Ignoring the urge to comment on her outfit, I gave Mom a much-edited version of the previous night’s events. However, by the end, her plucked eyebrows were still hunched together in concern.
“Maddie, you could have been killed!”
“I’m fine, Mom. Really, ” I tried to reassure her.
“I think you should think about carrying some protection.”
“Protection?”
“What you need is a gun, ” Mrs. Rosenblatt offered. “I think I might still have one of Ollie’s in storage.”
“No!” I said a little too loudly. “Look, I’ve got pepper spray at home. I’ll be fine.” I didn’t add that when I’d gotten it I’d been so scared of accidentally spraying myself with the mini canister of eye-scorching stuff that I’d promptly shoved it to the back of my junk drawer, and it hadn’t seen the light of day since. My idea of protection was a ribbed Trojan. Carrying actual weapons was a little too Rambo-chick for me.
“I don’t know, Maddie…” Mom said, still not convinced.
“Honest, I’m fine. Look, this was just a fluke. A misunderstanding. Isabel is probably in Mexico by now. I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry about. Really.”
“Wait!” Mrs. Rosenblatt held up a pudgy hand, then smacked it on my forehead. “I’m getting a vision.” She rolled her eyes back into her head until she resembled a Dawn of the Dead reject. “I see a woman with long dark hair. She’s screaming. And destroying a bug.” Mrs. R opened her eyes. “You got a roach problem or something?”
Mental forehead smack.
After I reassured Mom for the bazillionth time that I was not likely to encounter a bullet anytime soon, I left the salon (to the tune of Pablo still singing Shakira and Marco still threatening to have roast parrot for dinner if he didn’t shut up) and hoofed it the two blocks to my Jeep. The first thing I did when I got in was crank on the air-conditioning. Even though it was barely the end of March, we were nearing triple digits this week. One of those freak heat waves that seem to hit L.A. more and more often. I blamed global warming. Though, personally, I’d still rather break out the tank tops and flip-flops in March than give up my aerosol hair spray and gas-guzzling Jeep.
I let the air blast over me as I made my way down the bumper-to-bumper afternoon traffic on Pico, people watching the Saturday-afternoon shoppers, admiring the Lexus dealerships, taking in the latest billboards. I passed one of a man popping out of the page three-D style, carrying a cell phone and advertising something about a long-distance carrier. There was another that featured huge Dumbo ears and urged me not to let the magic of Disneyland pass me by. But it was the one on the corner of Pico and Westwood that made me sit up and stare in earnest.
A woman, lying on her stomach, spanned the length of the billboard, clad in only a teeny, tiny pair of lacy panties that would make a Playboy Bunny blush. Two big round globes of double-Ds peeked out between her strategically placed arms. She had one finger seductively touching a glossy red lip, the caption LIKE TO WATCH? underneath her with a Web address to view her twenty-four-hour Web cam. But the part that almost made me gag was the woman’s name: “Sexy Jasmine.”
Last year when I’d been involved in the murder investigation that resulted in my meeting Ramirez, Jasmine (or, as I was more fond of calling her, Miss PP-as in Plastic Parts; seriously-you think those kind of boobs grew naturally?) had, at one time, been my prime suspect. But, instead of her offing embezzlers, it turned out Jasmine’s biggest sin was moonlighting on a pay-per-play adult Web site. Apparently, after being fired from her day job as a receptionist, she’d turned her hand to full-time cyber whoring. And, by the size of that billboard, it looked like it was paying off.
I shook my head and marveled at the fact that I was schlepping through traffic and Jasmine was now famous (or infamous, as the case may be). In New York you’re no one until you’ve made Page Six. In L.A. you’re no one until your face has been plastered on a twenty-foot-tall billboard.
By the time I got back to Santa Monica, it was nearing noon and the smog index was creeping up to that level where you could almost taste the air. The radio deejay advised schoolchildren to stay indoors, and the fire marshal declared the Hollywood Hills a high-hazard area. Instinctively, I cranked my air up.
As I rounded the corner, pulling off Venice, my apartment came into view.
As did the guy standing outside of it.
His tall, solid frame leaned casually against the side of his black SUV, both arms crossed over his chest. His eyes were unreadable behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses, but if the tension in his stubbled jaw was any indication, they weren’t twinkling with glee.
Ramirez.
I paused, warring between apprehension and total lust as I pulled into my drive. Finally lust won, and I got out of the car.
“Hey, ” I said tentatively.
Nothing. He didn’t move, didn’t nod, just kept his cop face on as he stared at me. Yep. He was definitely a little miffed.
“So, uh, have you been waiting long?”
I think I saw his shoulders shrug half an inch. Or it might have just been a smog-induced illusion.
“Um…are you going to say something? Anything?” I squeaked out, my voice doing that caught-coloring-on-the-walls falsetto again.
He took a deep breath in, then out, his nostrils flaring. Then he reached up and slowly took off his sunglasses. Yikes. Nope, his dark eyes were a far cry from twinkling. Seething might be appropriate. Or searing, penetrating.
Pissed off.
“Do you have any idea what kind of trouble your stunt last night caused?” he asked, his voice low and strained, a clear undercurrent of “dammit, you really screwed up this time, Maddie” running through it.
I wondered if it was too late to jump back in my car.
“Um, lots?”
He took a step forward. I instinctively took one back, coming up against the driver’s-side door of my Jeep.
“Thanks to my association with, and I quote, ‘that crazed shoe girl, ’ my captain has reassigned me.”
“Reassigned?” I repeated. “Like, demoted?”
Ramirez made a low growling sound deep in his throat.
Yep. Like, demoted.
“Isabel is MIA, her boyfriend got the tip-off that she’s been talking to the police and now he’s in the wind, and my captain has busted yours truly down to celebrity bodyguard duty.”
Ramirez had been advancing on me as he spoke, until his face was just inches from mine, those granite features starting to twitch as if they might crack into a full-blown rage at any second. I leaned farther back into my car, and I think I may have whimpered.
“I’m sorry, ” I squeaked out.
His eyes narrowed, and he placed a hand on either side of my head, barring any ideas of escape. “Sorry?”
I gulped. “Really, really sorry.”
He did that low growl in the back of his throat again. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but it didn’t sound a whole lot like, “I forgive you.”
I gulped again. “But being a bodyguard isn’t all that bad, right? I mean, celebrities can be fun.”
“Oh sure. Tons of fun. Watching a bunch of pampered actresses while they open their fan mail. My idea of a good time.”
“You’re being sarcastic, aren’t you?”
There was that growl again.
“Look, I’m really, really sorry. I so didn’t mean to get you in trouble. And I’ll so make it up to you.”