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

by Talia Maxwell

  “Am I in danger?” Annie asked again, directly this time so he couldn’t push past it.

  She’d often longed to show-off her brother—her male likeness, his handsomeness a common comment from friends who only just met him—but she hadn’t pictured his arrival becoming so dramatic.

  “I’m not engaging in this conversation over the phone,” Alex said. “Look. Do you have beer or do I need to stop?”

  “Ten Barrel,” Annie said with a sigh. She knew she couldn’t be in that much danger if he was expecting a six-pack upon arrival. “You sleeping over?”

  “Depends on how well you take the news I’m about to drop in your lap,” he said with a low-throated growl. “One hour and thirty-seven minutes,” he said. “Cold, Ten Barrel and don’t you dare call anyone else.”

  She debated about calling Benson.

  Maybe it would be safe to let someone know her brother was coming over with news.

  If it was news about the Schubert murder, then Benson would find out anyway—she’d tell him everything because at this point they were in this together. Right? Annie checked her fridge upon getting home and realized she’d accidentally lied to her brother, spotting the empty bottles next to her sink. She’d already gone through the six-pack she bought last week. Her shoulders slumped and she grabbed her keys and set out again to the small general store open a few blocks down.

  The small coastal towns that dotted the western seaboard weren’t known for their bevy of grocery options, but most had significant options for beer and microbrews. One type of cereal, nineteen different beers.

  Annie stood under the fluorescent lights of the Doctor Tim’s General Market perusing the microbrew options, an IPA under her arm for Alex. She settled on a chilled Prosecco for herself and stood behind one other late-night shopper as a sleepy teenage girl took her time to scan it all by hand, her body-language full of apathy, her teeth covered in clear braces which made it appear like her mouth was full of plastic wrap.

  The man in front of her was tall and had on a black hat, with fraying threads sticking out from the back. He gathered his things and reached for his receipt, and Annie glanced to see the holster and the gun under the man’s shirt as he lifted his arm. She withdrew, not used to seeing someone to brazenly out with a firearm, and he must have sensed her discomfort like sharks smelled blood in the water. He nodded to Annie and she felt herself nodding back—an acceptance of his acknowledgment of her existence, but a bizarre interaction nonetheless.

  “I have an updated poster,” the man told the teenage girl and the worker nodded as if she understood exactly what he meant. “For that, over there,” the man thumbed his way to a corkboard near the bathroom. From her spot in line, Annie could see it was covered with business cards and advertisements. But there, in the corner, was a fraying poster for a missing woman.

  Lucia Applegate.

  “Sure, yeah. Bring it by,” the girl said. “You staying long this time, Mr. Applegate? You forgot your gum.” The teenage girl moved her forward. A wayward pack of gum had been left behind and she grabbed it and bypassed looking at Annie entirely. The man pivoted and came back to retrieve it from the girl’s outstretched hands.

  “Not too long this time. Just long enough to update the signs. Bring them by tomorrow, okay?”

  “Sure, yeah. Okay.”

  The girl went quiet as she focused on Annie instead and the man disappeared into the parking lot, his car starting and disappearing into the night. Annie looked up and stared at the poster on the corkboard. Lucia Applegate had bleach blonde hair and glasses and was described as weighing 193 pounds. But even so, as Annie stared at the picture, she couldn’t help but see a familiar face buried underneath all the changes.

  She’d seen only a driver’s license and autopsy and crime scene photos.

  But there was something about Lucia Applegate’s face that resonated with her and began to chant: Missy, Missy, Missy.

  As the girl rang up the last of her items, Annie wandered to the poster and leaned in closer to the read the details. The cashier noticed her interest and nodded to the parking lot.

  “He’s been coming in one weekend every month for the past year or so looking for his sister,” the girl said.

  “Oh yeah?” Annie asked. Could it be? They looked vaguely alike—like cousins. She read the rest of the poster and a particular sentence caught her eye: Might be traveling with a young child.

  Without thinking, Annie ripped the Lucia Applegate poster down off the wall and doubled back to grab her groceries.

  “Thanks,” Annie said and she rushed off into the parking lot, scanning the area to see if there was any chance she could catch the cowboy with the gun and the missing sister with the subtle resemblance to a dead girl.

  Her thoughts spinning, Annie put the beer in her car and checked her phone. She had a text from her brother with a timing update. He’d be there in an hour. She buckled in the beer on the seat next to her and rested her head against the steering wheel, tired and confused, and trying so hard to put together all the pieces before she had the full story.

  And somehow, in the middle of all of that, there was a boy. The boy though seemed like the least of her worries.

  Alex arrived on time. She opened the beer and handed it to him as he walked in the door—cold and ready—a little sister-brother song and dance that they’d become skilled at in the preceding years. But once he had his drink, he skipped all other formalities and plopped himself down into one of her side chairs and rested on his elbows. He didn’t even attempt formalities—they were beyond that.

  “Five, six, years ago,” he murmured and dragged his free hand through his hair, lost in thought. “You were just finishing law school. I think you graduated that year. It was my last year working with Dad.” Annie was impressed by his memory; she supposed that was what happened when people experienced a big event. If something significant occurred that summer it would make sense that he remembered more than she did.

  “What happened?” Annie asked.

  “Bill Schubert happened,” Alex said. “Not the murder. At first. The secret meetings with Dad, the weird promises made, clandestine shit, Annie. Six months before the murder, Dad gets roughed up a bit.”

  “Come on,” Annie rolled her eyes.

  “The Christmas Dad fell down the steps.”

  “You’re telling me he didn’t fall down the steps.”

  Alex lifted a beer as if to cheers her inference, but instead Annie’s mouth dropped open, aghast. “Oh my God,” Annie said. She looked at the floor, trying to understand.

  “This wasn’t something that was going to fall in your lap, Annie. You had the world ahead of you and Dad wanted to protect you from that.”

  “Who was the Gameboy for?” Annie asked.

  Alex blanched. “Look, I’m here because…five years isn’t that long ago, baby sister. There are still people to protect. And you can’t know shit, so here we are.”

  Alex felt the intensity of her stare and he shifted and turned his head to meet her gaze.

  “So here we are?”

  “If it didn’t matter, Annie, I wouldn’t be here. It matters. It matters more than you think. There’s a lot at stake here. Lives, most importantly.”

  Annie hated veiled statements meant to sway her opinion.

  “Missy Price…who didn’t exist until six years ago…looks an awful lot like this girl Lucia Applegate. Both died or went missing with their kids. Who was the Gameboy for, Alex.”

  “I didn’t drive an hour and a half for you to completely ignore me. I’m here as a courtesy because I know Dad already told you to stop and it’s clear you’re going to totally ignore him, so, Jesus, Annie…what will stop you from pursuing this?”

  “Answers,” Annie said and put her hands on her hips. “Simple.”

  “Come on, kiddo. If you could have answers, you’d have them by now.”

  “Don’t patronize me,” Annie said.

  “Don’t ignore that you need me. Not
the other way around.”

  “Need you for what?” Annie asked, regaining some of her footing. She cracked open a beer for herself and matched her brother’s posture. “I didn’t ask you to come here,” she said, sipped, “I was shocked that I’d learned Robin was Bill’s wife…and that five years ago, while his murder was happening, no one in our family said a god damn word about it. A glaring omission of news in a group that talks incessantly about justice and crime…”

  “What are you doing? Honestly?”

  “Solving a crime,” Annie answered. The tremor was back.

  “Because you’re better than the police? Because you think you can dredge up the truth on your own?” Alex asked and he gave her a side-eye.

  “I do. And I think you’re mistaken that I need you,” Annie shrugged. “I have people.”

  “Well, I wish you didn’t,” Alex sighed.

  Annie watched him. “Do the others know?” She meant their siblings and he knew exactly to whom she was referring.

  He shook his head, frowning. “I’m the lucky one.”

  She cleared her throat, crossed her leg over and balanced her glass bottle on her kneecap. “Why does this stay hidden? Give me a good reason.”

  Alex sucked in a breath through his teeth. He hadn’t been expecting that question and it gave him pause. His eyes wandered around the room, trying to look at anything but Annie. Eventually, he sighed and sat up, clearing his throat, “He’s loyal.”

  “Second question. Was Robin involved in the murder?”

  “No,” he answered emphatically. “Wrong tree. Stop sniffing.”

  “Third question…”

  “You’re rushing,” her brother warned. “Take your time, work it through…don’t waste a question because you’re in a hurry…”

  She was in a hurry. She was in a hurry to push together more pieces of the puzzle and then call Benson and explain to him how her evening unfolded. Annie was confident she was close to the answer.

  “Did Robin know who killed her husband?”

  Her refrigerator hummed and outside a horn honked, but Annie kept her attention on her brother as he shifted uncomfortably and looked to the ground. He was unwilling to answer straightaway, but she knew what his answer was going to be before he said it, so she interrupted and waved her hand.

  “Scratch that,” she interjected quickly. “Better question. Did she know the relationship between her husband and Missy Price?”

  “Look,” Alex said and he set his beer down and leaned forward, assuming an authoritative stance. “I love you. And I didn’t just drive down to get a beer and be an asshole about this…”

  “And yet,” Annie answered and she put a hand on her hip, cavalier and daring.

  “Here’s what I can tell you and all I can tell you. If you go above and beyond after this, I don’t know what will happen, Annie, but listen and hear me out. Bill and Missy only met that night. They didn’t know each other. But in order to bring the person who killed them to justice…big things have to come to light. And it’s never been the time for that to happen.”

  “In five years.”

  “Probably longer.”

  “So, dad is just abandoning justice because the time isn’t right?”

  “Yup. Abandoning justice. Listen to yourself. You don’t have to believe me.”

  “This doesn’t sound right, Alex, to be honest. It feels like I’m being fed a story and expected to nod my head and walk away, but you haven’t answered anything.” Annie left her unfinished beer on the side table and got up and stormed into the kitchen. Raising voices and engaging in an argument wasn’t a strange occurrence with the Gerwitz family—everyone had so many opinions. Their mother was often the unwitting victim of blow-ups, as she’d slip out entirely, leaving her children to duke it out on their own with the claws she’d helped sharpen.

  She pulled out a hidden bottle of whiskey in her spice cabinet and poured herself a tumbler. Then she opened up the freezer and grabbed two ice-cubes and plopped them into her drink. She stood at the counter and sipped the mediocre whiskey as it cooled on her tongue.

  Alex groaned and got up off the couch and followed her into the kitchen. He put his hands on his hips and tried to stare her down in a brotherly-admonishing sort of way, but she ignored him.

  “I get to ask a question now,” Alex said. “Why this case? Pulling files, making connections…”

  “Some people are looking into it,” Annie replied calmly.

  “Clients of yours?” he asked in a tone she couldn’t quite place.

  Annie suddenly didn’t want to tell him the truth. A week ago, she’d have divulged anything to her brother or her father, but now she didn’t know. When the case hit the media, it was a short-lived sensation: strangers on a beach. The Linda connection was new and the Robin connection, too, and those pieces changed everything.

  Then, there was the child. There was clearly more than met the eye.

  “Yes,” she answered defiantly, hoping he believed her.

  As she suspected, her brother’s sense of legal duty ensnared him and he grimaced and sucked in another breath, biding time before giving unsolicited advice.

  “That writer, Benson Douglass—”

  Her lover’s name on her brother’s lips struck her as an intrusion.

  How the fuck did he know about Benson? Her entire body went cold with confusion and worry and, yet, she knew she hadn’t mentioned him to anyone. How could it be then that there he was, making an appearance in their conversation. In a family with access to lots of private investigators and police officers, favors were called in often, and the idea of having someone tail her didn’t seem out of the realm of possibilities.

  “You following me?” Annie said with a bitter laugh and she put the drink down on the counter and crossed her arms, still leaning, still far enough away from him that she didn’t feel cornered. She wondered how someone with whom she could share an entire childhood could become a stranger so fast.

  “Annie, I have no idea how you ended up on this case, but I’m telling you to back off. Nicely. Dad told you nicely. I’m telling you nicely.”

  “Are you telling me because Dad’s talk didn’t work?”

  “I love you, Annie,” Alex said, grimacing. “Let this go.”

  Annie nodded, silent, sturdy. She was done and when she was done, she went radio silent. He recognized the impertinence in her stance and tried not to let it get to him, but she could see the rage growing in her brother’s eyes at her disobedience. Control. All he ever wanted was control.

  “Is that all I’ll get?” her brother asked and when she didn’t even blink, he shook his head and spun to leave. “Long way to drive to get the cold-shoulder,” he tried to guilt her, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. “You think I’d come have this conversation face to face if it wasn’t important?”

  “I didn’t tell you to come,” Annie answered, unmoving. “Safe drive back.”

  He set down his beer, empty by the sound of it, and moved to the door, unwilling to engage in the cold war.

  “You’re not going to stop are you?” Alex asked with his hand on the knob and his back to her. “You don’t have any idea what you’re up against, Annie.” He turned and for the first time, Annie saw real pain and worry in his eyes. In many ways, it made her angrier that he kept his emotion tidy until the end—when she was already sick of the non-disclosure and the secrecy.

  “Then tell me what I’m up against and don’t treat me like I’m just a side component of this story. If I’m in danger, tell me how and bring me in. I don’t trust deals made in the dark, Alex, and neither should you.”

  “The deals that were made in the dark happened long before me and you, kiddo,” he saw the flash of anger again at the diminutive nickname, and he dipped his head, “…er, um, I meant baby sister…”

  “Not better,” she replied. “I’m not your baby. I’m an adult. With questions.”

  “Sometimes we don’t get to pick our lega
cies. This story doesn’t have anything to do with you…”

  “We all made choices,” Annie answered. She hated it when her brothers tried to mystify their family and place it on some pedestal as if the Gerwitz lawyers had the same brilliance as the Von-Trapp Family or the Kennedys. “We chose to buy into the legacy…that doesn’t mean we can’t walk away, either.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “It’s easier to say that and walk away than explain it to me and realize you’ve been duped or that this legacy, the legacy you care about more than human beings, isn’t worth protecting…”

  The insult landed squarely and Alex turned, angered and triggered into raising his pointer finger in the air and stalked back a few steps, eyes gleaming.

  “I don’t want to keep you in the dark, Annie. I want to protect you from being stabbed, mutilated, and left for dead on the beach.”

  The crime scene photos of Missy played in her head. Where was her child?

  “You think I’m in danger?”

  “Annie, I think when this story breaks, if it does, our whole family will be in danger. And I’m not at liberty to tell you anything, so I’m here as a fucking courtesy to say…back off. Dad was right. Back off.”

  Annie felt his jabs deflate her ounce by ounce.

  She was still, no matter how hardworking or ball-busting she could be, just the little girl who bothered her brothers and didn’t know how to play with any of their things. She knew Alex would never talk to his older brothers with the same amount vitriol because it was the annoyed exhaustion she knew he reserved only for her.

  “It’s wrong to hide this from me,” Annie answered.

  “The line between right and wrong isn’t as straight and narrow as you think,” Alex replied and then before she could ask him to explain, he stormed out of her house and into the dark. In a matter of moments, he was back on the road, journeying another hour and a half back to his wife and her bulging stomach with their first kid and his safe bed where he would sleep without an issue because he believed in his rightness so much.