by J. Kenner
“Even with … everything?”
“What the hell is everything? All I know for sure is that he used to be Alex and that he had an asshole for a father.” He turns and looks hard at me. “Whatever else I might think I know is just supposition. And,” he adds, “from a long time ago.”
“Right,” I say as relief floods my body. “A very long time ago.”
“Which takes me back to my point.”
I frown as I shift my gaze from the road to him. “What do you mean?”
“Like you said—Alex is gone. Peter is too. You’re spending a lot of time looking at the past, but you’ve got a pretty solid present in front of you. And if you keep searching, I don’t think you’re going to find anything good.”
“Do you think I can’t handle it?”
“I think you’ve handled enough. And you know what else? I bet Devlin agrees with me.”
I don’t answer because, of course, he’s right. We drive for miles, supposedly in silence but it’s not quiet to me. My thoughts are humming. Filling my head until I have no choice but to speak. “I need answers,” I say. “That’s the bottom line. I loved Peter. I mean, I really did. Not more than my parents, but different. My parents were there, you know? I never thought about loving them or how it would feel if I lost them. They just … well, they were just my parents. I wish I’d thought about it more. Appreciated them more. But I didn’t.”
I draw a breath. “Uncle Peter was different. He wasn’t the world’s best parental figure, but he was a lifeline. And I thought about him being there every single day because I was terrified that I’d lose him, too.”
I lick my lips, but the words keep rushing out. “I knew what I had in him because I’d lost so much, and he was an anchor in a very stormy life. I loved him. I respected him. Hell, I thought he hung the moon. And now I learn he was dirty. And not just a little, but a lot.”
“Ellie…”
I keep my eyes on the road as I shrug. “I need answers,” I repeat. “That’s all. I just need answers.”
He says nothing, but I hear acquiescence in the silence. He may not agree, but he understands, and a heavy quiet settles over us as we move inexorably toward Los Angeles.
We make good time, and I navigate us first to the car wash and then to Peter’s old house in Beverly Hills. But the car wash has closed down, and though I’ve left a dozen messages over the past few days, I haven’t heard back from either the current or the previous owner. I’m considering that a bust. At least for the time being.
We have more luck with Peter’s former neighbors, but only in the sense that they remember him as a great guy who always said hello. Other than that, nothing. Which means Peter wasn’t doing anything illegal from his house, or he was doing it very carefully.
We end up back in the car, both of us silent as the miles slide by. It’s not until we’re almost to Thousand Oaks that I’m tired of my own thoughts and want to lighten the mood. “Are you going to reschedule with Millie? I know she was bummed about not seeing us today.”
He tilts his head, using his finger to pull down his glasses as he looks at me. “Are you psychic now?”
“What? I’m right? Have you already texted her? Did you set a date?”
“The opposite,” he says. “I thought about it, but then Tracy and I had drinks by the pool last night.” He shifts in his seat. “I don’t know. I guess I lost my enthusiasm. I mean, Millie’s great, but—”
“Well, well. This is interesting.”
“Don’t make a thing of it.”
“How often do you two hang out by the pool?”
He scowls, but I can tell it’s only to hide his grin. “Getting more frequent,” he admits.
“Go on.”
I expect him to protest that there’s nothing more to tell, but then he says, “I broke a date with Carlton the other night so that she and I could watch The Maltese Falcon at The Prestige.”
“I didn’t even realize it was showing. Bummer.” The local theater shows a few new releases, but mostly it specializes in classics. “Not that I would have crashed your party.”
“We both thank you.”
“You’ve seen that movie at least a dozen times.”
“True. But she’d never seen it.”
“Well, well,” I say again. “And as for Carlton, isn’t he your—how did you put it? Stress relief hookup? Are you telling me going out with Tracy, ah, relaxed you?”
“On the contrary. When I left her, I was still very tense. I look forward to working on that.”
“Wow.” I’m grinning as I grip the wheel.
“I know…”
“Me and Devlin. Brandy and Christopher. Now you and Tracy. Our little trio is spreading our wings.”
“From what I know about me and Tracy, and what I’ve gathered about Brandy and Christopher, so far you and Devlin are the only ones doing any wing spreading.”
“I’m just lucky that way.”
“I wouldn’t kick him out of my bed,” Lamar says. “Not even when I thought he was a dangerous asshole.”
I glow a bit, knowing that the cavalier remark betrays a new acceptance. “So what do you think of Christopher?”
Lamar shrugs. “He’s a thriller writer whose hero is a detective. What’s not to like?”
“Brandy’s certainly happy. And he has the Jake seal of approval,” I add, thinking about the way Jake pads after him, begging for head scratches and belly rubs. “So I guess he must be a good guy.”
“He’s smitten at least.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “I think it’s sweet.”
“So do—shit. That’s the exit. I told you not to let me navigate. Christ!”
I cut across three lanes of traffic as Lamar belts out a string of curses.
“Next time I drive,” he growls. But I just grin. My blood’s pounding, I’m with one of my best friends, and I’m on my way to get answers.
Despite an absentee boyfriend, a bust at our first two stops, and last night’s creepy text, I’m actually feeling pretty damn good.
The mechanic who fixed up Shelby, Leon Ortega, still works from the same Thousand Oaks location that’s on so many receipts in the glove box. And from the look of the place, he’s been at the same location since about the time that Henry Ford rolled out his first vehicle.
“So you’re Peter’s niece,” he says, extending a calloused hand with surprisingly clean fingernails for someone who works all day on vintage cars. “Nice to meet you. Was sorry to hear about your uncle. He was a good man.”
“I appreciate that,” I say, wondering if he’s really as clean as his fingernails, or if he’s just managed to keep all his dirty deeds hidden. “To be honest, I was pretty young when he was killed, and now I’m trying to find out more about him.”
He looks me up and down. “A little late, aren’t you? He’s been dead, what? About ten years?”
“About that,” I say. “The truth is, I left Laguna Cortez soon after he died, and I’ve only recently returned. I guess you could say I checked out from my life and never really looked into what happened to him or why.”
“I remember when he was shot. Wasn’t too long after I’d finished working on your car here.” He runs a hand along Shelby’s hood “So your uncle was fresh on my mind when I heard the news.”
I nod, then realize that I’m hugging myself.
“There was some talk that he’d been involved in some nasty criminal business.” He glances at me. “Aw, hell. Did you know that?”
“I did, yes. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. How he got wrapped up in all of that.”
He frowns, deepening the furrows on his craggy face as he reaches up to rub his silver-gray stubble. “Doubt I can help you there. As far as I could tell, your uncle was a straight arrow.”
I shoot a glance toward Lamar, who knows a cue when he sees one. He steps forward, his own hand outstretched. “Detective Lamar Gage,” he says. “I’m with the Laguna Cortez PD.”
Ortega looks be
tween the two of us. “What’s the police department doing looking into a man dead over ten years?”
“I’m not here officially,” he says, which is true. But having a real live detective at your side can prompt some people into a nervousness that has them spewing truth left and right. “I’m just helping Ms. Holmes out. It turns out that Peter White got on the wrong side of The Wolf, and she’s trying to learn more about that. Are you familiar with that name?”
“Somewhat. A bit off my radar, but now that I think about it, I remember some gossip after Peter was killed. Chatter with a few other customers who knew him. Said he’d gotten mixed up in drugs, prostitution, all that stuff.” He shakes his head, looking truly baffled. “Honestly, that doesn’t sound like the Peter White I knew.”
“Didn’t sound like it to me, either,” I admit. “Do you have contact information for those customers?”
He shakes his head. “Sorry, not a thing. None of them come around anymore, and all my records from back then got fried when my hard drive did. That was before I backed that stuff up.” He looks between Lamar and me. “Not sure what else I can tell you.”
“Honestly, I’m not either,” I admit. “He used your shop when he lived in LA, right? And he kept coming back to you even after he moved to Laguna Cortez?”
“Yeah, yeah. I restored an E-Type Jag for him and a sweet little ’67 Corvette when he lived in LA. He didn’t much work on cars, but he loved driving them. He had a few others he bought in decent condition. I didn’t restore those, but I’d do regular maintenance. Always wondered how he got the money to buy what he did, but I figured construction was the business to be in. LA’s always been a boomtown, right?”
“Pretty much,” I agree. “Do you know if he sold those cars? I only remember a Suburban he used to haul stuff and a Mustang convertible. But it wasn’t a classic.” I wonder what happened to his other cars. Was it a hobby he abandoned? Or maybe he’d used refurbished cars in a money-laundering scheme that he stopped when he moved in with my dad?
I frown, not liking the fact that I’m coloring my uncle with illegal motives surrounding everything now.
“Don’t know what he did with them, honestly. Never came up in conversation.”
“What about after he moved to Orange County? Did he come back up here regularly after he moved? Or did he only come for work on the Shelby Cobra?”
“Couldn’t say whether he came into LA other times,” Ortega says. “But he didn’t come see me unless it was about your car.”
I glance at Lamar, who tilts his head in sympathy. This trail is going nowhere. And because of that, I decide to cut straight to the chase. “Listen, and, please don’t take this the wrong way, but I was kind of hoping that he’d asked you to help out on the seedier side of his business. Like moving parts or laundering money.”
“And that’s not why we’re here,” Lamar says. “Whatever you tell us is off the record. I’m not going to breathe a word.”
“Well, now, I don’t know if I believe you or not about that, Detective. But it doesn’t much matter because he never asked me to do anything like that. I wouldn’t have, anyway. My pa and grandpa both worked in private security. And my great-grandpa was a Pinkerton agent.”
I meet Lamar’s eyes. A cop family doesn’t guarantee someone’s clean, but it sure doesn’t hurt.
“Your uncle knew all that.” Ortega grins. “Maybe that’s why he never asked me. Probably knew he’d have to find another mechanic if I knew what kind of mischief he was involved in.”
Once again, he strokes Shelby’s hood. “You’ve done a good job keeping her up,” he says. He gives me a nod as if we’ve known each other forever, and he’s as proud of me as he would be his own daughter. “Glad you brought her by. It’s always good to see one of my cars again.”
“My pleasure. I’m glad you remember her.” I glance at Lamar, at a loss for anything else to ask.
“Did you ever notice anything unusual?” he puts in. “Did Peter ever bring anybody with him who seemed shady?”
“Shady? No. I can’t say I approved of his girlfriend—can’t blame a man for dating a younger woman, but it never made much sense to me. Rather have a woman I can talk to. But I’m not sure I need to get into that kind of gossip with his niece.”
For the first time, I realize that I rarely saw Peter date—just a few women he’d take to dinner now and then. And as far as I know, he was never married.
“Can you describe her?” Lamar asks.
“She came in with him twice, both times when he was coming to check on this Shelby Cobra. Young woman, blond and blue-eyed, very pretty.” He grins. “I remember wondering if she was old enough to drink.”
“That young?” I repeat, thinking that this girl couldn’t have been much older than me. And now that Mr. Ortega has brought it up, I do have a vague recollection of seeing Uncle Peter once or twice with a blonde not that much older than Alex.
I’d been walking along the beach one time and had arrived home earlier than Uncle Peter expected me. I’d cut my foot on a broken shell, and I’d wanted to get home to disinfect it.
I didn’t get a good glimpse of her, but she was standing on the back porch in a bikini top with a sheer sarong tied around her hips. She wore a floppy straw hat that shaded her face, but there was a blond ponytail. I could tell from her figure that she was older than me, but still young. I even wondered for a bit if she was there to see Alex, and I remember feeling queasy at the possibility that he was seeing someone else in addition to our secret romance.
By the time I got closer to the house, she was gone. When I asked Uncle Peter about her, he said she was a neighbor who had come by on some local business matter. I hadn’t been interested enough to inquire further.
“Do you know her name?”
“Sorry. Not a clue,” Mr. Ortega says with a regretful shake of his head.
Both Lamar and I ask him a few more questions, trying to jog his memory about any identifying detail, but he can’t remember a thing.
Which means that as we climb back into Shelby and start toward Panorama City and Mr. Longfeld, I have one more question about Peter, and not a single answer.
Chapter Seventeen
“I meant to tell you on the drive up,” Lamar says as we wipe down the outdoor table where we’d each enjoyed a giant burrito from a local dive that Mr. Ortega recommended. Not exactly the fancy lunch that Lamar had wanted The Spall to pay for, but we were both starving. And depending on when we finish, maybe The Spall can buy us drinks at a nice hotel while we wait for the traffic to clear out. “I did some poking around about Ronan.”
I toss a balled up napkin in the trash and turn back to him. “Did you find out anything?”
“Does Devlin know you’re looking?”
I cock my head and shoot him a look, then head to Shelby. I wait until I’m behind the wheel and he’s in the passenger seat before answering. “Devlin knows I have concerns,” I say diplomatically. I start the car, then maneuver my way onto the street before glancing at Lamar. “He doesn’t share them.”
“Great. The guy and I have a shaky detente, and you have me sniffing around looking for dirt about his buddy.”
I shrug, feeling a bit guilty. But not so much that I don’t want the information. “I won’t ask you for more, but you already did the poking. You might as well tell me what you learned. And where are we going? Can you map the way to Longfeld’s job?”
He grabs my phone from where it’s mounted to the dash, and I give him the code to unlock it. “The address is in the notes app.”
He taps my phone, then navigates us back to the 101, where we’ll stay for at least half an hour before changing to the 405. “He was in sniper school with Alejandro Lopez,” Lamar tells me, once I’m in the far left lane. “So I’m assuming that’s where they met.”
I nod. “Devlin told me as much. The military.”
“It gets interesting because Alejandro was discharged ‘at the convenience of the government’ after only
two years of service.” He makes air quotes as he talks. “Did you know that?”
“No,” I admit. “But I don’t think he’s keeping it a secret. We just haven’t really talked about his time in the service. What does that even mean?”
“I had to spend some time figuring that out. Apparently it can mean anything the government wants it to. Sometimes it’s used when a soldier needs an out because of family issues. Sometimes it’s used when someone’s been recruited into intelligence services. Considering the timing, I think Alex—Alejandro—just wanted to disappear.”
“The timing,” I repeat. “What do you mean?”
“That was right about the time Daniel Lopez was killed. Devlin told me he made it a point of abandoning Alex and becoming Devlin then. As the heir apparent, Alex would have been in the crosshairs.”
I glance sideways at him. “I thought you were poking around about Ronan.”
“I’m getting there. They’re tied together, right?”
“Fine, fine. What have you got?”
“So about the time that Alejandro was magically dismissed, Devlin Saint shows up. Records show he signed up at seventeen, moved through the ranks, and ended up in special forces. Now we know some of that has to have been manufactured, but about the same time, Ronan Thorne transfers into the same unit. And after that, suddenly I can’t find shit on either one of them.”
“They must have ended up doing intelligence work.” It’s a guess, but I figure it’s a good one. Devlin, of course, can tell me if I’m right.
“So that’s what I know,” Lamar says. “What I can assume is that if Ronan was special forces, he has bad ass skills. And that makes him dangerous. Which is great if he’s fighting the enemy. Not so great if he thinks the enemy is you.”
“Devlin’s convinced that Ronan’s about as much of a threat to me as you are.”
Lamar makes a snorting noise. “Wish I could say I agree, but for me, the jury’s still out.”
I drive in silence for a while, letting it settle around me. “I trust Devlin,” I finally say, my voice low. “I don’t like being crossways with him.” I glance sideways at Lamar. “We’ve come so far, and we’re back on track. Thinking that Ronan may be the one harassing me—I don’t know. It’s starting to feel disloyal.”
