E is for Exposed (Malibu Mystery Book 5) Read online

  “E” is for Exposed

  Sean Black

  Rebecca Cantrell

  Copyright Information

  This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to real person, alive or dead, is completely coincidental.

  “E” is for Exposed

  Copyright © 2017 by Rebecca Cantrell and Sean Black

  Cover Design by Kit Foster www.kitfosterdesign.com

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  About The Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Epilogue

  More Malibu Mystery Books

  Also by Rebecca Cantrell

  Also by Sean Black

  Malibu Mystery News

  About The Book

  Sofia Salgado’s latest case at Maloney Investigations has some pretty tempting ingredients: blackmail, male strippers, and whipped cream.

  When a friend of Sofia’s mom finds herself the victim of blackmail, stuffy Aidan has to go undercover as an exotic dancer, much to Sofia’s delight.

  Can Aidan make it in the cutthroat world of male stripping? Can Sofia stop her mom getting too involved? Does whipped cream have fewer calories when it’s licked from a man’s naked torso?

  All these questions and more will be answered in the latest hilarious adventure featuring actress turned PI Sofia Salgado, from New York Times bestseller Rebecca Cantrell and Sean Black.

  1

  Mom, sex, and tape.

  Three little words that Sofia Salgado hoped she’d never have to deal with in the same sentence. And not just anyone’s mom either. This was her own mom, Janet.

  Yet here she was, staring in wide-eyed, jaw-to-chest horror at her worst nightmare come to life.

  And, to make matters worse, the male star of the show wasn’t Janet’s husband, Sofia’s step-father, Tim. It was Aidan Maloney, her colleague at the detective agency.

  Hurriedly, she clicked the video player’s stop button. A freeze frame of Janet’s face filled the screen, her lips slightly parted. Sofia closed her eyes. Maybe when she opened them again she’d see something different. Perhaps her brain had just played some kind of warped trick on her.

  She counted down from ten. When she reached zero she would open her eyes.

  She would look at the freeze frame again, only this time the woman’s face closing in on the tiny camera attached to Aidan’s undies wouldn’t be her mom’s. It would be someone else’s.

  Doing her best not to hyperventilate, or have a full-blown panic attack, Sofia finished her countdown.

  Four, three, two, one, zero.

  She exhaled slowly, and opened her eyes.

  Nope. Still her mom. Her mouth, lips slightly parted, inches away from Aidan’s babymaker.

  Sofia closed her eyes again. Her stomach was churning and she was worried she might throw up all over the office carpet.

  How? Why?

  This could not be happening.

  She couldn’t look at it again. With her eyes still closed, she got up from her office chair, and fumbled for the off button at the back of the computer monitor. She found it and pressed. She gave it a few seconds to make sure the screen was off.

  Eyes open, she stared at her reflection in the black monitor. She looked like someone interviewed on television just after they’d witnessed a plane crash.

  She startled as the office door opened behind her.

  Aidan Maloney stood in the doorway clutching a takeout container with two juices and two coffees. He walked over to the desk and put it down. “Here you go, OJ and a latte from Marmalade.”

  He stopped dead in his tracks as he saw her expression. He glanced around the office for any sign of whatever might have caused such visible distress. “You okay?”

  No, she wasn’t. She was about as far from okay as it was possible for a human being to be. Even one who, ever since she’d started at Maloney Investigations, had been the object of any number of humiliations.

  She tried to find the words. She didn’t have any. She was all out. She wasn’t even entirely sure what her precise thoughts were right now. Apart from Eww.

  “Sofia? You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  She didn’t reply. She still had no words.

  Aidan slumped into the chair next to her, completely casual. “You reviewing the footage from last night?”

  Sofia nodded. Everything around her had taken on an air of unreality. It was like she was there but not there. She guessed this was how people felt when they were in shock.

  Aidan scooted his chair over a few more inches. “So what we got? Anything good?”

  She stared straight ahead. Aidan seemed oblivious to her. That was par for the course.

  “So, let me take a look.”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean ‘no’?”

  He stood and reached over her. “You know this monitor’s shut off, right?”

  Sofia’s hand shot out and grabbed Aidan’s wrist. “Leave it.”

  He stared at her. “What’s going on? You’re being really weird. Even by your standards.”

  That was it. Him accusing her of being weird. Something snapped. She glared at him as he shook her wrist. “How could you? My mom?”

  He looked at her blankly. “How could I what? And what’s your mom got to do with anything?”

  Sofia stood so fast that her office chair scooted back with such force it smashed into the wall. “You know what you did. Don’t deny it. I saw it. On tape.”

  He reached behind the monitor. He was about to press the button to switch it on. Sofia launched herself at him. She tackled him shoulder high, propelling him off his chair. They landed in a heap on the floor.

  He might have been six feet two and well built, but Sofia was filled with righteous anger. She drew back her fist, ready to sock him one.

  “What the heck is going on here?”

  Brendan Maloney, Aidan’s father, head of Maloney Investigations and retired LAPD homicide detective, was standing over them. He did not look happy. “Heck” was about as coarse as his language ever got. Him throwing
an H-bomb was like a regular person throwing the F-bomb. Worse, in fact. Much worse.

  “Ask him,” Sofia said.

  “Ask her.”

  “Tell him what you did,” said Sofia.

  “I have no idea. I came in with some coffee and a juice for you, and find you having some kind of nervous breakdown.”

  “That’s right. I am. And it’s all your fault.”

  “Enough!” Brendan’s voice boomed. “Get up, and go into my office. Sofia, you can tell me what you think Aidan did and, Aidan, you can tell me if it’s true.”

  “Oh, I will,” said Sofia, getting to her feet.

  “Great. I can’t wait to hear it.”

  “Me either,” said Brendan.

  Like two kids caught fighting by the principal, Sofia and Aidan followed Brendan into his office. They sat.

  “Okay,” said Brendan. “Who wants to begin?”

  2

  One week earlier

  Nirvana Cove,

  Malibu, California

  Still half asleep, Sofia turned over in bed and snuggled in next to her rodeo-star boyfriend, Jaxon. She wrapped her arms around his tight surfer’s waist and spooned him.

  Jaxon was a surfing cowboy she’d met right here in Nirvana Cove when he’d gotten into difficulty in the ocean after his board had clunked him in the head. Unlike most of the guys she met in LA, Jaxon was super-sweet and a complete gentleman. It didn’t hurt that he had broad shoulders, lots of ripped lean muscle and a washboard stomach.

  She nuzzled her face into the back of his neck. The smell of him drove her crazy. The spooning seemed to be having the desired effect. Jaxon turned to face her. She gazed into his deep green-brown eyes. They kissed.

  Sofia’s hand slipped down, the tips of her fingers tracing the contours of his abs. Suddenly, Jaxon pulled away.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Sorry, I can’t do it if I’m being watched. It ain’t right.”

  Sofia sat up in bed.

  She followed Jaxon’s gaze to where a seagull was perched perfectly still on the edge of her dresser, watching them. “Fred, how did you get in here?”

  Fred Seagull, to give him his full name, cocked his head and shot her a beady-eyed look that suggested he didn’t approve of whatever had been about to go down. She turned toward her bedroom door. It was wide open. The slight breeze blowing through suggested that another door or a window was open somewhere.

  “My fault,” said Jaxon. “I was too hot last night so I opened one of the windows.”

  Sofia leaned in and kissed him on the lips. “No such thing as too hot.”

  Jaxon smiled.

  Now she knew Fred was there, she could feel his judgmental stare. She reached back and pulled up the sheet to cover her bare butt from the bird’s gaze.

  The mood was gone. She rolled back over and reached for her robe.

  Jaxon reached out and pulled her back in. “I’ll shoo him out. Then we can get down to whatever you had in mind.”

  “No. No shooing. The last person who tried to shoo Fred ended up in an emergency room. They probably have PTSD.”

  She got up, threw on her robe, perched on the bed and ran her hands through Jaxon’s thick, shoulder-length black hair. “We’ve got all day to ourselves, remember? I thought we could go to brunch at Marmalade, take a drive up the coast and then come back here.”

  Jaxon smiled and gave her a lingering kiss. “In that case, I’m gonna catch some waves. Work up a real appetite.”

  “For me or for brunch?”

  Jaxon grinned. “Both!”

  Fred gave a loud caw. Clearly all the talk of food was making him hungry, which Sofia suspected was the real reason he’d snuck in. Fred was a bird who thought with his stomach.

  Sofia’s cell phone rang. Her mom’s name flashed on the screen. Jaxon scooted past her, heading for the bathroom. Sofia picked up her phone.

  “Hey, Mom, what’s up?”

  Her question was answered with loud sobs, and a woman shouting in the background, “No cops. Don’t call the police. You promised me you wouldn’t do that.”

  “Mom?” said Sofia.

  3

  “Mom? Mom! Are you okay? What’s going on there?”

  In less than a second Sofia had gone from loved up and blissed out to a panicked mess. With her phone pressed to her ear, she walked through into the living room of her eggshell blue, double-wide trailer that overlooked the blue Pacific Ocean.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, I’m here, Sofia. Just give me a second.”

  “Do you need me to call the cops? Are you in trouble?”

  There was a rattle as her mom put the phone down and the two voices she could hear, Janet’s and another woman’s, became more distant.

  “Will you just settle down and have a glass of wine?”

  “It’s ten thirty, Janet. Not even.”

  “Okay, what about a Xanax? I’m sure I have some somewhere. I got some for Tim to get him through the last Ryder Cup.”

  Tim was her mom’s husband, and Sofia’s step-dad. Xanax was a sedative used to calm anxiety. He took the Ryder Cup very seriously.

  “No, thank you, I don’t need drugs. I need help.”

  “That’s what I’m doing, Marcie. I have my daughter on the phone. She’s a detective.”

  “How many times? I can’t involve the cops. If Wade finds out about this . . .”

  “Marcie, she’s not a real cop, she’s a private detective. Or, at least, she works for one.”

  Realizing her mom wasn’t in the middle of a robbery or anything life-threatening, Sofia padded into the kitchen and switched on the coffee-maker. She dug out some scraps of lunch meat and used them to lure Fred outside onto the porch. She could hear Jaxon in the shower, singing a Garth Brooks song. He loved Garth Brooks.

  “Okay, but don’t give her my name,” said the woman.

  Sofia had already worked out she was called Marcie, so she made a note to keep that to herself.

  “Fine. Now, will you let me speak to her? Sofia, are you still there?”

  “I’m here,” said Sofia, waving from her porch to her neon-green-Lycra-clad neighbor, Tex, who was on one of her morning laps around Nirvana Cove. Tex returned the wave with a salute as she sped past.

  “One of my neighbors has a problem and I wondered if you could come over and talk with her about it.”

  “Sure, what is it?”

  All Sofia had gleaned so far was that Marcie didn’t want anyone in law enforcement to know about this problem. That could mean she had broken the law. Which might put Sofia in a potentially awkward spot. Especially as the head of the agency she worked for was not only a former LAPD detective with a reputation to protect but could also be a stickler for the rules.

  “It’s kind of sensitive.”

  Sofia had gathered that too. “If you could give me a rough idea.”

  “Can’t you just come over?”

  Her first real day off in weeks, and now her mom wanted her to drive all the way out to Glendale from Malibu to talk with some hysterical neighbor. It was Glendale, how serious could it be?

  “I’m kind of having a day off. Tomorrow I’m back at work so I’d be happy to . . .”

  Her mom lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’m not sure it’ll wait until then. She’s kind of on the edge. I shouldn’t tell you this, but she’s being”―she lowered her voice even further― “blackmailed. By a man. A man with a giant penis.”

  “A man with a what?” Sofia asked, incredulous.

  “You heard me.”

  “I’ll be there in an hour.”

  4

  As Sofia pulled her red Tesla Roadster into a space on her mom’s driveway, Tim was hurriedly loading his golf bag into the back of his sedan. He waved at Sofia. She got out and he gave her a hug. She liked Tim. He was a good guy.

  “Your mom’s waiting for you in the kitchen with Marcie.”

  “I’m not supposed to know her name.”

  “Then you
never heard it from me,” he said, closing the trunk.

  “I thought you kept all your golf stuff at the club?”

  Tim was a member of the local Oakmont Country Club in Glendale. He usually walked down there for his daily round so she was surprised to see him driving.

  “They’re doing some maintenance work on the course so I’m playing somewhere else today.”

  “Nice. It’s good to get a change of scenery. Where are you playing?” said Sofia, making conversation, even though she was secretly desperate to hear more about the big-penis blackmailer.

  “No idea. I just really, really need to get out of this house. There are some conversations a man of my age really doesn’t want to be part of.”

  He got into his car, waved again at Sofia, and drove off at high speed. Sofia took a deep breath and walked toward the front door. She had a feeling this was going to be good.

  5

  The first thing Sofia heard as she stepped into the house was Marcie saying, “You know, I think I might take that Xanax after all.”

  “Okay, let me go see if I can find them.” Janet tripped out of the kitchen, a glass of wine in hand, and almost walked straight into Sofia, who was coming down the hallway. “Oh, you’re here, great.”