Luckily, I convinced Ramirez I was okay to drive myself home. It had been a full hour since I’d been fetal. Not to mention that the idea of spending rush hour traffic back to Santa Monica beside Ramirez the Hormone Machine made the cab of his SUV seem about ten times too small. And last but not least, the idea of coming back to this place tomorrow to retrieve my Jeep didn’t hold any appeal. In fact, I had a feeling I’d be staying out of Orange County altogether for a while. (Unless there was a sale at the Block.)
By the time I finally pulled up to my studio, it was dark and I was famished. I fixed myself a grilled cheese with tons of gooey cheddar and washed it down with a Diet Coke. After the day I’d had, I would have preferred a beer, but considering my persistent lateness I didn’t think that was wise. Instead, I hit the play button on my answering machine, crossing my fingers there was something from Richard.
One message from my mom, telling me she’d booked Beefcakes for her bachelorette party. (Ugh!) One from Faux Dad, saying he’d picked up a basket of hand knitted baby items for Molly the Breeder. (Double ugh!) And one from Dana, asking if I’d seen a pink line yet. (There weren’t enough ugh!’s in the world to express how this made me feel.)
Nothing from Richard.
I eyed the EPT still sitting on my kitchen counter and suddenly felt sick to my stomach. I felt like crying. I felt like my life had suddenly become an episode of Law & Order: Special Blonde’s Unit. This week our fashionably, but oh-so-impractically, dressed blonde stumbles onto a dead body while searching for her embezzling boyfriend who flies the coop just as Maddie’s monthly visitor refuses to make an appearance.
Not to mention the hunky lead of the series, Detective Jack Ramirez. He was danger with a capital “D”. No, make that a capital, underlined and italicized, “D”.
I grabbed another Diet Coke, trying to ignore the instant flush at the thought of Ramirez. Though in my defense, it was hard not to flush around a man like that.
I laid down on my futon and turned on the TV, telling myself these were not the kind of thoughts I should be thinking. I should not be fantasizing about rock hard abs, wicked brown eyes, and a smile that could melt the clothes off the Mona Lisa. What I should be thinking about was drinking a gallon of water, taking that EPT into the bathroom, and facing up to whatever reality those little pink lines threw at me like a big girl. And I would. I eyed the test. Someday very soon.
Instead, I flipped to Letterman and settled in as he ran the Top Ten Signs You’ve Been in the Heat Too Long. He only got to number five (“George Hamilton looks albino next to you.”) before I fell asleep fully clothed.
And dreamed of Ramirez, doing laps in a sparkling blue swimming pool.
In the buff.
First thing the next morning, I retrieved the long forgotten phone number from my pants pocket and called Richard’s mother. I didn’t really expect to find him there now, but I figured I might as well cover all my bases. Unfortunately I was right. His mother hadn’t heard from him since he’d called for her birthday three weeks ago. I then proceeded to call his cleaning lady, his gardener and his dry cleaner, asking if they’d seen Richard in the last few days. Nothing. He’d vanished off the face of the earth last Friday and no one had seen him since.
I made myself a cup of coffee and a chocolate frosted pop tart, which I ate at the kitchen counter as I went over my options. And really, when it came down to it, I didn’t have any. Either I could track Richard down myself or I could let Ramirez do it and possibly lead my boyfriend away in handcuffs. Not that I really believed Richard was guilty of embezzlement. But I had a feeling his disappearing act wasn’t doing much to convince Ramirez he was an innocent bystander in all this. Unless I wanted to visit Richard behind bars, I had to find him first.
I decided to start back at the beginning. The last place I’d seen Richard. His office.
Unfortunately, I knew it was going to require some serious maneuvering on my part to get past Jasmine again. My brilliant plan – wait until she went on break.
So, at exactly twelve o- three, I had my little red Jeep parked across the street from the offices of Dewy, Cheatum and Howe as Jasmine wiggled her mini skirt covered behind out the doors and off to her lunch.
I jumped out of the Jeep, stuffed a couple quarters in the meter and sprinted across the street. In no time at all I was walking through the front doors and across the padded carpeting to the reception desk, manned by Jasmine’s noontime replacement. Althea, a first year clerk with a pronounced overbite.
“Good morning, Althea,” I said briskly, laying my little Kate Spade on the counter.
Althea mumbled an indistinguishable greeting while trying to avoid eye contact. She had on a blue-gray cardigan that was stretched out in places, giving her five-foot, 150 pound frame the shape of a ripe tomato. Her frizzy blonde hair (and not a Clairol Spun Gold, but natural dirty blonde) was scooped back on one side with a tortoiseshell barrette, and her big green eyes bugged out at me from behind thick lenses that made her look a little like Mr. Magoo.
“So,” I continued, “I guess you’ve heard that Richard’s on a little trip?”
Althea’s face turned red. Apparently everyone knew Richard had flown the coop.
I leaned in confidentially. “Have the police been here?”
Althea nodded. “All day yesterday. They took out three boxes of files.”
Damn. Ramirez was good. I wondered if I was wasting my time retracing first Richard’s steps and now Ramirez’s. I tried a different tactic.
“Althea, were you here when Richard left last Friday?”
“Uh huh. I was in the copy room getting photos of the Johnson brief when he came in to use the shredder.”
Shredder? My heart sped up.
“Uh, you didn’t see what he was shredding, did you?”
“No. But the cops took the bag of shredded paper too.”
Double damn. Ramirez was really good.
“Did he say anything to you as he left?” I asked, grasping at straws now.
“Just that I should make sure I gave the brief to Mr. Chesterton instead of him.”
“Was it Richard’s case?”
“Uh huh. But he said it should go to Chesterton.”
“Oh. Well, thanks, Althea. I’m, uh, just going to go grab something I think I might have left in Richard’s office.” I cringed. Against Jasmine that excuse wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Thankfully, Althea was much more trusting. “Good luck. I’m not sure the cops left much.”
I slipped through the frosted doors, the carpeted hallway muffling the sound of my heels as I mulled over what Althea had said. I was dying to know what Richard had been shredding. Maybe it was just some statement with a credit card number on it. Richard was diligent about shredding everything that even had his email address on it for fear of identity theft. But then again, it was curious timing. Ramirez had come to see him. He’d just cancelled lunch with me. He shreds documents, gives away his case to another partner, then goes home, packs his bags and disappears.
For half a second my belief in Richard’s innocence wavered. I had to admit, it didn’t look good. It looked like the actions of a man who had something to hide.
I pushed that thought aside as I reached the door to Richard’s office. With a backward glance over my shoulder to make sure Jasmine hadn’t miraculously appeared behind me, I quickly slipped inside, closing the door with a quiet click.
My first thought was that a tornado had hit. The second was that Ramirez, although thorough, was a pig. Books were scattered haphazardly on the floor instead of alphabetically arranged in the bookcases. The wastebasket had been emptied and left on its side. File folders and papers littered the area around Richard’s oak cabinets and the items on his desk were askew in a way that would have had Richard flying into an OCD-like fit of straightening.