JT’s face brightened with another idea. “Your dad never stopped riding you when you were growing up. That’s why you took off, right?”
Ben’s mouth twisted. “Yeah.”
“So just be cool, and she’ll turn out fine.”
Ben thrust a hand through his hair, hoping JT was right. To say his father had raised him with an iron hand was putting it mildly. He’d demanded nothing less than excellence in every subject, every sport. Buckling under that constant pressure, Ben had dropped out of school and left home. He’d traveled around the world, in pursuit of pleasure and the perfect wave, molding himself into the kind of man his father disapproved of.
JT’s parents, in contrast to Ben’s, had been incredibly lax. His mother was a B-movie actress who couldn’t be bothered with a young son on a movie set. She’d shipped him off to live with his dad, an aging rock star who’d been resting on his laurels since having a string of hits in the late seventies. He died of a drug overdose when JT was eighteen.
Ben wanted better for his daughter than what he and JT’d had. Every day he struggled to achieve a middle ground with her, but he never knew when to lay into her and when to lay off. Carly was a master manipulator, playing on his insecurities, and she’d had him wrapped around her little finger since birth.
Olivia had always hated him for making her be the only disciplinarian.
Ben pushed that thought aside and looked out at the cold blue Pacific, wishing it was pounding out something worthier, something more punishing.
Sonny didn’t know why she was so nervous about her date. Her instincts told her that Ben Fortune as a murder suspect was just another dead end.
As a hot boyfriend, if she were free to treat him as such, he was a good start.
She spent too long getting ready, trying on and discarding several outfits. Although she’d bought a few new items with Grant’s highly exaggerated wardrobe budget, she knew the last thing Ben would be interested in was another cookie-cutter beach bimbo.
She finally decided on the jeans, half boots, and sweater she’d worn to Grant’s office. It was casual, unpretentious, and demure enough to keep him guessing.
To impress Carly, she added a Kate Spade clutch, a flashy little bronze number only large enough to hold her cell phone and a few essentials.
She left her SIG at home.
Sonny knocked on Ben’s door, his borrowed sweatshirt in hand, noting the perfectly manicured landscaping around the front entrance. Juniper trees were interspersed with beach pebbles and colorful, decorative shells. Judging by their massive size, the shells were treasures from foreign shores.
When he opened the door, she shoved the sweatshirt into his arms in a lame attempt to deflect his attention from her appearance.
It worked, at first. “Cool,” he said, as if he’d been looking around for a jacket or something similar to wear in deference to the winter chill.
As he raised his arms to pull the garment over his head, his T-shirt rode up above the low waistband of his jeans, exposing a few inches of flat stomach, outrageously sexy hip bones, and an intriguing line of silky dark hair leading down from his navel.
A sensual image came to mind, one of her falling to her knees and rubbing her cheek across that smooth expanse.
Her heart began to beat a pagan rhythm. Oh man, oh baby, oh…yes.
Oblivious to her lustful paralysis, he ran a hand over his hair, straightening the sweater’s hem and cuffs. “How do I look?”
She had to laugh. “Good.”
His eyes roamed over her, and he wasn’t shy about zeroing in on her breasts. “So do you. Better than good. Delicious.”
Her stomach muscles clenched. “I look…delicious?”
“Yeah. Buttery and syrupy, like waffles. Or maybe I’m just hungry.” He looked up the stairs. “Carly!”
Carly Fortune swept down the stairs, throwing her long hair over one shoulder, outdoing them both with a spectacular, slinky black dress. It was long-sleeved and high-necked, with a short skirt that showed off legs most women would kill for.
“I said casual,” he complained.
“Daddy, you’re wearing shoes. That’s formal.” She kissed his dark cheek in a Lolita-like greeting, solely for Sonny’s benefit. Judging by the hard set of his jaw, he was not amused.
Carly summed her up coolly. “Are you a lesbian?”
Sonny almost choked. “Uh…”
“Carly!”
“What, Dad? Look at her hair.”
“I’m sorry.” He clamped his hand around Carly’s forearm, applying enough pressure to silence her. “My daughter is obsessed with sexuality.”
Carly’s jaw dropped. “I am not.”
“Then don’t ask rude questions.”
In a midnight blue Lincoln Navigator worth more than Sonny’s annual salary, there was an argument over where they would eat. Ben still had a hankering for pancakes.
“I am not going to IHOP in this dress,” Carly wailed. “How about Veracruz?”
Ben looked to Sonny for confirmation. “Sounds lovely,” she said, hoping she would live through the meal.
Veracruz was an upscale steak and seafood house where no one blinked an eye at their mixed attire. The maître d’ called Ben by name, told Carly she looked stunning, and seated them at the best table in the house.
Sonny ordered a steak, hoping she wasn’t showing her trailer park heritage by having it cooked thoroughly. Most snobs turned their noses up at anything but medium rare. As it turned out, the faux pas was much worse. Just when Sonny was cutting into her steak, thinking she’d dodged a bullet, Carly announced, “Dad’s a vegetarian.”
Her knife clattered against the plate.
“Don’t you think that’s wimpy?”
Sonny looked carefully, but she couldn’t find anything unmanly about him. “No.”
“Carly’s exaggerating,” Ben said, giving his daughter a quelling stare. “Enjoy your meal. Please.”
“I’m not exaggerating,” Carly insisted. “You don’t eat red meat. It’s totally gay.”
His mouth tightened at the slur, but he let it slide. Sonny supposed he had to pick his battles. When Carly turned to her for a reaction, Sonny lifted her fork and took a big bite, wanting no part of the conversation.
Ben also polished off a good amount of his meal, not letting his daughter’s surly mood bother him. For a gay man, he was giving off some pretty strong hetero vibes, and Sonny had to admit that under his gaze she’d never felt less like a lesbian. Every time their eyes met the air between them crackled with electricity.
“I have better things to do than watch you two stare at each other,” Carly said acidly.
“Like what?” Ben asked, his patience worn thin. “Smoke weed in your room?”
Carly narrowed her catlike eyes at him. “When are you going to get over that?”
“It was five days ago.”
“Oh, please. You’ve smoked a mountain of pot in your lifetime.”
“That doesn’t mean you can.”
“You don’t let me do anything!”
Ben nodded, agreeing that this was the best course of action.
“He doesn’t even let me drive,” she complained to Sonny. “I’ve had my learner’s permit for six months.”
Sonny tried not to shudder at the idea of Carly Fortune behind the wheel of an automobile.
“I’m going to the ladies’,” Carly announced, squaring her shoulders.
“If you throw up, I’m taking the bill out of your allowance,” he warned.
Sonny almost choked on her vegetables. What would be next? Hari-kari over dessert? Carly For tune was a walking, talking teenage nightmare. “I’ll go with you,” she said quickly, putting her napkin on the table.
“He’s only joking. I never puke.”
Ben gave his head a slight shake, indicating that Carly was lying. Sonny couldn’t conceive of a man who would be so nonchalant about his daughter’s eating disorder, but when she studied him closely, she realized h
e was at the end of his rope. As she rose to follow Carly, he leaned forward, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose in a way that was positively heartbreaking.
No wonder he didn’t go out. Carly sapped the energy from the room like a tsunami, sucking up everything in its wake.
“You may as well forget it,” the girl said moments later as she emerged from a stall.
“Forget what?”
“Bagging the bachelor,” she replied, performing a mini-toilette at the sink. “My dad isn’t interested.”
“Who said I was?”
Carly’s eyes met hers in the restroom mirror. “Give it up. He’s hot.”
Sonny conceded the point with a nod. “Don’t you want him to be happy?”
“He is happy. He has surfing and me.”
“What about you? Don’t you want a boyfriend?”
“No,” Carly said, lifting her chin. “I’m going to be an independent woman.”
Sonny smiled. “Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“I’ll leave him alone, if it means that much to you.”
Carly looked suspicious. She wanted an argument, not an agreement. “Fine,” she said anyway, whipping her long black hair over one shoulder.
“I’m sorry about Carly,” Ben said again, leaning back against the seawall at the crux of some craggy rock formations at Windansea Beach.
“Don’t be. You aren’t responsible for her every action.”
He looked out at the water, his expression somber. “Now you’re thinking you should have let her take her chances out there, right?”
The Pacific was as stormy and unpredictable as it had been the previous evening, a formidable hash of blue and white, like the soapy surface of a giant washing machine sloshing back and forth. Sonny got a disturbing image of Carly’s lifeless form, laying facedown on the foam-specked surface, dark hair floating around her head.
“I was a teenager once. Not too long ago,” she added, in deference to the role she was supposed to be playing. Ben was awfully young for a man with a sixteen-year-old daughter, but she knew he wouldn’t be interested in an immature girl, fueled by hormones and emotion. He had more than enough drama with Carly.
“Were you? I have trouble picturing you giggling or throwing tantrums.”
“No. I misbehaved in other ways.”
“Let me guess. You got into fights.”
Her pulse accelerated. “What makes you say that?”
His dark eyes flicked over her. “There’s something about you, a violence, lying just below the surface. I wouldn’t turn my back on you.”
“Jesus,” she said with a shaky laugh, running her fingers through her hair. “Don’t romanticize it. Just say what you think.”
He shrugged easily. “If I’m wrong, tell me. I don’t mean to insult you. Perhaps violence isn’t the right word. Maybe it’s strength, or passion.”
She didn’t bother to tell him that he’d been right the first time. Nor did she need a diagram to understand his interest in her. “I don’t want to be your next challenge, Ben. Like some big wave for you to conquer. Another cheap thrill.”
He was silent for a moment, weighing her words. “I didn’t think you knew-”
“Who you were? Why, because I didn’t fall all over myself to go out with you? Not every girl is impressed by the size of your wallet, or your stick, surfer boy.” She poked at his chest, and was rewarded when annoyance flashed across his face. “By the way, you’re wrong. I didn’t fight. I was promiscuous.”
There. Let him chew on that.
“I don’t believe you,” he said after a pause. “Tell me some dirty stories, to prove it.” He tried for a sly smile, but his eyes were heavy and intense.
She looked away. “I’m sure yours would put mine to shame.”
He only nodded, guilty as charged. “Carly always rakes me over the coals for getting her mother pregnant when we were seventeen. I can’t believe she’ll be that age soon. God forbid she follows in my footsteps. Or attempts to outdo me in debauchery, which would be a challenge.”
Sonny took pity on him. “She told me she wasn’t looking for a boyfriend.”
He brightened. “Really? That may be true, for now. But she does flirt with my friends.”
She shook her head, not envying his position. “Maybe you should lock her away until she’s thirty.”
“I know I’ve indulged her too often,” he said with a sigh. “She’s always been difficult, and I’ve usually been…gone.”
Sonny looked out at the dark, stormy Pacific. The evening had turned blustery, and it was time for her to go. “I told her I would leave you alone.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s not ready to share you.”
“Let me worry about Carly. She’s important to me-hell, she’s everything to me, but I can’t let her dictate my life forever. I’ll take you out again, just us.”
“No.”
“Fuck.”
His frustration was matched by her own. She’d never felt this drawn to someone. They had nothing in common, besides an obvious mutual attraction and a history of youthful indiscretions, which had most certainly taken a greater toll on her than him. It had been her experience that a man could engage in any number of illicit encounters and walk away with a clear conscience and a spring in his step.
Even if she could pursue an emotional relationship with him, professional ethics decreed that she maintain a physical distance. Getting close to a subject was one thing, hopping into bed with him another.
She cursed Grant for putting her in this precarious situation. “Ben, it’s not Carly. I can’t get involved with anyone right now.”
He looked perturbed, and impatient. “Is it because of that guy on the phone? Your boss?”
“Kind of.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you in love with him?”
“Of course not,” she said with a scowl. Grant was like family to her, and there had never been anything romantic between them.
He smiled, more confident now that he would have her. “If you aren’t involved with him, why’s he calling you at midnight?”
Like Carly, he had a habit of asking impertinent questions. Sonny wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the chill. “I work with search-and-rescue squads. Troubleshooting, helping teams work together efficiently. Sometimes he needs to reach me at odd hours.”
“Search and rescue?” He sounded impressed. “No wonder you went in after Carly.”
“I’ve had some pretty extensive water training,” she said. That, at least, was true.
“You’re a good woman to have around,” he said.
“I won’t be here long.”
Sonny knew by his reaction that she’d said the wrong thing. She’d meant the words as a polite brush-off, but he wasn’t the least bit deterred. Instead of defusing the tension, her vague time line had ratcheted it up.
Now he wanted her immediately.
Oops.
She knew it was time to walk away, but when Ben pulled her against him, he was so deliciously warm she almost wept. Letting the full length of her body press into his, she turned her head, resting it against his chest. She felt the cotton of his sweatshirt across her face, the tattoo of his heartbeat beneath her cheek. As she inhaled the scent of his soap, and the sexy, masculine smell of him, her hands snuck under his T-shirt, by their own volition, and splayed over his smooth, sleekly muscled back.
He sucked in a tortured breath.
She dug her nails into his skin, trying unsuccessfully to stifle a moan. If she got this hot from a simple touch, how could she keep her professional objective in sight?
“Summer-”
It was the name that brought her to her senses. The wrong name.
She jerked her hands away, pushing at his chest. His fingers were linked together across the small of her back, holding her in place. As she felt his response to her touch, an old familiar panic welled within her. That, as much as duty, made her say “I
have to go.”
“Stay.”
“Don’t make me struggle,” she whispered.
He let her go, clenching his hands into fists as she slipped away.
CHAPTER 4
As soon as she returned to her apartment, still reeling from her date with Ben, Sonny went straight to the bedroom and took the case files out of the closet.
She needed to be reminded that Ben Fortune was a suspect, no matter what her instincts-or her body-told her. So what if he was ridiculously handsome? Serial killers were often charming, intelligent, and attractive. Some were accomplished liars, and experts at putting their victims at ease. On the surface they looked like anyone else, the average Joe or the boy next door, with no hint of the beast beneath.
Sonny spread the crime scene photos out on the surface of the bed, thinking that Ben was no more a killer than she was. Even so, she allowed for the remote possibility that her attraction to him was interfering with her professional objectivity. What an inopportune time to find out she wasn’t immune to lust.
The images of death weren’t any easier to look at the tenth, or even the hundredth, time around, but she forced herself to do another close examination.
Victim one, April Ramirez, was a brown-eyed brunette, very young, and very pretty. Daughter of cruise ship mogul Juan “Bailamos” Ramirez, she was found in Torrey Harbor at the base of Sunset Cliffs. She’d been raped and brutalized, her clothes torn from her body, and her wrists tied with her own bra. The marks on her neck, and the whites of her sightless eyes, spotted with aneurysms, told a terrifying tale.
The second victim was Sarah Knox, a free-loving, earth-saving blonde. She’d been a dedicated student and amateur drug dealer, cultivating hydroponic marijuana and a 4.0 GPA at SDSU. She was found nude, facedown on the beach near La Jolla Cove. Like April Ramirez, she’d been raped, and strangled with some type of cord.
Their killer knew better than to leave behind DNA, but there had been enough trace evidence at both scenes, namely wetsuit fibers, to link the murders together.
Was there also a connection to Olivia Fortune’s death?
Sonny had obtained a copy of Olivia’s file from the local police department, and there were many dissimilarities between Olivia’s murder and the more recent attacks. Ben’s wife had been killed in her own home, and this scenario suggested some degree of forethought or familiarity. There was also no indication of rape; the only genetic material present belonged to Ben.
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