*****
Inside the car we were all silent. The interior camera was rolling, but Reid and Foxy had nothing to say. I sat in the back, thinking about how this investigation was spinning out of control and how my team was probably doing more harm than good. I looked at Foxy and saw that he was grinning. “Why are you smiling?”
“Raow,” Foxy said to me, imitating a cat. “Raow raow,” He said again.
“Shut up, Foxy.”
Reid looked at him. “Why are you meowing?”
“Sharpe almost got in a cat fight with Rose before.” He turned to me pretending his hand was a paw and swatting it at me. “Cat fight.”
Reid looked back at me. “That’s smart, Sharpe. Maybe she can have her buddy Jaeger knock you off, too.”
“Wanna know what they were fighting about?” Foxy continued.
“Let’s just drop it, okay?” I said.
“You,” Foxy said to Reid. “Rose thought you were Sharpe’s boyfriend – that’s why she was flirting with you in there.”
“That’s not why,” Reid said abruptly.
“Yeah it was, dude. She wanted to invade Sharpe’s territory like she invaded hers. If she thought I was Sharpe’s boyfriend she would have been licking her lips at me.”
Reid shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his ego obviously bruised.
“Kinky, right? Sharpe told Rose that Kitt was her sloppy seconds – it was hilarious!”
“It was just a misunderstanding, that’s all,” I said.
Suddenly, Reid braked and pulled the car off the road. He turned around with anger in his eyes. “I said this was a bad idea from the beginning, and I meant it.” He pointed a finger at me. “You meddle in my investigation again and you’re off the case. You got me?”
“But what about…”
“No buts. One more screw-up and you’re off,” Reid said. His nostrils flared and his eyes were red with anger and exhaustion.
I nodded and he pulled the car back into traffic. He was right, of course, but working in television, I was used to a higher level of drama than he was. Someone getting killed wasn’t enough – we needed to stir the pot. It was my instinct, and it was hard to go against it.
My cell phone rang, and I looked down to see that my mother was calling. I whispered into the phone. “I’m working, Mom, what’s up?”
“So you are alive. I haven’t heard from you in days – I wanted to know if I should start checking the hospitals,” my mother chided. As an actress, she had a flair for the dramatic.
“I work with the police, Mom. If I was dead, they would have contacted you by now.”
“Honey, I met the most amazing man for you in the florist shop yesterday. He was thirty-eight, never married and he works over at Sony.”
“Mom, I don’t have time for this now, okay?”
“You don’t have time to talk to your own mother? Honey, why don’t you come over for lunch? I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“I don’t have time for lunch, we’re working here,” I whispered.
Foxy’s ears perked up. “Lunch?”
I looked at him and shook my head but he wasn’t taking no for an answer. “I could go for lunch before we bust this guy,” Foxy said.
“My mom lives all the way out in Venice,” I said, covering the phone.
“The perp lives in Playa Del Rey. It’s like ten minutes away,” Foxy said.
I wasn’t thrilled about bringing these guys home to Mommy, but I relented. “Okay, Mom, we’ll be there in twenty minutes. There are five of us. What are you gonna serve?”
My mother didn’t cook, but she was excellent at ordering takeout. “What about French? There’s that place down on the corner with those yummy croissants,” she said.
“No way. These guys are blue collar – they don’t want to eat that fancy stuff.”
“We can hear you,” Reid said.
We agreed to go with Chinese. There was this place called Chan’s by my mom that served the best Chinese Chicken Salads. They were coated with candied ginger and a sweet dressing plus they were unhealthy enough that I knew the guys would love them. We also decided to order sesame chicken, beef and broccoli, egg rolls, moo shu pork and a bunch of other entrees just in case they didn’t like the salads. My mom always got so excited about ordering because she had a gift for it. The best part was that I knew I would have leftovers for later. I felt like I hadn’t eaten anything good in days. The burger and donuts were not exactly doing wonders for my digestive system or my waist line.
Even though it was silly, I was a little nervous about bringing the guys to meet my family. My parents were wealthy, and when people saw where they lived, sometimes they looked at me differently. Much like Reid didn’t want his co-workers to know where he came from, I didn’t like it either. Ginny took my parents’ handouts all the time, but I insisted on supporting myself. I lived in a dump, but I was proud of it because it was paid for with money I made.
Mac had been to my parents’ house before and I wasn’t worried about Reid, but Manny and Foxy were wildcards. Sometimes the opulence could be intimidating. The house had a real wood-burning pizza oven in the kitchen, even though neither of my parents cooked. It had a lap pool on the rooftop and a garage with marble flooring. Plus there was the “arrangement” that my parents shared. They were divorced, but in typical Hollywood style, the divorce came with concessions. My parents were best friends and still lived together, but slept in separate bedrooms. My mother flirted with anything with a pulse while my dad chose to focus solely on his career as a set designer and his passion for sports cars.
Goofy as they were, it was nice to think that I would be on my home turf surrounded by people who loved and supported me. During this entire investigation I felt like I had no allies except Mac. Finally, I’d have people in my corner.