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

by Talia Maxwell

  Chapter Seven

  It had been a week since The Date and Benson.

  And a wild week at that—on Monday alone she had two cases that went to trial, two more cases that resulted in plea bargains, and three initial video hearings. Her client list increased by two, resulting in 56 people who needed her at all times of the day. Her oldest brother, a fancy litigator in Portland, respected her work but tried to talk her out of the public defender life. Annie dismissed him completely.

  At noon, right at the moment she knew she’d have to scarf a sandwich or skip lunch entirely, her mom called.

  “You never updated. I gave you a week,” her mother said into the phone, full of rush and admonishment.

  “Did you need a full review?”

  “It’s a family investment. Everyone is interested and they come to me for the latest developments…”

  “That feels so…” Annie had run out of the best words to say; she had six-seven more hours of work and her brain was already mush. Was her appointment at one at the courthouse or the jail? “Violating,” she finished, although that wasn’t the right word. “I don’t remember getting a say when Asa married the barista,” she complained.

  Except, she took every opportunity to complain about her future-sister-in-law up until the moment they said “I do” and signed the certificate. The money-grabber with the vocal fry and a love of gossip wasn’t Annie’s favorite, but she gave her Love is Murder Social Club girls all the updated drama like it was their own private soap opera, and that made her brother marrying a troll more bearable.

  There was camaraderie in the mutual understanding that adulting, for everyone, was a trap.

  “Everyone talked about it, no one got a say. And that’s how families work. So. Dish.”

  Reluctantly, Annie told her mother of the man’s tardiness, his lack of conversational skills, and the premature ending. She left out any mention of Benson and the late night walk down the sand, her hands making the water glow, his eyes wide with a fun and childlike sense of wonder. That memory, those moments, she kept to herself. The date crasher would be an interloper to the plan and she had no interest in explaining it to her mom.

  “Well, they can’t all be winners,” Mrs. Gerwitz dismissed.

  Her mother, like so many mothers before her, was a catalog of clichés. Push a scenario button, hear the canned words of wisdom. Maybe she found it easier that way in her little Brady Bunch experiment. Four children living all together, and a fifth created as a symbol of that piecemeal union. She was loved, she was doted upon, she was a tad spoiled as a kid.

  “I have a working lunch, Mom,” Annie said, something she knew her mother could understand.

  “Your dad has been asking a lot of questions, so I think he’s interested, too. Maybe you should come over? For dinner? Come into Portland and we can go out, too, to SE Division if you want. Something cool.”

  “Dad’s been asking a lot of questions about matchmaking?” Annie asked. Her father didn’t ask her a lot of questions about anything personal. The gift at Christmas was as open anyone got: a generosity wrapped in judgment.

  “And your work and everything,” Mrs. Gerwitz sounded chipper and light—as if everything was fine because her dad was asking after her like a good dad should. But he was a hands-off dad, a taciturn dad, a dad who enjoyed control more than he enjoyed authenticity. He was the dad of yesteryear, rejecting new roles and changing norms, and expecting Annie to be married by now.

  He hadn’t always been that way. Her mother used to describe him as a hippie eschewing traditional norms. The thing was, he only valued changing traditions for his sons. His daughter, well, she gutted him so frequently he reverted.

  “That’s nice,” Annie said. She was getting bored with the conversation and the files on her desk were calling to her. She began to flip through a few of them and read absentmindedly.

  “How about you come into Portland for a date with your dad on the weekend?”

  “Sure,” Annie agreed before realizing what it was she had said. “Oh, next weekend?”

  “You already said sure. Send me any calendar changes in ink.” That was her way of saying no bogus attempts to push back the date would be allowed. Annie’s, “Sure,” was written in blood.

  Her mother got off the phone and Annie hung up, depleted. She closed the file she needed for her next hearing and slumped downward, drained and hungry. Her phone chirped again. She groaned thinking it was her mom, but it was a text from Gloria.

  Gloria: Checking in. You heard from your journalist yet?

  Annie: My journalist? I haven’t. And I’ve been too swamped to text first.

  Gloria: We’re ready. Got PI on R.

  Annie knew that meant she had put a Private Investigator on Robin Schubert, the wife. In a few days, they would know her daily schedule, her routine, her friends, her habits.

  Annie: Erin??

  Gloria: Erin.

  Annie: Love her.

  Erin was a hairdresser and private investigator, brandishing a blow-dryer and a gun when she needed to, and she was the perfect person to dig into Robin’s life. The woman handled every job like she was looking into her own family—with empathy and without adjudication—and she’d been a member of the Love is Murder group since before Annie had joined, and when Erin introduced Annie to the group, all pep and sass and sparkling energy, she saw the seriousness the woman gave everything she did in life. She was a rare bird, genuine and professional without harshness, and Annie thought she had a lot to learn from someone like that. Someone who learned how to buff out the sharp edges and still cut quick if needed.

  Gloria: I think B should contact LR.

  Annie: I can text him later.

  Gloria: You should text him now.

  Annie: Your dedication to our love lives is my favorite thing. But no.

  Gloria: Maybe you can meet. At your place. At his place. At a place with a bed.

  Annie: I’m committed.

  Gloria: To the agency? Ay dios mio. Makes you sound like you’re in a cult.

  Annie: Fine. I’m committed to the process of this thing I’m trying…

  Gloria: You’re committed to pushing away a true connection.

  Annie: I’m paying to find a true connection…and I don’t have a connection to him. You’re wrong.

  Gloria: I’m hardly ever wrong. Ask around. Ask him over.

  Annie: He’s not my guy.

  Gloria: You liked him. You look at him like you want to take his clothes off, sweetie. I know you. If he’s not your guy, he’s not your guy. You’ll never know that if you don’t try to say something. I know you’re into that Twoly voodoo. That doesn’t mean you can’t ask him over and see what happens.

  Annie: Argh. Gotta get back to work.

  Gloria: That man has a jaw that could work you for hours, baby girl.

  Annie nearly did a spit-take of cold coffee on to her computer. She covered her mouth and forced a swallow. Gloria wasn’t like her mother—Annie’s mother was driven and withdrawn—Gloria was like the perverted older sister she never had. Her advice was often, too often, spot-on, but she encouraged promiscuity in her friends while preaching chastity to her daughters in a sort of bizarre spectrum that required no one to rest in the middle. It was an odd binary, anyway. She was an adult and these were the decisions she was supposed to make.

  Annie: Sweet baby Jesus and Mary in the stable, I got a DV mtg in 5. Contract is a contract.

  Gloria: Think about it. Always thinking about you. Also. When you have a moment, sending you over an email with some questions and some names. Trying to fill in the gaps with some witnesses from that night.

  Annie: K

  And that was where they left it—a sort of nebulous request out there in the universe—for Annie to follow her dalliances, her whims, her fancies. It wasn’t something she had much experience with since her life was rarely her own. And she wasn’t a rule-breaker even though she spent all day representing them.

  No, Annie thought
as she picked up her sandwich, put on her jacket, grabbed her case file and began to trudge toward court. She wasn’t a rule-breaker and she didn’t have time to date one person, let alone a second. This was her life and she’d chosen it. This was her life and she was beholden to the path. And she didn’t have the time to think about anything else.

  Chapter Eight

  Blood and sex.

  Murder and Matchmaking.

  Here in the files of the Schubert murders were all the necessary plot points needed to build a beautifully themed package. In the Schubert files there was the whiff of scandal, the taste of intrigue, and if he could find the perfect way to mesh that with the humbling of his soul—an introspective look at dating, being on the hunt, baring all.

  With the green light in place, all Benson had to do was apply.

  He’d written the start of a blog post about the entire process: I’ve just paid an exorbitant amount of money for a service to find me a wife. I want to write about it, yes, and bare my heart for readers, yes, but I am going to take the advice of someone I care about and trust the process. And in trusting the process, I not only hope to discover the partner of my dreams but also to find out who killed Bill Schubert and Missy Price.

  They aren’t as unrelated as you think. We often think of who we wish to be partnered with in life and we’ll often never think about or know who we will be partnered with in death. Two stranger’s lives intersected one night and neither of them are here to tell the tale.

  The only clue to tie them together, the only piece of information we have: Twoly.

  The Twoly service options explained the matchmakers would meet with clients anywhere, but their main headquarters was at the beach, nestled in a quaint tourist town along the northern coastline of the Pacific Northwest. The most expensive service they offered was a full contemporary dating assistance package, and that package required on-site consultations and classes at the coast. For Benson, the Full Contemporary was the only way to go. The testimonials alone gave him a thrill and a shot of adrenaline. Fall in love at the beach. Cozy up to your new partner under a shared blanket on the sand. Campfire will always remind you of passion and compatibility.

  He adored the cheese factor because it fit with his style of writing. He could easily poke fun at the gregarious platitudes and migrate between the two worlds of garish marketing and the darkness of the human soul.

  With the deposit down, his initial phone call completed, all he had to do was fill out his dating profile.

  He was honest. Mostly.

  Benson listed his occupation as merely: writer.

  He fudged his assets.

  And he assumed he wasn’t the only one.

  Then after that, he sent some messages to the women of the Love is Murder Social Club and pored through the file folder he’d created from their notes. With no one else in the home but him, he spread out the clues, there weren’t many, and hoisted a corkboard from his apartment in Portland to rest against a chair in the dining room.

  He put up two index cards: Bill and Missy. Then a third: Linda. And a fourth: Child?

  As he futzed, he resisted the urge to call Annie and invite her over to the house. There was a part of him that wanted to show off the property—it was a beautiful home.

  His parents had decorated their second home in clean modern lines and had an entire wall that faced the Pacific Ocean. The windows peaked to an A-frame and Benson could stand with his back to the kitchen and his body to the expanse of the beach and horizon in front of him; he loved watching the tide and the sun as it moved across the sky and settled down at the edge of the world.

  The beach was Benson’s place.

  He knew many people felt that way and so he never outwardly declared his inherent possession of the coast and the waves and the sand beneath his toes, but he felt like it was his nonetheless.

  His to claim, his to exploit and use, and cling to.

  His phone chirped. It was a text.

  Annie: The sunset tonight from Cannon is amazing.

  He looked up. She was right. The pinks and purples moved across the sky and the clouds. Opening up the door to the back deck, Benson knew Annie was looking at the same sky, the same clouds, the same color. He typed back.

  Benson: I’m here. Living at the coast for a bit. If I walk out of my house, I’m south of the rock a bit, and start walking north, where would we meet on the beach?

  And before he hit send, he erased it, wondering if that was too much. Too stalkerish.

  He didn’t want to tell her he screwed up with Robin Schubert and he didn’t want to tell her he’d just cashed in some stocks and bonds to be one of the elite Twoly options. Not then, not yet.

  Somehow, the Annie he just met would have a right to be disdainful of both. She took life more seriously than he did—he couldn’t tell if it was good or bad.

  He certainly didn’t want to have to discuss his motive for the whole endeavor of signing up for the matchmaking service, either. Annie, a legitimate client, was honest about her concerns with how Benson would portray the people there. She had a right to be concerned because he wasn’t going to censor his experiences and he wasn’t going to try to let anyone convince him otherwise. He felt the creativity of the project running through him and he couldn’t wait for his first date, to capture it, to script it. He was giddy at the thought.

  He stared at the empty message back to Annie and wondered what he should say. I’m here, actually, and you should come over.

  His imagination went to her lips, thick and pouty, and the gentle tendrils of her dark blonde hair. The man at the Wayfarer was a fool for not seeing the gem in front of him—her strength, her assuredness, her beauty, her strength behind the steely gaze.

  Benson’s thumb hovered.

  No, he wouldn’t call to her, invite her over, seduce her. Instead, he texted back: Take a picture and show me.

  He waited. Two minutes later an image appeared. He held it to the sky, matching the clouds and the angle, and then he turned to the general spot where he imagined Annie was standing. He wondered if one of the little bundled dots a mile or so down the shore could be her.

  Benson: Beautiful. It really is.

  Annie: I have my second match. Rylan called and sent over files. Date is tomorrow. I’ll call and tell you how it went this time?

  Benson: Send me the location and eta and I can be ready as back up.

  Annie: I’ll pass, but I appreciate the offer.

  He smiled.

  Annie: Next time you’re in town, we should grab a beer and talk Schubert.

  Now, I’m in town, now. We can talk Schubert now. You want to talk about how I physically stopped his wife from shutting the door on me?

  Benson: Absolutely.

  Annie: Nite.

  Benson: Goodnight.

  Benson rubbed his eyes and exited out of texts. He checked his email and was surprised to see he had an unread message from Twoly. That was faster than he anticipated.

  Benson went and poured himself a glass of water and he drank it fully before grabbing his laptop and setting it up at the table, arranging himself with a notebook and a pen, and a deep breath caught in the center of his chest.

  He scanned the message: His profile was accepted and when could his Dating Coach meet with him?

  “I’m available tomorrow,” he typed back.

  Within minutes, a reply, “Excellent, Mr. Douglass. We look forward to meeting you and starting your journey to finding forever companionship. Here are a few instructions, please review them carefully. We’ll make ourselves available to your schedule, please send us a start time and please call with questions.”

  So many pleases, so conciliatory and withdrawn.

  He had no idea what he was about to get himself into, but he knew that he was going there in a hurry. When he opened the additional documents, he saw a personality test, a list of qualities he desired in a match, and a request for medical documents demonstrating good physical, emotional, and sexual health. Tw
oly required a sperm sample, and Benson read the request several times before shrugging off their explanation and making a note to make an appointment at a clinic.

  “All of these to-dos are certainly a chore, but we believe that each specific request helps us make the most beautiful matches. Trust the process.”

  Benson shivered.

  Oh shit, so Annie was some mind-controlled freak who valued the algorithm more than her own heart? Trust the process, indeed. He’d trust it as far as he could write about it, dissect it, find out what was genuine, what was bullshit.

  Finding love wasn’t his goal. But he never said it wouldn’t be hard to try.

  He wondered if there was a way to request cute lawyers with a penchant for timeliness and red wine.

  It was worth a shot.

  Benson’s research of Twoly turned up an array of information, some boring and some bizarre. Before he stepped foot into the Dating Center, which reeked of a cult, he’d dug as far as his paws could get him to grab any dirt. There wasn’t much.

  Twoly had started eight or nine years ago by Linda Remington, the patron saint of Northwest matchmaking. Oh yes, Remington had been thanked at more Portland weddings than God, and when she retired to the coast, Twoly sprung up shortly thereafter with three protégés working underneath her, running the business, consulting her only in times of great need.

  She lasted until shortly after the murders, five years ago, before selling off her shares, bestowing the company to her protégés and moving to Mexico.

  Benson called the three underling matchmakers The Fates, after all, weren’t they exactly like those ancient sisters? Together they spun and wove a story for each of their clients. Except it wasn’t Fate, it was the Fates, crafting a code that brought together impenetrable matches with the help of their Master: the woman whose name glared at him from the center of the index card in his dining room.