by Roxie Rivera
“Ben.”
We both turned toward the detective who had come through the door last. Ben immediately stiffened, and I could tell there was some history between the two men. The handsome detective had dark hair and eyes, but there was something sad about him, something sorrowful in his eyes.
“Santos.” Ben addressed him by his last name. “The fuck are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” Detective Santos looked around the house. “Not really your usual scene, is it? Not a stripper pole or G-string to be seen.”
If he thought that I wasn’t aware that Ben’s family was heavily invested in gentlemen’s clubs, he was mistaken. I didn’t even bat an eye. I held the detective’s gaze as I outstretched my hand. “Aston McNeil. I don’t think we’ve met.”
“We haven’t.” He grasped my hand with a strong shake. “Eric Santos. Detective. Guns and Gangs.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, unimpressed.
“I’m not here for you,” he remarked, his steady gaze back on Ben. “But your stepbrother is of interest to me.”
“You’re not going to find him here.”
Eric’s gaze shifted to me. “We’ll see.”
“Is he always like that?” I asked as the detective walked away and disappeared into my father’s study.
“Yes.” Ben pressed a tender kiss to the top of my head. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“He’s trying to rattle me, too.” He lowered his voice. “The noodle shop.”
“Oh,” I whispered, finally understanding.
It wasn’t long before the sound of car doors being slammed echoed outside. Within moments, the legal cavalry stormed through the front door. A few of the younger ones seemed to have been working late on the weekend, their suits rumpled and not as crisp as they should have been. The older attorneys had arrived in lounge wear—leggings and yoga pants on the three women—and jeans for the two older men, including an apoplectic Dick.
“What in the Sam Hill is going on here?” Dick shouted, his deep voice echoing off the vaulted ceilings of the entryway and the marble floors. “Who the hell is in charge of this goat rope?”
I didn’t even try to hide my smile. Dick was known as one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the country. He had become a bit of a celebrity with his winning defenses of high-profile murder cases, but while he had conquered the city, he had never forgotten where he came from—a dusty ranch in far west Texas.
“You three get upstairs and make sure these cretins aren’t rifling through her underwear drawer,” he snapped, pointing at the younger lawyers. “Rosie, Hank, take the office,” he commanded, gesturing to the correct door. “Sugar,” Dick said, noticing me finally. He swept in and clamped a bear paw on my shoulder. “You all right?”
“I’m fine. Just confused,” I said, looking at the police officers who had stopped searching to stare. “They gave me these.”
Dick took the warrants and scanned them. His face got redder and his jaw clenched as he read through them. “Look at this horseshit, Mariana.”
I recognized her as one of the partners of his firm. Even though she was in black leggings and a Baylor sweater, she looked effortlessly classic. She glanced over the warrants and rolled her eyes. “Garland?”
“Yeah,” Dick grumbled, his gaze moving to Detective Dawson who seemed less than enthusiastic about talking to him. “Dawson! You must be dumb as a box of rocks if you think this will stand up!”
“Good to see you, too, Dick,” Detective Dawson greeted sarcastically. “They’re good warrants.”
“Bullshit,” Dick snapped. “Everyone knows Garland is a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Hell, last week, the old fool got lost trying to find the bathrooms and whipped his pecker out in the hall outside Karen Gonzalez’s chambers to water a fake ficus. He’s just warming a seat until he retires.” Dick narrowed his eyes. “But, you knew that, didn’t you? You went to him because your crack team knew there wasn’t enough to get a sane judge to sign this shit.”
“It wasn’t my team that secured the warrants,” Detective Dawson insisted. “I’m just doing what I was told.”
“Is there a problem?” Detective Santos interjected as he stepped up beside Dawson who shot him an angry look. It was clear from their exchanged glances that Dawson felt as if he had been set up to fail.
“Hell, I should have known this was your handiwork, Eric,” Dick said with a harsh laugh. “Another one of your tricks, huh? You’re always working some angle. What is it this time? Trying to bully this girl into being your next informant? Huh? You want her to end up floating in Trinity Bay with her throat slit and tongue cut out like the last one?”
Eric bristled. “What happened to Carrie—”
“Is not happening to my client,” Dick snarled. “I’ve been in Aston’s life since she was a baby. Her daddy was one of my best friends. You picked the wrong girl to intimidate.”
“Listen,” Dawson tried to intervene, “I’m sure we can talk about this and find a compromise.”
“Dawson, you couldn’t find the goddamn floor if you fell out of bed,” Dick shouted.
Dick’s raised voice must have startled one of the crime scene techs on the staircase. She turned quickly, and her camera strap caught onto the edge of the sunburst mirror frame. It clattered as it bounced against a step and shattered, sending glass shards down the staircase and onto the floor. She blanched, and I felt terrible for her. It was just a mirror, but she had made herself a target of Dick’s ire.
“Get the hell out of this house before I have you all fired!”
The techs and police officers who had gathered to watch the fireworks looked between Dick and the detectives. After a tense moment, Eric jerked his head. The investigative team all but ran to the doors where two of the lawyers who had come with Dick stood guard, stopping and interrogating them.
When the woman who had caused the mirror to fall walked by, I reached out to touch her arm. She winced, as if expecting me to yell at her for breaking it. I just smiled. “Hey, don’t worry about the mirror. It was an accident.”
“I’m really sorry,” she said. “I’ve never done something like that on a scene.”
“It happens. It’s fine.” I waved my hand. “It was on clearance at Kirkland’s. It’s not a big deal.”
She seemed relieve to hear that it wasn’t some priceless antique. With a nod, she scurried toward the door and avoided Dick’s glare.
Detective Dawson was the second to last to leave. He didn’t say a word as he escaped the house. Eric Santos, however, wasn’t about to disappear without getting in a few parting shots.
“We’re going to find Calvin, Miss McNeil. We’re going to find him and Gary and get to the bottom of this fucked up scheme you’ve got going.”
Before I could protest, he was gone. I glanced at Dick and he shook his head, silently warning me not to speak just yet. He stepped aside to talk to his team. Most of them left, but Rosie and Mariana stayed behind, both of them on their phones typing furiously.
“I’m going to clean up the glass.” Ben rubbed my lower back and eyed my bare feet. “Be careful.”
“I will.”
As Ben walked away, Dick touched my arm. “We need to talk.”
I nodded. “Dad’s office?”
“Sure.”
When we were safely locked inside, I walked straight to the bar cart and grabbed a glass. “You want one?”
“Like I’m going to pass up the chance to sip on your daddy’s Pappy Van Winkle collection?” He dropped into one of the chesterfield chairs near the fireplace. “You got yourself a hell of a mess here, kid.”
“I know.” I poured some of the bourbon into each glass and handed him one before taking the seat across from him. “I really don’t know what the detective meant about Calvin and Gary.”
Dick sipped his bourbon. “He talking about Gary Metcalfe?”
“I think so. Why? Do you know something?”
“I
was at the golf course this morning, and I heard some scuttlebutt about some money going missing. Gary’s name was mentioned. How does he tie in to you?”
“His wife works for the firm.” I took a drink. “She walked out in tears earlier this week. Apparently, a federal agent came to see her at work. When I was at Oliver’s wedding tonight, I heard her house had been raided.”
“Ollie, that old romantic,” he said with a huffed laugh. “He’s singlehandedly keeping the prenup and divorce lawyers in business.”
“He has a good heart,” I insisted. “He’s just unlucky in love.”
Dick grumbled and sat back in the chair. “Tell me what I need to know.”
I explained the visit from Detective Dawson and what I had pieced together from conversations since then.
“And Ben Beciraj?” He eyed me in a way that made me squirm. “How does he fit into all this?”
“We’re dating.”
“And?”
“And what?” I shrugged. “We’re together. End of story.”
“I have a feeling that’s the beginning of the story,” he replied. “How the hell does a man like that meet someone like you?”
Knowing Dick would never betray my confidence, I told him the truth. “Calvin was in money trouble. He used Baby to get a loan from Ben’s family. They repossessed the car. I went to Ben to demand it back, and we spent the night running from drug dealers and car thieves and loan sharks. We’ve been together ever since.”
“Jesus Christ.” He finished off his bourbon in one long pull. “You get all that settled?”
“Yes.”
“The drug dealers were tied in with Calvin?” he guessed.
“Yes.”
“And that’s been handled? You’re safe?”
“I’m safe. It was handled.”
He sighed and set his glass on the table next to him. He sat forward and leaned his elbows on his knees. “Do you know where Calvin is?”
I met his gaze and shook his head. “No.”
“Do you know why he’s missing?”
I swallowed nervously. “Yes.”
“Is he going to come back and cause any problems?”
I shook my head.
“I see.” He had obviously had enough criminals in front of him to know what I was saying without saying it. “Good.” He seemed to relax as he straightened up. “There’s a lot you don’t know about that little shit. Things he did to animals. Things he did to girls he dated,” he added. “Things he did to boys at the military academy. Things no one could prove because his victims wouldn’t or couldn’t talk to police.”
“I didn’t know,” I murmured, feeling even worse that my stepbrother had been out there hurting people all that time.
“Your daddy did. Maybe not to the extent I knew, but he had an idea of what that monster was like. I told him to take that rotten asshole on a hunting trip and give him the Dick Cheney treatment.”
My eyes widened at the idea of my dad “accidentally” shooting Calvin in the face during a hunt.
“Sometimes, you got to cull the herd, sweetheart. That boy was a bad seed from the moment he took hold in his mama’s belly.” He stood up. “He was going to end up in an unmarked grave or at the bottom of the bay eventually,” Dick said matter-of-factly. “He just hadn’t crossed the wrong person yet.” His gaze flicked to the closed door. “Or, rather, you hadn’t met the right one yet.”
Dick had gotten the answers he needed, and I walked him to the front door where the rest of his team waited patiently, all of them head down and focused on their phones. “You have any more problems, you call me.”
“I will.”
“The team will be in touch Monday morning. We’ll get this sorted.”
“Thank you for coming tonight. I’m really sorry I had to wake all of you.”
“You won’t be when you get the bill,” Dick replied with his trademark grin.
He was probably right about that. I waited until they were gone to lock the door behind them. Leaning back against it, I sighed heavily. Ben appeared in the entryway, a vacuum in hand. “Everyone gone?”
“Yes.”
“Let me finish cleaning this up, and we’ll go back to bed?”
“Sounds good.”
While Ben vacuumed, I wandered back to Dad’s study and started closing drawers and cabinets that had been left open by the police. The house felt weirdly violated, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that it might not ever feel like my safe place again.
My gaze fell to the spot where Ben had almost killed Calvin. I didn’t worry about evidence being found. Ben had hired someone—a professional who handled only underworld clients—to clean the house and wipe away every trace.
But the cleaner he had hired couldn’t wipe away the memory.
Ben stepped into the study. “You okay?”
“Not really,” I confessed, feeling suddenly overwhelmed.
“Baby,” he murmured and closed the distance between us with long strides. When his strong arms gathered me close, I sagged against him. I closed my eyes and pressed my cheek to his chest, letting the soothing thud of his heartbeat calm me. He didn’t try to fill the silence with empty platitudes or promises. He just held me and stroked my hair, giving me exactly what I needed.
A long time later, when I felt a little better, I stared up at him. “I think that mirror breaking was a sign.”
“Of what?” His thumb followed the curve of my jaw. “You don’t believe in that seven years of bad luck shit, right?”
“No.”
“But?”
“But I’ve been thinking that it’s time to downsize.”
He seemed surprised. “You want to sell your house?”
“Do you think that’s a bad decision?”
“No. I have been thinking about talking to you about it.” He hesitated. “This place is becoming a mausoleum, Aston.”
“I know.”
“You can make new memories somewhere else. Maybe you don’t even have to sell it. You could close it down and move and decide what to do about it later.”
“That’s a possibility I hadn’t considered. Yeah. Maybe.”
“What about Nina and Pedro?”
“They’ve been talking about retiring.”
“Are they okay? Like financially?”
“Dad had them on a retirement plan, and he left them money in his will. Enough to let them travel and spoil their grandkids and great-grandkids and leave trust funds for them all.”
“He must have cared about them.”
“They’re family.”
Ben kissed me. “Let’s go back to bed. We can figure this all out tomorrow.”
“It’s already tomorrow,” I pointed out.
“Fine. Later today?”
“Much later,” I agreed and took hold of his hand. As I led him upstairs, I felt a strange lightening sensation. Maybe I would sell the house. Maybe I wouldn’t. Either way, it was time to make some changes in my life.
But not with Ben. He was the constant, steady presence that belonged right next to me.
Chapter Eleven
When Ben finally made it downstairs the next morning, he discovered Aston holding a spatula in one hand while staring at a smoking griddle. Certain she was on the brink of burning the whole damn house down, he said, “Step away from the stove.”
Startled by his sudden appearance, Aston spun around to glare at him. “You almost gave me a heart attack!”
“Sorry.” Reaching around her, he quickly shut off the burners under the cast iron griddle.
“It needs to heat up,” she protested.
“Baby, it’s smoking.”
“Isn’t it supposed to do that? How else do I know if it’s hot enough?”
He bit back a laugh. Instead of telling her that there was such a thing as too hot, he wrapped his arms around her from behind and kissed her neck. She relaxed back against him as he dotted slow kisses along her exposed skin. She still had that slightly sleepy, rumpled l
ook about her. The little shorts she wore had him thinking about everything but breakfast. Unless she was offering herself up to be eaten, of course.
“I can make pancakes,” she insisted. “See? I already mixed the batter.”
He eyed the too thick and lumpy glop in the bowl next to the stove. “You mixed something up,” he agreed, “but I’ve seen concrete thinner than that.”
She elbowed him hard enough to make him wince. “Rude.”
Laughing, he kissed her neck again. “Let me handle this. You go make coffee.”
“Fine.” She acted as if she were upset that he was pushing her away from the stove, but he could tell she was relieved. She had tried, and that was enough for him.
He carried the bowl of batter to the sink and added a little more water. He alternated whisking with adding water until the batter reached the correct consistency. Shaking his head, he decided it was a good thing she was so fucking rich. She would starve to death if she had to cook for herself.
“They have couples cooking lessons.” She placed a cup of coffee next to him and watched as he ladled circles of pancake batter onto the hot griddle.
He waited to see if she was going to ask him if he wanted to go with her. When she didn’t, he set aside the ladle and picked up the cup of coffee. There was a melting ice cube floating in it, just the way he liked. He hated having to wait to drink his coffee until it cooled. After a sip, he asked, “Do you want to go together?”
“Do you?” She seemed apprehensive as she stared up at him.
“Aston, I’ll go anywhere you tell me to go,” he replied matter-of-factly. “You want to go to cooking class? We’ll go to cooking class. You want me to take you to the ballet? I’ll get tickets. You want me to sit with you through one of those four-hour-long operas? I’ll buy some ear plugs.”
She snorted with laughter. “I’ll look into it. The cooking classes, not the opera,” she clarified. “I had no idea you hated it so much.”
“I’m not a fan of concerts or clubs or bars,” he admitted. “Too fucking loud. Gives me a headache.” He noticed she was drinking hot tea instead of coffee and frowned. “When did you start drinking tea with breakfast?”