Page 65 of My Beautiful Sin

“Yeah?”

She nods. “He said that he knew I wanted to take it slow and that we should stop. And that’s when he offered me the bedroom.”

“Wow. Points for Christopher.”

“Definitely,” she says. “Except…”

I frown. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing with him,” she says. “Only that I laid awake for awhile after. I kept thinking he might come in.”

“But he never did.”

“No,” she says, then sighs. “But Ellie? I really kind of wanted him to.”

“Sounds like he does, too,” I say.

“I know. And now I’m nervous.”

“I know,” I say, squeezing her hand. “And it sounds like Christopher understands that, too.” What I don’t say is that I’m nervous on her behalf, as well. Christopher seems like a great guy, but what you see isn’t always what’s under the surface.

Still, sometimes all you can do is take a leap of faith.

“What were you talking to Corbin about?” Brandy asks, moving to sit on the edge of my bed.

I do likewise, then fill her in on the fact that he’s covering my New York articles now that I’m based in Laguna Cortez. Then I catch her up on everything else, though it turns out that she already knows about what happened in Los Angeles yesterday, including the revelation about Peter, The Wolf, and my mother’s death.

“Lamar filled me in,” she says, as if in apology. “Sorry if we were gossiping behind your back.”

“Are you kidding? You know I would have told you myself if I hadn’t been such a mess.”

“You’re doing better? It was good that Devlin was here.”

“It was, and I am. Right now, I’m focusing on work other than the Uncle Peter story.”

“What’s up?”

“I might have a lead on that Myers assassination.”

“Myers. He’s that pedophile who killed all those children?”

“Right.” I fill her in about the strange URL. “Actually, I should call Lamar right now. He might be able to hook me up with a cheap computer.”

Lamar answers on the first ring, and I give him the rundown of what I’m doing. “Does the city still sell refurbished computers?”

“I think so. Desktop or laptop?”

“Laptop if it’s cheap, but I’ll take whatever I can get.”

I tell him The Spall budget then add that I’d be willing to kick in a few hundred on top of that if I have to.

“Sounds good. Let me get back to you.”

“Thanks. By the way, I got another creepy text.” I hear him make a little noise in his throat, and I’m glad I can’t see his face. As far as being indignant on my behalf, he and Devlin are definitely in the same camp.

“What was it?”

“A picture of Devlin and Reggie coming out of a hotel room in Vegas. The text suggested it was from last night, but it wasn’t. It’s a couple of years old.”