My mother, Magdalena Falcón Cruz, was one of five girls born to Iván and Nieves Falcón. From my mother’s four sisters, I had twelve cousins. Chely and Frankie belonged to Marina, who was closest to my mother in age. They were the youngest and had grown up under the care of the older sisters, Emelia, Elodia, and Roselia. Leti was twenty-four and engaged to a gringo, something that my aunts and mother had all been able to overlook. Mark Landry was good to Leti, and that was enough for them. I’d never quite been able to figure out why the family didn’t hold Leti’s romantic life under the same harsh scrutiny they did mine, which was a frequent topic of conversation. Most likely it was the fact that Leti was still under twenty-five, whereas I was pushing thirty. That put me at almost over the hill in the eyes of my family, well on my way to becoming a spinster.
Basically there was no rhyme or reason to the logic of the Falcón women, except they all seemed to agree that me being a private eye was not something to aspire to. One of these days I hoped they’d start to see all the ways I was helping my fellow mankind.
Okay, that might be a little lofty. All I really wanted was for them to respect me and the line of work I’d chosen. Nice dream, Lola, I told myself, knowing full well it would never happen.
I pulled up to the house. Mami’s kitchen was always the first stop before heading upstairs to my flat. I could always count on grabbing a snack, whether it was a fresh flour tortilla, crunchy chicharrones, or a bowl of nopales salad. But today the backdoor was locked and the kitchen was dark. Where was everyone? I wondered, but a moment later it came to me. Leti’s wedding was just a few short weeks away. My mother was probably at tía Roselia’s helping with the table centerpieces or putting the final touches on the menu plan. I’d been hoping for more than a snack tonight, but there was no food to be had and I knew my refrigerator upstairs was bare. There would be no fried pork crackling or cactus salad for me, and certainly nothing heartier than that.
I trudged up the outdoor staircase that led to the flat I shared with…no one. Antonio had just moved into his own place downtown, so it was just me and my boxer, Salsa. I let the dog outside. She’d been cooped up all day. I stood at the railing, looking down at her as she charged around the yard, taking the turns at full speed and kicking up dust at each corner.
What to do, what to do. I could stay here, but I’d confirmed that my refrigerator held next to nothing. If I wanted to eat something other than rice or pasta, I needed a plan that didn’t include staying home. My options were to go to a restaurant, but that meant footing the bill for the meal and I was counting my pennies. I wanted to be like Antonio and find my own place.
I could drop in on tía Roselia and see what they’d whipped up for themselves while they wedding planned, but I eliminated that option right away. If I set foot in my aunt’s house, I’d be roped into God knows what. I loved my cousin, but filling little bags with dried beans and tying them to ribbons to hold the helium balloons was not how I planned to spend my evening.
Going to the market was a possibility, but that required shopping, paying, putting the groceries away, then, and only then, cooking something. I was starving now; in an hour, I’d be on the ground completely out of steam.
The only other reasonable option was to head to Abuelita’s, the family restaurant. It was a risk, because I could be tapped to wait tables, or bus, or fill in wherever there was a gap. My stomach growled. Pues, it was a chance I had to take. The food was outstanding, free, and I could sit in a table and do what I’d been dying to do all afternoon: peruse the CAMACHO file I’d pilfered from Reilly’s filing cabinet.
Ten minutes later, I secluded myself in a corner booth in the back of the restaurant. My cousin Frankie was waiting tables and had hooked me up with a basket of warm tortilla chips, spicy salsa, the creamy jalapeño dip we’d recently started serving, and a frozen margarita. Oh yes, coming to the restaurant had absolutely been the right decision.
I sipped my drink and tried to pace myself with the chips as I opened the file. It wasn’t set up like a typical client folder. No INTAKE form. No meticulous notes, reports, or billing statements. What there was, however, was the photograph of a little girl. The same little girl I’d seen Reilly sitting with in the extended cab of Manny’s truck. The picture showed me the details I hadn’t registered from afar. When I’d first seen her, I’d placed her at about ten years old. Looking at the photo now, I thought she was closer to eight. She had a lighter version of Manny’s warm olive skin tone and honey brown wavy hair. My attention was drawn to her sweet rosebud mouth and light hazel eyes. They reminded me of…they were the spitting image of...
Dios mío, it couldn’t be.
Could it?
They were Sadie’s rosebud lips and hazel eyes.
Before the thought had even solidified in my mind, I snatched up my phone, swiped up, hit FAVORITES, and dialed Reilly. She answered on the third ring. “Miss me, Lola?”
“Yeah, um, listen, Reilly,” I said, suddenly realizing that I needed to be careful about how I phrased my question. I didn’t want to give away the fact that I’d snooped through her files, although technically they belonged to Camacho and Associates. The cabinet hadn’t been locked. In my mind, that meant the contents were fair game.
“What’s wrong, Lola?” Reilly’s voice rose an octave. “Is everyone okay? Your family? Antonio?”
That was sweet. Even though she’d been with Neil Lashby for a few months, she still had a soft spot for my playboy brother. “He’s fine. Everyone is fine.”
She heaved an audible sigh of relief. “Phew! So what’s—” She gasped, and I could almost envision a lightbulb going off over her head. “Do you need me for a stakeout? I’m totally in!”
“No! Reilly, no,” I said. “I’m just sitting here at Abuelita’s—”
“Is your brother there?” she interrupted, a little breathless.
“Reilly, you’re with Neil. You’re not supposed to be thinking about Antonio.”
She pshawed. “I’m taken, Lola, but I’m not dead. I’ll always have a special place in my heart for Tonito. We shared waffles at Denny’s at two a.m. That is something I’ll always remember.”
It was my turn to sigh, but my exhalation stemmed from remembering that night at Club Ambrosía and dancing with Jack Callaghan. My gaze moved back to the picture of the little girl and got back on track. “I’ve been thinking about the work you’ve been doing on the side.”
“For el jefe, you mean?”
Did her moonlighting extend beyond Camacho and Associates? “Yep, for Manny. I have a question for you.”
“Would that I could answer the question you have for me, but I’m sworn to secrecy, Lola. No can do.”
And apparently she was taking that oath very seriously. Damn. I went to plan B. “Okay, how about this. What if I guess, then you can just, um, grunt if I hit the nail on the head. Deal?”
A guttural sound came from the other end of the line, which I took to be a grunt, which I took to mean, Okay!
I forged ahead before she could think better about betraying Manny’s trust, ignoring my own part in the duplicitous interaction. Inquiring minds, and all that. I really did need to know. “Remember that time I went into Manny’s office and—”
“Do I remember?! You described it so well, I actually think I saw it myself. Sadie riding Manny like a racehorse. It’s imprinted on my memory.”
I grimaced. Much as I wanted to pretend I hadn’t seen it, the sight of Manny sitting on his chair with Sadie straddling him was imprinted on mine, too. It was an image I’d never be able to unsee. “I was remembering when I saw you with that little girl in the back of Manny’s truck—”
She hmm’d. “You’re doing a lot of remembering today, Lola.”
I grunted. She’d hit the nail on the head. “Well, Antonio moved out and my place is too quiet. So I came to Abuelita’s and—”
“And started investigating el jefe.”
She couldn’t see me, but I nodded in agreement. “This is what happens when I have too much time on my hands.”
“You should be with Jack,” she said.
She was right, I should be. “He’s busy,” I said, although the truth was, I didn’t know what he was doing. I hadn’t heard from Jack since he’d left Camacho’s to take Marnie Haskell back home, and we hadn’t made any plans for tonight.
“Yeah, my Neil’s busy tonight, too. Hey! I’ll come join you. I could use a margarita and some girl-talk.”
All the better. If Reilly were here in front of me, I’d be able to read her expressions and get the truth out of her. Thankfully, the reason I’d called seemed to have slipped her mind. “I’ll have a marg waiting for you, chica,” I said.
I heard Reilly arrive at the restaurant before I actually saw her. Her voice rose above the sounds of forks clinking against plates, laughter, and conversation. “I’m meeting someone,” she said. “Lola Cruz. My best friend. I’m meeting her here?”
I quickly slid the CAMACHO file folder into my bag. I turned, ready to stand so I could go meet her, but by the time I turned around, she was already in front of me. She was wearing the same jeans, tunic, and flats she’d worn at work. The gray tint of her hair had a stronger lavender glow in the dim lighting of the dining room. It worked for her. Reilly was truly one of a kind. She was fiercely loyal, insanely sweet, and enticingly zany. Neil Lashby better be thanking his lucky stars that he’d garnered her affection.
Frankie came up behind her, the frosty margarita I’d ordered for her clutched in one hand. He’d turned into a good waiter, delivering people and drinks as if he had nothing else to do. Which was completely untrue. I’d spent the years between fifteen and twenty-five working steadily at Abuelita’s, and I’d put in plenty of hours since then just filling in; there were always at least ten things to do at once. Frankie was a natural. He made it look effortless.
He scooted away as Reilly slid into the chair opposite me. “Perfect timing,” I said, waving my hand over a plate of extreme nachos, mini chicken flautas, chips with queso blanco, and my dad’s special avocado crema. We wouldn’t need to order an actual meal, but who was I kidding? I already had my eye on the enchiladas and taco combo.
She took a sip of her drink, then asked, “Whatcha doing?” From the way she narrowed her eyes, I wondered if she’d caught a glimpse of the folder I’d pilfered from her filing cabinet sticking out of my purse. But then her face returned to normal and I realized it had been a mini brain freeze.
“Doing a little background,” I said. Mentirosa, I scolded myself before reminding myself that it wasn’t technically a lie.
She nodded, her expression turning serious. “On your case? That poor woman. Marnie, right? She was really broken up.”
That she was. “Jack went to school with her son. It’s hard to get your head around the idea that someone your age, that you knew, is now dead.”
Reilly helped herself to a flauta. She took a bite, then held her fingers in front of her mouth to ask, “Do you believe her? Was the accident not really an accident?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m meeting up with the victim’s girlfriend tomorrow. Maybe that will shed some light.”
Reilly cupped her hand under the flauta as she took another bite. “You’re doing so good, Lola. Manny’s really impressed.”
I’d been piling nachos on my appetizer plate, but my head snapped up at her words. I wanted to find out the scoop about Manny and she’d just provided the perfect segue. Not to mention the compliment. “You think so?”
She plopped the last of the fried tortilla into her mouth, nodding emphatically. “Definitely!”
I couldn’t resist asking for more details. “Did he say something?”
“Not to me directly, but I heard him talking about you.”
My spine crackled to attention. “Talking about me to whom?”
One of her eyes pinched. “Um, I think it was Sadie?”
“You think?”
She threw up her hands in surrender. “Fine, it was Sadie. Definitely Sadie.”
Reilly knew stuff. Stuff she hadn’t told me. I propped my elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Why was Manny talking to Sadie about me?”
She flattened her palms on the table and her eyes flicked this way and that. Nerves? Did she think Manny was lurking behind one of the potted plants?
“Reilly?” I said her name slowly, prompting her to give up the goods.
“Oh my God, Lola, he’ll kill me if I tell you, but his secrets…they’re giving me ulcers. Ulcers! I’m way too young to have ulcers! I shouldn’t even know what an ulcer is, for crying out loud.”
“Calmate, amiga. It’s going to be fine.” She’d said secrets. Not secret, singular, but secrets, plural. Manny had multiple secrets and Reilly was his confidant? “You are too young to have holes in your stomach, Reilly. And Manny shouldn’t put you in that position. So tell him you don’t want to be part of it anymore.”
“But their little girl. I like taking care of her. Plus I think she needs me, what with S—”
She broke off suddenly, clamping her mouth shut. I registered every word she’d said. Their little girl. I conjured up an image of her. Light olive skin. Rosebud mouth. Sandy hair. Petite.
Petite.
My brain hiccupped. Manny was tall. Over six feet. But his daughter was itty-bitty. Which meant the girl’s mother had to be petite.
Their little girl.
The memory of me walking into Manny’s office hit me like a freight train in the dark. Hijole de la chingada. “Oh my God, Reilly, it’s not…it can’t be. Tell me…oh no…” Even though I’d suspected just this, my head felt fuzzy inside. “Is…is Sadie the mother…? That’s her daughter? Their daughter?”
Reilly didn’t need to say yes. The way her eyes bugged and her jaw dropped answered the question. It was true. Manny and Sadie had a child together.
My skin felt hot and my head felt like it might explode.
Manny and Sadie…had a child. Together.
Which meant—
“Are they married?” I asked with a gasp.
Reilly dropped her head to her hands. She rubbed her temples with her thumbs, as if she were trying to massage away a splitting headache. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”
“Reilly…?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Are they married?”
“Uh uh.”
I watched her closely. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “But they were married?”
She dropped her forehead to the table with a thunk, her voice nothing more than a faint muffle. “Mmm-hmm.”
My head felt like an inflating balloon stretched beyond capacity. Sadie was the mysterious ex-wife? Ay dios mío. Suddenly Sadie’s irritation whenever Manny spoke to me in Spanish, or when he showed up with Tomb-Raider girl Isabel, or when he asserted his authority with the business or his directives made sense. What would I learn next? What else was Reilly keeping under her hat?
Sadie always, always questioned him. If they were divorced, why would he tolerate her insolence? A better question might be, why on earth did they even work together? There’s no way I’d work with my ex unless—
The answer came to me in blast. I pressed the heels of my hands against my forehead. “Dios mío, she’s a partner in the business, isn’t she?”
Reilly bolted upright in her chair, lifting her head until her eyes met mine. “W-what?”
“Why else would Manny put up with her, and why else would she stick around after a divorce to work with him?”
The color drained from her face. Her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “No one is supposed to know that, Lola. You can’t know that.”
If I weren’t so flabbergasted by the realization, I’d have patted myself on the back for my stellar detective skills, never mind that it took me quite a few years to figure it out. “It’s true, then? Sadie owns the PI firm with Manny?”
When she’d walked into the restaurant, Reilly had looked like she was on top of the world. Now she clearly wanted to be anywhere else but here. “It’s true,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “But Lola, it’s totally a secret. You cannot—CANNOT—tell either of them that you know.”
Reilly was the chisme queen. “Give me the 411, then,” I said.
She looked at me in a way that said she wasn’t sure if she could trust me.
I leaned halfway across the table, pleading with my eyes. “I won’t breathe a word, Reilly, but come on. Pony up. I figured this much out. You can’t hold out on me now.”
She heaved a loud sigh, then took a healthy swig of her margarita. “Fine, but this is between you and me. Neil doesn’t even know.”
Oh, wow. She was keeping secrets from her main squeeze—for Manny and Sadie. That had to be weighing on her. Reilly was not the most clandestine person in the world.
I made the sign of the cross, pressing my thumb and index finger together before touching them to my forehead, sternum, left shoulder, then right, ending on my lips. “Swear.”
She considered me as she downed the rest of her drink. Finally, she nodded. “Okay. I’ll tell you.”
I flagged Frankie, beckoning him. “Dos mas, por favor,” I said, holding up my nearly empty glass. A spattering of salt still dotted the blue rim. I licked it clean before handing it to my cousin. “And a combo plate. Enchiladas and tacos, and frijoles de la olla. And guac,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows, his gaze scanning all the appetizers still on the table between Reilly and me. “Hungry, eh, Lola?”
“Starving, so andele!” I ordered, cringing at how like my grandfather I sounded.
After Frankie scurried away with our empty glasses and the decimated nacho plate, Reilly gave me a good long stare.
“What?” I asked.
She waved her hand over the food, then at me. “How do you eat like this and look like that?”
My gaze swept over the food. I shrugged. The truth was, I fluctuated between size eight and ten. I practiced Kung Fu, although not as often as I used to, or should, I ran once or twice a week—usually—and did yoga occasionally. It was enough, for the time-being, to keep my body where I wanted it. I had no desire to be rail thin. Like that America Ferrera movie, real women had curves, baby. I loved mine. “Good genes, I guess.”
“I want your genes.”
“Reilly,” I said, leaning toward her again. “You have great genes.”
“I think yours are better.”
“Not better, just different.” Reilly’s different was magnetic. With her Crayola colored hair, lime green VW Beetle, and straight from JLo’s closet wardrobe, she was one of a kind, and I loved every original hair on her head.
She grimaced and shrugged, but picked up another flauta.
“So tell me. Manny and Sadie? How long have you known?”
She dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. I couldn’t tell if she was buying time or practicing her etiquette. Either way, she didn’t answer. She took another bite and did the napkin thing again. Frankie returned with our second round of drinks.
“Reilly,” I prompted after he’d ambled off to deliver a basket of chips to another table.
“He’s going to kill me if he finds out I told you.”
“He’s not going to find out,” I said. “This is just between you and me.”
She glugged down some of her margarita, wiping the salt remnants from her mouth with the back of her hand. So much for her dainty manners. Her eyes had turned glassy. She was not a big drinker and it showed. I’d have to cut her off after this one and keep her here for a good long while if she had any hope of driving home.
Her words slurred slightly as she spoke. My god, but she was a lightweight. “I didn’t wanta do it,” she said. “I’m an office assistant, not a babysitter. But Lola, how do you say no to el jefe?”
I tilted my head to one side and gave a little shrug. She had a point. Saying no to Manny Camacho wasn’t easy. His dark eyes boring into me—er, you—to anyone—was intimidating as hell. “He asked you to babysit his daughter?”
Her head bobbed in an inefficient nod—shake—nod. “Take her to the dentist. Take her to her ballet class—”
“She goes to the dentist and she takes ballet?” Oh wow. Manny was really a father. A dad. He suddenly seemed more like a normal person and less like the Mount Olympian God he projected. Did she call him daddy? Or papi? “What’s her name?”
“Mmm, I don’t know if I should tell you that,” Reilly said, her expression perplexed.
“Why not? I already know everything else.”
She seemed to consider this, her mouth twisting with the effort. “I guess,” she finally said, drawing the word out.
Frankie reappeared with my combo plate. Steam ribboned up from the piping hot enchiladas, tacos, rice, and small white dish filled with simmering pinto beans. Antonio had tinkered with the recipe and had started adding small chunks of bell peppers to the pot, along with the garlic, onion, and a dash of cumin. I’d decided it was a good addition, although I hadn’t shared that with him. No need to inflate his ego more than it already was.
Frankie cleared away the empty flauta platter, brought us a clean dinner plate to share the meal, and left us to our conversation. I promptly deposited half the food onto Reilly’s plate, passed it to her, then dug into the half I’d kept. “Her name?” I repeated, holding my fingers in front of my mouth as I chewed.
“Quetzal,” she said.
I repeated it to myself. Quetzal. Quetzal. Quetzal. Quetzal, as in the colorful bird native to Mexico, or Quetzal, as in a derivative of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent from Aztec and Mayan mythology? It was mysterious, but then Manny’s daughter should have a mysterious name. Something basic would never do.
“It’s a big name for a little girl,” I said.
Reilly nodded her agreement. “She’s a pistol, just like Sadie.”
“Hopefully without the mean streak,” I said. Saying Sadie had a mean streak was like saying Antarctica was a little chilly. Sadie Metcalf, formerly Camacho, could be downright vicious. Much as I hated to admit it, though, she did have some redeeming qualities, too. She’d helped me with my first big case, first by identifying some of the key players and then by being backup for me when I hadn’t even known I needed it. Like every other person on the planet, she was complicated—not all bad, and not all good.
Quetzal was a pistol. Just like Sadie. Sadie and Manny had been married. They co-owned Camacho and Associates. Dios mio. I was living a vida loca.