips, taking it out again. “Oh, all right. Just keep driving.” She huffed. “Nobody knows why Garrett got the infection.”
“No idea?”
“We found out about it, and he was dead two weeks later.”
Hitting my blinker on with my pinkie, I slammed my foot down on the accelerator and charged back into traffic.
I sneaked a look at her. She leaned back in her seat, one arm across her chest. Her unlit cigarette was gripped between two fingers, her other fist wrapped around a lighter. Was she going through withdrawals already? What had it been? Fifteen minutes? “Was Emily close to Garrett?” I asked.
She flicked her lighter to life a few times then finally shoved it back in her purse. “I guess.” She started to slide the cigarette back into the pack, but it bent and broke. “Shit.” She unrolled the window, crumpled the apparently empty box, and tossed it all into the wind.
My body stiffened. She was a litterer. Citizen’s arrest crossed my mind. A bright orange city vest and a day on the side of the road picking up trash might smack some common sense and humility into the girl.
Of course, I knew turning her in would be self-defeating. I dragged my gaze from the rearview mirror and her trash. “How ab
out you? Were you close to Garrett?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“What about Sean? Are you two tight?” They couldn’t be that close if she didn’t know where he was and how to get in touch with him, but she was sure anxious to see him. Had she lost sister visitation rights somehow?
“Look…” She paused like she was searching her memory for my name.
“Dolores,” I reminded her.
“Look, Dolores. I haven’t seen Emily since the funeral. I don’t know where she is, and I don’t care. But Sean’s my brother, and he needs all the family he can get. We can’t pick our parents. It’s not his fault he got stuck with Emily.”
O-kay. I’d heard this melody yesterday—from Mary Bonatee. Sucky parents seemed to be a running theme in this investigation—at least on days one and two. I changed tactics. “Cool tats,” I said. “I’ve thought about getting one. Either that or a belly button piercing.” The tattoo thing was a lie, but the belly button piercing was a fantasy. Nothing I’d ever really do, but maybe my interest would soften her up. “Know a good place?”
She clamped her mouth shut.
Guess not. We were silent the rest of the ride. The woman was like freaking Fort Knox. I just couldn’t break in, and I had to know if there was gold inside.
In no time, the Sacramento Zoo was in sight. I sneaked a peek at Allison. Her fingers twisted around themselves, but her expression was like stone. Maybe Sean would be able to melt his sister’s icy little heart. I slipped my car into a parking spot across from the zoo, put it in PARK, and opened the door to the heat.
From behind me, the passenger door slammed shut. I whirled around, and my jaw dropped. Allison had hurled herself out of the car and was sprinting across the parking lot toward traffic and the zoo entrance.
Chapter 6
Wait!” I yelled, but Allison Diggs was already dodging cars in the parking lot as she barreled toward the street. “Oh no, you don’t!” I grabbed my purse and Sean’s stuffed dinosaur, but she had a good hundred yards on me by the time I made it across to the sidewalk.
Who’d have thought she’d have the lung capacity to run so fast? Of course, it didn’t help that I was wearing two-and-a-half-inch heels. They may have looked fabulous with my jeans, but they were definitely not ideal for giving chase.
Allison’s breakneck smoker’s pace waned by the time she was halfway across the street—charcoal lungs will do that to a girl—but I was thwarted when the crosswalk light turned red on me and the backed-up traffic started inching forward. Horns blasted, and she picked up her pace again.
“Wait for me!” I yelled, edging into the street only to leap back as a car horn blared at me. She was almost to the ticket kiosk. Damn. She really wanted to see her brother. Bad.
And then a wayward thought struck me. Maybe Allison had insisted on coming with me so that she could take Sean. But if that was her plan, she had a few obstacles—namely that she had no car.
I gritted my teeth, afraid I’d lose her completely if I didn’t catch her before she made it inside the grounds. Enough! I slung my purse across my back, shoved the stuffed toy under my arm, and darted into the street, kamikaze-style. Car brakes squealed, and I jumped. A red-faced man screamed at me through his windshield, honked, and jerked the wheel. His tires screeched and his car spun sideways on the road, the truck behind him skidding to avoid a collision.
I scurried out of the way, feeling guilty for causing such havoc, grateful there hadn’t actually been a crash. But I was on a mission. I kept going. More horns bellowed at me.
“¡Basta!” I screamed at the cars, channeling my mother. Weren’t pedestrians supposed to have the right of way? Couldn’t these people see I was in a hurry? “Stop already!”
I dodged a car going in the opposite direction only to run smack into a shimmering red SUV. My palms slammed against the hood, and the driver glared at me. “You trying to get killed?” she yelled.
It may have seemed like it. I gave her that. Still, I grimaced at her. I was on a case, for crying out loud.
Finally, I flung myself onto the sidewalk and saw the line at the kiosk. Good God, was this place the only entertainment Sacramento had?
Groups of families with wide-eyed kids stared at me as I sprinted toward the ticket booth. I slowed down enough to dig for some money in my purse. Honesty was costing me precious time. I finally found a twenty-dollar bill, wadded it up, and as I cut though the line, I threw it at the lady behind the glass.
“Hey!” she called.
“Keep the change!” Honest and generous—that was me.
“Stop!” she yelled again, but I ignored her. I’d paid. What more did she want?
I crossed the courtyard and slowed down to catch my breath, peering over my shoulder in case the zoo police were on my tail. I needed to find Allison, talk to Sean and Uncle Walter, and never come back to this place again. They might well have a WANTED sign with my harried picture on it hung up in the ticket booth next time I tried.
I beelined for the flamingo habitat—the scheduled meeting place—and leaned my back against the railing, panting. I searched the area, thinking Allison ought to be easy to spot with her leopard-print skin. She was nowhere in sight. My clean lungs were still recovering from that sprint. Allison was probably keeled over dead somewhere.
When, a little while later, she still hadn’t materialized, I thought that maybe she hadn’t come here to see her half brother at all. Maybe she’d come to visit her cat kin.
Ten minutes later, when I saw a tall man shepherding a boy through the front entrance, I immediately knew he was Walter Diggs. With his deep-set eyes, chiseled cheeks, and tuft of silver hair springing from his left temple, he was a dead ringer for his sister, Emily.
I walked toward them. “Mr. Diggs?”
He nodded and gave me a once-over. “Ms. Cruz?”
“Thank you for meeting with me.”
“What have you found out?”
Looking at Walter Diggs, I felt like I was looking into the soul of Emily. He looked tired, just as his sister did in the photo I had of her—but he also looked serene and slightly exotic. My image of Emily expanded to include a peaceful aura.
“I’m working some leads. I’ll let you know the minute I find anything helpful,” I said. “This must be Sean.” I focused on him for the first time, kneeling down. And drew in a sharp breath. He had amber eyes and slick black hair that hung around a light ebony face. It was the second time in two days I’d seen those amber-colored eyes. Little Sean Diggs, I thought, was a fairer version of Mary Bonatee.
“Sean!” The high-pitched, borderline hysterical voice screamed from behind me.
I whipped my head around in time to see Allison careening toward us. “Sean!” she yelled again. “It’s okay now. I’m here. Sissy’s here!”
Sissy? I started to straighten up from my crouched position just as Allison’s black-booted feet tangled under her. She plunged forward, tumbling, grabbing for me.
I tried to pull away from her, but her momentum was too great. She took me down with her, and we fell in a heap onto the pavement. The back of my head knocked against the ground, and the sky spiraled. I blinked hard, and then again, to clear away the kaleidoscope behind my eyes.
My fall had broken Allison’s, and now she straddled me, gasping for air. I turned my head to the side. Ugh. Stale, cigarette breath. This girl needed to quit smoking, rápido.
I managed to whip my body sideways and knock her off me. She flipped herself over and started crawling toward her half brother. “Sean, are you okay?”
“Ally.” Walter bent to help her up, but she ratcheted herself free and swept Sean up into a smothering hug.
“Why did she go, Ally?” Sean’s voice was small and cracking. My heart lurched.
“I don’t know, baby,” she said. They clutched at each other, and I felt the love. I really did.
Walter watched them with rapt attention as they started walking down the fence line at the flamingo habitat. “Wha
t’s she doing here?” he said to me.
I couldn’t really answer that specifically. I still had my doubts about her motives. “She insisted on coming to see him.”
My feet ached from the mad chase earlier. Too late, I realized I shouldn’t have bothered to run after her. I could have ruined my shoes—or twisted an ankle. And for what? To end up exactly where I was.
“Late’s better than never, I guess,” he said.
So it seemed Uncle Walter agreed that Allison wasn’t sister of the year. There was a mind-blowing surprise.
Allison and Sean led us all the way to the tiger habitat and pressed their noses up against the thick Plexiglas. Walter and I sat on the bench across from the window, watching them. I asked him the question that was now first and foremost in my mind: “Do you know who Sean’s father is?”
I had a very distinct suspicion about the answer, but thought how nice and tidy it would be if he could confirm it.
He shook his head. “Emily would never say.”
Yeah, I knew it wouldn’t be that easy. I’d know if my theory was correct soon enough. “You haven’t seen your sister in a while, is that right?” I kept one eye on Sean, wanting to protect him. The tiger couldn’t escape and hurt him, but I couldn’t say the same about unpredictable Allison.
“Right.” He stared straight ahead, sitting tall and rigid. “She kept her distance.”
“You don’t know why?”
“No idea. She started stepping back five or six years ago. Moved around a lot, like she couldn’t settle down, would call out of the blue and visit occasionally, then she’d disappear again.”
Huh, odd behavior. “You’re keeping Sean for now?”
As if on cue, Sean turned to look at his uncle. His eyes glassed over, and he clutched at Ally. “We’re going to try to make the best of all this, right, buddy?” Walter winked at Sean. He gave a heavy sigh. “You should come to the house, Ally. Play with Sean for a while.”
Melissa Bourbon Ramirez - Lola Cruz 01 - Living the Vida Lola Page 7
