Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit (27 page)

“
I'm being stalked," Savannah insisted. "I suspected asmuch but now that this demon, this evil black ninja, has shown up in my very room, I'm certain of it.”

The accusation caused all eyes to turn toward the trio re
turned from their expedition through the looking glass, all
black in some sinister way. There was Louie, black as a witch's familiar from toe to tail to tip of ear. Temple and her ebony Cher hair. Rafi Nadir and his Middle-Eastern
looks in black denim. The lion, the witch, and the . . . Tem
ple glanced at Rafi. No, he did not qualify as a wardrobe. Thank goodness.

“
There's a hidden passage," he said, "behind the mir
ror. Anyone could have come in or out.”

Savannah sat up, all disheveled blonde hair (her usual
style anyway). "My babies were in danger!" She gathered
Yvette and Solange close, their eyes slitting in an expression of utter feline distaste mixed with bored sufferance.

Come to think of it, that exactly matched the expres
sion on Rafi Nadir's face.

“Nail it shut," she ordered.

“Can't," he said. "The mirror covers the entire door."

“Well, I can't possibly move. It would upset the girls. Cats are far more attached to places than to people.”

Rafi visibly struggled not to say that in her case such a reaction would be justified. While he dawdled, Rome burned. Or at least Savannah's baser instincts.

“Then you'll just have to keep watch all night on
this
side of the mirror," she purred.

Yes, she
purred.
She had doubtlessly been called upon
to purr a line or several in every one of her B and C
movies, and probably a few Ds, Temple thought. Or were
those cup sizes: before and after augmentation?

As Rafi looked around in horror at his frilly dutystation-to-be, Savannah took charge. "You can sleep—or
catnap rather, for you certainly don't want to miss an
other intrusion—on the chaise lounge.”

He regarded this bejeweled pillow-heaped upholstered
torturous curl of feminine furniture as if it were a me
dieval iron rack.

“I'll do whatever it takes to prevent any further incursions," Rafi said, through his teeth, "but I'll sleep in the hall right outside the door. Just a scream away. Yours or theirs.”

He nodded at the languid Persians.

Savannah pouted but didn't object. Temple supposed luring any man any nearer at all satisfied her vanity and reduced the fuss and muss of actual intimacy. But Rafi's resistance to the siren of soft porn surprised Temple.

Was he possibly tiring of the superfeminine stereo
type? Then again, he'd hooked up with Molina years before, so he must have something of a soft spot for hard women.

Scratch a male chauvinist and find a . . . masochist secretly in search of a dominatrix? Interesting.

“Good." Savannah snuggled down in her many decorative bed pillows, dragging the Persian sisters with her. "You girls can leave now. I have a bodyguard.”

The Teen Queen candidates pitter-pattered out, the
young and the sleep deprived, a herd of blonde bunnies.

Temple regarded her bunny slippers, a Christmas gift
from her mother. They belonged with the herd. The rest
of Temple/Xoe did not.

“You want me to take the chaise lounge?" she asked Rafi in a
West Side Story
teen-gang accent, using Savannah's misnomer.

“No. I can handle both sides of the door, girly. Take yourself back to your bunk bed."

“My little sis is probably having hysterics," she conceded.

When she ankled out into the hall, Louie was making like Saran Wrap on her ankles again.

Everyone had accepted him as some stray mascot thathad adopted the house. Cameras lingered lovingly on his liquid feline progress through the rich environs and the gathered Teen Queens. He strutted like a sultan with a private harem.

Temple decided she could do worse than to adopt the attitude everyone else had.

Mariah was waiting at the door to their room, as ordered, but barely.

One foot and an elbow and an inquisitive nose were in the hall.

“What happened? Who screamed?"

“Savannah Ashleigh and her cats."

“Oh." Mariah instantly diagnosed a false alarm. "That airhead gives Clairol a bad name. Every time anything male crosses her path, including that black cat there, she swoons. I thought that went out with corsets."

“No one told Savannah. And corsets are back in, since Madonna. But Miss Ashleigh is a judge, so good little
contestants don't want to be caught on camera dissing
her." Temple looked up. "Although I'm betting all the cameras are trained on Savannah Ashleigh's bedroom after tonight's scare."

“I need a shower," Mariah declared. She looked in Temple's direction and sniffed. Pointedly. "Where have you been? Smells gross. Let's go.”

This call for a private talk was about as subtle as Emer
aude perfume, but Temple retreated into the bathroom with Mariah for a quick consultation. She actually relished the moisture falling hot water would pump back into her desiccated sinuses. That "secret" passage had
been as deserty dry as a pharaoh's tomb.

“No!" Mariah, red faced and dewy from the makeshift sauna a few minutes later, was rapt. "A secret passage."

“Packed with recording equipment. Nothing Gothic about it. Just high-tech snooping."

“
And with that bodyguard guy. He looks hot.”

Temple wasn't ready to hear this from Mariah but allowed for teen exaggeration. "He's just a middle-aged private cop," she said carefully. "Nothing glamorous like a Day-Glo boy."

“My mom hates those guys."

“
Day-Glo boys?" Temple asked, startled. From Max to
boy bands? Where would Molina's prejudices end?
"No, private cops.”

Maybe, but her mom hated this particular private cop even worse.

“He's right, though," Temple said. "All the pranks here smell like producers' tricks to up the ante on the competition."

“Cops have no imagination," Mariah said authoritatively.

Nor did cops' kids, thank goodness.

“Is that cat going to sleep with us?”

Temple considered Louie. And the fact that Mariah
had seen him once, months ago, with Matt, and didn't
know he was Temple's cat. Or, actually, he wasn't Tem
ple's cat. She was Louie's person. As such, he would
sleep with them.

“Probably," Temple said. "He's an outcast. Savannah would never let him bunk with her precious Persians.”

Giggles were Mariah. "I'd love to see that! Her cats
sure are pretty, though. Mine are kinda scrawny and stripey."

“They're delightful. I remember them as kittens. They were the cutest things."

“
'Cute' doesn't cut it." Mariah had suddenly plunged
into one of those teen dives on a bungee cord to self-
esteem hell.

“
Look. I've been 'cute' my whole life, and I survived it.”

“
Yeah . . . but."

“I am not a 'yeah . . . but.' I am a real girl. Remember,
your police professional mom hired
me
to look after you."

“
She did, didn't she? That was weird. My mom doesn't depend on anybody but herself."

“Maybe that's a problem.”

Mariah reared back. She had bought into Supermom herself.

“She can't be everywhere," Temple pointed out. "And
you gotta admit some strange things are happening here.”

“
But none of them are really real, are they? They're all threats but no action."

“You've got a point. This is a 'reality' show but the ac
tion is strangely unreal. You might even say surreal.”

“
What does that mean?"

“Surreal?" Temple smiled at Midnight Louie, now
sprawled out in the vast wasteland between her and
Mariah's sides of the gigantic bed. "Surreal is sort of like saying this big black cat here is our personal bodyguard."

“Who'd want a cat for a bodyguard? I'd want Enrique Iglesias. Who'd you want?”

Temple considered. "Not Kevin Costner."

“Who?”

Oops. Already over a decade out of date. "Ummm." Nobody Mariah might know came to mind. "The Pink Panther."

“The Pink Panther? Who's that?”

And that gave Temple an opening to tell a fairy story
about a world long ago and far away and very funny. She
took them both miles away from the Teen Queen Castle with its secrets and strangers and perplexing puzzles that seemed to lead nowhere.

Chapter 29
H
ome Sweet
Harassment
Molina couldn't believe it. Only five days at the Teen Queen Castle and Temple Barr had phoned to report four
incidents of threats and harassment. All of it sounded pretty amateur, but even one loose cannon in that hot
house situation was bad news.

She certainly had time to think this whole thing over
at home. The house felt incredibly empty without
Mariah in it, so empty that she hadn't been able to
sleep. This did not bode well for the coming teen dating years.

The competition house was being watched around the
clock. It would have been hard enough to send Mariah off
on her first independent stay away from home under nor
mal circumstances. To do it under the wacky auspices of
a reality TV show was way worse. To have edgy little acts
of violence surrounding the Teen Queen competition
made it a mother's nightmare.

She wandered into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. The ostensible reason was to feed the cats, Caterina and Tabitha, who were also up and hyper, looking lean, mean, and neglected.
Meee-ow.
Feed me. Their girly caretaker was gone.

Not to worry. Mama to the rescue.

The underlying reason to feed the cats was to search
the fruit/vegetable drawer, then the freezer, for something
sweet, fatty, and delicious.

No such animal in the Molina household.

Drat!

Wait!

What the heck is this?

A non—Weight Watchers frozen dessert.

Caramel. Chocolate. Six hundred calories. Thirty-
three carbs. Eighteen grams of fat . . .

Mariah must have imported this anti-diet bomb to the family fridge.

No, she'd been fanatic about low-fat, low-carb foods
the past month. Probably because she'd been hoping to
get The Call from the Teen Queen people.

How could a detective-mother have missed that change
of habit?

Been a little busy at work?

Molina balanced the frozen dessert package on one
palm, weighing its presence here as well as its calories.

The frozen package chilled her hand. The icy chill
drove deeper as she realized . . . this wasn't just some forgotten purchase. This was another "gift" from the anonymous stalker.

She slid the kitchen drawer open and pulled out a large
plastic baggie, one-handed. The frozen container might not hold prints and there probably wouldn't be prints anyway, but she would check.

Meanwhile, her daughter was on her own in the Teen Queen Castle, which was also beset by stalker incidents.

Okay. Temple Barr was on the teen scene. Not bad for
an amateur. A gifted snoop. But no professional.
What to do?