Free Melissa Bourbon Ramirez - Lola Cruz 01 - Living the Vida Lola by Melissa Bourbon Ramirez Page B

holding my arms close to my sides. Another tattoo peeked out from the waist of her hip-hugger shorts.More leopard spots. Judging by the utter blackness inside the cavernous house and her body decorations, I wondered if she thought she was part cat. Did her eyes glow yellow in the dark?
    Allison perched on the edge of a saggy black velour couch. A leopard-skin throw lay haphazardly over the back. Big surprise. She gripped a fresh cigarette between her teeth. I searched for the resemblance between this young woman and Emily. It was difficult to find under the angst, but I detected similar cheekbones and the same deep-socketed eyes.
    “So?” she said as she flared up a blue mini Bic lighter. The cigarette sizzled fiery red at the tip as she puffed it to life.
    Right. Cut to the chase. “Thanks for talking with me,” I said. “I’m looking into the disappearance of your mother.”
    “So they haven’t found her yet.”
    Dios mío,
where was the concern? “No, they haven’t.”
    “So?” she said again.
    I watched Allison, looking for the smallest sign of interest.
Nada
. “Emily
is
your mother?”
    She gave a snide laugh. “If your definition of
mother
includes purposefully keeping a child from their father, then yeah, I guess she’s my mother.”
    Okay, so Allison had been kept from her father, but Emily had fed her, wiped her bum, had the purse where Allison had probably stolen the money for her first pack of cigarettes. “Great, glad that’s established,” I said, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice.
    “She gave birth to me. That’s about it.” She took another drag, and her eyes rolled upward. She readjusted herself on her broken-down sofa. “What makes you think she wants to be found, anyway?”
    Not another skeptic. “You think she walked out on Sean?”
    She jabbed her finger in the air at me. “Who the hell
are
you, anyway? And who gave you permission to talk about my brother?”
    My gaze dropped to the card on the floor. Hadn’t she spent a couple minutes reading it? She reached to pick it up, and I filled in the blanks, speaking slowly. “My name is Dolores Cruz. I’m investigating the disappearance of your—of Emily.”
    “Yeah, right. I got that part. Who hired you?”
    “Your uncle—Walter.”
    She stopped middrag and leveled a stare at me. “Well, that figures. So, where is he?”
    “Walter’s going to meet me—”
    “Not my uncle,” she snapped. “The kid. Sean.”
    A second ago, he was her brother. Now he was “the kid”? I was hesitant to give away information for free, but Allison didn’t look like the bartering type. I figured I’d have to ante up first and maybe she’d soften. “Sean’s
with
your uncle. I’m going to see him”—I checked my watch—“in about half an hour.”
    Her eyes looked glassy, but she seemed to focus. The vein that had started to pop on her forehead subsided, and her face relaxed. “They’re together?”
    “That’s right.”
    In a series of quick, jerky movements, Allison stubbed out her cigarette, snatched a black purse from the floor beside the couch—finally, something without spots—and headed toward the front door. I stared after her. What the hell, was the interview over?
    She whipped her head around and stared at me. “Are you coming, or what?”
    Okay, had I missed a vital part of the conversation? “Uh, coming, where?”
    “I’m going to see my brother,” she said, her voice incredulous as if we’d just spent the past ten minutes discussing just that.
    “Right now?” I gaped. Allison had gone from the most disinterested person I’d ever met to being—what? A caring sister?
    “Yeah, right now.” And she actually smiled. And her teeth weren’t too terribly yellow—at least not from this distance. “I’m coming with you. The kid needs to see a friendly face.”
    By whose stretch of the imagination was Allison’s face friendly? I blinked and wondered how Manny would handle this. “Uh, Allison, I don’t