“Sorry.” Diana pulled back the now-ringing phone. “My daughter, she’s calling. That never happens. Excuse me.”
Diana pushed open the door, and daylight flooded the workshop. Lana sat alone on the terrible bench, seeing and not seeing, letting the sunshine blast away her memories of the past.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Thirty minutes later, Lana pulled up in front of the Central Coast Land Trust offices. She had been to Santa Cruz only once, in December, for an ill-advised consultation with a nutritionist who extolled the healing powers of bee pollen and raw turmeric. The town struck her as defiantly dirty, with women who didn’t shave and grown men strolling around in sandals and tie-dyed socks. But at least it had ample free street parking.
Lana sandwiched her Lexus between a late-model BMW and a dusty pickup truck. Her mind wasn’t done sifting through what Diana had told her. But she had to focus. Her left arm still felt limp, so she used her right to straighten her wig and take a swig of water. After a coughing fit followed by thirty seconds of slow breathing into her tote bag, she was ready to go.
The woman at the front desk was Lana’s least favorite kind: young and beautiful. In Lana’s experience, women like this receptionist—perky breasts, French-tipped fingernails—were hostile toward older women, using wanton cruelty to mask the fear that they too might someday become undesirable. But this one was all smiles. Her name was Gabriella-call-me-Gaby, and her voice was even breathier in person than it had been on the phone. She beamed at Lana, then cranked it up another notch when Lana told her she was there to see the director. Gaby placed a quick call to the back, then offered Lana an armchair, a water, a coffee, a tissue, and a magazine. Lana suspected the girl might offer her a pony if Victor Morales didn’t get to the front soon.
A few minutes later, Victor was holding Lana’s hands and kissing both her cheeks.
“It’s a pleasure to see you again,” he said. Victor had on the same silver belt buckle as at the wake and a different pair of cowboy boots, black with golden lions pawing at the sides.
“Gaby, this is Lana Rubicon.” He rolled the r slightly, lifting it to the light. “She is in the commercial real estate business in Los Angeles. But she wants to learn about our work. Thinking of joining us on the side of the angels, no?” He winked at Lana. “Shall we?”
The land trust may have been a nonprofit, but they’d spared no expense on their offices. Behind Gaby’s desk was a large, sun-filled room with bamboo flooring and exposed redwood beams overhead. The windows at the far end framed a small grove of spindly eucalyptus trees and coyote brush behind the building. Everything was tasteful and well lit, including the taxidermic eagle in mid-flight above their heads. “It was electrocuted on a power line over a property we manage,” Victor explained. “They are endangered, of course, but when one dies . . .”
He walked Lana past a herd of attractive twenty-somethings on ergonomic chairs, hard at work in ironed canvas shirts. The reward for giving away your land, apparently, was a naturalist with good hair and an amber bracelet handing you a cappuccino.
They reached a solid oak door on the left side of the office, and he ushered her in. “Our library,” he announced. “Also our only meeting room. The architect was obsessed with open plan.”
It was an elegant den of cushy chairs and low light, the kind of room where you could cement a clandestine arms deal or sign away the deed to grandma’s orchard. Two walls held floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a third was covered with hand-drawn maps, and the fourth had a low window looking out at a parking lot.
Victor whipped a curtain across the window to hide a single rusted Toyota Corolla on the concrete. “I tried to convince the neighbors to let us plant a garden,” he said. “I wanted to do heritage native crops, rare ones we’ve been reintroducing in the field. But no luck.” He shrugged. “They say they need the parking.”
Once settled at the table—sustainably logged teak, Victor assured her—Lana took out her legal pad and water bottle, and palmed an extra-strength aspirin for easy access.
“Thank you for seeing me today,” she cooed. It came out with more croak than she’d hoped for. “It must be a distressing time, and I’m hoping I can be of service.”
His left eyebrow lifted. “What were you imagining?”
Despite her interest in the arguments over the Rhoads ranch, Lana decided to focus on what was most important. “I’ve been looking into the events that led to Ricardo Cruz’s passing.”