How To Salsa in a Sari (9 page)

Shaking with anger, Issa stepped back from the door. She was not going anywhere. Cat was going down. The war was officially on.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice but If You Mess with Me You Better Think Twice

Issa
was in the school newspaper office at six the next morning. As the people and events reporter for the Athens Apex for the past two years, she considered the newspaper office her only sanctuary in the whole school. Today, however, she wasn't there to write an article for the paper. She had some serious research to do.

“What're you doing?”

Issa looked up from her tangerine iMac and saw Ishaan standing in the doorway. She could ask him the same thing. Ishaan covered the sports section and usually wrote his articles in the afternoons.

“Homework. What about you?” Issa smiled awkwardly. She still felt a little stupid about their last conversation, but Ishaan didn't seem even slightly weirded out.

Ishaan didn't bat an eye. “Couldn't sleep. Thought I'd come in and finish up the article on the proposed rugby team before class started. So, homework, huh?”

“Yeah.” Issa closed the LexisNexis search tool she'd had open. She usually used the site to dig up public records and legal forms on prominent members of the community, but today she was looking for someone else. Someone closer to home.

Ishaan dropped his books opposite Issa on the desk and sat down, looking as if he wasn't going anywhere for a while.

“So, what are you really doing here?” Ishaan pulled his laptop from his bag and set it on the desk, plugging the cord into the wall. “Issa Mazumder never sleeps without finishing last night's homework, so I assume you're not doing homework.”

Issa's cheeks burned. Damn Ishaan.
Why
did he know her so well? “I'm looking into someone's background.”

“For an article?” Ishaan stopped typing. “Who did you get assigned this month?”

“Not for the paper.” Issa fiddled with the mouse.

“Okay, oh, mysterious one. What're you talking about?”

As usual, she didn't feel like keeping anything from him. No matter how crazy it made her seem. Issa glanced into the hallway to make sure no one was around before filling Ishaan in on the events of the night before.

Ishaan's eyes darkened with anger. “You can't stay there anymore. Did you talk to your mom?”

“No. I need to handle this on my own. It's my problem. My mom is just so happy that…” She shook her head. “I need to get some dirt on Cat. Something no one knows. And then I'll use it against her. I'm searching all over the Web.”

Ishaan studied her, arms behind his head, front legs of his chair off the floor. “You're going to pull a Cat on Cat?”

“Exactly. She has it in for me, Ishaan. I—I need to do it.” Already Issa could hear the desperation in her voice. She'd lain awake in her bed half the night seething with fury. She'd never hated anyone before. Alisha always preached that it took as much energy to hate someone as it did to love them, so therefore it was much better to forget hatred and embrace love. Issa was pretty sure her mother's tree-hugging ways didn't apply to Cat.

“Can I help?” Ishaan asked.

“Yes!” Issa was relieved. He didn't think she was crazy. Not that crazy anyway. “I'm using LexisNexis because too many results came up on search engines. Can you look through the Google hits on ‘Catalina Morena' and see if anything looks fishy?”

Ishaan powered on his computer. “Give me half an hour.”

Issa smiled. No matter what, he was an ace researcher. She knew she could count on him to help her out and keep it quiet. The last thing she wanted was word getting back to Cat.

They worked for twenty minutes before Ishaan broke the silence with a loud “huh.” His trademark expression for when he was on to something.

“What's going on?” Within seconds Issa was peering over Ishaan's shoulder. “What did you find?”

“Something weird. Look at all the articles on Cat's father.”

 

2000—Diego Morena gives $1 million to unprivileged children. 1998—Diego Morena wins libel case for Electronica Media. 2002—Diego Morena named employee of the year at Electronica Media.

 

“Yeah, so?” Issa skimmed the hits. Diego was a superstar as a corporate attorney at Electronica Media. He'd made his millions by climbing the corporate ladder and good investments. She already knew that.

“All articles start at 1995. Where was he before that? Literally, there is not one article stating any information on his life before 1995.”

Issa scrubbed her toe against the floor. Nineteen ninety-five. She recalled her mother telling her something about Diego and Cat moving to the U.S. only when Cat was six years old. Ten years ago, that made sense. But in the millions of articles on Diego in the
Wall Street Journal
and the
New York Times,
there should be
something
about his life back in Cuba.

Interesting, interesting. Maybe this would lead nowhere, but she had to give it a shot.

“I need to do some investigating,” Issa said out loud. “And I need to be alone in the Morena mansion to do it.”

 

“Thanks for bringing me home, Mom,” Issa said in her weakest voice. “I'm just gonna go lie down.”

Alisha frowned. “You sure you're not dying? I'm sure I could call in a substitute for the rest of the day if you're dying.”

Issa pressed a hand to her abdomen and unlocked the car door. “I'm not dying! Go back to work, I'll see you in the evening. I'll be fine and I promise to call if I need anything.”

Issa waved and started toward the guest house with Alisha still looking concerned. Issa knew why. In sixteen years, she'd been sick maybe ten times. Alisha always teased that she was Little Miss Unbreakable. Issa hated missing school for any reason.

But today was different. She knew the middle of a workday was the only time she could be assured that no one would be home. The whole house would be her own personal little LexisNexis.

She'd stumbled dramatically into Alisha's classroom and asked her mother if she could take her home. She'd claimed she'd had an attack of stomach cramps during calculus and couldn't even bear to sit in a chair for another second.

Issa watched from the window of the guest-house window as Alisha's Toyota pulled out of the driveway. She gave herself two minutes before sneaking out of the guest house and letting herself into the big house through the back door. She stood in the kitchen and listened for any sounds. Neither the Lotus nor Diego's Lexus was in the garage.

She had the whole house to herself. On any other day, she would have taken this opportunity to snoop around Cat's room and find out what Cat Morena was really about, but there was no time for that today.

Issa tested the door to Diego's office. Considering the value of the paintings and books in the room, she was surprised to find it unlocked. She quietly closed the door behind her and surveyed the room.

So many possible hiding places for Diego's secrets. The desk, in between the books on the shelves, behind each painting. Combined with the fact that she didn't know what she was looking for, Issa felt silly for a moment. So a Google search had turned up no results on Diego's life beyond ten years. The Internet had barely existed before that. Was she just being paranoid?

Instinct told her to not waste time pondering these issues and to take this opportunity to start digging into Diego's life immediately. She tried the top drawer of the desk. A million pens, some sticky notes. Butter-yellow legal pads with Electronica Media letterheads with notes written on them. Boring.

She tried the other drawers, reaching into the bottom farthest corners, the place where people hid their deepest secrets. The most incriminating thing she found was a battered copy of the Holy Bible in the bottommost drawer.

Wow, Diego was secretly religious. Scandalous. She flipped through the Bible and a photograph fell out. She studied the black-and-white picture. It was a grainy shot of a woman. She had Cat's eyes and her long silky hair. Issa flipped the photo over and noticed two things. A key taped to the back of the picture with a name underneath: Maria Sanchez Soledad, 1994. Havana, Cuba.

Who on earth was this? Couldn't be Cat's mother, she had a different last name. Maybe she'd been a modern woman and used her maiden name.

Maria Soledad, who are you?

Issa sat back on her heels. Something felt off about this whole thing. Why did Diego have this picture hidden away?

She carefully pried the key off the photograph with her fingernail and looked around the room. Where there was a key, there had to be a lock.

Taking a tip from the old black-and-white
Maltese Falcon
-esque movies she and Alisha loved to watch, Issa felt around behind all of Diego's paintings to look for any hidden safes.

Nothing.

Hoping for a possibility of a secret room hidden behind the bookshelves, she started moving books out of shelves and waiting for a wall to start moving.

Nothing.

“I've been watching too much TV,” she muttered as she replaced all the books she'd moved.

This was stupid, there were literally a million places Diego could have a secret safe. It might not even be in the house. She was wasting time. She should just take the first-edition copy of
Pride and Prejudice
Diego had told her about yesterday and go back to the guest house for an afternoon of reading by the fireplace. Now, there was a good plan. Now all she had to do was find the book.

It had to be expensive, so probably he'd placed it high up on a shelf hidden from burglars or unruly teenagers or whatnot.

She squinted through the sunshine pouring through the skylight to see the top shelves of the bookcases.

Strange.

She noticed there was a small area in the north corner of the library that had a shelf of books sticking out a bit. The books almost seemed like they were going to topple off the shelf. Issa dragged over a chair to the shelf and stood on her tiptoes to reach one of the leather-bound books. It came off the shelf easily into her hand. She reached into the empty space the book left behind to see what was causing the book to not fit. Her fingernails touched metal.

Interesting.

She quickly grabbed all the books on the shelf and placed them carefully on the floor. Reaching up into the now uncovered shelf, she felt a small box.

Issa wasted no time dragging the box off the shelf and placing it on the floor. A box with a lock. What were the chances? Pulling out the key from the Bible, she tried the lock on the box.

Perfect fit.

Issa sat on the floor and slowly opened the box, expecting a human skull or something.

No skulls, only newspaper clippings. In Spanish. Each article had a picture of the Maria woman from Diego's Bible picture. Issa racked up her limited eighth-grade Spanish and tried to read one of the articles. From working with the press, she knew that the most important information lay in the first two lines of the article.

“Oh my God!”

Diego had murdered his wife, Cat's mother, and fled Havana!

Issa could barely breathe. She was standing in the office of a murderer. This explained everything. Why Diego never talked about Cat's mother, why Diego
Morena
seemed to only come into existence ten years ago. There was no Diego Morena, only Diego Soledad, who was a violent criminal. A murderer who her mother was about to marry!

Her heart was pounding so loudly in her ears that she missed the sound of a car pulling up to the driveway until the engine stopped.

Crap!

She slammed the box shut with all the articles back in and replaced it on the shelf. She did her best to reshelf the books the way she'd found them.

The key!

She ran back to the desk and taped the key to the back of the photograph. She had just restashed the Bible when the door of the library swung open.

She looked up guiltily, her hand still on the handle of the now-closed drawer.

Diego stood in the doorway. Issa's throat closed up. He was going to kill her and bury her body under the swimming pool. Just like in
Desperate Housewives.
Oh, boy, this was going to be bad.

Diego smiled. “How're you feeling? Your mother told me you weren't well. Your mother and I are both taking the afternoon off to take care of you.”

Issa's brain told her to move, to say something, to come up with an excuse for why she was sitting here in front of his desk. “I, um, I'm sorry. I came here to look for the Austen and I couldn't find it. I should just go—”