Bloody Shame by Carolina Garcia-Aguilera

Author:Carolina Garcia-Aguilera [Garcia-Aguilera, Carolina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-625674-35-7
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Three

When I was done with my cake I left for Little Havana to check out Gustavo Gaston’s efficiency apartment. My beeper went off along the way, and I absent-mindedly dug for it in my purse while I kept my other hand on the wheel. My mind was still on Marisol’s report. I had to tell Tommy, but I wanted time to digest it all.

The child’s birth certificate listed Gaston as the father—but that didn’t mean he was. A woman can name practically anyone on that document. But Silvia lying about Alejandra’s paternity seemed too much of a stretch, considering that she and Gaston had worked in the same bridal shop at the same time—a time that coincided with the child’s approximate date of conception. Then there was Silvia’s subsequent affair with her boss. And Isabel Arango’s connection to Gaston. I imagined triangles and squares in my mind.

I still couldn’t say what Margarita had wanted to speak with me about the day she died. It may have been simply about her relationship with Alonso junior. Did she know me well enough to understand that I would find out sooner or later, now that I was on a case involving the family? Maybe she wanted to tell me, rather than have me find out. But my instincts told me there was more than that.

I was still groping around for my beeper when it whined a second time. I finally found it and read its display. I gasped when I saw my own office number, followed by a 911 code. I quickly pulled over, found a place to park, connected the cellular, and phoned in.

Leonardo answered on the first ring. “Lupe, Marisol just called,” he said, agitated and nearly breathless. “You have a guy on your tail again!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Marisol. She came back to the office.” He tried to calm himself. “She walked out and forgot to take her part of the cake. She said she saw you leave, then she saw another car pull out behind you. She didn’t like how it looked, so she followed. The guy has been behind you ever since you left the office. Marisol tried to call your car phone, but you had it turned off. She called me instead.”

“Did she get the tags?” I asked, knowing that she did. Marisol was too good not to.

“I’m running them right now,” Leonardo said. “Be careful.”

“Where’s Marisol now?”

“I don’t know,” Leonardo replied. “I had her stay on the line, but she hit the Black Hole of Calcutta, and I lost her.”

“Mierda!” The Black Hole of Calcutta was a bad stretch of Twenty-seventh Avenue, where cellular phones inevitably lost their connections. “Tell her to call me,” I said. “I have the phone turned on now.”

I hung up. Less than thirty seconds later, my phone rang. “Oye, chica,” Marisol said. “You’re very popular. First that asshole Slattery, now this one. I lost him a few minutes ago. What have you been up to in your spare time?”

I wasn’t in a joking mood.

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