Bare Girl Read online

  She lay there for a long time in the darkness and silence. After a while the panic subsided, although the fear remained as an iron grip on her shoulders and a sickness in her gut.

  How had it come to end like this?

  Her life had started with trouble, risen to the stars, and would now end in misery.

  Even by Mexican standards she had grown up poor, living in the shack with Abuelo in that dirt-kicking village in the middle of nowhere. Both parents gone. No opportunities and no future.

  She had only one thing going for her—Abuelo, her grandfather, who had always believed in her and raised her convinced she was destined for greatness.

  Interviewers and unauthorized biographers had assumed she had made it out of poverty and obscurity because of her good looks and artistic talents, but she had always known that those would have been worth nothing if it hadn’t been for that kind, patient, supportive man.

  Unlike those hacks, she had known other pretty and talented girls in that town. Most of them had ended up singing and dancing in the cantina, selling their bodies for a few pesos. A lucky few had landed husbands and an unsatisfying life of working-class drudgery. At least they didn’t go hungry like so many people in rural Sonora.

  Abuelo had seen her fate if he didn’t intervene, and so he’d intervened. He’d scrimped and saved to get her music lessons, dance lessons, etiquette lessons. She’d won the local junior beauty contest and a couple of singing contests. With the prize money, less than what she carried in her purse these days, he’d bought them both bus tickets and took her to Hermosillo to speak with talent scouts.

  The first one, a smiling man with greased-back hair and manicured hands, had agreed to sign her immediately for a good retainer, but Abuelo refused because he didn’t like the way the man looked at his little granddaughter. The second talent scout, who looked more businesslike, had also offered a contract, but when Abuelo informed him that he would be accompanying his granddaughter everywhere the fellow had backed out. The third, a tired older man with a shabby office and faded posters of his past clients, had passed the test.

  Things had started slowly. Her agent had few contacts and little ability to push his clients, but he was as honest as such men could be. After a couple of months, during which Abuelo and Isabel lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment in a bad barrio, the agent landed her a job singing in a fairground. That job led to another, and another. None paid well, but they moved to a better barrio and still lived modestly.

  “I only moved for your safety,” Abuelo had told her. “We need to spend as little money as possible. More will come eventually, God willing.”

  More did come, and sooner than expected. She won the city’s junior beauty contest, and that got her a five-minute appearance singing and dancing on regional television. The appearance didn’t pay, but those five minutes changed her life. A talent scout from Mexico City saw her and was enthralled. He offered her agent enough for her contract that the tired old man was able to retire, and the talent scout took Abuelo and her to Mexico City.

  From there her rise was rapid, at least it had seemed to be at the time. By then she was in her early teens, and had become alluring instead of simply cute. She sang in nightclubs, with Abuelo sitting just off stage keeping a close eye on her. She danced in a troupe for a while that traveled all over the country and even to Tucson, her first trip out of Mexico. A television spot led to another, then a bit part in a movie. Through all of this Abuelo kept close—patient, supportive, protecting. The agent was smart enough not to complain. The money was starting to grow substantial.

  It was Isabel herself who took the next step. She suggested that they go to Los Angeles for a week to see the talent agencies there. Abuelo was doubtful. It would be so expensive and might lead to nothing. Plus, their agent wouldn’t part with their contract easily.

  At last he relented, and in one of the rare breaks in her increasingly busy schedule they went.

  Isabel had butterflies in her stomach the entire time. Their schedule was packed with meetings and auditions, so much so that she never even got to see Hollywood Boulevard as she had always dreamed of. Little had she known at the time that she’d have a star there one day.

  As she waited outside the doors of agents and casting directors, she despaired at seeing so many other beautiful teenage girls, especially the American girls with their flush, healthy looks and nice jewelry. She felt small among them, insignificant, and didn’t speak to them. She was the shepherd’s granddaughter from a little village even most people in Sonora hadn’t heard of.

  Abuelo noticed and whispered to her, “Don’t worry, some of these girls may have as much talent as you but you have something more—you’ve had to struggle. When you sing songs about loss and longing, you sing them from your heart. You sing them knowing what the lyrics truly mean. When you sing a happy song, you are far happier than these girls, for they have always been happy and you have had to fight for your happiness. The audience will sense that. They will know that you are the real thing instead of a talented imitation.”

  Abuelo turned out to be overly optimistic. The agents and directors said nice things, said they’d be in touch, and never called her back. Defeated, they returned to Mexico and the national circuit.

  Then, a year later, an opportunity came out of nowhere. The American Spanish-language channel Telemundo had seen her audition tape from one of the offices in Los Angeles and wanted to sign her up as a contestant in a talent show. The prize was a record deal. Could they come to the head office in Puerto Rico? There was no guarantee, of course, she’d have to win the contest, but it was a chance.

  The problem was, her agent had already booked her for some performances—a couple of county fairs and a cultural festival in the Yucatán, singing traditional Mexican songs to tourists in the shadow of the Mayan pyramids. The pay was decent but it was just more of the same. They tried to get out of it, tried to convince the agent that going for the contest would be the better shot, but he disagreed.

  “If you win it would be like winning the lottery,” he said. “If you lose I’m out of the major expense of getting you all the way to Puerto Rico, plus all the lost work time. This is the better way.”

  “It’s your choice, Isabel,” Abuelo said after they had weighed the pros and cons for the fiftieth time. “It’s your future. You’re sixteen now. Back home many of the girls your age are already married. We can go, but we’ll have to buy our way out of the contract and pay our own travel expenses. That will cut through almost all of our savings.”

  “But what about your old age?” Isabel protested. “We need money for that.”

  Abuelo only laughed. “I’m already in my old age, and I’m having more fun than when I was a young man. Do what you think is best.”

  After an agonizing couple of days, Isabel decided to buy her way out of the agent’s contract. They booked a flight to Puerto Rico and showed up at the Telemundo studios just in time to go on.

  Isabel had been terrified. She was last in line to go on, and the girls ahead of her were all amazing. When it came to her turn, she and Abuelo locked eyes for a moment, she squared her shoulders, and walked on stage. All fear disappeared as she became focused.

  What followed was one of the best performances of her life. When she finished and the last notes died away, the audience roared its delight. The judges couldn’t even be heard for five minutes.

  She got the contract.

  Now her career really took off. A clip of her performance was one of the first Spanish-language videos to go viral on the Internet. Her first album, sung in Spanish, went gold. She and Abuelo moved to Los Angeles to be closer to the action. The old shepherd felt very out of place in the fine house in the huge city, and spent much of his time on the back porch listening to Mexican radio or going to mass at the local Catholic church, where they had a lovely icon of Raphael the Archangel he could pray to. Isabel’s second album, sung in English, went platinum.

  Then, one quiet Sunday morning s
hortly after he came back from mass, Abuelo had a heart attack and died. The man who had supported her all her life was gone so quickly she didn’t have time to say goodbye.

  “I might be seeing you soon, Abuelo,” Isabel whispered as she lay curled up in her cage.

  She cried for him, as she had cried for him so many times in the past few years, but even in death he had given to her.

  She had been in the early stages of recording her third pop album when he died. For a month she was creatively paralyzed, until one day she sat down at her piano and started to compose some new pieces. They flowed out of her like water from a burst dam—songs about the village with the sheep and the old church, songs about hard work and a patient acceptance of poverty, songs about gathering family in your arms and doing whatever you could to ensure they had a better chance than you had.

  By the end of an exhausting week she had finished composing the entire album. She had taken it to her studio and said this was what she wanted to sing, not the songs the studio had written for her.

  The executives said no. It was too far from her earlier work, too folksy. “Too Latino,” as one of them put it. It wouldn’t sell. She had gone gold and platinum with her previous albums, so why mess with a winning streak? This album wouldn’t sell.

  She dug in her heels. Abuelo would be her next album. The executives dug in their heels too.

  So Isabel took another gamble. Once again she bought her way out of the contract. The settlement and legal fees nearly bankrupted her, but she was free. In a tiny, second-rate studio paid for with credit cards, Isabel produced Abuelo under her own label.

  The executives had been right. It didn’t sell. It wasn’t the light, happy pop her growing fan base had been expecting, and the folk music fans who could have liked it didn’t give it a chance because they assumed Isabel couldn’t perform anything with substance.

  The reviewers, on the other hand, loved it. It swept that year’s awards in the United States and Mexico. It even became a runaway hit in China, where people knew something about poverty and the sacrifices one had to make for family.

  Still struggling financially, she went on an exhausting international tour, where she headlined with her pop songs and slipped in tracks from Abuelo. She clawed back her fan base and attracted new ones, and she made headlines by breaking the record for the largest concert in China. She sold out all ninety-one thousand seats in Beijing National Stadium, a feat only done once before, during the 2008 Summer Olympics.

  Now everyone noticed her. She became an international sensation. More albums followed, and more record-breaking tours. Then Hollywood came calling and she added acting to the list of her many talents. She teamed up with famous designers to come out with her own high-end clothing label. Perfumes and accessories followed. Throughout all of this she retained her own independence. She would never be owned by an agent or producer again. And she remembered the village from where she had come. She opened a clinic there, and a girls’ school, and offered college scholarships. She appeared on television specials for women’s causes.

  More and more she tried to add messages about women’s rights into her songs. It proved frustrating work. She knew most people listened to her for her beauty and class and catchy rhythms, and barely even listened to the lyrics. But at least the money rolled in. That did a lot of good work. She had made some changes, however small, to the world in which she had been born.

  Isabel was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she did not hear the door opening, nor see the faint glimmer of light. The door closed and the light disappeared without her being aware.

  But she heard her abductor come down the stairs.

  Creak, creak, creak.

  Her head snapped up, eyes straining to see in the darkness. She clutched the toilet paper roll like a weapon.

  Creak, creak, creak.

  Silence.

  Isabel thought she heard the scuff of a shoe on concrete, thought she heard the breathing again, but she couldn’t be sure. Unlike last time, this lunatic was trying to be quiet.

  Silence.

  Ding.

  The sound of metal upon metal sounded right behind her. She yelped and spun around.

  Ding.

  It came from her left.

  Ding.

  Now from the other side.

  Ding.

  He had encircled her cage completely. How could he see?

  She could hear the faintest of breathing right in front of her. He stood at the entrance to her cage, but the padlock did not rattle.

  Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.

  The metal object clanged on her bars over and over again. Isabel’s muscles clenched, paralyzing her as sweat poured down her face.

  Silence.

  A second stretched out into a minute, then two.

  Did he expect her to speak? Her throat was a dry knot, and she doubted her mind could form words even if her voice would obey her thoughts. All her life her voice, her seductive voice, her clear singing tones, had carried her to success, and now she had been struck dumb by a sound in the dark.

  Another minute followed, and another. Isabel got the impression that he stood close, just outside the bars, although she could barely hear his breathing. He was trying to stay quiet, using fear like he used sound in order to cow his captive.

  Isabel flinched as a row of fluorescent lights started to flicker on the ceiling. In the flash of light she saw a figure before her, just where she’d thought he would be.

  The first thing she noticed about her abductor was the knife in his hand.

  The blade was only about four inches long, but looked to be quality steel and razor sharp. It came to a needle point at the end, the tip sweeping slightly upwards.

  Her mind flashed back to one of her old boyfriends. Mario Guzman was one of Mexico’s favorite celebrity chefs. His television show was watched by millions, and syndicated all across Latin America. He and Isabel had met at a charity fundraiser to fight hunger in disadvantaged rural communities and had swept each other off their feet. It had been a whirlwind relationship, and over just as quickly. During that time, however, she had enjoyed his company and excellent cooking. It had been nice to have a man cook for her instead of taking her to a restaurant, and he had played his television role while doing so, explaining his techniques and all the utensils in his kitchen.

  That was why Isabel recognized the blade that flickered in and out of her view as a skinning knife.

  It was poised between the bars of her cage, tightly gripped in a gloved hand at the end of a bulky, bent arm. If that arm extended, it would jab the blade right into her belly.

  Still the lights flickered, making the vision before her seem eerie and unreal. With dread she tore her gaze from the blade and looked at the figure before her.

  It was covered head to foot. Soft fabric boots explained how he was able to walk so quietly. Above these he wore a loose canvas flight suit, a one-piece garment that covered the entire, legs, waist, torso, and arms. The psycho was a bit overweight, with a thick chest and arms that did not bulge with muscles. Black leather gloves covered the hands, and in the left hand was a remote control that he had obviously used to turn on the lights. A large canvas sack sat on the floor by his feet.

  The lights came on properly now, giving a steady illumination as she reluctantly looked her abductor in the face…

  … and didn’t see it.

  The face was covered by a gas mask and goggles.

  For a moment the figure stood there, motionless.

  Then he tucked the remote in his pocket, bent down, and opened the canvas bag.

  Slowly, as if he was a designer revealing a secret new dress, he pulled a hide out of the bag.

  Isabel stared, then screamed.

  The hide was human. A woman.

  From behind the mask came a low chuckle.

  Chapter 8

  Erin called Sergio and found that he was at the police station conferring with Captain Wilson. She headed over there, and
, after a brief consultation with the officer about her suspicions, went for a walk with Sergio. She could have talked with Isabel’s manager in the privacy of the station but decided to put him at ease as much as possible.

  “Where have you been?” Sergio asked. “I thought you would be at my meeting with Captain Wilson.”

  “I was pursuing some leads. I also had an interview with Bridges. I figured you knew that.”

  “Bridges?”

  “The reporter from the Daily Review.”

  Sergio still looked blank.

  “You know, the British journalist?”

  “Oh, right, he cornered me on the night of the kidnapping and tried to get an exclusive. What an annoying man.”

  “He also recommended me for the job,” Erin prompted. Was this guy so wrapped up in Isabel’s disappearance that he had forgotten?

  Sergio shook his head. “No, he didn’t recommend you. What makes you say that? It was your colleague.”

  Now it was Erin’s turn to be confused. “My colleague?”

  “Yes, English like you. A private investigator. I have his card here somewhere.”

  Sergio rummaged in his wallet and pulled out a business card. On plain white cardstock were printed the words:

  “Edward Waters—Private Detective.

  Divorce, Insurance, Fraud, Business Fraud, Child Support.”

  Below it was a cell phone number.

  Erin’s brow furrowed. She didn’t recognize the name. Private investigation was a pretty tightly knit profession and she knew almost everyone in the region, either personally or by reputation.

  “How did you meet him?” she asked.

  “He came up to me shortly after Isabel was kidnapped. When he introduced himself as a private investigator at first I brushed him off, because the last thing I needed was someone hustling for business at a time like that. But then he said he wasn’t qualified for such a big case and recommended you. Said you were the best on the East Coast and had been kidnapped yourself as a child. I looked you up and read about your history. That must have been terrible. I’m so sorry. This must be hard for you.”