Emma Garcia shrugged angrily at my directions but tossed the bag at Lupe. “We don’t have your boy. We don’t know anything about him.”

“What about Guerrero. Does he have him?” I demanded.

“Of course not. I’m the one giving the orders now, not him.” She laughed the way a palm tree sways in the breeze.

“If you’re lying to me...” Lupe took another step forward and jerked her chin up like a real chola.

“Knock it off, Lupe,” I barked. “What are we looking for?”

“A letter with a blue envelope.” Emma’s voice was lilting, tropical.

“Just shake it out on the ground,” I snapped at Lupe, still fuming at her admitted deception.

A wallet, some keys and a dirty hairbrush hit the ground. Lupe bent to retrieve the letter. I couldn’t help watching the smooth curve of her ass. She brought the letter to her nose as though smelling it for perfume.

“It’s from Guerrero,” said Emma. “I found it with Cathy on the day she was killed.”

“There wasn’t anything with Cathy,” I argued. “I was there. I would have seen it.” I didn’t take my hand off the gun. I didn’t believe her.

“You didn’t check everything,” Emma said, smirking. “We went into the loft after you two ran off. We had more time, and we moved her body out of there.”

Lupe put the fallen things back into Emma’s purse. She dusted the bag off before handing it back to Emma.

“Down the hall was a bathroom. There Raul and I found a makeup bag. This was in it,” Emma added insistently.

I asked Lupe what the letter was.

“A love letter.”

“La paloma de tu cara no volará más en mis manos,” Emma Garcia recited.

“The dove which is your face won’t fly in my hands anymore,” Lupe said, translating for me.

Why couldn’t the guy have a little humility and just plagiarize something good? But Guerrero would be too vain to do that.

Lupe read the rest of the page quickly and silently. “It’s signed by Guerrero.”

Emma got an ugly look on her face. Bitter. She’d probably read the letter hundreds of times since she found it. She was certain Guerrero had killed Cathy, wanted him to have done it so she could use it to wrest control of Casa Guatemala away from him. Emma knew I was watching her so she quickly replaced her angry expression with something benign.

“Had you ever been to the loft before?” I asked her, reluctant to tell her Guerrero was innocent. “Do you know why Cathy was there?”

Emma Garcia shook her head.

“She went for a modeling job.”

“Modeling!” Emma howled. “She said she renounced that.”