Forgotten Obsessions (The Love is Murder Social Club Book 1)

by Talia Maxwell

  “Do you want me to devour you?” he asked in a whisper. “Because I will. You say yes and—”

  She took a long time to answer. “Not tonight. I don’t think tonight,” Maeve whispered back, but her eyes were watering with what he thought might be fear or regret. “I know it might be a mistake. But…”

  He stayed hard, but he dropped her hand and stood up.

  “A mistake to say no? No. Never think that. It’s late,” he said. He could see her eyes travel to his crotch; aware of the erection. “You want me to get you a car out here or…I can sleep out here and you can take inside.”

  Maeve’s eyes were already heavy-lidded and she smiled and flicked the lazy-boys chair backward in a whoosh, her feet sticking out in front of her.

  “No,” she mumbled. “Sleep in your own bed.”

  Derek watched her close her eyes and turn her back to him, her shoulders rising and falling in a deep and sleepy rhythm.

  He turned and went inside the trailer and turned out his lights. In the dark, the twinkle-lights were the only illumination, he crawled into his bed and pressed his hand against his penis, coaxing it once and then twice and then letting it be.

  Alight and exhausted, Derek fell asleep quickly. In his dreams, he dreamed of the brown-eyed girl, the curve of her neck, the mole on her collarbone, the taste of her mouth. And he woke up, in his pajamas, soaked with sweat, gasping for breath as if he’d just run a marathon. It was light outside and he felt wobbly. Something had woken him up; a crash or a knock. A knock. His mind went to his father. Of course, he was there again to wake him up and invite him to something stupid. Then he thought of the girl outside, and as soon as his mind remembered her presence, everything about last night and his dream popped into his memory.

  He’d brought home a groupie and they’d fooled around on his chessboard, and he fucking liked her. He’d also left her outside to sleep with one measly blanket and no explanation about where the bathroom was. His porta-potty. At some point, she’d have to pee. He felt like a tool. Derek slipped out of bed and shook the sweaty blankets to the floor and heard the knock again.

  It was not the dainty knock of someone trying to easily rouse him, but the heavy thudding reserved for emergencies.

  “Derek Shelton?” a male voice called. “Open up. This is the police. Will you step outside? Multnomah County Police. We need to talk to you.”

  Derek’s thoughts immediately went to Maeve.

  Shit, he groaned. He knew why they were there. The girl had been murdered outside and he was now the prime suspect. Just his fucking luck.

  “I’m coming,” Derek said, and he moved to open the door. “Hold up, I’m here. I’m up.”

  Chapter Ten

  Maeve waited until the trailer was quiet and dark to try to call Millie. Two of the phone calls went through, but since Maeve was trying to whisper and Millie was in a noisy restaurant, they couldn’t understand each other. The misfires only made Millie agitated and she shouted that she’d try to call later. The call dropped seconds later.

  The Boring, Oregon fields and mountains caused the rest of her phone calls to swirl and spin. She tried to send texts, but they kept bouncing back. A few of them said: Sleeping over. Met someone. Don’t PANIC.

  Soon, all the extra texting drained her battery and Maeve held her dead phone and sent a silent prayer over it. The details of her evening didn’t need to be broadcast over the entire world, but she felt like someone should know where she was.

  Only.

  She didn’t have the address to Derek’s house, only his name and a general understanding of the area. All of her friends who loved a good murder story would lambast her for the stupidity of the entire situation. She’d followed a strange boy home and slept at his trailer without telling anyone. She was as good as dead. Except. The thing was: she felt safe. She really did. If she hadn’t, she would’ve booked it back home to Roger.

  Shit. The dog.

  She thought of Roger, already neurotic and prone to escape, and she thought of not coming home from her date, Roger sitting and pining for her by the front door, perhaps scratching and whining, biting at the frame, creating more damages she couldn’t afford. Maeve wondered if she should get up and tell Derek she needed to get back to her dog, but then she thought of the wine in her belly and his kisses on her lips, and she knew that minus some unfortunate potty accidents, Roger would survive the accidental abandonment. The best she could hope for was he’d made it to Hugo.

  She was the world’s worst dog owner.

  A part of her wondered what Derek would do if she wandered in and said to him, “I need to get home to Roger, my love.”

  Teasing him felt a little bit delicious.

  With the thought of Derek on her mind, Maeve drifted off to sleep, the cool country wind pouring over her with dreams of his hands on her body as she let her dreams wander.

  The buzz of the policeman’s radio was the first thing to rouse her.

  It crackled and hummed and a woman’s voice was audible through the connection.

  “Yes, copy that.”

  A man in uniform stood at the edge of the canopy and waved slightly when Maeve opened her eyes and assessed him, stretching out along the chair, the blanket falling off her body. It was morning and the sun had illuminated Derek’s five acres. In the harsh glare of sunlight, it was an expanse of beige and green in every direction and the trailer looked dusty and mistreated in the light of morning. The police, no doubt doing their jobs, offered a surreal filter on waking up in a Lazee-boy chair.

  Two officers stood above her, hands on their waists, the crackle of their radio echoing in the morning.

  From around the trailer, Maeve could hear a third officer pounding on Derek’s door, rousing him from slumber, too. The trailer creaked with movement.

  “Good morning,” the man closest to her said. “You mind telling us your name, Miss?”

  Maeve slid down off the chair and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She fumbled for her purse next to the chair, looking for her ID, the officers eyed her cautiously.

  “Maeve Montgomery,” she said. “Is there something wrong?”

  The men exchanged looks and then one of them walked away, whispering into his radio. His transmission carried back to her and Maeve listened with embarrassment as the other officer looked on, his head dipped.

  “Hey, this is Officer Jenkins. We’re on a family call out in Boring this morning and came across your missing girl. Maeve Montgomery?” Someone on the other end questioned the officer and he replied with a snicker and, “Well, she’s here. I’ll have her call her sister. Call off the media hounds with that one, right? Yeah. I’ll keep you posted.”

  The man hung up and walked back over to her. He pulled out a notebook and Maeve felt her hands grow sweaty. Two cop cars were parked in front of the trailer and she stood up and crossed her hands over her body.

  “Is something wrong?” Maeve asked.

  “Ms. Montgomery, do you have a phone on you?”

  “Yeah. The battery died last night.”

  “Were you aware that your sister was concerned about your whereabouts?”

  Maeve grew hot and dipped her head in shame. Of course. Millie couldn’t get in touch with her—a rarity—and went over and found her apartment empty, Roger neglected, and called foul play.

  “Did you trace me here?” Maeve asked, confused. “That’s completely mortifying. I’m fine. I spent the night here…with, um, Mr. Shelton.”

  “Yeah, well, Mr. Shelton received some poor news this morning and we’ve been instructed to get you back to your car. If you could gather your things.”

  That was a new one. Her one-night stand was ending with a ride with the police.

  “Of course, of course,” Maeve said. Her things consisted of a purse and nothing more.

  It was the worst walk of shame—she’d spent the night with a boy and her sister reported her missing. She hadn’t even slept with him. She put her shoes back on and tried to shake away
the bleakness of the morning; everything harsh and clear in the sunlight.

  “May I say goodbye?” she asked the police and they motioned to the trailer door and proceeded to the car to wait for her.

  Maeve knocked and Derek answered almost immediately. He was on the phone, his eyes red, and he motioned for her to come inside. She stepped up on to the trailer and waited, watching as he paced the length of the cabin.

  “Right, well, I can handle all of that. I don’t know. I don’t know. Let me call you back. I’ll call you right back.” He tossed his phone on to the table and rubbed his brow, sweat gathered across it. He looked like he didn’t know if he wanted to kiss her or yell at her. Maeve was frozen, trying to assess the situation.

  “The police—” she started and pointed back to the yard where the car sat. “The said my sister reported me missing…”

  “Yeah. I know. They said she was all fired up. But hey, look. My dad was killed last night,” Derek interrupted her.

  “What?” Maeve asked, her face falling. “What?” She was confused. What? Timothy Shelton had been killed? She’d just seen him; she’d performed CPR.

  “My dad. Got home from the hospital yesterday. Shot this morning. He’s gone. He’s dead.”

  “Oh my God.” She didn’t know what else to say.

  He, too, was at a loss—and they stood in silence, the magnitude of the situation. Timothy Shelton. Celebrity, hero, was Gone. She’d been with him, just a few days ago, and now—gone. And in front of her, mourning and confused, was Derek. She took a step toward him and he put his hand out and stopped her.

  “I’ll call you, soon,” he promised. His phone rattled to life on the table. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Of course. Take your time,” she said. But what she really wanted to do was stay. She wanted to curl up and hold him and take care of him. He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek, warm, but in a distracted flurry of excitement.

  He picked up the phone and said gruffly into the mouthpiece, “Okay. Yeah. I don’t know anything else.” With one last look to Maeve, Derek kissed the air in her direction and turned his shirtless self back to his bedroom, shutting the small curtain between her and him, and eclipsing any chance for him to ask her to be with him and stay. Derek didn’t need her.

  Dejected and confused, Maeve exited the trailer and the police officers let her into the back of the patrol car.

  “Where are we taking you?” the officer in the passenger seat said, turning down the radio.

  “I forgot the name…a restaurant in Gresham. Italian.”

  And somehow they knew exactly what she meant. Intent on small talk, the officers tried to learn all about her on the way home, while Maeve looked out the window and couldn’t stop thinking of the last twenty-four hours of her life.

  Derek on her lips, his hands in her hair.

  She’d slept outside under Christmas lights and woke up to the announcement of a murder.

  With butterflies in her stomach, Maeve put her head against the window and replayed it all—the taste of him, the feel of them, the kiss as he disappeared and retreated into a tragedy she couldn’t understand. She smiled and her stomach tugged and longed to see him again.

  Derek Shelton, she said to herself. Attainable, maybe, after all.

  Chapter Eleven

  He was driving to the station to talk with the officers assigned to his dad’s case, but Derek couldn’t concentrate. He was numb and careening between the darkness of his family history and the inevitable position this put upon him. How was he expected to manage? He was barely in charge of his own life. Finally carving out something that felt free from the drama, free of the meddling—the meddling of his father.

  And then the guilt settled upon him in waves.

  Grief and guilt, undulating. And throughout all of it, he thought of Maeve. He’d been rude to her when she left, shooing her away and taking his dad’s wife’s phone call when he should have ignored the call and given the girl a proper kiss goodbye. She was probably confused about their evening, and he didn’t blame her. Had he really brought her back to the chess set and then been unable to keep his hands to himself?

  That was how he remembered it. She’d surprised him at the board, taking her time to think through every turn, treating the wooden pieces gingerly as she shifted them around by firelight.

  Then he’d left her under the canopy to sleep and, even worse by his estimation, allowed the cops to wake her up while he made a few phone calls and let the reality sink in: someone called in a gunshot. Sure enough, there was a victim on the other end of that blast and his name was Timothy Shelton.

  Multnomah PD had been able to keep the identity out of the public radar so far, but it wouldn’t be long before the entire state got word that he was murdered. The media firestorm would be insufferable and Derek didn’t think he could handle it. His dad lived for that shit—the reporters and the morning news shows. He tried to spin their lives into gold with everything he had.

  Would it be possible to say no comment and walk away? Or would they hound his property? Show up at all hours to knock on the trailer door, their big bright lights glaring on all his imperfections, out there for the world to judge.

  He didn’t want to be someone else’s water cooler story.

  Derek knew he deserved more than that.

  Officer Medley was kind. He poured Derek a coffee. Derek realized he was wearing the same clothes as yesterday and he smelled like sweat and hormones and a night in a bar, which was the partial truth. He looked like death.

  “So?” Derek asked, his hands in his lap. They’d put him in a private room next to the coffee to help him feel more at ease, but Derek knew the drill. Even he’d be put through the ringer and asked for his alibi. Which would be, of course, Maeve Montgomery. He had mixed feelings about that. On one hand, he might be forced to call her sooner than later if she was needed to come give a statement. On the other hand, he loathed this and he didn’t want Maeve around any part of it.

  It wasn’t the fault of the police, he knew they were doing their jobs, but he also knew that for the men who hunted murderers, they explored every possible avenue until they’d hit every dead end twice. He was in for a scandal and a scene. He was in for a repeat of his childhood, only he had shed his victimhood since he was a teenager.

  Derek drank the coffee slowly and said, “What happened to my father? And what do you know about his killer?”

  “Easy, easy,” Medley said and motioned for Derek to keep drinking. “The details are sketchy. Let’s start with the timing. We know someone arrived at his place in the evening—he was alone. Shot in the time between his wife…” Medley checked his notes for her name, and Derek took the opportunity to clear his throat, stopping him from saying more. He didn’t want to hear her name. He couldn’t.

  “And you’re trying to figure out if he shot himself or if someone else shot him,” Derek finished.

  “That is the standard course of investigations of this nature,” Medley answered as if Derek was bothered by the line of questioning. “Would anyone have any reason to harm your father?”

  “He could be an…he could be difficult,” Derek said, and he rubbed his temple, knowing this line of questioning would get them nowhere. “Dad talks…” he hesitated at the present tense and then swallowed, “to everyone. The kid on the street, the panhandler, the clerks. If you let him, he talks. He made everyone feel like they were a part of his story.”

  “And what about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Any source of anger?”

  “Nope. An understanding without animosity. I loved my dad,” Derek stopped, collected himself.

  “He’d recently had a heart attack. A week ago?”

  “Yes, at a book signing thing for True Crime fans.”

  “Those girls, right?” Girls, Derek inwardly rolled his eyes. “I love that there’s a group for that,” Medley said and paused from taking notes. “Should get those girls,” he said again, “to do
a ride-along and then they’d see what policing really is. Not like the books.”

  Derek didn’t know who the man was trying to impress, but he suppressed the urge to argue. He’d been around law enforcement for long enough to understand not all police were created equal. He’d met some of the best people in the world. And the worst. And now he wasn’t in the mood to hear anything negative about the fans that gave his dad joy and life his past few years. In death, he felt like he could give him that. It seemed like a kind gesture, a selfless one.

  Derek couldn’t let it go entirely though, so he settled for a neutral dismissal. “Well, I think most of the girls would take you up on that. They’ve got nerves of steel. That I’ll say. They’d make good cops.” All of the eager young True Crimers were ruthless about the facts. He imagined that any one of the women from Maeve’s meet-up group could solve his dad’s murder. Or suicide. Even though the idea of suicide didn’t sit right with Derek—not after a close call with death like that, not with all his future plans.

  That thought spun through his mind as he and the officer kept talking.

  “Where were you last night?” So subtle and sneaked into the regular flow of questions that it seemed innocent.

  “At a restaurant, on a date. And then back at my house. With the date.”

  “Name of the date, please?”

  Derek paused. It was necessary, but it was also cruel.

  “Maeve Montgomery,” he said.

  “Oh, right. The girl who went missing. Sister Amelia went crazy with the news outlets looking for her saying she’d been kidnapped from her apartment. Just Italian food and a night with you. Okay, I’m seeing a fuller picture. You have a number where we can reach Maeve Montgomery?”

  Derek hated the entire tone from Medley and he just wanted answers about his father. He finished the coffee and choked down the last lukewarm bit of sludge. He looked her number up on his phone and dictated it to him.