Page 46 of My Beautiful Sin

“Would it disappoint you if I said I just wanted to hold you? To take you out to dinner and talk about anything other than your uncle or my foundation or either of our pasts? I want to look to the future with you, El,” he continues, his words making my heart swell and my breath catch in my throat. “I want to stand on the beach and look at the stars with the future laid out in front of us and think about all our possibilities. Just that,” he says. “Just you.”

“Yes,” I say, my heart so full I can barely form the words. “I think that sounds wonderful.”

Chapter Sixteen

“Who are we seeing other than Cotton?” Lamar asks once we’re underway.

“Longfeld,” I correct. “Cotton was an alias.”

“Right.”

“The first appointment is with Leon Ortega. He’s the guy who fixed up Shelby for Uncle Peter before he gave her to me.” My dad had done much of the work, but Shelby had only been Daddy’s hobby, and he’d never seemed to finish her.

After he was killed, the car remained on blocks, its interior and exterior only partially restored. I was young enough that it wasn’t high on my list of concerns, and mostly forgot about the little car I’d spent so many hours beside during the years when my dad was alive.

It wasn’t until I was sixteen—and saw the beautifully restored 1965 Shelby Cobra waiting for me in the driveway on the first day of school—that I truly fell in love. Not only was it an incredibly thoughtful gift from my uncle and guardian, but he’d also finished something my dad had always meant to not only complete, but to give to me when I was old enough.

Except, of course, that he hadn’t done the restoration. Lacking the skills himself, Peter hired the work out.

“Apparently, he used Ortega for automotive work when he lived in LA, and then after he moved to Laguna Cortez, he drove all that way for the work on Shelby, too.”

“Either they’re close friends, or Ortega is one hell of a mechanic.”

“That’s what I figure,” I say. “Check the glove box. The plastic folder in there has copies of all of Shelby’s papers.”

“You keep them with you?”

I shrug. “You never know. Ortega’s shop issued most of the invoices. And it might be totally legit, but I’m thinking an auto repair shop is ripe for laundering money and moving stolen parts.”

Lamar leafs through the papers, then puts the envelope back in the glove box. “Certainly possible. Got anything more solid than a hunch?”

“Not really. The Spall keeps a PI on retainer, so I had him pull a report on Ortega. Clean as a whistle. But that could just mean he’s very good at what he does.”

“Fair enough.”

There are a couple of others on my LA list, and I have Lamar pull my notebook out of my satchel so he can skim through my notes. Most of the folks who were tied into Peter’s drug network have already been convicted. I’ve put in requests at the various prisons for interviews, and now I’m waiting for the authorities to get back to me.

As for the people with whom Peter was doing legitimate business—or supposedly legitimate business—I haven’t found too many leads in LA. There’s a car wash he invested in, and we’ll pop by to talk to the current owner. Same with the family who lived next door to him. You never know what people notice. They’re on the way to Ortega’s shop in Thousand Oaks, and though I don’t have appointments, we’re going to stop in unless we’re running tight on time.

Other than that, despite scouring my mom’s journals for more leads, most of what I know about Peter’s less-than-legal business is tied to Laguna Cortez. Which is why I’m really hoping that Ortega or Longfeld have a solid lead for me. If I want to learn how and why Peter got sucked into a criminal life, I need to find the beginning. And that’s somewhere here in LA. I just don’t know where or what.

I am, however, determined to find out.

“These folks—the neighbor, the guy from the car wash—may not be willing to talk to you. And even though we got lucky with Tom leading us to Cotton—sorry, Longfeld—the man himself may be as silent as stone.”

“I know. But I have to try.”

“Do you?”

I slow as traffic piles up ahead of us, and I use the lull to shoot him a questioning glance. “What do you mean?” My stomach twists, and I wonder if now is the time to ask him about what went on with him and Devlin. I know Devlin thinks they’re cool now, but I want to hear that from Lamar, too.

He adjusts his sunglasses. They’re the reflective kind, which means that even though he’s facing me, I can’t see his eyes. “I don’t know, Sherlock. It’s just—I mean, I get before. You needed to know your uncle, and you were shocked he was in with The Wolf. But shock wears off, and that was all such a long time ago.”

“He was my last living relative.”

“I get that, too. But do you really want to taint all your memories of him? Because you’re not alone anymore. You have me. You have Brandy. And you even have Alex back.”

Traffic has started moving again, and I tighten my hands on the steering wheel and focus on the road. “I don’t. I have Devlin.” I swallow, then continue. “And I’m surprised you’re counting him among my assets.”