Crash Into Me (21 page)

The
furor died down eventually, but in that first month, the media hadn’t had the
decency to leave him, or Carly, alone. They’d made a circus of Olivia’s
funeral.

Two
weeks ago they started calling again, clamoring for his response to Darrius
O’Shea’s death. He had no comment. Countless times, over the past three years,
he’d dreamt of tearing the man apart with his bare hands.

Now
that O’Shea was dead, Ben felt nothing. Not even relief.

If
the media saw him here, they would probably rehash every detail of his wife’s
murder, turning his devastation into a tasty news bite once again.

Ben
found a pair of sunglasses in the glove compartment and pulled the hood of his
sweatshirt over his head.

“You
look like the Unabomber,” Carly said.

He
gave her similar perusal, seeing solemn eyes behind dark lenses. “Why did you
lie to that police officer?”

Her
mouth made a thin line. Instead of answering, she glanced away.

The
aftermath of Olivia’s death had scarred his daughter in ways he could only
imagine. At a time when they needed each other more than anything else, the
police had kept them apart, questioning them separately, trying to pit Carly
against him. Trying to break them down.

He
despised them for putting her through that.

Carly
might have lied to the police just to be uncooperative. Or maybe she was hiding
something. Maybe she knew Lisette had been in his room that night.

His
gut clenched at the thought. “Do you know where Lisette is?”

She
gave him a disgusted look. “No.”

He
decided she was telling the truth, and hoped he wasn’t fooling himself,
believing what he wanted to believe. “How are you doing…with the cutting?”

“Fine,”
she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You
haven’t—”

“No.”

Floundering,
he careened from one difficult topic to the next. “Are you still seeing James?”

Her
sleek brows drew together. “Yes. Why?”

“He
seems kind of volatile.”

“You
attacked
him,
Dad.”

He
sighed, leaning his head back against the seat. “I guess that was uncalled
for.”

“You
think?” She drummed her fingertips against the sleeve of her sweatshirt,
glancing out at the media vans with trepidation.

The
movement drew his attention to a ring on her finger. “Where’d you get that?” he
asked, catching her hand to study the antique silver band.

“James
gave it to me.”

“When?”

“Yesterday,”
she said, pulling her hand away quickly. “It’s nothing.”

Ben’s
vision narrowed. He knew damned well she hadn’t been wearing that ring on her
finger last night. “Have you been sneaking out again?”

“No,
I—”

“Don’t
you know what happens to girls who wander around by themselves at night?” he
interrupted, stress coursing through him. “They get raped and murdered! You, of
all people, should know that!”

She
recoiled. “Do you think that’s what happened to Lisette?”

His
throat went dry. Lisette was probably up to no good, on drugs or in trouble,
but dead? “No,” he said softly, praying it was true.

Getting
past the reporters unnoticed wasn’t as hard as he’d thought. There were dozens
of teenagers milling about, and the crowd was focused on Tom and Sheila
Bruebaker, who were poised to make a statement.

Feeling
a little ridiculous, Ben removed his hood but kept on his sunglasses. As he
stood next to Carly, near the front entrance of the house, there was only one
person who appeared to recognize him: Tom Bruebaker.

He
was standing beside his wife, his hand at the small of her back. In a
pin-striped shirt and dark slacks, a diamond-encrusted watch at his thick
wrist, and the morning sun glinting off his silver hair, Tom cut a striking
figure. His jaw clenched when their eyes met, and the older man looked away. At
Tom’s side, Sheila appeared fragile and elegant in a Chanel suit. She was
holding on to his shoulder, as if she wasn’t quite steady on her feet. Her
fingers sparkled with jewelry and her eyes glittered with unshed tears.

The
press conference lasted only a short time. Tom did most of the talking, asking
for anyone with information about his daughter to come forward, and offering a
considerable reward. Too overwhelmed to speak, Sheila wept prettily into a lace
handkerchief.

Ben
had known the Bruebakers for ages. He used to be able to call Tom a friend. Now
the man was the closest thing to an enemy Ben had.

After
the Bruebakers spoke with the press, everyone was ushered inside by a female
officer who was in charge of organizing the search. Watching her reminded Ben
that Summer worked with law enforcement. The way she’d looked at him this
morning, her blue eyes cold as ice, was disturbing on many different levels.

Torturing
himself, he replayed their conversation in his mind. He had to admit that by
allowing his daughter to lie to the police, he’d given her reason to be
suspicious. And when Summer had confronted him about sleeping with Lisette,
he’d been too proud to deny it.

Then
he’d insulted her by suggesting she meant nothing to him, and wasn’t worthy of
speaking his wife’s name.

Ben
stifled a groan, rubbing a hand over his face. How ironic that he’d gotten
himself tangled up with a woman who challenged him at least as much as Olivia
had.

Sonny adjusted the fit of the Harbor
Police uniform before she stepped out of the women’s locker room. The black
polyester pants were too snug and the white shirt molded over her breasts, so
it was perfect. A navy cap and dark sunglasses completed the disguise. She
didn’t want to call too much attention to her face.

Lamont
Rousseau, a real member of the Coast Guard, and her counterpart for the
afternoon, was ready and waiting for her at America’s Cup Harbor.

They
worked the docks for more than an hour, trolling for sailors known to frequent
the restricted waters of the La Jolla Underwater Park and Ecological Reserve,
where Lisette’s body had allegedly been sighted. Most of San Diego’s small
vessel fishermen were second- or third-generation Portuguese or Italian, with
salt water flowing through their veins and flippers for feet. They were a
tight-lipped crew, protective of their own, but one name in particular kept
cropping up, a man with no family ties in the area. Unpopular with sellers and
buyers alike, he was rumored to employ several questionable tactics, including
using nonregulation nets, scouting the reserve, and weighting his catch with
filler.

His
name was Arlen Matthews.

Sonny
didn’t recognize the name, having never heard it from James, so she was
surprised to see Carly’s boyfriend aboard a beat-up old boat named
Destiny,
with a young man who looked too much like James to be anything but his brother.
As Sonny and Lamont approached, the boys’ father emerged from the galley,
wearing dirty blue jeans and a green trucker cap.

Sonny
put a hand on Lamont’s arm. “I know him. The youngest.”

“Do
you want me to go alone?”

She
hesitated, considering. It was too important. And too much of a coincidence.
“No. Just follow my lead.”

Sonny
approached the boat. “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said with a smile,
modulating the pitch of her voice. “Sloppy weather, isn’t it?”

The
fisherman’s lingo she’d picked up didn’t seem to put the Matthews men at ease.

“Sloppier
than a TJ whore,” Arlen Matthews agreed, pulling his hat low on his forehead.
Mirrored sunglasses hid his eyes, and he had a cigarette clenched between his
teeth. Like his sons, he had the lean, whipcord build of a lifelong sailor.
While James and his brother had thick brown hair, Mr. Matthews’ was all
tarnished gold. The two older men were scruffier than James, less clean-cut,
but they were all handsome. And wary.

Sonny
wasn’t amused by Arlen’s off-color remark. “Good catch?”

“Fair,”
he grunted. “What can I do for you?”

“A
couple of kayakers claim they saw the body of a drowned woman on the south side
of the reserve. You all been out that way?”

Stephen
and James made a busy show of swabbing the deck, their eyes downcast.

Arlen
took a deep drag on his smoke. “Can’t drop a net there. It’s protected.”

Sonny
didn’t say anything.

Arlen
did a slow perusal of her body, insultingly obvious even though his eyes were
covered. When he smiled, her blood ran cold. “Only dead bodies I’ve seen are
these two,” he said, jerking his thumb at his sons. “Get lazier every year.”

Sonny
glanced at James, wondering if he recognized her. She noted that his trembling
hands were chafed and his arms sinewy with muscle. Both boys looked
half-starved, but strong. She took a picture of Lisette out of her pocket and
handed it to Arlen. “This is the girl we think may be out there. Do you know
her?”

Arlen
took the photo. “Nope,” he said, barely glancing at it. He tried to hand it
back, but she wouldn’t take it.

“Maybe
your sons do. She’s more their age.”

Arlen
shrugged, but when he attempted to pass over the picture, it slipped from his
hand and fluttered to the water. “Sorry,” he said, making no move to retrieve
it. In fact, he threw his cigarette butt right at it.

Lamont’s
nostrils flared with anger, but he maintained his silence.

“That’s
a filthy habit,” she said, meaning smoking, littering,
and
disrespecting
women.

“Ain’t
it just?” he replied with a smirk.

Wishing
Arlen would remove his sunglasses, so she could see his eyes, she took a card
from her pocket, fresh and hastily made, with a Harbor Police phone number and
her assumed name. “If you boys see or hear anything, give me a call.”

“Yes,
ma’am,” Arlen said, brushing his tobacco-stained fingers over hers. “We sure
will.”

At
Harbor Police Headquarters, she picked up the phone to call her contact with
local law enforcement, Staff Sergeant Paula DeGrassi. “Let me hear that
message,” Sonny requested. She listened to the boy’s voice carefully,
confirming her suspicions. “When did he leave it?”

“Christmas
Eve. Late. I didn’t get it until this morning. The body might be off the coast
of Mexico by now.”

Sonny
thanked her and hung up. The hair she’d collected from Ben’s bed was being
processed at the crime lab. It could always be compared with hair taken from a
brush at Lisette’s house, or a DNA sample if one was available, in the event
that her body was never recovered.

In
most cases, no body meant no murder charge. James’ phone call may have taken
care of that technicality.

If
the hair from Ben’s bed belonged to Lisette, body or no body, Ben would be a
prime suspect. Unless Sonny could get something on Arlen Matthews, other than
that he didn’t report dead bodies because he was too cheap to pay a $500 fine.

Scumbag.

She
was angry with Ben for lying to her, but she couldn’t believe him a murderer.
Arlen Matthews, on the other hand, was as shady as they came.

It
was time to have a talk with James.

Sonny followed Carly down Windansea Beach,
staying far enough behind that the girl wouldn’t notice. Sure enough, Carly met
James near a group of elephant-sized rocks, and the pair went behind them to
engage in some hanky-panky.

When
Carly emerged thirty minutes later, flushed and smiling, Sonny was too jaded to
find it cute. Ben had better get ready to be a grandpa.

A
hot, thirty-four-year-old grandpa.

Sonny
waited for Carly to get out of earshot before she went in for James. The
instant he saw her, he tried to run, proving he’d recognized her earlier at the
docks. He was so fast he almost got out into the open, where she couldn’t
tackle him without taking the chance of being seen. He put up a hell of a
fight, until he realized that while she wasn’t exactly hurting him, neither
could he break free from her hold.

“What
do you want?” he asked, panting with exertion.

“Did
you tell Carly you saw me today?”

“No.”

Sonny
breathed a sigh of relief. “I know you reported Lisette’s body. I recognized
your voice.”

“Fuck,”
he muttered.

“You
might as well keep talking.”

“Are
you crazy? You’re a cop. I’m not telling you a fucking thing.”

It
was a pretty good impression of Ben, and it pissed her off. She twisted James’
arm behind his back far enough to make it hurt. “Talk or cry.”

She
knew he was in pain, but he didn’t make a sound. “You think you can do
something to me that my dad hasn’t already done?” he asked quietly.

She
thought about it. “I can tell him about Carly.”

He
was silent for a moment. “Fine. Take your fucking hands off me, though. I’m not
going to run.”