by Luna Joya
He turned to ask Cami about her research, and her face was inches from his.
His gaze lowered to her mouth. A few minutes alone with her, and he was ready to lean in for a taste. The woman was the embodiment of temptation. He pulled back and looked anywhere but her lips.
He focused his attention on the photograph and cleared his throat. “Hey, you see this guy in the background?” He pointed to the booth behind and to the right of the one occupied by Sunny’s party.
Cami hummed again, and it shot straight through him. “The man in the hat. Didn’t all men wear suits and hats back then? Or at least they do in the movies.”
“Yeah.” He tapped the table. “But most didn’t indoors. I recognize his profile.”
She set aside her own paperwork. “Who do you think it is?”
Sam bit the inside of his cheek while he tried to think around his distraction. “He was part of the Davino crime family. They ran illegal gambling businesses.”
“The police or maybe the press speculated Sunny’s business was targeted by gangsters for illegal gambling, but Sunny refused to allow it.” She sounded breathless with the possibility of a connection. He got it. The legend-meets-reality intersections of history never failed to thrill him. “Are there pictures of Sunny’s café?”
Her breath tickled his ear. He sorted through the photographs until he found images of Sunny’s restaurant in its prime.
“What’s on the door?” She pointed to the etching on the right side. “Coral’s? Wait, I just saw that word in a logo.” She reached into the accordion file, spreading clippings and printouts. “Here it is. Sunny Sol’s Seabreeze Café delights beachgoers and film fans alike, but the true recognition of success or fame is to receive an invitation to the exclusive Coral’s Restaurant upstairs. Named for Coral Elton, Paul Price’s wife. Her real name was Flora, I think.” She skipped further down. “Sunny lived in an apartment above the café, adjacent to Paul Price’s with only a sliding door separating the two flats.”
“Scandal.” Sam knew all about old celebrity scandals. “Hollywood was coming out of the notoriety of the 1920s. A married washed-up director and a comedy sweetheart living together down the hill from the wedded couple’s mansion? That’d have been fodder for the press. Especially if Paul Price’s wife had pushed it instead of agreeing to a three-way partnership in owning the restaurant.”
Cami ran a finger down the list Marilyn had given them. “None of these titles and summaries even mention a wife. Maybe there’s more in the newspaper articles.”
He shrugged. “From what I remember she was a silent film star who couldn’t make it once the pictures became talkies.”
She wrote down the name on her list of topics.
“Might be a lot of research rabbit holes you’ll be going down. Several will have dead ends.” He tapped the handwritten note above Elton’s name where she had scrawled, Visit the location of the restaurant, exterior and environments. “I’m down for this field trip. Tours of old restaurant layouts help remind me of the conveniences we’ve got now in the kitchens.”
He picked up a laminated trifold Cami had put with the clipping on Coral’s. “Is this Sunny’s menu? She signed it. Good marketing strategy. Clean art deco design. Decent upscale entrée choices.”
“You thinking of stealing some of the dishes for your own restaurant?” The teasing in her voice drew him in.
“Maybe. I could do a theme night. Offer old Hollywood classics and end-of-Prohibition-era cocktails. Host a costume contest. Especially if you would show up in something like this.” He flashed a photograph of Sunny in an expensive satin pantsuit with gossamer sleeves.
“What is she wearing?” Cami leaned closer, leaving a trail of her sweet scent.
“Hostess pajamas.” Sam assured her he hadn’t made up the description when she stared in disbelief. “Those ladies knew how to lounge.” He winked. “You’d always come out on top at my restaurant in some satin and silk.”
“You’re awful.” She crumpled a scribbled page from the notebook and tossed it at him. He smoothed the sheet to find a long list of phrases.
“This your first plan of attack?” Similar to the one she worked on now, the prior draft lacked the organizational columns and boxes.
“Yeah.” She hovered her fingers above paper-clipped bunches of news articles. “There’s so much information here. I’m not sure where to start.”
He nodded. Sunny Sol had led a busy twenty-seven years. “Her death has three possibilities—accidental like the coroners said, suicide, or murder. Why did you want to begin with the men in Sunny’s life?”
She glanced away. “Delia, my DA sister, says to initiate a murder investigation with people closest to the victim. Sure, things can happen between strangers, but most of the time, crimes come from within the family or romantic relationships. If Sunny was murdered, we should start with those close to her.”
He pointed at squiggled notations along her margin. “What’s SS? Are we going sailing for one of our investigative trips?”
“No.” She clucked her tongue. “It stands for spreadsheet. I need to organize those topics in spreadsheets to keep it all together.” When he simply stared at her, she continued, “Don’t you have a similar organizational strategy when you research time periods for your brother’s screenplays?”
“Hardly. I read through all the sources I can find and paint a big picture for Joe, filling in small details wherever I need throughout the script to keep the plot moving and story authentic. History isn’t statistics and numbers. It’s real life people, the random stuff happening to them, and how they deal with it.” He knew he should tone down the excitement and gestures, especially on a first date, but history was his passion.
She lowered her brows. “But there’s a reason for the saying ‘history repeats itself.’ So I’m trying to pinpoint the patterns and repetitions in Sunny’s history. Chances are she came from an abusive paternal relationship, which increased her likelihood of choosing abusers as romantic partners. If her death involved foul play, starting with the men in her family makes sense.”
He read over her list again, noting how methodical and detailed she’d been. “All right. I’ll take on the tangled history. You sort the data. Maybe together we can come up with some theories.”
She pushed a stack of newspaper articles toward him. “These all relate to violence, death threats, even break-ins Sunny suffered because of her fame. One article talks about a fight where she got punched at the restaurant by her lover a week before her death because he’d gotten jealous when her ex-husband came to the café.”
“Sounds like a good place to start.” He gathered the articles. “We can make copies of these to take with us.”
She added the photograph from the Brown Derby. “This stood out to you. It could be important somehow. I’ll tag anything else we might use since we can’t stay here all night.”
“I’ll take you home before it gets too late.”
“Do you work tomorrow morning?”
“Yeah.” He picked up a photo of the Frontero, the nightclub where Sunny attended her last party. “I hope to get a few minutes to surf before the breakfast crowd. You?”
She shook her head. “I’m up all night again. I’ll sleep and study tomorrow before my shift.”
“What are you studying for? You’re already a vet.”
She drummed the eraser against the table and paged through newspaper articles. “I’m completing a three-year residency to become board certified in my specialty. I have to take and pass the exam as well as publish in a scientific journal.”
“Determined to become the top in your field?” He liked the way she reached for even more than she’d already accomplished. She ducked away from his appreciative scrutiny. “What?”
“Mina warned me not to discuss my life plan on a date. She said my checklists scare people off.”
He frowned. Cami had purpose. She helped animals like Bogart, and she wanted to be the best at it. How the
hell could her drive be anything but a turn on? “What are you supposed to do? Leave it all to luck?”
She beamed at him. “Exactly.”
“Don’t get me wrong. Getting lucky is incomparable.” He could’ve groaned at how cheesy the line sounded now he’d said it, but a pink tint started at her neck and crept over her cheeks. That blush was hot. He’d have to make her do that again.
She hid behind a curtain of curls. The way she shuffled the clippings in a sudden jumble told him he’d ruined her concentration.
He needed to give her some space before he crossed the line from likeable goofball into stupid territory. “I’m going to make copies. You good?”
Her curls bounced in what he’d take as an affirmative. He bit back a grin. Apparently, he got to her the same way she got to him. He’d never imagined an enjoyable research date, but damn if he wasn’t having fun. He was grinning like an idiot by the time he reached the copy machine.
She was beautiful with tiny brown freckles scattered across her face and the graceful way her head tipped when she was thinking or planning. Which must be all the freaking time since she could even make spreadsheets sound seductive. She’d twisted toward his chair with her pink Converse propped on the rung. Cami was cute and sexy, all in one clever package.
He couldn’t wait to see her on a surfboard. Would she play it safe or tackle rough waters? Of course, those thoughts led to wondering how her curves would fill out a bikini. He pressed the copy button a little harder than he’d meant to. He needed to take this slow. She mattered.
Maybe for their next date, they could skip the fancy dinner for a picnic at the ocean, and he could get a glimpse of her in the bikini like he’d been fantasizing.
“Sam.”
Shit, he hadn’t shared the fantasy aloud, but perhaps his expression had given him away. “Huh?”
“Did you hear something?” She sat upright, staring at the staircase where they’d come in.
“No.” The machine clacked and whirred as it spat out multiple pages. He strained to hear anything in the silence that followed. “What’d it sound like?”
“Almost like someone else was downstairs.” She chewed on her bottom lip.
“It’s probably Marilyn.” The only sound he could hear was the air conditioner kicking on.
She went back to her research while he finished making copies. He laid the stack at the end of the table.
She pointed to the last photograph he’d set aside. “What’s this?”
“The Frontero on Sunset. Sunny was last seen by her chauffeur after he drove her home from a party there.” He studied the long building, a cross between a roadhouse restaurant and a barn. The beaming art déco font of its sign looked out of place. “I know The Front from screenplay research. It was a swank nightclub with an eternal line at the velvet rope, tuxedoed attendants, and a formal ballroom.”
He ignored the vague description scrawled beneath. “The Front went bankrupt in the late 1930s after the owner sold to Alan Knapp. Alan was a seriously bad guy. He ran the Cosmo Club, an illegal gambling den in Glendale. Other than that? The man was an enigma. When a new political regime came into power in ’38, Alan got shut out, and The Front got shut down.”
“Why do you know so much about bad boys and scandals?” She wrinkled her nose in an adorable grin. “It’s kind of hot.”
“Yeah?” He checked to see if she was teasing, but watching her lips move, all he could do was imagine what they’d feel like on his.
He hesitated. What was it about her that made him doubt himself? Most women moved along when they saw he was already married to the restaurant. But Cami was different. She had her own ambition.
He brushed his knuckles over her soft cheek before skimming them along her jaw. She shivered, and he grinned. He wondered if she tasted as sweet as she smelled, but he didn’t want to scare her off.
All he’d thought about this week were her golden eyes, her scent, and the pull she had on him. He’d never experienced a connection on this base level to anyone or anything other than the ocean. It was crazy how she made him think of the call of waves and swells.
She stretched her fingers to brush the nape of his neck. Sam stilled with every single nerve focused on that delicate touch. He almost lost control when she grinned a mischievous, sly smile and a dimple flashed. His breath caught as she pressed her lips to his and quickly deepened the kiss.
He’d been wrong about her. She might be reserved and serene on the surface, but her passion was wild and bewitching. She was anything but the calm cool waters he’d expected. She was a riptide. Sam’s last coherent thought was how he’d be happy to drown in her before need took over.
Chapter Seven
Cami slid her fingers into the clipped hair at the nape of Sam’s neck, skimming upward to sink into his curls. Sudden hot desire flashed across her senses. She touched her tongue to his bottom lip and melted at his groan. He nudged her mouth open to tangle his tongue with hers. She smiled and nipped at him until she breathed in the smell of ocean air.
For a second, she panicked. Had she lost control in kissing Sam and drawn on her power?
She inhaled. This wasn’t her magic. It was Sam, his scent of saltwater mixed with that spicy alcohol hint she’d caught at the restaurant when he was near. It was dark, delicious, and intoxicating. She needed more.
She reached for his shoulders to tug him closer and got distracted by the muscles there. She ignored the quick pulse of heat at the base of her neck. All she wanted to feel was more of Sam. She pressed against him and clutched his shirt.
A door slammed somewhere in the building. He tore his lips away and lay his forehead against hers. Cami’s mouth trembled at the loss of his and the intensity of this newfound passion.
He lifted his head. “Was that part of the research? If it was, sign me up.”
Cami suspected from the roughness of his voice she’d gotten to him as much as he’d consumed her. She wanted to do that again as often as she could. His kiss was sexy and tempting, yet tender and giving all at the same time. There’d been an underlying need for more than physical contact. The sheer hunger in his kiss had been enough to make her crazy. She hummed over the seductive mixture and licked her lips for one last taste.
Sam narrowed his eyes on her mouth, his gaze hot with promise. “If you don’t stop looking at me like that, we are never going to be allowed back here again.”
Cami swallowed. She had to quit replaying the kiss over and over in her mind. Spreadsheets, lists, dead actress, abusive ex. The last sobered her.
“Right. Back to research.” She picked up her pencil, ignoring the fact she couldn’t write a legible sentence the way her hands shook to get back on Sam’s skin, in his hair, down his body. She picked a crisp copy sheet off the top and skimmed the page.
“Someone broke into Sunny’s home less than six months before her death. They ransacked and burglarized the place. The papers reported it along with her full home address so anyone could find her. That’s why she moved into the apartment above the café.”
For Sunny to have someone paw through intimate belongings in her own home? Supposedly the woman’s refuge from the world after she’d escaped one bad relationship? The invasion of the actress’s privacy sickened her, and she fought the urge to rub her knotted stomach. Her sister’s doubts about her apartment’s lack of security echoed in her head.
Sam reached for her shoulder. “Hey, it’s awful, but unfortunately, burglars targeted celebrities and the rich. The cops couldn’t or wouldn’t do much about it back then.”
“The articles say she had no privacy at all above the café. People could simply walk upstairs and be inside her rooms. That’s horrifying.”
“Yeah, it is. It’s important in the restaurant business to separate work from home. Or you never leave the job.”
His home? Where was it? Here she’d been kissing him, and she knew almost nothing about him except he owned a restaurant and adored his rescue dog. “Where’s home fo
r you?”
He pressed his lips together. “My apartment?”
“Yeah.” Although, now she wondered what home he’d been thinking of.
He relaxed, his features open again. “Santa Monica. Only about a mile from your place.” He slid his warm touch from her shoulder to her waist. She could feel the press of each finger against her soft shirt and imagined what it would be like if he slipped his hand beneath it to touch her sensitive bare skin.
With reckless curiosity, she seized the file on his family.
He arched a brow over those dark eyes. “Careful. That’s like Pandora’s box. Once you know more about my family, you may not like me.”
He had no idea how much of her own family she hid. By the way, I come from a long line of matriarchal dynasties of magic on both sides of my family tree because power matches in arranged marriages still rule the witch world.
Risking his scrutiny, she pulled a random article from the paper slips and frowned when she realized she held an obituary. “Akira Hiroyo Abrams. Famed botanist, survivor of internment camp during World War II.”
“My maternal grandmother.” His even and quiet voice held no trace of sadness.
“I’m so sorry.” She gripped the paper. Pandora’s box, indeed.
He hitched a shoulder. “She never liked me very much.”
Cami glanced back to the article. “She is survived by her two children, two grandsons…”
“Wait. They got it wrong. My mom’s an only child.”
She continued reading. “Aretta Abrams Corraza and Michi ‘Mitch’ Abrams.”
Sam stiffened. “Michi? Mitch?”
Had the paper made a mistake? Or worse, given his reaction, did Sam not know his own family? He took the clipping from her hand.
“I don’t understand.” He flipped to the paper-clipped photograph.
A ringing alarm screamed from downstairs. Cami jumped.
“You okay?” He slid his fingers along her arm, pulling her closer.
She nodded although her heart had kicked into a frantic beat. She reached for her phone only to remember he had locked it with his when they came into the reading room.
