Cat In A Topaz Tango

“I don’t think whatever way they connected at the Teen Queen house was enough to send Mariah over the fence. I really don’t. Carmen, you don’t need villains here. You need to understand that Mariah sees a world where kids her age can live a dream. She has a dream. And talent.”

“I know that, Morrie. I fear that. I just hope her dream isn’t a nightmare.’

Morrie looked around to see if Dirty Larry had come back yet.

“One more thing, Carmen. Here’s the most popular outtake on that Teen Queen Reality TV show site. Six hundred and sixty thousand-some visitors. It’s not your daughter who’s the pop tart hit of the site. It’s this little number.”

He’d brought up a small podcast screen and hit the play button.

An animated figure with punk blond hair and a wild outfit was dancing and rapping in the TV show’s final competition. She hadn’t even placed in the finals, but Molina could place that particular piece of tiny trouble in a Las Vegas minute.

It was Zoe Chloe Ozone, the phony teen persona Temple Barr had created when a certain homicide lieutenant had pressured her to go undercover to protect her contestant daughter, Mariah, from a possible stalker.

The thirty-year-old PR woman, current Matt Devine fiancée, and ex–Max Kinsella squeeze was an Internet pop tart sensation and didn’t even know it.

Duty Call

Thanks to modern conveniences, a ringing cell phone had interrupted opera audiences, churchgoers, classrooms, and bedroom intimacies.

“Damn, I should have turned that thing off,” Temple complained. At least she had never programmed some dopey ringtone, like the “William Tell Overture,” theme song of the Lone Ranger.

“It’s the turnoff,” Matt pointed out as he watched his half-dressed fiancée scramble barefoot across her wooden parquet bedroom floor to the dresser. Coming home to Temple after being in the noisy restaurant with Molina was a nice contrast. He’d promised to keep Molina’s problem quiet, even though the restored condition of Max’s house was troubling.

Still, Matt could lie back virtuously, knowing he’d thought to turn off his cell phone. Of course, almost nobody called him. Temple’s PR job required her being eternally reachable, like a doctor, in case things went wrong. Matt checked his watch: 10:30 P.M. He had to leave for work in an hour, tops.

“Yes?” Temple was saying, looking puzzled. “Gone? Surely you can’t think Crawford—Doing? Uh—” She rolled her eyes at Matt. “Nothing. Now. Yeah. Right away. I hope it turns out to be a false alarm.”

She snapped the tiny slave driver shut. “Molina’s kid is missing.”

Matt sat up, collecting clothes. “Mariah? No! How long?”

“This evening sometime. Wasn’t at the other kid’s house where she was supposed to be.”

“What have you got to do with this? You and Molina get along like cobra and mongoose.”

“Molina wants to talk to Crawford Buchanan ASAP and needs someone who can find the vermin.”

“Awful Crawford, the DJ-publicist guy?”

“Yeah, your so-not-serious competition for Las Vegas listeners.” Temple was pulling on her knit jogging outfit. “I need to check his show times, and maybe check in with his much-abused insignificant other. Molina said something about the Internet and Mariah and the Crawf’s juvenile delinquent stepdaughter, Quincey, being online together. She didn’t make a lot of sense for Molina, so I’m guessing the kid is in trouble. I sorta bonded with Mariah at the Teen Queen reality TV house. I’d hop to it for Mariah before I’d toss her mother a stale fortune cookie.”

“I know that, next to Molina, he’s one of your least favorite people, so what does Crawford Buchanan have to do with Mariah?”

“He was pretending to cover that Teen Queen reality TV show she was competing on.”

“Molina roped you into going undercover on that to protect Mariah and you did a great job. Why does she need you so urgently now? That show is old news.”

“Maybe not,” Temple said. “She said Zoe Chloe Ozone had damn well get her ass in gear and over to her place. You know where it is, Oh Swami of the Desert Nighttime Airwaves? I’ve never seen her house and she didn’t give me a clue.”

“Yeah. It’s near Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. You’ve been at the church, at least. To mass. With me.” He flashed her a remembering grin. “Whoever thought then we’d be thinking of getting married someday?” Actually, he had. “May I add OLG to the possible site list?”

Temple paused in jamming her bare feet into a pair of low platform slides. He could tell she really wanted to stay and finish what they’d started.

“Yeah. Good idea. I guess we should thank Molina for that one.” She took a breath. “I know how I’d feel if Louie was missing, so I imagine a kid must be triple that. “

“At least. There are so many predators nowadays.”

“Why the Crawf?” she fussed. “Oh, well, mine not to question why. Mine to round up the miserable skunk and bring him to—” She snatched the address Matt had just written on a note pad on one bedside table. “Chez Molina, of all places.”