“Where are we going?” Instantly, Cal was at my side. For such a big guy, he had that speedy stealth thing down pat.

“To see Jake Mullins’s widow.”

“The guy ‘if’ Pines murdered?” he asked, following me to the elevator.

“Can the sarcasm. Trust me, I know a long shot when I make one up.”

“The nice thing about long shots is when they pay off, they pay off big.”

I turned on him, expecting to see a mocking smirk on his features. Instead, that same unreadable expression.

“Hmm,” I said, making a noncommittal sound in the back of my throat. “Let’s hope you’re right.”

Because there was no way I was letting Barbie win.

Chapter Nine

Echo Park is a quiet suburb off the 5 freeway in the hills near Dodgers Stadium. Quaint little fifties bungalows and seventies apartment buildings clung to the hillsides, dotted with fragrant eucalyptus trees and hearty daisy clusters, flowering despite their proximity to the state’s most traveled highway. Alexis Mullins lived in an eight-unit complex behind a Ralph’s grocery, just a block up from Sunset. The paint was a dull beige, and the thick shrubbery helped hide the years of smoginduced grime coating the stuccoed walls. A Saturn hybrid and two electric cars sat at the curb. Cal did a U-turn and opted to park his Hummer in the Ralph’s parking lot.

“You know, I’d pay good money to see you try to parallel park this thing,” I told him.

He grinned. “I’d take your money, Bender, but I know all you carry around in that lunchbox of yours is quarters.”

I stuck out my tongue. What could I say? He brought out my mature side.

“By the way,” I said as I jumped down from the passenger seat, “thanks for having my back there with Felix.”

He beeped the car locked. “The cat was already out of the bag. What did you want me to do, lie for you?”

“Yes!”

He shook his head. “Sorry, Bender, that’s your gig.”

“Well, then you’d better let me do the talking here.”

Alexis’s unit was the second on the bottom, wedged under a dark stairwell that had “don’t forget your mace” written all over it. I rapped on the door, inhaling the scents of stale curry and cigarette smoke that seem to pervade every pre-1990 apartment complex in California.

I saw a shadow cross the peephole. A few seconds later the door opened a crack, the chain still in place.

“Yeah?” asked a voice, still gravelly with sleep, despite the fact that it was well past noon.

“Hi,” I said, doing what I hoped looked like a friendly wave. “My name’s…Mary Ann. Mary Ann Summers.”

“And?” the voice asked. Through the crack I could just make out frizzy blonde hair and a yellow robe.