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

by Talia Maxwell

  Annie rarely slept like a baby.

  She walked to the door and locked it after him. Dead bolted it. And then turned back to her open room, the two beers set as a sad tableau for how the evening unfolded.

  Annie, exhausted, crawled into a ball on her couch and slipped off her shoes one by one with a plop to the floor. The fabric scratched against her face, but she was too tired to move and get herself a pillow. So, she yanked down the throw blanket and let herself go to sleep—the last few days of her life rolling around her head, untamed and unprocessed.

  She’d slept with the journalist.

  Once on the couch, once in the bathroom, once up against the window. So, she’d slept with him a few times.

  And she’d pissed off her family.

  She was delayed from reading up on her cases for the week and she knew her electricity bill was a month behind and due soon. The last thing she needed was to try to get ready for court and dates without power. Annie drifted off to sleep eventually, her brother’s strange late-night drive and her father’s mid-morning plane trip both reeked of over-involvement and something else—something she couldn’t quite place.

  If they cared so much about her wellbeing, they’d explain the entire story and not treat her like a non-deserving outcast. Alex was in probate law, he hardly dipped his fingers into the type of shit her father had to deal with. But now wasn’t the issue.

  Five years ago, she was starting out at the public defender’s office, living, luxuriously she thought, in SE Portland and going to Lewis and Clark Law. She had an apartment off of Hawthorne and it was still semi-affordable then. They partied with the boys who lived downstairs and next door—drank beer and attended their parties. The boys hated to be called hipsters, but that’s what they were—obscure indie-band loving kids who drank and grew ironic mustaches and lamented about getting English degrees.

  Annie fell asleep with the thrum of a soundtrack in her ear of those late nights, full of laughter and weed and whiskey and kissing strangers and feeling young. And somehow in the middle of that youthfulness, Missy and Bill lost their lives.

  Annie never noticed.

  But her family knew all about it.

  Annie woke.

  Something woke her.

  It was a loud noise or a crash. And something else echoed in her brain. Something else played in her subconscious. A scream.

  There’d been a crash and she’d screamed in her sleep and woken up.

  Annie tumbled off the couch, disoriented, but aware and still she took in the night. Then she heard another crash and another, and Annie—certain she was hearing the sounds of someone breaking into her bedroom through her window—stood upright and bolted for the front door.

  As she fumbled with the deadbolt and the lock she’d only just secured a few hours earlier, Annie realized her body was covered in sweat. Her dream or nightmare or whatever it was she’d remembered caused her to sweat profusely under her minimal covers and her body was slippery and gross and uncooperative.

  She unbolted the door and opened it wide just as a figure all in black tumbled out of the hallway and into the main area, spotting Annie immediately.

  He was masked.

  Or she.

  Annie knew there was no way of making any type of identification so she ran. Her bare feet slapped against the rocky pavement of her road and yet she didn’t seem to notice her feet slicing themselves on the gravel, pounding forward without regard for pain.

  The intruders didn’t follow her outside. At least she didn’t think so.

  And Annie bore left and tumbled downward, scraping her knees and elbows. The shock kept the gory folds of skin, now covered in blood and rock and grass and ooze, from hurting. She thought, correctly, she’d never run faster because she didn’t know what would’ve happened if she’d slept in her own bed that night.

  The attacker came in through her window without regard for quiet or surprise—they were going for quick and easy. Her life had been in danger and only by happenstance had she slept in a different room.

  Annie started to slow and panic. She darted one way and then another, confused about whom to trust. Soon, she crumpled in a well-manicured yard and hid among the shadows of a giant rhododendron bush and waited. No figure in black chased her down the road; no one came to her rescue either.

  Hands shaking, body starting to feel the aches and pains of her labor, Annie crawled out of the flowers and up the steps of the house. She knew how she looked and she knew she didn’t have many options—neighbors in the winter were few and far between. She rang the bell once and then twice.

  Someone old and confused answered.

  Annie asked to come inside.

  “I need to use your telephone,” she said, teeth-chattering, knees knocking together without regard for what Annie wanted her body to do. “My house was broken into…a man came into my house. I need to call the police.”

  She didn’t need to say more. And within what seemed liked seconds or hours, she didn’t know which, lights and officers appeared at her side—bewildered neighbors came peeking through windows—and someone led her back to her house, an army rushing through it with guns raised, anticipating a predator around every corner.

  Annie watched from the street. Someone, a cop, gave her his jacket and she tucked it around her body. It was long enough to be a dress.

  A few of the cars drove away, turning off their lights, and Annie felt personally offended by their dismissal. There’d been a person in her home with the intent to do her harm. Shouldn’t the entire city be alerted?

  “The house is all clear,” someone said. And Annie wondered how they knew that, if they could possibly know that every secret hiding spot in her house was clear. Did they check her crawlspace? Her attic? Under all the beds? Behind the washer? Once, she’d babysat her nephews—her oldest brother’s kids—and she lost their oldest for an hour during hide and seek because he’d squeezed behind the washer. She seriously thought he’d simply disappeared out of the house into another dimension and she had no idea how she’d explain it to her sister-in-law.

  Had they checked behind the dresser?

  Of course, she had to inspect each area of her house to see if anything was missing. Room by room she searched her valuables and shook her head—no. Everything of importance was there. But when she went back to her bedroom and picked up her messenger bag, Annie let out a disgruntled growl. She dumped the contents of the bag on her bed. A lone G2 gel pen and a lone quarter, a packet of top ramen spices and nail polish.

  She didn’t know why it wasn’t the first thing she checked; tears of anger stung her eyes.

  “Is something missing, Ma’am?” a young officer asked, holding a pencil and a notebook.

  Annie nodded.

  Her laptop and all her files were gone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  He backed out of the driveway and disappeared to the North, jetting off the 101 quickly and backtracking east to hit the mountain into the city. He had a meeting with Peggy early in the morning and he wanted to have a decent night’s sleep. While Elvis Costello roared, Benson took in his surroundings.

  The lyrics flooded his brain instead of theories on Schubert.

  It was one of the few moments he allowed himself to ponder something other than the growing story in his brain. All the dangling threads called to him and he searched for ways to make the truth form in a shape it never had before.

  Benson was lost in his own world when he saw the flash of headlights at his back. There hadn’t been a car in his rearview only a few moments before, but now a black car with its high beams blinding him roared up on to his bumper, swerving to the left and then the right in some one-man game of cat and mouse.

  He initially sped up to match the madman’s desired speed, but the asshole stayed right on his tail and so Benson slowed instead, hoping that would convey it was fine to go around. Nothing worked and only then did Benson start to wonder if the person had targeted him specifically. The idea formed inside
of his brain and for the first time since the initial shock of seeing someone and then the anger of his refusing to yield his aggression, Benson realized the show was for him.

  He saw a rest area advertised one mile ahead on the left. He grabbed his phone and punched in the emergency number, which kicked him to a staticky call with the state police.

  “I’m being chased,” he said and he described the car as best as possible. It revved its engine as the two lanes split up the mountain. One lane carried cars into the forest and the other dropped people down to a rest area: cement blocks of bathroom and graffitied picnic tables. “Pulling over at the rest stop, but…” he wanted to make sure the guy kept driving. Sure enough, as Benson hit his blinker to turn left into the bathroom, the car continued past in a whirlwind of horn honking and lights flashing and fingers waving.

  “They passed me,” he said. “But they are still driving erratically eastbound on Highway 26.” He ended the call, shaken up and annoyed.

  Benson parked and to regain his strength and this calm, he got out of the car into the dark and walked up to the bathroom. He opened the creaky metal door with a faded triangle and a stick figure of a man painted on top. Inside were two stalls and three urinals, stained brown and yellow from the water build-up.

  He didn’t need to go to the bathroom, so he stood in front of the mirror, scratched to hell with messages and memories of years gone past and long since preventing from the mirror’s original use. Names and dates and couplings recounted.

  As Benson leaned down to slap his face with cold water, the door opened. He stood up, instinctively. The parking lot had been empty and he hadn’t heard the car return, but behind him was a figure all in black and as Benson turned to face the man, the guy ran straight forward and grabbed Benson’s right arm and pulled it around his body.

  It was a move out of every cop movie he’d ever seen—with total control his body, the stranger moved Benson forward and slammed his face into the mirror where the faux-glass wobbled underneath him. Pain seared up his arm and through his elbow as he twisted and attempted to fight, but he’d been caught off guard and lost his chance to gain an upper hand. A hand found the phone in his pocket and took it and Benson struggled against the invasion prompting a quick knock into the mirror.

  After several more head bashes into the wall, Benson heard the bones in wrist pop and break, but he refused to cry out.

  The attacker leaned forward and Benson tried to turn away from the stink of him—odor from every direction. It was the smell of body odor and his own blood that kept him present and not giving in to the sleep that pulled him toward unconsciousness.

  Wordlessly, the man allowed Benson to slip to the floor and then he jumped over the body and rushed out into the night. Breaking glass echoed in his memory and then the hum of a car disappearing into the night. Westbound, his brain thought, but he couldn’t tell.

  He dragged himself upward and examined his face in the mirror. The white fluorescents of the rest stop light above him caused his entire body to look sallow and yellow. A bruise started to bloom under his right eye and a trickle of blood fell from a cut, although he couldn’t remember how that had happened.

  But when Benson looked at his wrist, he recoiled. His hand was limp, a slice of bone protruded from punctured skin. His wrist had been snapped like a stalk of celery and he breathed away his nausea. Holding his right hand with his left, Benson used his left shoulder to shimmy the door open and then he rushed headlong into the night.

  The rest stop parking lot was empty and the highway above him, silent.

  He stumbled to his car.

  The attacker had his phone. And, sure enough, his bag was gone. His laptop, his work, his uploaded podcasts and all his files.

  Benson sat on the curb, crumpled like a rag doll, and leaned back on to the cold, wet cement. He heard something, a crunch underfoot and swift movement to his right. Terrorized and still on edge, Benson looked and scrambled backward when a figure emerged from the woods at the edge of the stop.

  The eyes flashed, both bodies froze, and the creature inspected Benson.

  He breathed heavily. It was an Elk.

  The majestic animal regarded Benson as one might regard a wounded animal. He continued past him, clomping up the hill, past picnic tables, and across the highway. When he was certain the beast was safely moving up the mountain, Benson did the only thing he could think of.

  He tied his compound fracture tightly in an old t-shirt and turned on the car with his left hand. Steering entirely with one hand, the pain sharp and pounding, unrelenting, Benson weighed distances and contemplated whether he should turn left and go to Portland or turn right and head back to the beach.

  With a sigh and a shake of his head, he turned and started back to Portland. He’d stop at the first place along the road where he could call the police, then he’d get medical help. The physical files he lost to the attackers only told part of what he knew and Benson was certain they’d be disappointed with their haul.

  Only, it was a setback and he couldn’t deny it.

  Down the mountain, he pulled into a gas station.

  Ten minutes after that, he was getting a ride in an ambulance, lights blazing, the EMTs exploring what was left of his wrist, a goose egg forming on his temple. He was chastised for driving himself down the mountain with a growing concussion.

  A police officer was along for the ride, jotting down notes.

  “And you believe the attack was random?” the man asked, pen poised over notebook as the white bus swerved through interstate traffic toward the ER.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Benson coughed. His ribs hurt, too. “I mean. I don’t know who. But I think I know why.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  When the Love is Murder Social Club group thread heard about the early morning robbery, the girls mobilized. This is what they did—at their core, they solved cold cases and true crime stories and spent all their resources finding the threads that wove the stories together.

  But beyond that, beyond their shared interests, they formed deep connections that defied more superficial reasons for friendship. When a woman joined the club, the amoeba-esque qualities of their admiration for each other enveloped that person into their group without snobbery.

  Maeve Shelton and her sister Millie had been the most recent people to create a permanent spot inside the group. Maeve’s husband, the Derek Shelton—survivor of the Woodstock Serial Killer when he was a tween—built them an office on his property and equipped it with a bar. Being based in Cannon Beach meant Annie had to call into most meetings, but it was Gloria—their de facto leader and Mama bird of the group—who told Annie to stay put. The group was coming to her.

  Three hours later, the Love is Murder Social Club poured into her small beach apartment in waves. Gloria and Holly in the first car, Maeve and Millie in the second; Erin and Kristy and Rosie in another, descending down to be with Annie and her heart was full at the immediacy of their love and assistance.

  As an adult, with a career, she never thought she’d find the type of female friendships she craved. Then she followed Erin’s invitation to drinks at the Alibi in northeast Portland and found herself in a different world, far from the lie she’d been told about bitchy, jealous women. The patriarchal myth of women being unable to befriend other women was smashed and decimated in those early meetings.

  They were smart.

  And they were strong.

  And where they were weak, someone else was sure to be strong.

  They called each other out on bullshit without judgment, bestowed empathy and kindness to hurt and worries, loved each other’s families like their own, and—all along the way—brought the victims of crimes and their need for justice to the front and center of every conversation.

  A boy on a date once described her obsession with the club as creepy. She didn’t go on another date with him and brought his assessment back to the group. Gloria laughed it away. “What men can’t understand, they ca
ll names.”

  Annie wasn’t sure she understood the connection to the women either; all she knew was that it was real and it was the most important thing in her life. And if anyone could help her make the right choices, it was her friends.

  She gave Millie a job. Go to Doctor Tim’s General Market and grab the Missing poster on the back wall by the public bathroom. By the time Millie Montgomery arrived back at Annie’s house, she was holding two pieces of paper in her hand and waving them triumphantly. Two updated posters of Lucia Applegate.

  “This what you wanted?” she asked, setting the posters down in the center of her kitchen table. The group peered over the images as Annie slid the older version of the sign she’d grabbed the other day between them.

  Lucia Applegate, missing from Pennsylvania two years before Missy Price showed up in Oregon, and wanted in connection with a kidnapping.

  “What do we know about Lucia, then?” Holly asked. She motioned for Erin to bring her a laptop and the two of them began immediate research. “You said a guy dropped off the poster?”

  “Lucia’s brother.” Annie nodded.

  “Missy didn’t have a brother. Just her sister,” Holly said, but her voice was getting smaller, pondering.

  “Yeah, but, according to the files Benson got from his friend at the paper, Nolan, Missy didn’t have a sister either.”

  Holly paused.

  “Fuck that. For real?”

  “She lied to us.”

  Her friend lowered her head and shook it, upset with herself for not seeing the bullshit right-away. “I got caught up in helping,” she continued.

  “We never gave the woman anything of importance,” Gloria tried to assuage Holly’s guilt.

  “We gave her our time,” Holly replied with bite. Annie knew if Holly hated anything it was wasting time. “Okay. This woman targeted us…and the entire time, she says…she just wants to know her nephew. So, this woman is after the kid?”