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

by Talia Maxwell

  Millie tapped the posters. “Lucia is wanted in connection to a missing kid. Sounds like everyone is after the boy.”

  “But there was no boy,” Annie reminded them. “Rumors of a boy. A ghost of a boy.”

  “We’re missing something,” Holly complained and she typed away into her laptop, scrolling through pages of information about Lucia and Missy. She brought up a picture and placed them side-by-side. It was possible they were the same person, but it was hard to tell. Lucia was heavy, blonde, toothy. Missy was slender, dark-haired, without the under-bite. And yet. It was harder to change the eyes—and there was where Annie was caught off guard, where the niggling of doubt crept in and she thought to herself: what if Missy and Lucia are the same person?

  “What about the brother?” Maeve asked. She reached for her keys as if about to take off and begin a search. “If he’s here and he’s looking for his sister, too? We talk to him. See if he thinks the picture of Missy could be Lucia.”

  “What if they’re not the same person,” Annie started, squinting at the likeness and trying to convince herself that it was just her eagerness and her enthusiasm for solving the crime playing tricks on her mind. She only wanted them to be the same—and it was a stretch.

  “How do we find him?”

  “Divide and conquer,” Gloria said. “Annie said he was driving a truck.”

  “Knock on all doors of houses with trucks?” Millie asked. “I hope someone’s job is to get us all coffee…”

  “Applegate. I don’t know. We could call the hotels?” someone suggested.

  “Ask the cashier where he stays?” Annie tried.

  Holly cleared her throat. “Better yet,” she said and spun the laptop around so everyone could see, “why don’t we just head on over to his house.” An article from the Cannon Beach Tribune boasted a story of an East Coast cowboy named Vincent Applegate whose one-man crusade to find his sister and his nephew prompted him to set-up home base in the last place he traced her to.

  “Look,” Maeve said, pointing to the handsome, determined man in the photo, “if this guy has set up shop in Cannon Beach looking for his lost sister, don’t you think he’d already made the Missy connection on his own? Unsolved murders would be the first thing I’d check…”

  “Maybe,” Annie admitted, but she couldn’t help but feel like there was something there, something big. “But there’s only one way to find out. Holly, where’s the house?”

  They decided against a group of eight women descending upon Vincent Applegate’s house en mass and so a handful of the Love is Murder group stayed behind. Annie, Erin, and Millie were the chosen members. Annie for her connection to the case and her legal acumen, Erin as the best set of eyes and ears they had, and Millie for her confidence and willingness to take control and do the talking.

  It was only three in the afternoon and Annie didn’t see why they needed to wait. As she grabbed her keys, Holly cleared her throat.

  “I should ask because I’m curious,” she looked around, the girls waiting to see where this was going. “Where’s the boy? Can’t we meet him in person?”

  “Benson?” Annie replied with a nod and a grimace. Her cheeks flushed hot and pink and someone noticed, making her shrink away from the idea of answering. An idea ran through her head: what if she didn’t tell the girls? What if Benson was her secret entirely? She could confess a crush, but leave out the details of the two of them coupling up at his house—how she’d developed a real need to watch his penis slide in and out of her, something she’d never really wanted before with other lovers. And she wanted it because she was in awe of the passion they created, the desire he sparked, the way he made everything south of her navel tingle and pull downward as if Benson himself was the source of gravitational pull.

  When she watched them, a sort of voyeur of her own life, she took a mental video so she could recall it again and again—the way she made a V with her fingers and placed it at the top of her clit and then pushed downward, feeling him, wet and hard, the two of them one body, one flesh, connected.

  She had clenched once and held him there, locked inside her, and then she slowly released him—demonstrating the power of her body and the desires of her mind.

  But she didn’t know what the girls would say to that and she debated—eight people knowing the truth? No, that would be the end of her carefully constructed plan.

  “What the fuck are you thinking about?” Millie asked, mouth agape. “God, you went all soft-eyed for a second I thought you might not come back to us. He was that good, huh?”

  “What? No? What?” Annie asked, taken aback by Millie’s forthright guesses and accuracy.

  “Oh shit,” Holly nodded. “You slept with him. You slept with the journalist.”

  “I didn’t…” Annie lied, shaking her head, but a smile played on her lips, an embarrassed smirk of shame that she couldn’t hide. “I didn’t.”

  “You did,” Erin winced. She reached for her phone and before Annie could intervene, she held it up as evidence. Annie’s heart pounded as her friend shuddered again and Annie knew she was done for. “You somehow ass-dialed me the other night.”

  The other night? Annie tried to recall which time she’d been anywhere near her phone or her pants, where she sometimes kept the cell in her back pocket…then she remembered and growled. They’d had some foreplay…his penis between the swell of her breasts, coming on her chest. She’d moaned his name to help the orgasm as she watched the cum pulse and then…she’d taken off her pants.

  Erin pushed play and she recognized her grotesque sex sounds immediately. Annie lunged for the phone and Erin, quick but not without humor, slipped to the other side of the room and continued to hold up the audio of her sex with Benson to her closest friends. They laughed but paused in time to hear him finish and then the rustling of her pants coming down and from there, barely audible squeals of delight and giggles. He’d gone down on her, again, and her friends would have about another six minutes of teasing and bringing her to the brink and backing off to listen to if they wanted to wait for the finale.

  Annie slinked down into a fetal position on the floor and tried to wait out her friends’ interest, but they were laughing so hard tears streamed down their faces and after ten or twenty seconds—an eternity to Annie—Erin ended the recording and made an abundant display of erasing the recording to the jeers and whoops from the crowd—opinion split.

  “God,” Annie breathed, still in her ball. “Thank God you didn’t let that go to the end.” She laughed awkwardly.

  “So, let’s ask this again,” Holly said. “And side-note, when you find a man who loves to lick your pussy, Annabelle, that’s no joke.”

  “Did he demand head?” Millie asked, hands on her hips.

  Annie shook her head. Her girlfriends cheered and clapped her on the back. She wanted to tell them that winning a sex lottery wasn’t what was important to her—if she wanted to date Benson, she was going to sacrifice her own security. Would it be worth it?

  “Why are you cringing?” Gloria asked, shushing the girls and banging on the table with her knuckles, forcing Annie to look at her. “Why are you, my Annie-girl, acting like it’s the end of the world to have good sex with a hot man? Why lie and why not own it?”

  “If I date him,” Annie said slowly, her eyes closed because she did not want to watch her friends opinions play out on their faces, “my dad will cut me off.”

  The silence surprised her. No one booed her or made a clicking noise of distaste. Annie opened her eyes and looked around the room. Instead, they all stared, waiting for her to hear it for herself.

  “Twoly was a Christmas present…I have a date tomorrow, actually,” she remembered. It was hard then not to see the frustration on Holly and Millie’s faces, and how the rest of the group seemed to look down, not wanting to tip their hand either way. “Benson is just sex.”

  Gloria scrunched up her face.

  “What?” Annie asked. “Spit it out.”

 
“I don’t believe you,” Gloria said simply and she looked to the group for reinforcement. Slowly, the girls nodded and agreed.

  Maeve walked over and helped Annie back to her feet; no longer on the ground in a ball, she stretched upward and avoided direct eye-contact with her friends.

  “My love life isn’t important,” Annie tried. “Vincent Applegate is a lead and we need to go after it.”

  “Everyone’s love life is important, honey,” Holly cooed while Maeve patted Annie on the back slowly, but with rhythm, like she was a baby that needed burping. “You invited him to the group. That meant something. Where’s he now?”

  “Portland,” Annie said. “Pitch meeting for his article.”

  “And we’re all here? When the boyfriend is where we’re from, we all came to you?” Millie laughed. “Girl, you got this backward. We should’ve picked you up and brought you back with us.”

  “He’s in Portland and he’s working and he’s not my boyfriend,” Annie tried. “It is really great sex, girls, I’m not going to lie to you.”

  “You deserve that and more,” Erin interjected, perhaps feeling apologetic for outing Annie’s secrets and the truth about how she sounded mid-cunnilingus. “But I think what we’re all trying to say, Annie, is that…I mean…the best way to describe it is...” Erin paused. “You remember when I worked as a tournament dealer in Vegas? It’s like this. You’re not pot committed. It may feel like you are, but that’s a fallacy. If you like him…and I mean it, like him, then not dating him because you might get lucky with the program that was paid for? That’s dumb. We all think so.”

  “We like Benson,” Maeve offered weakly.

  “We ran recon on him like we do all the boys,” Erin added. Annie knew that was true; she’d been asked to raise some questions and run some records before specifically to look into the trials related to the Woodstock Murders.

  So far, the Love is Murder Girls were marrying the last of the great men of the Pacific Northwest. “He’s a damn good writer and a boy scout. Gave twenty-percent of his salary to a non-profit that helps homeless youth.”

  “Our salaries can’t pay my school loans,” Annie mumbled, weakly, grimacing and preparing for dismissal. The truth was, she hadn’t been truly scared until the break-in. But now…the threats her father and brother alluded to seemed to bear fruit.

  “Maybe he could give up the homeless youth to give you a hand,” Millie deadpanned.

  “Annie,” a voice from the back of the room materialized and moved into view. It was Rosie. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to pry. But you got a text. It’s from Benson.” She handed over the phone and giggled. Annie turned from the group and concentrated on her phone.

  Benson: I didn’t want you to worry. But hey. Got a little roughed up on my way out of town. Broke my wrist.

  Annie: I’m calling…

  Benson: Don’t call. I’m heading out. Just checking-in. You okay? No news?

  Annie took a breath.

  Annie: Laptop was stolen.

  Benson: Shit.

  Annie: We have a lead we’re following. The girls are here. When are you back at the beach?

  Benson: Imminently. Fuck, Annie. I’m sorry. I’ll be there soon. To make sure you’re okay and to figure out if being one-hand down is a detriment or a challenge while making love to you.

  Annie: I’m sure you’ll manage.

  Benson: Maybe you can tie me up. No use for my hands then.

  Annie’s groin ached with longing and recognition of flirting; the opportunity to be sexy, even in the middle on an un-sexy time. Fuck, Benson made her feel so amazingly good about herself. When he looked at her, his strong jaw tightening, his eyes penetrative, she couldn’t stop herself from getting all worked up. It was almost laughable. She was the girl who used to keep a small bottle of lube in her purse alongside condoms, but Benson alone was responsible for immediate go-for-launch. Even via text ninety miles away.

  Annie: Are we sexting now? Like teens?

  Benson: Well, I want you like a teenager, so…[download image] Thinking of YOU. Thinking of kissing you. Thinking of making love to you on the beach.

  Annie clicked on the image and tried to stifle a gasp. This was not for sharing. There was Benson, erect, his right wrist in a cast, his face tilted backward away from the camera which he was holding in his left hand. It was her first dick-pic. She squealed and then buried the phone to her chest.

  Annie: I can’t reply right now with what I want to show you, which is how instantly wet you made me. It’s a superpower of yours. Maybe later. For now, I have to imagine being with you. Sitting on that cock. Riding it. My pussy aching. Your wrist can rest and I’ll take over with my mouth. Remember the last time your dick was in my mouth?

  Benson: Oof. I like Vixen Annie. Sexting Annie. You definitely have a mouth on you.

  Annie: All the better to use to make you fall in love with me.

  She hit send and immediately regretted it. That was not what she meant to say. She was so bad at sexting!

  And to her horror, Benson didn’t type back right away, and Annie’s insecurities flooded her. Shit. Shit. She realized in hindsight she should’ve crowd-sourced her sexting answers. They’d been so careful, talking pussies and cocks and his erection still visible if she shifted the screen up to earlier in the conversation. She switched to love. Love. She knew when she re-read the conversation later, she’d cringe.

  So, even with losing the picture, she deleted the thread so no physical words remained on her screen and she wouldn’t have to embarrass herself every time she recalled that she’d typed not only Dripping Pussy, but also the L-word.

  His reply was like a dagger to her heart.

  Benson: Gotta run to get ready for pitch meeting. Can I call you later tonight?

  Annie: Sure. Any time.

  She looked at the two lines of dialogue in her phone. There was nothing preceding it to give the hint that seconds earlier they’d been discussing intimate details of exploring each other’s bodies and she’d ruined it. She ruined it like she ruined everything.

  Her phone texted an automatic reminder for her Twoly date. Twenty-four hours. At one point, she’d wondered if she should cancel the date and just jump into full-time Benson. Full-time Benson was a risk, but the thought of it made her heart happy, and as Erin had said, didn’t she deserve happiness? Annie tossed the phone gently on to her table and rubbed her eyes. Every single person stared at her, waiting for an explanation, eager to hear about the shift from giggling mess to embarrassed shambles.

  “Want to talk about it?” Gloria offered.

  “I just want to go talk to Vincent Applegate,” Annie answered and she cracked the top vertebrae in her neck with two quick twists, narrowing her eyes. She was in game mode and everyone knew to stay clear. “Let’s go.”

  It was luck that they caught Vincent at his house. The bed of his pick-up truck was packed with bags of clothes, and he was locking up his place up near Ecola State Park off of Oak Street—there was a view of the Rock in one direction and up the hill and the forest in the other was the park. Shadows from the pine streets made the street look dark in the winter day, even though the sun was shining.

  Per her role, Millie approached Vincent first. She held the missing poster for Lucia in her hand and he noticed immediately, pausing to watch as the three girls made their way down the graveled driveway, everyone silent.

  “Good afternoon,” Millie said. “I’m Millie Montgomery. These are my friends Erin and Annie. We saw your sign for your sister, Lucia. Did we catch you at a bad time?”

  The inside of Vincent’s house was 70s inspired and beautiful. The drop-down living room boasted a green chandelier and a marbled coffee table. He told them he did the wood paneling himself. Annie, preoccupied with feeling empty at the prospect of screwing things up with Benson, didn’t notice the way Vincent and Erin kept giving each other small, meaningful glances. They were clearly sizing each other up; Millie noticed, too, and tried to keep them on track, neve
r giving up an opportunity for a kind dig.

  “Vincent, hello, yes, I’m over here, thank you. How much do you know about the Cannon Beach Murders?” Millie asked. It was almost word-for-word what they’d asked Benson during the first meeting.

  Vincent, like Benson, admitted to knowing very little.

  “Hear us out,” Millie continued. “Is it possible Lucia and Missy are the same person?”

  “You think my sister was murdered five years ago?” Vincent settled back. Millie showed a picture of Missy Price to him on her phone and he squinted and stared at the image on the screen. “There’s a resemblance, I suppose. But if that is Lucia then she had surgery…that’s not her jaw. This person has cheek implants, a longer nose. But the eyes, yeah. God. Those are our eyes.”

  “How badly did Lucia need to run away?” Annie asked. An idea was forming inside her head, something that she’d wondered about for a long time, but couldn’t quite put her finger on. “How about this…what was your sister involved in prior to her disappearance? How did you track her here? And then…we should ask about the boy. Who is the father? And—”

  “Slow down,” Vincent interrupted. He sighed and adjusted himself on the couch to be more comfortable. “Who are you again? And should I trust you?” he laughed.

  “You shouldn’t,” Annie said and Millie hit her aimlessly on the arm. It stung. “No, I’m serious…if your sister and nephew were involved in something that killed her, then you could be in danger, too. We all could. Someone robbed me of my files on this case yesterday, so…should you trust bands of girls showing up at your door? No. You shouldn’t.” Annie cleared her throat and stared right at Vincent, unwavering. “But you can. I swear on everything I stand for that we are here to help your family. I’m a lawyer. Erin’s a detective and a hairdresser…” Annie paused to let that dichotomy sink in, and when Vincent nodded, impressed, she added, “and Millie is…”