Chapter 14
Mood Board: Early American Whorehouse - red, gold, and vajayjays.
-Celia’s Pinterest Search
Flint had been acting weird ever since he walked into Tatiana’s domain. Maybe he didn’t like the fact that we were shooting the breeze before he came in.
Maybe he wanted her to get to work?
The weird vibe continued in the car as we zoomed to Aureus. The enclave for the uber-rich was chock-full of mansions that were 20,000 square feet or larger. The neighborhood had a marina and private airstrip. But the security left a lot to be desired. Nightclubs had better security than this.
A wanna-be bouncer eyeballed us from his guard shack but didn’t get off his lazy butt to double-check our credentials. When I told him my name was Celia Cruz, he opened the gate without batting an eye.
“Well, shit,” Flint set his jaw and drove through the gate.
“What?”
“I was operating under the impression that it was hard to gain access to the neighborhood,” Flint’s eyes narrowed. “But with Mr. Dumbass letting in any Tom, Dick, or Cruz, our field of suspects just widened.”
I frowned. Flint had a point. Someone murdered Octavio right inside his front door. He let them in, from the looks of the crime scene photos, but that doesn’t mean he allowed them to gain access to the neighborhood as a whole.
Flint pulled up to Octavio’s house, and my jaw dropped. It’s one thing to know he’d been hiding money from me during our divorce. It’s quite another to be confronted with the luxurious evidence.
Fire burned inside my chest as I stared at the four-story mansion. It sprawled in both directions, resembling a Santorini hotel with white stucco walls and a blue tile roof. That’s where the tastefulness ended. Gold gilded every window, door, and balcony on the place. And I swear, it looked like the grout between the driveway tiles was made out of gold too.
“Mother ducker,” I swore.
Flint’s moodiness evaporated as he chuckled. “You haven’t been here before?”
I shook my head no. My hands turned to fists. “Freaking jackwagon couldn’t pay child support, but he could build this. Sugar Honey Iced Tea!”
Flint roared with laughter. “Sugar Honey Iced Tea?”
“Yeah, you know…” I reddened. “Like how ICE stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
“Sugar Honey Iced Tea - SHIT?” Flint laughed harder and got out of the car. He walked around to my side and opened the door. “You’re something else! C’mon,lalelei. Let’s go talk to the widow.”
I fumed up the driveway and onto the front patio. The pretentiousness of the home extended to the landscaping. Topiary shaped into phallic symbols surrounded the entrance.
“I’m not saying this guy was overcompensating,” Flint pointed to one particularly obnoxious set of bushballsnext to a palm tree whose leaves simulated spurting semen into the sky. “But…”
The door opening cut off his musings. A stooped gray man wearing a butler’s livery opened the door. “May I help you?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Who are you?”
“Madame, you are at my place of employment. The better question is:who are you?” he sniffed at me.
Flint placed his large hand on my shoulder. “I’m Flint Mendota, and this is Celia Saber. We’re here to pay our respects to Mrs. Cruz.”
With a sharp nod, the butler opened the door wider and allowed us entrance. We followed him into a sitting room with decor that could best be described as -early whorehouse. Red and gold flocked wallpaper made the enormous room feel smaller. Red velvet settees dotted the room, next to gold lamps with fringe on the shades.
“Wait right here,” the butler pointed at me and lifted his nose. “I’ll see if Mrs. Cruz is accepting visitors right now.”
He backed out of the room and pulled the doors closed behind him.
“Freaking crackerjack fiddle farts,” I surveyed the room.
Flint snickered. “That’s one way of saying it.”
