by Sarah Fine
How much do you know about him, really? Grandpa’s voice whispered in my thoughts.
“He’s all set,” Ben said as he strode into the room. “Whoa,” he added as he caught sight of me standing near the dresser. His hand dipped into his pocket like a reflex. “I’m the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet.”
“It wasn’t luck, babe,” I said, taking in his tall, muscular silhouette. Just looking at him made my chest ache. I could never get enough of him. Every touch was a temptation I couldn’t resist. More than that, he seemed charmed by my kookiest ideas, and when I got in a mood he could calm me with a mere stroke of his fingers. Ben had always seemed perfect to me, from the moment we met. But was he too perfect? “Hey, so now that everything’s official . . .”
Ben’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah?”
“Is there anything you think we don’t know about each other?”
“What?” he said with a surprised chuckle. “You mean like some deep, dark secret?” He took a step closer to me.
“I guess.”
His smile flickered like a flame in a breeze. “If I did, would it drive you away?”
My heart did a back handspring. “Is that a yes?”
His handsome face, so electric when he smiled, turned to stone. “Do you want to be driven away? Is this a cold-feet thing?”
“No, of course not. I just thought we should get everything out before the wedding. No surprises.”
“Everyone has their dark side.” Then he smirked. “Like you, whenever you see a recruitment ad for the army.”
“They’re fighting for our country, and we repay their sacrifice with a broken-down system and inadequate health care! Wait—you’re trying to turn this around on me, aren’t you?”
“What do you expect me to say, Mattie? It sounds like you want me to confess to stuff that could upset you, and I’m not so eager to do that.” His gaze slid down my body. “Especially not while you’re wearing that.”
The hungry look on his face sent a rush of heat between my legs. Focus, Mattie, focus. “I don’t want you to make up stuff. I just . . .” My arms rose from my sides, as if I were reaching for the truth. “My grandpa—”
“Is that what this is about? Oh, Mattie. He just can’t picture you as anything other than his little granddaughter. He’s not ready to accept you as a grown woman.”
“But—”
“Think about what we were talking about right when he interrupted us, Mattie.”
“Yeah, I know.” The humiliating memory brought the flush back to my cheeks.
“See? I could have offered him another ten years to live, and he still would have been pissed at me.”
I sagged a little at the thought that my grandpa might not even have that many months to live, let alone years. “He told me to make sure I really knew who I was marrying.”
“And you don’t think you know?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I don’t want to fight,” I muttered, resenting Grandpa for planting seeds of doubt in my head. “Never mind.”
“Uh-uh. You can’t ask me things like this and not expect an answer.” He reached up and began to unbutton his shirt. “You’re marrying Benjamin Michael Ward. I’m thirty-one years old and got my DVM from the University of Wisconsin.” He reached up to hold the anchor pendant, which he’d told me was a symbol of hope, that hung from a thin platinum chain around his neck.
“By any measure, I live a charmed life,” he continued. “A long time ago I made the decision to live in the present and to grab every moment of happiness as if it was the last, because I knew it might be.” He peeled his shirt back from his muscular torso and revealed his one imperfection: the faded scar and lump of his pacemaker just beneath his skin, high on the left side of his chest. “I like to think of myself as a bionic man, but the truth is, I need to be hooked up to a battery so I don’t faint at the top of a flight of stairs or while I’m trying to cross the street. See, my heart beats too slow sometimes . . . unless I’m in the same room with you, in which case it races like a goddamn Thoroughbred.”
My own heart fluttered as I took in the hard edge of his jaw. “Ben . . .”
“No, Mattie,” he said quietly. “I’m just getting started.” He let his shirt fall to the floor. “I love animals more than anything in this world—except my beautiful fiancée. From the moment I met her, my life was changed. Everything got brighter and more exciting. Even bad days were more interesting.” He came to a stop a few feet away, his fingers working their way over the lucky stone in his pocket, his talisman. Slowly, he pulled it up and held it out, concentric rings of white and coral and umber, polished by the constant stroke of his fingers. “I have a few odd habits, but I think everyone does. I have a few flaws, but I hope they aren’t fatal. And there is one thing I want right now, enough to beg for it.”
I had to grab for the dresser to steady myself as he closed the distance between us. “What do you want that much?” I asked, breathless.
“You, beneath me.”
He reached out and pulled the warm curved edge of the stone along my upper arm, and that was all it took. Waves of pleasure rippled out from that tiny point of contact, making my muscles clench with need. I whimpered as he slid the agate along my chest and throat, following its path with his tongue until he reached my mouth. “Is that what you wanted to know?” he whispered against my lips.
I nodded frantically, needing him inside me more than I need sunshine and oxygen and french fries.
“Any other questions?” he murmured as he set the stone on the dresser.
“No.” My hands were already on his skin. “I shouldn’t have doubted, even for a minute.”
Ben leaned back and paused, his gaze intense as he took in the love-drunk look on my face. For a split second, it looked like he wanted to say more. But he just grinned. “Perfect,” he murmured. “Absolutely perfect.”
He scooped me up and carried me to the bed, all my worries forgotten.
I woke with a start to the sound of tires squealing on asphalt and winced as beams of morning sunlight hit me square in the face. Cramming the pillow over my ears, I groaned. “Finn York has had his license for all of three days, and he’s going to get himself killed,” I said. “Do you think I should talk to his mom?” Our neighbor was a third-shift nurse at the hospital, and her kid took full advantage of it. “Ben?”
I turned over to see that Ben’s side of the bed was empty, then glanced toward the bathroom, wondering if he’d simply jumped in the shower early. He wasn’t in there, either. “Ben?”
Frowning at the silence, I pulled on my robe and grabbed for my phone. Usually, if Ben wasn’t in bed with me when I awoke, he was in the kitchen, making me breakfast. But the air wasn’t scented with coffee or bacon . . . and there were no texts from him explaining where the heck he’d gone. I told myself to play it cool, since he was probably planning something crazy-romantic in an effort to surprise me.
My self-control lasted approximately five seconds before I jammed my thumb onto the screen of my phone.
The unmistakable sound of Ben’s ringtone wafted through the open window of our bedroom. It was the flying theme from E.T., his favorite old movie. I grinned—he might be trying to surprise me, but he’d just given himself away. Feeling clever, I waited for him to answer so I could tell him he was busted.
It went to voice mail. I padded to the window and peeked out. His car was in the driveway, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Are you hiding?” I murmured, then hit his number again.
Immediately the ringtone sounded off again, somewhere very nearby, but I got his voice mail again. I chuckled and sent him a text.
Ready or not, here I come.
I slid on my slippers and headed for the door, fully expecting to find flowers in the entryway or pastries on the porch swing . . . nothing. I called his phone again. Maybe this was less a game of hide-and-seek and more of a treasure hunt? I pulled my robe a little tighter around me as I walked slowly up the driveway, following th
e soaring music to its source.
His phone lay on the road right next to our mailbox, the screen shattered. And right next to it was a long black tire mark that immediately reminded me of the sound that had awakened me a few minutes ago.
I picked up the phone and clutched it against my chest. “Ben?” I whispered, looking up and down the street. My gaze fell to the mailbox, and my stomach dropped. Something red was crusted on the side, and the hatch wasn’t fully closed. With unsteady fingers, I flicked the mailbox open.
Sitting on Saturday’s mail, its wire lead dangling limp, was the battery that helped keep my bionic man alive.
CHAPTER TWO
I passed the next few days alternating between panicky overdrive and periodic crying jags. Ben was gone. No one had contacted me seeking a ransom. No one had found a body. No one had seen him that morning, and though the police were analyzing the black skid marks on the road, all they could say about the car was that it was probably an SUV or pickup truck of some type. The blood splatter at the scene was confirmed as Ben’s, but whoever had grabbed him had left no fingerprints, no hairs, and there was no sign that Ben had put up a struggle. Evidently, analysis of nearby surveillance cameras had captured a veritable sea of SUVs and minivans driving by around the time Ben might have been taken, because it had occurred right as parents were dropping their kids off at the elementary school half a mile from our house.
I had spent hours at the station being questioned, which had led to more than one major freak-out. Why were they focusing on me while Ben was out there somewhere without his pacemaker, taken by people willing to cut it right out of his chest? I’d talked to the medical examiner. If the forcible removal of the device hadn’t caused him to bleed out, he would still be left with his own unstable heartbeat, which could cause him to lose consciousness at the worst moment. Just the thought was enough to make me burst into tears. Every. Single. Time.
My mom responded to my eruptions by trying to poke Valium between my lips as if I were a baby bird. She was sitting next to me right now, in fact, the bottle of pills rattling in her purse, as I faced off with the detective in charge, a no-nonsense woman I’d gone to high school with—Deandra Logan. As far as I was concerned, her “investigation” was a joke.
“I’ve been telling you over and over again,” I said in a tight voice. “You’re wasting time by interviewing all his clients. They loved him. There was no one who disliked him even a little.” I paused, remembering what Ben had said at the party. “Except for one person. Have you been able to find Ben’s brother?”
Detective Logan shrugged. “We’re aware of Dr. Ward’s brother.” She pulled a file from somewhere in the middle of her stack and peeked inside. “Asa Ward’s list of juvenile offenses is a mile long—underage drinking, drug possession . . .” She whistled. “Dealing. He served a few stints in the local boys’ training school. And he has one set of adult charges from over ten years ago. Breaking and entering, assault, resisting arrest. He did just over a year for that. But there’s been nothing since then.”
“The way Ben described him, he sounded like a total lowlife. Maybe violent.” I leaned forward, trying to get a look at the mug shot in the file she was holding, but she flipped it shut before I caught a glimpse. “They’re less than two years apart, so Asa’s thirty-two or thirty-three. Ben quashed my idea to invite him to the wedding—there is no love lost between them. He almost seemed afraid of him.” I gave my mom a cautious look. “In fact, he said the last time they saw each other, Asa threatened to kill him.”
Mom’s eyes went wide, but Detective Logan sounded only mildly interested as she asked, “And when was this?”
“He said it was a long time ago, but still. Maybe he wanted to settle some kind of score?”
She shrugged. “Asa Ward has been more or less off the grid for over a decade, as far as we can tell. He certainly hasn’t gotten into any trouble with the law. And there’s no evidence in Ben’s e-mail or phone that he was communicating with his brother. All his contacts are accounted for.”
I gritted my teeth. “But why aren’t you looking for the guy? Tracking down an addict who threatened Ben seems a lot more productive than talking to people like Sophie Wingate. She’s a little old lady with an overweight shih tzu she can’t even pick up. Why do you have to waste time interviewing her?”
“We have to cover all our bases.” Detective Logan was already standing up, and so was Mom, who was gently trying to pull me to my feet.
“Mattie,” she whispered through gritted teeth. “Let’s let the lady do her job. I’ve got a nice lunch waiting for us at home, and your dad will want an update.”
My shoulders slumped, and I let Mom guide me out the door and back to her car, but I had no intention of eating lunch when my stomach was stuffed full of dread. “Just drop me off at home, please. I need to be alone.” The detectives had already confiscated Ben’s files and his computer, and, having found nothing suspicious in the house, had said I could return there if I wanted.
Mom pressed her lips together, clearly fighting to hold back her concern, but did as I asked. “Call us if you hear anything, okay? Or if you just need to talk.”
“Will do, Mom.”
The postal worker had left a stack of mail on our porch steps, probably because our mailbox was still surrounded by crime scene tape. The envelope on top was addressed to Ben. Detective Logan had gone through our mail, too, and had said she’d like to review anything new that came in. But would the Sheboygan police even know good evidence if it smacked them in the face? I opened the envelope and pulled out the contents.
As I read, my skin prickled with cold sweat.
It was notice of a lien. On Ben’s clinic. For over two hundred thousand dollars. It had been placed by the contractor who had renovated the building. “This is so screwed up,” I muttered. Ben had taken out a small-business loan to pay the guy. I’d gone with him to the bank when he’d signed off on it.
I pulled out my phone, planning to call my dad and ask him to help me make sense of the legalese, but it buzzed in my hand. “We got Ben’s bank statements just after you left,” Detective Logan said. “I need your help interpreting them.”
I stared down at the lien. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”
“Maybe. Are you aware that his accounts were nearly empty? From the look of it, he was living hand to mouth. You claimed money wasn’t a big problem for the two of you.”
“It wasn’t,” I said breathlessly. “I mean, he was nervous about the business, but it was going better than expected—”
“Can you think of any reason he would have made several large cash withdrawals in the last three weeks?”
I glanced down at the paper in my hand. “Paying back his contractor?”
“In cash? Hmm.” Detective Logan sounded skeptical. “I think we need to schedule another little chat. Obviously Dr. Ward wasn’t exactly telling you everything, but maybe going over the bank statements will help us connect a few dots.”
The rage bubbled up so suddenly that I couldn’t contain it. “Ben is gone, and definitely hurt, and you guys are all acting like it’s his fault!”
“Ms. Carver, the signs do seem to indicate that Dr. Ward was engaged in some financial activity that was questionable at best. I know you want to believe the best of him, but are you sure he didn’t fly the coop before the chickens came home to roost?”
Using my last shred of self-control, I jabbed my thumb at my phone to end the call instead of screaming curses at the esteemed detective. I immediately hit my parents’ number. “You’re not going to believe this,” I sobbed into the phone when my dad picked up. “The detective on Ben’s case just suggested that he disappeared himself! It’s like they’re too incompetent to find his kidnapper, so they’re just going to blame it on him as an excuse.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Dad said sadly. “I’m sure the truth will come out soon enough. Ben was—is—a wonderful man. And we’ll figure out what happened to him. We want him back
as badly as you do.”
Someone grumbled in the background, and I clutched the phone tighter. “What was that?”
Dad sighed. “Just Grandpa being Grandpa.”
“And of course he thinks the worst of Ben,” I said just as Grandpa rasped out a complaint about being treated like an annoying toddler. “Dad, I’m gonna go. I can’t deal with him right now.”
Angrily swiping at tears, I stuffed my phone back in my purse and headed inside. It was just as I’d left it a week ago, except for occasional signs of the police search and the fact that Barley was at my parents’ house so my mom could take care of him. I stood in the living room, trying to figure out how to feel less useless. Yes, Detective Logan had said they’d searched the whole house, but they could have missed something.
Turning in place, I tried to think of what could have happened to cause Ben to withdraw money from his accounts. What had happened to that loan money? What had he done with it? My gaze lit on our walk-in closet, where all my clothes were tossed in a pile next to his, which were neatly arranged by color and season. I was going to search his pockets. Every single pocket. Hundreds of pockets until I found a clue. Even if I didn’t, at least the purposeful activity would keep me from going crazy for a few more hours.
When I got to the clothes Ben was planning on taking to the dry cleaner’s, I found something. In the front pocket of a pair of black slacks was a business card. He’d last worn these pants the Friday before. I remembered telling him he looked hot as I’d headed out the door to have a girls’ night with some of my friends.
ALESSANDRO’S, it said. FINE MEDITERRANEAN CUISINE. The place was on Michigan, a few blocks north of downtown. I’d driven past it plenty of times, but Ben and I had never eaten there. Still, it wasn’t the earth-shattering clue I’d been hoping for. He’d probably just gotten himself some takeout.
Then I turned it over, and my heart skipped a beat.
Eniro, 10pm was scrawled on the card.
I knew for a fact that he didn’t have any clients or friends named Eniro. I’d never seen the name before in my life. My hands shaking, I called Detective Logan. “Hey. Sorry I hung up on you,” I said when she picked up. “I think I may have found something you guys missed. Can you check Ben’s phone and see if there’s a contact in there named Eniro? E-n-i-r-o.”
