“What is it?” Stephanie stage-whispered.
“Numero Uno just walked in.”
The air in the salon somehow grew colder, as if a spirit had made its presence known. Cara watched in the mirror—Stephanie blatantly turned her body to watch—as Alejandro appeared from a secret office door, made his way to the front, and kissed Christina Aguilera on both cheeks.
It turned out that Christina had gray roots and needed new extensions. She had in tow her personal manicurist and eyebrow artist, who would also be working on her.
Cara knew it was gauche to even acknowledge big celebrities, never mind touch them. But she could have kissed her all the same. She knew everyone in the salon, including Dorit, would be completely fixated on its most famous patron, not Cara.
She hoped Christina was extra high-maintenance.
“Honey-hued, like your friend’s?” Dorit asked Cara.
“No!” Cara and Stephanie said in unison.
“Mahogany,” Stephanie decided. “And a wolf cut. Definitely.”
Dorit stepped away to mix the color and gather the extensions Cara needed to rock the wolf cut. Cara tried to quiet her mind and think like a forest creature. If she was going to slink around LA unnoticed, being a wolf wasn’t a bad way to go.
SIXTY-SIX
JORDAN
Well I never did see so many TV stars
And I never did see so many rented cars
—Loudon Wainright III, “Hollywood Hopeful”
Cara Campbell was no longer at the Beverly Hills Hotel—if indeed she ever had been. Jordan tried not to let the disappointment get to him, indeed tried not to feel anything at all as he made his way through the lobby, past a comically oversized floral arrangement, toward the front doors.
Wen was interviewing the restaurant server who claimed to have seen Campbell, which gave him a few minutes to call Beto back. He walked outside, down the long red carpet under the portico, and found a few feet of privacy shaded by the hotel’s lush green foliage.
“That was forty minutes,” Beto said when he answered.
“You honestly wouldn’t believe LA traffic.”
“Unless they had a bus crash and a brush fire, I really don’t want to hear about it. Look, the leak was... Gracia.”
“You have got to be joking.”
“She’s in the next room. Wait a second and I’ll put you on.”
Jordan watched a powder-blue Bentley convertible roll past Wen’s double-parked Explorer. A valet opened the door for its driver, a young woman dressed entirely in pale pink leather. She climbed out, then lifted two leashed pets from the passenger seat. Jordan thought at first glance the two furry animals were dogs. A second look, however, convinced him the bushy, wrinkly-faced creatures were in fact some breed of exotic cat. She carried them into the hotel while one blank-faced bellhop took her suitcases out of the trunk and a valet climbed behind the wheel.
“You’re on speaker, Sheriff,” said Beto, coming back. “I’m in the room with Gracia.”
Jordan could hear her crying and her distress wounded him. She was a beloved member of the staff, almost the last person he would have suspected of wrongdoing. He waited until her sobs became sniffles before he started.
“Beto says you have something to tell me, Gracia.”
“I didn’t mean it,” she said, almost too quietly to hear. “I didn’t think this would happen. I’m just so sorry, Sheriff.”
“Tell me what you said and who you said it to.”
She honked her nose into a tissue and then her voice grew louder. “I know you told us not to talk about the case to anybody. But, I mean, I’m nobody, so I didn’t think anyone would care what I said. My knitting circle meets twice a week, and you know, everybody has been pestering me with questions. They just wouldn’t stop. So I gave them little updates, you know. After a while, it was like we were all playing this guessing game. We all just wanted to figure out where she was.”
The valet pulled away in the Bentley, driving it a little roughly, as a Mercedes SUV with blacked-out windows pulled in behind it.
