“Don’t,” he said softly, reaching out to grasp her wrist. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“What way?”
He lifted her sunglasses, exposing her emotionally. She knew love was brimming in her eyes, and coursing down her cheeks, but she couldn’t look away. “Apart,” he said, brushing his thumb over the tears on her face.
Held captive by his touch, paralyzed by the intensity of her longing, she stayed motionless while he pressed his lips to hers. In contrast to their sincere conversation, his kiss felt contrived, technically proficient but devoid of all feeling.
She blinked up at him in confusion when he lifted his head. He wasn’t drowning in her sweetness, lost in her eyes. He wasn’t even looking at her.
Following Ben’s gaze, she saw Tom Bruebaker standing at a polite distance, staring out at the sea. Perhaps he was uncomfortable with having interrupted their private moment, because he turned and left without saying a word.
Sonny backed up a step, feeling betrayed. Ben hadn’t kissed her because he wanted to. He’d done it for Tom’s benefit. “What was that all about?” she asked, glancing at Tom’s retreating form.
Ben shoved his hands into his pockets. “You want everyone to think we’re dating.”
“That was more proprietary than affectionate,” she pointed out.
“I guess I’m not as clever with deception as you are.”
She wiped the tears from her cheeks, embarrassed that she’d been so caught up in him, while he was just playing a part. “Does he hate you because you slept with Sheila?”
His eyes cut back to her. “You must be joking,” he said flatly.
“I never joke.”
His gaze cruised over her face, as if he could solve the mystery of her existence by analyzing its components. “I don’t know why he hates me. Maybe because his wife makes a fool of herself, trying to get his attention.”
“I could have sworn she was trying to get your attention.”
He shrugged, as if the difference were negligible.
Sonny examined his insouciant expression. He was hiding something from her, and she was going to find out what. “That lame kiss you just gave me was like an ownership stamp. Why do want Tom to know I’m yours?”
His mouth tensed, causing the tiny, crescent-shaped scar above it to stand out in harsh relief. “He slept with Olivia.”
Her jaw dropped open. “No,” she breathed. “Why?”
“I told you why. I was a selfish bastard. She did it to hurt me.”
Sonny felt a pang inside her own chest, aching for him, and for herself. It was so painful to hear him talk about his wife. “Why did she pick him?”
“Probably because of Sheila,” he admitted. “Tom and I went in together on several business ventures, so we’d all known one another a long time. Olivia didn’t like her.”
She nodded. Tom Bruebaker owned a hugely successful corporation that manufactured everything from sunglasses to sportswear. Ben had been part of a very lucrative marketing campaign in the early stages of his career.
“Why didn’t you tell the police about her affair?” she asked, her mind reeling.
“It wasn’t an affair, it was one isolated incident,” he said through clenched teeth. “And it was none of their goddamned business.”
“They would have questioned him in connection with Olivia’s death, Ben,” she said, struggling to keep her voice low. “You impeded the investigation.”
“He was out of the country at the time,” he replied, “so he couldn’t have done it. Besides, he’s hardly the forceful type, despite being a financial heavyweight. He lets Sheila walk all over him. I still can’t believe he had the balls to fuck my wife.”
“Did you argue with him about it?”
“No. Olivia cried and begged and-” He broke off, shoving a hand through his dark hair. “Goddamn it! I put this behind me years ago. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Okay,” she said, taking a calming breath. Tom Bruebaker had been thoroughly investigated by local police and wasn’t considered a suspect in Lisette’s murder. Sonny couldn’t imagine Sheila putting the cord around her own daughter’s neck, either. Sheila seemed obsessed with Ben, though, and that raised red flags.
Sonny had been looking for a suspect with connections to Lisette and Olivia. Both of the Bruebakers fit the bill.
“I’m going to poke around inside the house,” she decided. “You can be my lookout.”
CHAPTER 21
Sheila and Tom Bruebaker shared a bedroom suite that was at least twice the size of Sonny’s current living space at Neptune Apartments.
After observing the estranged couple for several hours, she was surprised they didn’t keep separate bedrooms. Or live in separate houses, for that matter. The perfectly coiffed pair had hardly spoken two words to each other the entire afternoon.
While Ben stood sentry at the top of the stairs, Sonny thumbed through boxes of photos and keepsakes, looked into linen closets and peeked behind furniture, pushed aside hanging fur coats and reached into satin-lined pockets.
She found a lot of loose pharmaceuticals and stray tubes of lipstick, confirming what she’d already suspected, that Sheila was fond of pills and flashy colors. Her closet was overflowing with designer dresses and shopping bags.
Something was missing, but Sonny couldn’t think what. Sheila appeared to own everything a material girl could dream of.
Moving on, because she knew she had only a few moments, she rifled through Tom Bruebaker’s belongings, which were meager in comparison to his wife’s. He was neat and orderly, like Ben, and she didn’t expect to find anything of note in his dresser drawers. Men tended to tuck away their secrets in the study or at the office, preferring a more personal space than a shared bedroom.
On a hunch, she continued down the hall, taking a quick glance at Ben’s back before she ducked into the next room. In this gorgeously decorated guest suite, she located Sheila Bruebaker’s holy grail: the shoe closet.
Her eyes widened with appreciation. Sonny wasn’t a fashionista by any means, but what woman’s heart didn’t beat a little faster when presented with such a glittering array of footwear? There must be a thousand pairs, all the outrageously expensive kind, made by designers whose names Sonny probably couldn’t even pronounce.
Before she had a chance to process the sheer magnificence of the collection, Ben rushed into the room and pushed her inside the closet. “They’re coming,” he said in a low voice, tightening his arm around her waist as he pulled the door shut behind them.
The closet went pitch black.
“Why didn’t you stall them?” she whispered back.
“I panicked,” he admitted.
Sonny stifled a groan. Most of the guests had departed, including Carly and Nathan, so the Bruebakers would be very surprised to find a few stragglers hanging out in an upstairs closet. Ben was supposed to act as though he’d been looking for Carly.
From beyond the closet door, she heard a muffled voice. “What are you doing in here?” It was Tom Bruebaker.
Behind hers, Ben’s body stilled. Sonny held her breath.
“I thought I saw someone…” This from Sheila.
“You liar,” he growled, his voice dripping with menace and increasing in volume. Sheila made a small cry of distress. “Who were you meeting?”
The closet door was the old-fashioned kind with a keyhole. A tiny sliver of daylight poured in. Ben’s body was taut, like a tiger ready to pounce, so she clutched his arm in warning and whispered, “Wait.”
Bending her head, she peered through the keyhole.
Tom Bruebaker was holding his wife down on the guest bed, his hand partially covering her mouth. “Are you issuing invitations for sex at your own daughter’s funeral?” he asked. “Is that how low you’ve sunk?”
Sheila bit down on the fleshy pad of his thumb.
Wincing, he jerked back his hand, drawing his arm up as if to slap her. Sheila glared up at him, her e
yes glowing with spite, daring him to follow through.
He didn’t.
Sonny let out a slow breath and placed her hand on Ben’s knee, signaling for him to stay calm. She was aware of his body pressed intimately against hers, his groin against her bottom. The position was made all the more provocative with her bent so far forward.
He tried to back up a step and give her some room, but the closet was so littered with boxes and loose shoes that he almost stumbled. Tightening his hands on her hips, he steadied himself instead of sending them both crashing to the floor.
She had to bite her cheek to keep from laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Because there was nothing funny about Tom and Sheila’s dysfunctional relationship, she remained quiet, sinking into a kneeling position in front of the keyhole.
Ben was still too close for comfort, and if she turned her head, her mouth would be level with the fly of his pants, but that couldn’t be helped.
“I saw his number on your cell phone,” Tom continued, breathing hard. “There were three missed calls the night Lisette disappeared. Is that why she’s gone, Sheila? You were out boinking Ben Fortune while our daughter was being murdered?”
Sheila stared up at him in bleary-eyed confusion. “I didn’t know he called me.”
Tom let out a harsh laugh. “Are you so wasted you can’t even remember who you’ve been screwing?”
She pushed at his chest, but he didn’t budge. “We haven’t been screwing, you idiot. Ben hasn’t so much as looked at another woman since Olivia.”
“Oh, yeah? He was doing more than looking at that little Italian girl. Or whatever she is. They were all over each other on the back lawn.”
She stopped struggling and raised her brows. “Really? I can’t imagine what he sees in her. She looked so coarse, with that dark complexion and unfortunate hair.”
Sonny ground her teeth together.
“You’re jealous,” Tom remarked.
Sheila’s lush mouth thinned with anger. “I wish I was having an affair with him, just so I could throw it in your face.”
“Who is it, then?” Tom asked, holding his hand over her throat. “I know you’ve been with someone, in this very room. Yesterday there was sand in the bed.”
“Go to hell,” she spat.
“Did you pick up a stranger on the beach again?”
Sheila bucked and clawed, almost dislodging her husband. He grabbed her flailing arms and pinned her wrists to the mattress. “It’s none of your business if I screw Ben Fortune, one of his surfing buddies, or the entire West Coast,” she panted. “You were with Jennifer the weekend Lisette went missing, after promising to go away with me!”
He loosened his grip on her, empathy softening his expression. “No. I only said that because I saw Ben’s number in your directory.”
Her lipstick-smeared lips trembled and tears squeezed out her eyes, leaving dark rivulets of mascara on her face. “I hurt so much,” she whispered. “Every few seconds I think about my-” Her voice caught on a sob. “My little baby. And I want to die. Oh, God, I wish I’d died with her.”
Tom stared down at her in silence, his chin unsteady.
“I don’t want to hurt anymore,” she said, tears streaming from her eyes. “Please, Tom. I don’t want to hurt like this anymore.”
Letting out a defeated groan, Tom lowered his head to his wife and kissed her, his mouth made sloppy by grief and his motions stilted with pain. Sheila didn’t stop crying, but she kissed him back, and when he let her wrists go she moaned softly, arching her back and running her clawlike fingers through his thick silver hair.
In the next instant, he was reaching beneath her skirt, tearing off her panties, and she was wrapping her legs around him, urging him on. He fumbled with his zipper, reared back, and thrust inside her. It wasn’t the most tender coupling Sonny could imagine, or the most aesthetically pleasing sight, but at least they were making love instead of hate, and holding their misery at bay for a few fleeting moments.
Sonny pulled her gaze away from the keyhole, realizing that she was gawking at the spectacle. Feeling mildly ashamed of herself for enjoying the show, she stood up, aware of her body brushing against the legs of Ben’s corduroys as she straightened.
Returning to their initial positions created another problem. With the fly of his pants fitted snugly against her bottom, the growing pressure was difficult to ignore. Especially considering what was going on beyond the closet door.
“What are they doing?” he whispered, resting his hand on her hip, his warm breath fanning her ear.
She squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed dryly, another wave of heat washing over her. In the bedroom, the mattress creaked and moaned. Sheila was a panter-wouldn’t you know it?-and as Tom grunted and heaved on top of her she grew louder and louder, gasping “Uh! Uh! Uh!” with each rhythmic thrust.
“Oh,” Ben said, getting the picture.
After what seemed like an eternity, the noisy couple quieted.
“Are they done?”
Sonny bent forward to look. And jerked her head back up abruptly, eyes scalded by the scene. Tom Bruebaker was pretty adventurous, for an older guy.
“Well?” he asked.
She shook her head, cheeks burning. It was depraved, of course, to get turned on in a situation like this. But the front of Ben’s body was pressed to the back of hers, and it was dark, and there was nothing to look at or think about or listen to…except hot, dirty sex.
Either he was picking up on her vibe or the ambience was getting to him, too, because he was fully aroused. The length of his erection felt like a branding iron against her bottom. Desire pulsed between her legs, as thick and heavy as warm honey.
She shifted, trying to ease her discomfort.
“Don’t,” he warned quietly.
She clenched her hands into fists, wanting to push her bottom against him, to take his hand and put it everywhere she hurt, to cover his fingertips with hers while he touched her aching nipples and stroked her sensitive cleft.
Torturing him, and herself, she bent to look through the keyhole again.
After being trapped in the closet, listening to the Bruebakers get it on for an infernal amount of time, Ben should have felt relieved to be free. Tom finally got up and left Sheila, passed out from drink and sexual satisfaction, in the guest room bed.
Ben and Sonny were able to sneak away, undetected.
The distance from the Bruebakers’ swank mansion to his house was short. He knew better than to pull into the small public parking lot off Nautilus, the one facing Shores Beach, but that was what he did.
He couldn’t go home like this, leaving so many things between them unresolved. She hadn’t spoken a word since they got in the SUV. Neither had he.
Cutting the engine, he rested his forearm on the steering wheel and stared out at the Pacific. It was early-afternoon glass-smooth sets, perfect fetch, excellent conditions.
He arched a glance at Sonny, in no mood for surfing, for once. Avoiding his gaze, she crossed her arms over her breasts. Her pale eyes glittered in the sun, and her chest rose and fell with each soft breath.
She was still aroused. So was he.
His reaction had nothing to do with the Bruebakers’ sexfest. The last thing he wanted to picture-or hear-was Tom giving it to Sheila. He supposed it was the danger of being caught, the tawdriness of the encounter, and the unintentional voyeurism. Not to mention the tempting proximity of her mouth and the feel of her tight little ass against his hard-on.
“You called Sheila three times the night Lisette disappeared?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“To tell her what happened.”
Her gaze cut to his, dropped down to the front of his pants, and skittered away. “Did you talk to her?”
“I couldn’t get through.”
When she moistened her lips, he almost groaned aloud. “I can’t do this,” she said, looking him straight in the eye.
“Do
what?”
“You know what,” she whispered.
He shifted, stretching out in his seat, but it didn’t help. The breeze coming in from the open windows wasn’t exactly cooling his ardor, either.
“I have too much to lose. Maybe everything.”
The way she said those words, and the wistful tone of her voice, made one point very clear to him. He knew law enforcement officials had rigid standards for professionalism. Despite what her boss had implied the day he caught them in bed together, she hadn’t been sleeping with him for information.
“Grant was covering for you,” he said, straightening. “Won’t he continue to?” She kept her eyes downcast, revealing nothing, and he felt some of the pain of her betrayal ease away. “I won’t tell,” he promised. “No one has to know about us.”
She smiled sadly, shaking her head.
“That son of a bitch bodybuilder will,” he guessed, remembering Grant’s muscle-bound sidekick. “Why does he have it out for you?”
“I beat him up a few times,” she said, sniffling.
He returned her smile. “So you’ll be in trouble when you go back to…where do you live?”
“I rent an apartment in Richmond. But I’m hardly ever there.”
Ben was a world traveler, but he’d never been to Virginia. As far as he knew, the surfing was no good there. “Maybe you’ll get fired, and have to move back here.”
She slanted a puzzled glance his way.
Right. What was he thinking? He didn’t want to get involved with a woman like her. She was too volatile, too physical, too willing to put her life on the line. Taking risks was her job. She was…exactly like he used to be.
He studied her prim headband and cute little sweater, wishing the circumstances were different. In the demure outfit, she looked somewhere between fierce and adorable. And like always, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. “If you’re going to get fired anyway,” he said, releasing his seat belt, “you might as well make it worth your while.”
Crash Into Me Page 28
