I ignored the sarcasm. “So, did they arrest Greenway?”
“No.”
“What do you mean ‘no?!’” My voice took on that high, screechy quality again as panic grabbed me by the hair and whipped my head around the room. Suddenly the safe anonymity of Mulligans felt very much like a room full of strangers. Any one of which could be wielding a gun.
“I mean the motel room was empty. No one was there.”
For the second time in as many days I willed myself not to hyperventilate. I wrapped my shaking hands around my glass and downed the last of my Diet Coke. Too quickly. It went down the wrong pipe and I started to choke, quick unproductive coughs that sounded like a hyena in heat. Ramirez smacked me on the back, bringing tears to my eyes as I finally got a hold of myself.
Ramirez just shook his head at me, a little half smirk on his lips as he took another sip of his Coors.
“He was there,” I said. “I swear he was there. He called from there yesterday. You can check the call log at Richard’s office. We had a long conversation about how Richard calls me pumpkin.”
“Pumpkin?” Ramirez smirked again.
“It’s his pet name. I didn’t pick it out.”
“And pumpkin was the best he could do?”
“It’s cute!” In all honesty, I’d never really liked pumpkin. It always reminded me of something my grandfather would call me. But I wasn’t going to admit that to Ramirez.
“You’re more like a fregadita, if you ask me.”
“A what?”
Ramirez smiled. “You figure it out.”
I think I hated him.
“You’re sure Greenway’s not at the motel?”
“If he was, he’s gone now. And if he’s smart he’s on a plane to the Caribbean. I’ve got a couple CSI going over the motel now just in case he left a calling card.”
I bet my hook-nosed CSI Guy was having a field day lint rolling Metallica.
“You think they’ll find anything?”
Ramirez shrugged. “My guess? He’s long gone.”
Great. Back to square one. Only now I felt this irrational need to look over my shoulder every three seconds for angry gunmen. And Richard was still out there somewhere. Still hiding. Still not returning my calls. Still married to Cinderella.
I seriously needed something stronger than Coke.
“So,” Ramirez said, draining his Coors, “now that we’re on the same page, it’s time for you to go home.”
“Will you tell me if they find anything at the motel?”
Ramirez’s expression was suddenly serious. “Look, this is a murder investigation. It’s not shoe shopping. Go home.”
“But-” I opened my mouth to protest, but Ramirez cut me off, laying one hand over mine.
“I’ve already fished one woman’s body out of a swimming pool. I don’t want to make it two. Please. Go home.”
I froze. Not so much from the warning, but the heat of Ramirez’s hand over mine. I gulped, trying to tell myself I wasn’t thirteen and this was not some hunky football player.
“I can’t just forget about all this.” I didn’t add, because I may be carrying his child.
Ramirez put on his Bad Cop face again, the softie side of him swallowed up just as quickly as it appeared. He shook his head at me and muttered something in Spanish before leaving to the tune of a little Asian woman in clogs singing the Macarena.
Then he was gone.
I stared at my empty glass. It was good advice. Go home. He was right, I didn’t know what I was doing. Maybe Greenway was on a plane to the Caribbean. But then again, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was tracking Richard down right now, closing in on him, gun drawn, waiting to pounce. The heroic part of me that grew up wearing Wonder Woman underoos wanted to grab my golden lasso and save Richard from possibly ending up face down in a crystal clear swimming pool. But the chicken-hearted part of me that had run like hell from room two-twelve knew Ramirez was right. If I kept stumbling along, I might end up stumbling into the barrel of a gun. Was Richard even worth all this?
Last week it would have been a resounding, yes. Today, I was having serious doubts. While I couldn’t ignore the Cinderella factor, I couldn’t totally write Richard off without hearing his side of the story either. I mean, we’d been together for four months. Most of them really, really good. Okay, so we hadn’t had that deep we’re-spending-the-rest-of-our-lives-gazing-into-each-others’-eyes talk yet, but I did spend at least three nights a week at his place and we had an understood Friday date-night exclusive.
So, the question was, what to do now? I jiggled the ice cubes in the bottom of my glass. I had no leads, no gun, no CSI guys of my own. I didn’t even have a pocket sized pepper spray.
But I did have one thing. A pregnancy test. And with my whole boyfriend status about as hazy as July in the Valley, the thought of facing a murderer was a whole lot less scary than the thought of facing a pink line.
So, I did the only thing I could. I threw a ten on the bar, grabbed my purse and ran for my red Jeep before Ramirez got too far ahead of me.
I was the first to admit that the last time I’d tailed Ramirez hadn’t exactly been a great success. I really didn’t want to encounter any more dead bodies. So, I promised myself I’d stay in the car. But contrary to Ramirez’s sexist ideas, I wasn’t just going to wait around for things to get worse. And I had a bad feeling things were going to get worse before they got better. Sure it would be great if CSI Guy found a trail leading straight to Greenway, but I didn’t think Greenway was that stupid. Or that I was that lucky.
So instead of sitting at home, watching the perky news reporters tell me the cops had no current leads, I was taking my fate into my own hands. I was being proactive. Yes, proactive. That sounded so much better than “interfering in an investigation.” Besides, if I just stayed in the car I wasn’t really interfering at all. Just spying.
That and I had to admit I was still a little miffed about the girly comment. And what the hell was a fregadita?
I pulled back onto Van Nuys and caught up to Ramirez’s black SUV at the next light. I stayed two cars behind in the next lane over, willing my Jeep to look small and unnoticeable. As expected, he took a right on Vanowen, heading in the direction of the motel. I let him pull ahead a few more car lengths, feeling reasonably confident I knew where he was going. I lost him as we drove under the 170, but as I slowly cruised past the Moonlight, I saw his SUV parked under that same scraggy palm my Jeep had been only an hour earlier.
I circled the motel and parked down the street under a streetlamp that was blinking its last dying bit of light. Even though it was still a balmy seventy-nine degrees out, I kept the windows rolled up and the doors locked. If the Moonlight had seemed creepy before it was downright horror movieish now. I had visions of that scene from Urban Legend where the unsuspecting woman sits in her car while an ax murderer springs up from the backseat and slashes until the car fills with red dyed Karo syrup. I shivered. I wanted to keep all my syrup right where it was, thank you very much.
I squinted through the darkness as Ramirez got out of his SUV. There were two black and whites in the lot now, one officer talking into his car radio while the other swept a flashlight along the license plates of the other cars in the lot. Ramirez walked up to the cop with the flashlight, conversing for a moment with the uniform who kept gesturing up to room two-twelve.
I followed Ramirez’s gaze up the stairs. The door to the room was open now and I could see the light on. Forms outlined against the ratty curtains, presumably CSI Guy and his many little black bags. The half dressed neighbors on either side of room two-twelve had come out of their rooms, milling around the doorway like moths to a flame.