2 Sisters Detective Agency(45)

Vera followed the woman into the house, her upper lip stiff as she tried to mask her disgust. The houses of old people always gave her the creeps. The elderly made her think of disease, bodily fluids, dust. There were still people living in Brentwood who had bought their houses before the boom in the seventies, who didn’t belong next to the sprawling ranches of the actors, oil magnates, Saudi princes, and stock-market superstars who owned the rest of the area. They were normies, nestling where they didn’t belong, like parasites, their modest homes overshadowed by their neighbors’ huge walls and trees designed to keep out the paparazzi.

Vera followed the crone to the second floor and an open window. When the old woman’s back was turned, Vera slipped a tiny wireless black camera the size of a garden pea out of the pocket of her skirt and peeled the backing tape off its surface. Vera went to the window and leaned out, made a show of squinting in the afternoon light at the roof of the first floor while she stuck the camera to the outer edge of the windowsill.

“Whoops,” she said brightly when the camera was in place. “I think I might have the wrong house.”

With the device in place, Vera walked out, not bothering to disguise her distaste now for her surroundings. She brushed off her shoulders, straightened her spine, and she was Vera Petrov again. Without bothering to offer the old woman any kind of thanks or good-bye, Vera took a bottle of antibacterial gel out of her handbag as she exited the house and didn’t look back as she sanitized her hands.

Across the street, behind a black wrought-iron gate woven with ivy, a small brown terrier was snapping angrily at her, its barks squeaky and racked with panic.

“See you tonight,” Vera murmured at the animal.





Chapter 57



The GPS had led us to Santee Alley, the downtown fashion district. My father’s Maserati was a smooth, humming, luxuriously awful ride compared to my Buick, and for the first time I had a moment to grieve my lost leopard-print lady. I stood by the window of a children’s clothing store, gawking at a pair of eight-hundred-dollar shoes for toddlers as a little girl inside the store gawked at me. Between my pink hair and tattoos and oversize, well, everything, little kids are often fascinated by me.

Baby tapped away on her phone. She stopped to check her reflection in the window of the store, deciding to pull her curls into a puff at the very top of her head. She dropped a hip and pouted at herself as I stifled a laugh.

“We don’t have an appointment,” she said, stepping back to look at the next store over. “We’ll have to beg our way in. So it’s important that you stay out of sight.”

“What is this place?” I looked up. The windows at the front of the other store were blackened. A single gold letter U was bolted above the heavy steel door painted black. “U? What’s that stand for?”

“It’s not U like You.” Baby rolled her eyes. “It’s Ooo—Ooo La La.”

“What does it mean?”

“Nothing.”

“So why does it have to be pronounced that way?”

“Because it’s, like, the most relevant emerging fashion boutique in the world.” She huffed. “And that’s how you say it.”

“I thought you said we were coming to see very important people.”

“We are,” she said. “Sean and Penny Hanley are just…everything.”

“‘Everything’?” I said, mimicking the reverence with which she had said the word. Baby didn’t so much as crack a smile.

“Get out of the way, Rhonda.” She waved me off to the side and pushed a pearl buzzer set in the wall. The beg our way in she had mentioned seemed to happen by ESP while she stood there pouting with her hip dropped. The door clicked as it unlocked, and I had to scramble to follow Baby into the store before the steel door shut on me.

The space inside was elaborate but confused. It seemed the store’s designers hadn’t known if they wanted to go for abandoned warehouse or haunted Edwardian mansion. Candelabras stood by crumbling faux brick walls, and diamond chandeliers hung on worn brown ropes from exposed pipes. There were two racks of clothes in a space that might have accommodated fifty. Behind a huge black marble counter, a young woman with a blond bob was arranging paperwork. In a corner of the room, a young man, who so closely resembled her that they were clearly twins, was slumped in a plush velvet chair, scrolling on his phone. He lifted his eyes from the screen, looked me over, laughed, and went back to his scrolling. The young woman came out from behind the counter with a similar disdain, her step quick and stern, like someone preparing to chase a beggar off their porch.

“You don’t have an appointment,” she said to Baby. “And who are you? I didn’t see you on the security system.”

She made a gesture, and two suited security guards materialized seemingly out of nowhere. My mind was racing with defenses, but Baby spoke over me.

“This is my fashion consultant, Eleanor Wave,” Baby said. “I’m so sorry we didn’t check in earlier. We just arrived from Paris.”

The young woman gave Baby a full-body visual examination, then stood back like she’d been slapped awake. She put a hand to her chest with the kind of drama that made me want to giggle.

“I’m Penny Hanley.” She offered her hand. “Oh, your cheekbones.”