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

by Talia Maxwell

Benson soaked in his words and committed them to memory. The killer robbed him of the joy of his ocean view.

  He didn’t know what he thought about that.

  “I’m sorry,” Annie cooed both simultaneously interested and faux-interested in the old man’s story. “That’s awful.”

  “My wife had a mental breakdown. I wasn’t kept in the loop of the investigation and I don’t know anything more than what you read in the newspapers. So, if it’s details you want. I don’t have them. You want to come here and talk about a night I want to forget…and then go giggle over the place where I found their bodies? Well, then, that’s up to you.”

  “No,” Annie said, forgetting her role. “That’s not what I want. I want whoever did that to rot in jail. I want justice.”

  “You sure didn’t say you were after justice,” Roger intoned, leveling his gaze. “Is it the justice that works you two up, then?”

  Benson sighed and tried to gather a response that wouldn’t net them zero, but Annie was two steps ahead.

  “Yes, actually,” she replied. “The puzzle of it. The mystery. And then the act of solving something, together. I’m sorry if we bothered you, though.” She squeezed Benson’s hand. “How about this…instead. Any marriage advice for two kids starting out?”

  The man narrowed his eyes and took a moment to examine them both, wordlessly, brows furrowed. From the background: “Where is Italy? Dammit.” He scratched his chin, paused. “Yeah,” the man said. “Be honest with each other. Have a good night. That’s all we have, kids. Best of luck to you,” he said and he waved and began to shut the door, but Annie full of bravery put her hand out and stopped him from shutting them out completely.

  Benson thought of the same move he’d employed with Robin. Shortly before she died.

  “Wait, wait, two more seconds,” she said. “Can we….just…do a little experiment? Something that I need to know…about the case. Can I stay in here,” she pointed to their living room, “and see if we can hear yelling? You didn’t hear anything that night, right? I have this theory…”

  “Well, now… that’s a little intrusive,” Roger said. “I don’t think we could—”

  “As long as it’s quick and during the commercial,” Donna interrupted from the couch, “I’ve always wondered that, too. Why we didn’t hear anything.” And Annie smiled at finding a kindred spirit. She clapped his hands with joy and leaned down and kissed Benson on the cheek.

  “Okay,” she said and she rubbed her hands together. “Go cry out and I’ll tell you what I hear.” Her eyes gleamed with mischief and Benson, not wanting to miss his cue, rushed off twenty yards to the sand dune to call wildly into the night. He could see Annie now inside the house through the glass and she waved out, even though he was certain she couldn’t see him back in the dark.

  He, slightly self-conscious, raised his hands and let a mangled call escape into the air. The sound of the yell was quickly swallowed by the night. Between the ocean and the wind, and the inactivity of the people inside, he knew the sound hadn’t reached them. He tried again, calling and yelling, but Annie kept staring outside, leaning her ear toward the window.

  She heard nothing.

  A group of young teenagers appeared down the dunes, their excited voices reached him and as they approached, Benson put out his hand and said, “Hey, hey. I’m doing an experiment. Can I get one of you to scream?”

  The teens didn’t need a lengthy explanation or an incentive. They pushed a tiny blonde forward and she closed her eyes, balled up her fist, and let a warbled scream out into the night. Her friends laughed as she finished the high-pitched wail and didn’t wait around to see the results, tromping down the beach in a wave of energy and youthful excitement.

  “You should’ve asked for cash,” Benson heard one of them say.

  But the girl, her voice fading, said, “I’ll always scream for free,” trailing away in a singsong happiness.

  Benson looked up and saw Annie and the male owner coming down the steps of the house and rushing toward him.

  Annie’s eyes were wide and confused.

  “We heard a young girl scream,” she said and her eyes went to the escaping group of tweens.

  Benson nodded and walked toward them. “Yeah. So, that answers that.”

  “If Missy screamed…” Annie started.

  “…then no one was around to her hear,” Benson finished.

  “Or,” Annie shrugged, “she didn’t make a noise. They didn’t fight.”

  The homeowner trailed Annie and he stood at the top of the dunes, looking at the duo, his arms crossed. For a moment he looked like he wanted to say something to the couple, but then he waved and said, “Good luck with justice. Got to get back inside. It’s final Jeopardy!”

  Annie and Benson stared at each other. Half a mile from his parent’s beachfront home, there, unmarked on the shifting sand, a location of a double homicide. No one heard them. No one knew her. And no one had ever been brought to justice. The idea of it ate at Benson and he shook his head, ever-so-slightly, and gazed out at the darkened rolling waves. Down the beach, he heard a roll of laughter from the group of teens, unseen but still heard in the night.

  “How?” Benson asked.

  “The police couldn’t figure it out either,” Annie offered. “This is a sleepy town, Benny…every officer was here working on this…they took the murders personally.”

  “Someone knows something,” he said.

  “Of course. But everyone lies. To themselves, for themselves, for other people.” Annie began walking back toward their parked cars and Benson followed.

  “You’re a lawyer, you would know,” he replied somewhat jokingly, but Annie stopped in her tracks and spun toward him, and he knew he’d started a fight without even realizing he was doing it.

  “I’m a lawyer for the least of these, Benny-boy,” she said, taking his once cute nickname and shifting it into a foul sounding bro name. “When my clients lie it’s because they don’t want to lose what little they already have. Or it’s because they’re protecting something bigger than themselves and they are willing to take the fall. Most of them though are just humans trying to do the best they can.”

  “You feel that way about murderers and rapists and violent abusers?”

  Annie’s right eye twitched.

  He watched the way her eyelid danced with building frustration. He was a journalist. It was his job to ask the questions that made people pause and think about their declarations. If she wanted to declare a bleeding heart for the people in the world who took lives and shattered homes, he wanted her to explain it, not pass it off like a given. Don’t fail me, Annie. Fight for it. I know you want to.

  They slowed on the sandy covered asphalt. The walk back to their cars felt like drudgery and Benson was cold. He tucked his jacket around his body and tried not to think about the whipping wind.

  “Everyone deserves fairness,” she replied. “Fairness and justice is not just reserved for those in society who are deemed acceptable and wanted. That’s not what our country stands for and that’s not what I stand for. It’s a basic component of what I do, but yes, even the most vile murderer deserves justice.”

  Benson didn’t say a word. He let silence urge her to keep talking.

  She did.

  They’d reached their cars, the growler still safe beneath the streetlamp.

  “I had a client once.” Annie paused, took a breath, stared at the moon, glowing behind a rolling system of thick clouds, pregnant with potential rain. “Repeat client. Drug charges and prostitution. She lost her kids to the system when she went to jail the first time. Then after her release, a john gets her pregnant and she doesn’t have the money to do anything but just let that baby grow while she keeps on living…selling…dealing.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Baby girl goes straight into the foster care system…as she should, don’t misunderstand me. But I’m cradling the mom, right? While she’s crying, when the state takes her kid. Holding he
r and stroking her hair as she bawls because she didn’t want the child to begin with but now she has to part from her. And I’m the only one there holding her. Her public defender, there to make sure she understands this is not a first offense and what my plea will look like, and she’s just a ghost. A mom without babies. A woman without a home or a family because when you’re out there and it’s all about survival? How can you make the best choices? Most people who choose to give in to their demons are deeply ashamed and tormented by their actions, but we’re looking at addicted people, people whose lives might have been filled with abuse, apathy, poverty, and saying no matter what they’ve done, we’ll make sure they are treated fairly and by the book. It’s compassion, Benson, I guess. I have compassion for the people who end up with me.”

  A stretch of silence extended past them.

  Benson exhaled and asked, “What if you disagree morally with a client? What if they are a monster? Would you walk away?”

  “I can’t and I wouldn’t,” Annie answered in a terse voice. “That’s my job. Every monster was once a person who could’ve made a different choice and didn’t. Every person deserves someone who is there for them. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to get to be that person for someone. It’s not always rewarding, but I’m doing what I’m meant to do. No regrets. I don’t have political aspirations or a desire to be rich…I want to help people. And that’s what I’ll do for the rest of my life.”

  “Yes. I hope so,” he agreed. Her eyes were still fiery and ready to argue, arms crossed over her body. “You’re amazing,” he said.

  It took her a second to realize he’d paid her a compliment instead of asking her another question. She stiffened and then relaxed, nodding.

  “Thank you,” she finally answered reluctantly. “I’m not, but thank you.”

  He took another step toward her. Her arms still crossed over her body and her face rigid and concerned. She didn’t like having to defend herself, he understood that, but he thought she was amazing.

  Benson reached up and cupped her face with his hand.

  She leaned into his touch and closed her eyes.

  He kissed her nose and then her lips as she lifted her chin to find him.

  Something shifted and clanked into place. A powerful lock that clamped on to his heart and forced his mind into place.

  This was not a kiss of passion; this was not a kiss that communicated sex or attraction or hormonal desire. When he’d kissed her at his house, they’d been hungry, tormented, inflamed.

  On the main road of Cannon Beach, exposed, cold and quiet, they kissed and it meant something entirely different.

  Each tiny push into each other was a message of appreciation and of understanding; of respect for her amazingness and an acceptance of that gift. He couldn’t tell her how much he was already falling for her, so he only had his lips to send that significance.

  She pulled back first.

  “I like you,” Benson said. What he meant was: I don’t want to share you. I don’t want to do this in secret. I don’t want to risk letting you fall in love with someone else.

  “I like you, too,” Annie replied.

  “Then—”

  She looked to the ground and pulled her face away from his touch. “Don’t say it. Just don’t.” When she looked back up at him, he could see the pain and torment flying through her eyes and he understood. “If you push,” she said, with intention and intensity, “I have to walk away.”

  “I know,” he said immediately. He was aware that Annie’s battles might be bigger and worse than he even realized. She vacillated between unabashed joy and unbridled adventure—the girl who would lie to walk into a stranger’s house—and flaming passion—flashing stormy eyes and darkened moods when he mentioned anything that implied he was about to veer off her dictated narrative.

  Annie liked control.

  Benson wouldn’t sacrifice his. Not even for someone who captivated and intrigued him as much as Annie. He’d follow her rules only because he wasn’t willing to let her out of his life, but deep down, Benson thought she’d run to him after the next failed Twoly date, lamenting how none of the options were quite as good a fit as Benson.

  In his daydreams, that’s what he imagined.

  Annie nuzzled into his shoulder and he held her tight. She shivered against him, her teeth beginning to chatter. He kissed her cheek and the top of her head; he loved the way her warmth seeped into him and he rested his cheek against her and closed his eyes.

  Annie gasped.

  Benson spun around expecting some immediate danger to loom close, but instead, he realized that Annie hadn’t seen anything—she’d realized something. Her eyes wide and searching, Annie nodded and nodded, pulling away from him, absently running through some scenario in her head. She snapped her fingers and Benson realized she’d gone white and distant.

  “I need to call my brother,” she said. “Alex. My brother. The brother closest to me in age…I have a memory…” she trailed off. “We lived together at the time of the Schubert murder. My dad called him one night.” She looked up. “I remember.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “Alex did something for my dad that night. A favor. A favor having to do with a child.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Before he left, he asked to borrow my old Gameboy.”

  “Why do you think that has anything to do with the Schubert murders?”

  “It was the night of…now that I think of it. Must have been. And Alex rushed in and started rummaging through my stuff, looking for the stupid Gameboy, frantic.”

  “I’m not following.” Benson couldn’t see the connection between a handheld game device and a murder.

  Annie stopped nibbling on her nails and stood up straighter, taller. “That’s exactly the kind of thing you’d need to grab…if you were suddenly in charge of a ten-year-old boy.”

  Back at Benson’s house, Annie poured the pale ale from the growler into pint glasses and brought them over to him on the couch. She’d worked through the timeline in her head and was positive that the night of the Schubert murders, her brother received a mysterious call to go pick up a child.

  The memory, without connection, didn’t matter to Annie at the time, but

  She’d called her brother and left a message, but Benson tried to move her mind away from her family’s involvement in the Schubert case—until he knew what role they played, the idea of it seemed dangerous to pursue.

  But he couldn’t move her mind from the realization that there had been other clues available along the way and she’d missed them.

  “Alex was working for my dad,” she’d said again, trying to make sense of it all.

  “Are you all named A-names?” Benson asked, taking a sip of beer. “Blended family, all ended up with A-named kids?”

  “Ha,” Annie hummed, with a shake of her head. “Andrew, Asa, Alex…Paul…and Annabelle.” She waved as if to introduce herself and stuck a finger in her dimple, smiling.

  “Paul? I’m trying to figure out how I’d feel as Paul. Left out or like I’ve dodged a bullet?” He wanted to tell her she could stay: stay, it’s fine. I have extra rooms and we can breakfast at the bakery tomorrow. Stay. We’ll watch a movie, I won’t talk. I won’t kiss you.

  Whenever he was able, he’d wake up, bundle up and trek to the Cannon Beach bakery. He’d eat their fresh French croissants and drink a latte, watching the world wake up, the sun finishing its stretch of starting a new day.

  Except, he didn’t have to tell Annie to stay longer. She slipped off her shoes and buried her feet under his thighs on the couch, wiggling them, his arm around her knees.

  “We’re going to figure it out,” Annie muttered, perhaps more to herself than to him. “There is something here for us to figure out and I know we’re going to kick ourselves when the pieces fall in place.”

  “You’re confident,” Benson said, not a question.

  “I have no reason not to be.”

  “That
’s what I kept trying to tell you,” he replied. Benson put a hand on her knee and let his fingers spread. His thumb rubbed down her thigh. She let her knees fall apart and she scooted upward, her face pulling closer to his.

  “I’m confident that we’re making progress in the case,” she amended.

  “And yet, you should be confident in everything.”

  He knew if he waited a second longer to kiss her, he’d go crazy. Benson faced Annie on the couch and put his right hand on the back of her head, gathering up her blonde hair in his fingers. He pulled her mouth toward his and when their lips met, he held his breath, moving his tongue gently along hers, finding her nipples with his hands and rubbing her breasts until she slipped out of her shirt and revealed she’d been braless the whole time.

  “Can I make love to you, Annabelle?” Benson whispered in her ear. His cock was rock hard inside his pants, pressing against his body, stiff and in need of release. Maybe they hadn’t lied at the Pelletier’s house; maybe working on the case and fighting for justice for William and Missy did ignite a passion, a longing for creation for power, for the joy of an orgasm.

  “Yes,” she consented as her hands found his pants and pulled his boxers and jeans off in one full swipe. Fully erect, he did the same, tugging her leggings down her body, down her ass. When they were naked, he touched her and found her wet. Still, he leaned down to wet the area more with his mouth, teasing her clit, pulsating with desire with each little gasp of air he made her take.

  He wanted Annie to come so hard she had to fight for oxygen.

  His body responded to the blood in his cock with the most primal of actions—he clutched her hips and slid her forward, then he eased the tip of his penis into her vagina for only a second, teasing her. He took his left hand and moved his cock around the hood of her clit and her labia, using her own wet excitement to lube himself. The idea of how much she was already turned on made him unable to hold back any longer.

  When he looked up, he saw Annie staring at him, her eyes moving between his own, while her hips moved up and down, seeking him, urging him to enter her again.

  “Your body,” Annie breathed. He looked up and watched as her eyes scanned over his chest, his stomach, his cock. “I love your body.”