Savage Distractions (The Love is Murder Social Club Book 3)

by Talia Maxwell

  “Benson,” someone from the screen said to him. “We’re so glad to meet you. Annie says you want to write about dating, but if it’s a Twoly connection you’re after, well, same tree…different branch. What do you know about the Cannon Beach Murders?”

  Chapter Five

  There was no denying her parents loved her. There was also no denying that her father craved authority and her mother craved control, and somewhere in the cesspool of family drama that existed for everyone, she still felt tethered to them. When she followed her faulty logic to its natural conclusions, she knew Benson writing about Twoly didn’t feel safe for her future.

  It felt reckless and mean-spirited.

  How could she take it seriously if he didn’t take it seriously? If the world didn’t? And why did that matter, anyway? She didn’t know. But every time Benson brought up the idea of writing about the matchmaking company, a pit of anxiety grew inside her gut and she wanted to defend the investment made in her.

  Annie knew that she could be resentful and thankful at the same time—she was an adult woman figuring out her place in a world that didn’t know what to do with her, yet. Twoly though felt like a gift for a girl who was taught that partnering was expected, and yet because it was a gift given by her parents, it took on a different hue.

  There was no autonomy in a gift purchased by one’s parents.

  She had to give Benson something else.

  Something he could invest his energy and passion into that wasn’t the one thing she needed more than anything—the matchmaking company. And why did she need that more than anything? Ugh. She didn’t even know. It was deeply rooted and ridiculous. It felt wild and untethered. It felt like hers and hers alone to navigate and she didn’t want to share it.

  It sounded ridiculous when she said her own needs carefully like her therapist had taught her: I need my dad to think I’m staying the course and meeting a nice young professional. I need to meet and marry someone that will provide me with a stable life.

  She was aware that she never talked about love and passion as needs. Those were things she assumed she’d never have.

  Maybe, in a different world, her needs were different. Maybe they were: I will fall in love and I will live happily ever after. Instead, she knew she was fighting a different fight.

  If Benson wanted to sniff around Twoly, she had something else he could consider. Something that cast a shadow far away from her dating methods and her dating life; a story of murder and confusion, a cold case with no available leads. If Benson wanted something to chase, she could give him something to chase.

  But everyone in the room, Annie in his physical space and the women on the screen, sensed his reluctance to answer Gloria’s question. He shook his head and looked to Annie and then the screen for answers.

  “What is this again?” he asked.

  “We are the Love is Murder Social Club,” someone in the back of the group said. “Started as a group of women who love to talk about true crime.”

  “It felt like I just stepped into an intervention. Man, I don’t know if I’m about to have a religious conversion or if someone is going to sell me Tupperware.”

  “Joke all you want, but we have the story you want.”

  Benson looked at Annie who crossed her arms over her chest and smiled.

  “Okay,” Benson said. He mimed the action of keeping his mouth shut. “Okay. I’m listening.”

  “What do you know about the Cannon Beach Murders?” Gloria asked again.

  “Not much. I know some couple was strangled and butchered on the beach a few years back. That’s all I’ve heard. Crime isn’t my beat, usually. I know what floated through the papers at the time.”

  “Right. You got a couple details right. But yeah, that’s the case we’re working on now. The sister wants justice, but she’d hit every roadblock imaginable, so she pitched it to us.”

  “How’d she hear about you?” Benson asked. He settled back on Annie’s couch and she readjusted the computer camera to follow him. Gloria stayed on the screen, looking straight at him, larger than life.

  Holly, with her red hair tied up on her head, squirmed in the back and raised a hand. “Hi, yeah, I’m Holly. The sister is a nanny of a kindergartner at the school I work at. I offered up our eyes, but this is our first meeting about it.”

  “Why am I here?” Benson asked. He wasn’t asking Annie—he asked Gloria, leaning in so his own face would’ve loomed at her. “Why you are inviting me into this?”

  “You can post witty videos about dating, Benson,” Gloria continued, without directly answering his question, “or you can take this file from us with the leads we’ve turned up and write the end to a five-year mystery. I think the public needs closure to the Cannon Beach Murders more than they need to know if you can find someone to sleep with you when you’ve paid ten-thousand dollars upfront for the pleasure.”

  “Hey now,” Annie said. She scooted herself into the frame of the camera to remind Gloria that she was in the room. The last thing she needed was to be shamed for the whole matchmaker thing—although, she knew Gloria was in favor of matchmaking; she only disapproved of someone else doing it instead of her. She’d wanted to marry Annie to half a dozen men in the past few years, but Annie didn’t have time to date. It was a half-truth.

  “Do both,” Holly suggested from the back row again with a small wave of her hand. “But no…we believe that this is a case that needs attention. Enough time has gone by that people who might have stayed quiet before…it’s safer now. You writing about the Cannon Beach Murders as we all work together to solve the case is the story we’re interested in.”

  “So, it’s publicity for you,” Benson said, nodding. “I get it. I get it. You’re an eclectic group of city women coming together for a cause. And it’s a good story. Mai Tais and Murder.”

  “When you give it a cute title,” Holly said from the back, “it diminishes what we do…which is time-consuming and thankless. I have a job. I have a son and a family. And why are we here? Because we believe that our world now has the technology and resources to look at each cold case with new eyes. The victims deserve that. This is a service and we’re good at it.”

  “That’s a quotable lecture right there,” Benson said nodding. “Too bad I didn’t get it recorded.”

  “I’m full of quotes,” Holly said. “We also keep a digital file of each meeting. So, you can ask to watch this and you’ll be just fine. Annie?”

  Annie slid into the frame. “He’s tetchy, ladies. Sorry.”

  “I’m right here,” Benson rolled his eyes.

  “He’s still angry that we dismissed the Twoly dating idea outright. He was attached to it,” she said to her friends on the other end of the call.

  “I don’t get to analyze myself?” he asked.

  Annie continued to ignore him. “Let’s get into the case. You start with the stabbings and….” Her oven dinged and she jumped up, hopping away, leaving Benson the couch alone. “Those are my brownies!”

  Gloria opened up a large folder in front of her. She cleared her throat and looked up and looked down, moving pictures and copies around.

  “Here are the details that we know. William Schubert, a wills and probate lawyer, was found strangled with his eyes gouged out on the morning of July 9 five years ago.”

  “Gruesome.”

  “It gets worse,” Gloria said without looking up at his interruption. “Twenty feet away, the body of a woman named Missy Price was found. She’d been nearly decapitated by the force of the slashes on her body. Her feet and hands were cut off and never found. She died of blood loss and blunt force trauma. The timeline predicts that Bill died first and Missy was forced to watch, then dragged away where she was murdered. Footprints showed the two victims entering the beach from the closest dune entrance together and then siege was immediate. But there was little sign of a struggle in the sand—no one heard anything—so, they were, initially, compliant? Their bodies were found the next morning by a ne
ighbor.”

  Holly took over the next section. “So, Bill and Missy...have no connection to each other. It appears as though they appeared out of thin air, arrived at the beach at the same time, and walked down the dune together, were murdered by the same person…but never knew each other. Their lives never intersected. The connection between Bill and Missy is absent, so…investigators thought random attack.”

  Benson opened his mouth to ask a question, but Annie put a hand on his knee to silence him. She caught a glimpse of his face, shocked, and he tensed a bit. Her hand on his body felt natural and she hoped she could let it linger.

  He went to touch her hand with his and she put her hand in her lap.

  Gloria spoke. She paced the room, dipping in and out of the frame.

  “Bill was squeaky clean. Sixty-three. Was in Cannon Beach to meet with a client. That checks out. Never came home. Missy Price, well, she’s a ghost. We have basic records of her—birth certificate and a few employment records. We obtained a copy of her resume…showed she graduated from University of Oregon. Legal driver of Oregon. She was unemployed but looking for a job. Living in a few coastal hotels at the time of the murder but looking for something local. No social media, nothing.”

  “What does the sister say about her?” someone chimed in from the peanut gallery.

  “Not much, actually,” Holly replied. “She said their parents are dead. It was just the two of them, and now it’s just her. But before Missy moved to the coast, she had a kid who was in foster care, although we couldn’t confirm because we don’t have a name of the child. The sister said they were estranged during the time her sister had the kid—”

  “It’s the estranged sister who has turned up heartbroken asking about a child? And she doesn’t know the kid’s name?” Benson asked. Annie took time to register how that might have looked to the outside. She glanced at Holly in the video and noticed she was chewing her nails. “How old was the child?”

  Gloria turned to Holly. “Holly?”

  “Well, okay, so the sister said at the time of the murder he would’ve been ten. She thinks her sister hid the boy with someone before she died and had his name changed. He would be a freshman in high school now. They just don’t know what happened. Missy moved to the coast without telling anyone. Sister said she was running from someone…”

  “The dad,” someone said.

  “Sure, the entire thing has a hint of melodrama,” Gloria conceded, “but real life is complicated. God knows we all have reasons and people we’d like to avoid for the rest of our lives.”

  “Her own sister?” Maeve asked, no doubt thinking of her own sister and best friend, Millie.

  Benson shifted and leaned forward, his face filling the screen. “Okay, I don’t actually remember hearing much about these murders, but wouldn’t her kid come up? Dead mom and a kid is missing?”

  “Media didn’t cover them much. There was a massive gag order over much of the case because for a while they considered the acts to be that of a serial killer and they were worried about PR for their precious beach towns. It’s hard to relax at the day spa when you think someone is gonna chop your feet off.”

  Annie felt Benson’s attention focus and he settled into the story, wanting more. She felt electric knowing how much the murders would bait him and she pushed forward the plate of cooling brownies, made in a pan designed so every brownie was an edge, an invention without need but pure hedonism.

  Annie cleared her throat. Benson glanced over at her and lowered his voice, although she was certain the room of women on the other end of the camera could hear him anyway.

  “This is cool,” he said, simply, staring at her.

  “Yeah,” she agreed, not wanting to break eye contact and get him back on track, but aware that her friends were watching every move. “There’s more.” She nudged him back to the screen; Gloria was still pacing and she picked up a piece of paper, shaking it slightly.

  “Okay, so that is literally everything the police had. So, we filed some motions and got some files and…we made a break in the case.”

  Annie’s arms dotted with goosebumps again, just like it did the first time Gloria told her the story. They existed solely for justice and that was something Annie could stand behind—she was hardwired for fairness; it was in her blood.

  “I’m waiting,” Benson said and his knee bounced with excitement.

  “Right. Right. Hear me out. The crux of the case rested on discovering how and if Bill and Missy knew each other. Strangers who walked ten feet together on a beach as their last acts on earth? Or…did they know each other? Were they there to meet someone else? A third party? Missy and Bill shared nothing. No friends. Nothing. Now, here’s where we stand. Missy has a pretty idyllic life, except now the sister says she hid an unknown kid, so…who knows? But she’s bound, tortured, and stabbed. William Schubert meets a client, says he’s going to dinner at a brewery and then heading home. Never makes it to dinner. He is bound, tortured, and stabbed. No one heard anything. No one knew them. No one saw anything.”

  “You know how to wind up a story,” Benson said with a nervous laugh.

  Gloria kept pacing. “Bill’s phone records for that night. No calls after leaving his client. But he had an incoming call that morning from a number that the police discounted as random. No message. That number shouldn’t be significant, but our sleuthing turned up that number in one other place.”

  She paused for dramatic effect.

  “Literally in a place that no one looked or saw or connected until now. And since her sister hired us to explore this…”

  “She’s paying you?” Benson asked, eyebrows raised.

  Annie shushed him and reminded him that they were a club, not a business. She bit her lip, anticipating rebuke, but Gloria ignored him anyway and plowed forward.

  “…we’re keeping things close to us right now. But we thought…we’ll divulge where this is heading, if you promise to leave the dating story alone.”

  “Wait, wait. You all rallied around and are offering up this murder story as a way to basically reinforce your friend’s insecurity about the dating service she’s using?” Benson asked. Annie hit him in the shoulder.

  “Yes, that’s called friendship,” someone said to him through the screen.

  “Or…enabling?” he questioned scanning all their faces.

  “Also, occasionally, part of friendship,” Gloria said from the video chat.

  Holly nodded in the background.

  Benson sighed and looked to Annie once again. Her face was neutral, as usual, but her eyes twinkled and he imagined that she was beaming from head to toe from the attention, and he wondered if he could feel victory emanating from every pore. “Okay, so tell me what does that look like? What do you want me to do with this…other than….just leave the dating story alone.”

  “Not real time, but I think you’ll want to capture this. Go with them, us, on interviews when you can, when you get access. This is the journalism you want to do…”

  “Crime?”

  “It’s not just crime and you know it,” Annie said. They were sitting close on the couch, knees touching, and she knew she had to make a pitch. “You can write about the Love is Murder Social Club. This is about this group and our dreams and our time. We don’t have an amplified voice, but you could get us there. We have a story that we believe in and we believe we can be part of that story.”

  She knew he was considering her every word, weighing quickly risk versus the reward. He nodded slowly and ran his hand through his hair, holding up the blond pieces and closing his eyes, taking in the moment.

  “Okay,” he said, nodding, imagining. “Documentary style. About the club and about the murder. Full exclusive, full rights.”

  Gloria waved him away. “Details later. You’re in?”

  “For sure,” he said.

  Gloria pointed to another member of the group, Kristy, and said, “This is what she discovered…a phone number. Scribbled on a bag.”
<
br />   Kristy shrugged, taking her part in the story. “I like search and find games. I told myself to inspect every piece of garbage. Found the number and I wrote it down to play in the lotto that day…”

  Gloria picked back up the narrative thread, “And I see the number, think it looks familiar, and take it back to the files. Yup. The incoming call, no pick-up? Same number written on the fast food wrapper bag. Now we have our connection. A small, tiny, piece of a connection. So, we call the number and five years later it still works. It’s the private line to a woman named Linda Remington, which means she is exactly as she sounds: old, privileged, smart, and not accustomed to bullshit. But we think the most fascinating part of both Bill and Missy having Linda’s private phone number connected to them is what Linda does…and it possibly shines a much different light on this case that strangers murdered by strangers.”

  “You gotta make me beg for it?” Benson asked with a dry smile.

  “Linda started Twoly,” Gloria said. She’d stopped to say it directly—blinking once and shaking her head slightly. “Yeah, you heard right. Linda Remington was the original owner, she’s since left the company, of one elite matchmaking service. Looks like you’ll get to write your Twoly story after all.”

  Chapter Six

  The computer was closed and Annie took down the giant sheet, folded it, and rested it across the chair. She resumed her seat next to Benson and he could only stare at her—open-mouthed—confused. She’d tucked her hair behind her ear and she was quiet, reticent, and beautiful.

  Benson couldn’t deny himself a physical attraction to the young lawyer. She, despite her days spent with drug addicts, rapists, the mentally ill, looked young and sweet. That’s why he’d scooted himself over to that table to begin with that night at the Wayfarer. Had he hoped for physical companionship that night? Sure. Base level, sure. But that had changed, hadn’t it? The silence between them had gone on a bit too long and revealed more than he was willing; Annie had big doe-eyes, soft and enthusiastic, but he knew she wasn’t going to let him kiss and run.