After a caviar-related disaster, Sofia Salgado races to prevent the assassination of Maloney Investigations’ greatest celebrity—Fred the seagull.
When Sofia returns from vacation, she discovers that her “pet” seagull, Fred, has become her greatest enemy: the paparazzi. Her former agent has dressed him with a tiny camera and created a wildly successful YouTube channel using his footage. To ensure his loyalty, her agent has been bribing Fred with caviar, feeding into his addiction and stoking a fire within his tiny bird heart that can only be quenched by more caviar. So he starts hitting luxurious parties.
And that’s where it all goes south.
Fred crashes a party for caviar but ends up filming nefarious activities. When the disgruntled host uses bullets to defend his secrets, Sofia must find the bird before the host gets another chance to finish the job. Weighing her down is her insufferable fellow detective, Aidan Maloney, and her kindergartener bodyguard, Violet.
Can Sofia lead this crew to Fred before it’s too late?
Chapter One
Sofia stood on the porch of her cozy trailer, enjoying the sounds of early morning. The Pacific Ocean stretched in front of her, enigmatic and silver. White gulls wheeled between the water and the sky, and waves crashed against the sands.
The view and the location made her little blue mobile home one of the most expensive trailers on Earth, but she loved it anyway. She took a deep breath and lost herself in appreciation of Mother Nature—salty breeze against her cheeks, the fresh smell of eucalyptus, and an early-morning glow on the mountains.
Her peace lasted all of seven seconds.
A loud squawk from the railing around her front porch reminded her of what was important.
“Good morning, Fred,” she said.
A gull blinked one beady eye at her. He was plump and sleek, and as unforgiving as the ocean. Fred was kind of her pet, inasmuch as he could be anybody’s pet, since he was a wild seagull who did whatever he wanted. What he wanted now was to yell at her until she gave him breakfast. It was their morning routine.
He squawked again, probably waking up the neighbors.
“I checked before I came outside,” she told him. “All I have to eat in the house is some stale bread.”
She tore it into four pieces and set them atop the wooden railing. Fred cocked his head and glared at it with one yellow eye. Usually, he devoured everything she gave him. Why was he so finicky today?
“I was off on a trip with my parents, and I haven’t had time to shop yet.” She felt ridiculous apologizing to a seagull because her scraps weren’t good enough, but he seemed to expect it. “I’ll pick up fish or something on the way home.”
Fred squawked again. He sounded grouchy. He walked over to look at the bread, but instead of eating it, he crammed one webbed foot onto the wholegrain surface, then ruffled his feathers. That was a pretty cold rejection.
She looked at the bird more closely. “What happened to your leg?”
His legs were usually dusty pink, but today one was a weird purple. Was that a bad sign? He seemed healthy, and his leg didn’t seem to be injured. He didn’t have a limp. She bent to examine it. The leg was purple from his webbed toes up to where it disappeared into his white feathers. A lavender blotch stained them. He must have stepped in something.
Could it have made him sick? That might explain why he wasn’t eating. She couldn’t imagine what else might get in the way of Fred’s appetite. Should she call a vet? Was there a rescue organization for gulls? She ought to know. What kind of bird parent didn’t know these things?
“Good morning!” boomed a voice from behind her. She jumped. Interestingly, Fred didn’t budge.
She sighed and turned. Just as she’d expected: her ex-agent Jeffery Weiner. He wore red board shorts with a weird wide belt and a pair of designer sunglasses. It was way too early to need sunglasses. Like a lot about Jeffery, they were for show.
“How’s my favorite client?” he asked.
He’d been trying to get her to come back to acting since about five minutes before she quit. “You’re not my agent. I fired you.”
He pointed to the disgruntled seagull. “I meant Fred.”
Too impossible to believe before coffee. “My Fred? Your client?”
“He’s not your Fred. He’s a free agent, aren’t you, son?”
Jeffery was finally losing it. Anyone could have seen the warning signs.
“He’s a bird,” she said.
“Not just any bird. He’s a YouTube sensation!”
She double-checked her memory. She’d been gone exactly two weeks, not long enough for the world to turn topsy-turvy. Sure, the family cruise had been a little surreal. Her nephew, Van, had been chastised by the captain for piping the theme song from the movie Titanic across the public-address system, and her niece, Violet, had started a fight club for seven-year-olds. But Sofia was home now, and life was supposed to be back to normal.
“Fred is on YouTube?” she asked, just to make sure she’d heard Jeffery correctly.
“Fred’s Flights of Fancy. He’s got millions of views.” Jeffery beamed.
Fred pecked at his agent’s belt, which wasn’t a belt at all, Sofia saw. It was a fanny pack. Since when did Jeffery wear a fanny pack? “Fashion for old people and tourists,” he’d once called them.
Fred missed the pack and clocked Jeffery right in the kidneys.
Jeffery yelped, then took a deep breath. “Have to get my boy ready for work.”
She worried she’d be late for her own work at Maloney Investigations, but she couldn’t leave before she saw how this played out. “Did you dye his leg?” She crossed her arms and tried to stare Jeffery down.
“Food coloring. Non-toxic. Makes him easier to spot in the air. It’s kind of his trademark now.”
“Uh-huh.” A gull with a trademark.
Jeffery unzipped his fanny pack and took out a jar and a bird-sized hood. Mounted on top of the hood was a tiny camera. “Voilà!”
“How dare you put that thing on him!”
“He likes it,” Jeffery said.
She decided she’d better wait to drive Jeffery to the emergency room after Fred had explained to him why it was a bad idea to put a hood on a wild bird.
Jeffery opened the jar and spooned little black spheres onto her railing. When Fred landed and began to peck them up, Jeffery slipped the hood onto his head in one very slick move. In spite of her outrage, she was impressed.
Fred didn’t seem to mind. He kept eating and now, presumably, filming.
“What did you feed him? Bird drugs?”
“His daily caviar.” Jeffery screwed the jar closed and tucked it back into the fanny pack.
“Caviar?” She’d only tasted caviar once, and she used to be a movie star. Fred was eating it every day.
“Not the top-end stuff. He can’t tell the difference between that and the cheaper brands.”
That meant he’d probably given Fred some kind of caviar taste test. “He. Is. A. Bird!”
“That’s how I get away with it.” Jeffery chuckled.
“I feel like I’ve known them forever already. Likable, relatable, funny, sarcastic, and real to life…they are the best!
“An absolute hoot! If you’re in need of a brief departure from worldly annoyances and just need a good laugh, this is just what you need!!”
“Truly the perfect blend between comedy, mystery and action. Every time I have listened to the next book in the series, I think that it can’t get any better, but the authors prove me wrong.”
“Lots of real characters, weird goings on, and really good escapist storytelling.”
“F is for Funny, Fabulous and Fantastic!”
