If he were any more intent on seduction, she’d be flat on her back.
Sonny would have to tread lightly. Grant wanted her to spy on Ben, not moon over him like a silly schoolgirl. He’d also be furious if she refused to foster this acquaintance.
“Someplace casual?” she asked.
He smiled, taking that as a yes. “What’s your address? I’ll pick you up.”
“No, I’ll walk over.”
He let her have that one. “Five-ish? We eat early.”
She nodded, and he released her hand.
“Tomorrow night, then.”
Sitting down on the sand, she put on her shoes, waiting until he was out of sight to retrieve her SIG.
It wasn’t until she was safely ensconced in her apartment across the street that she placed a hand over her racing heart. It was beating fast and hard beneath her palm. Swallowing dryly, she closed her eyes and rested her back against the door, breathless with anticipation.
CHAPTER 3
Ben met John Thomas Carver at the rock wall on the south side of Windansea Beach.
“Merry Christmas,” he muttered, tossing him half a joint.
JT caught it midair. He’d always had quick reflexes. “Whoa-ho,” he said, opening his palm. “What’s this?”
“A little holiday cheer.”
Ben’s former drinking buddy and longtime surfing companion brought the partially smoked joint up to his nose and inhaled. JT was Ben’s age and he looked it, with his suntanned face and the lines bracketing his mouth. Sometime over the past twenty years, Ben had blinked, and his skinny, sleepy-eyed friend had grown into a man.
JT had filled out considerably since his teens, and shorn his sun-streaked locks to a more conservative style, but he hadn’t exactly sold out. He still cared more for waves than work, preferred bad girls to good, and couldn’t say no to a recreational high.
Smiling, JT tucked the joint behind his ear. “You off the wagon?”
Ben leaned against the side of the wall, looking out at the mash of water. Choppy form, one-to-two-foot swells, nothing but foam soup and a crappy onshore flow. “Nah,” he said, dragging his gaze back to land. “I took it away from Carly over the weekend. Last night, she threw herself into the Neptune rip.”
That wiped the grin off JT’s face. “Is she okay?”
Ben didn’t know how to answer that. Feeling the hot press of tears behind his eyes, he took a moment to gather his thoughts. “Physically, she seems fine,” he said, hearing the strain in his voice. “A stranger went in after her. A woman.”
JT just stared at him, waiting for him to finish.
“I was inside, asleep. The cops called and woke me up, saying she’d been in an accident.”
JT let out a low whistle. “That girl could drive a saint to drink.”
“Yeah, well. I never claimed to be that.”
“What are you going to do?”
Ben shrugged, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. JT was more of a good-time guy than an intimate confidant, and having had few responsibilities in his devil-may-care life, he was hardly an expert on parenting.
The person he really needed to talk to was Olivia.
“Smoke that, would you?” Ben said, feeling maudlin. “I want to make sure it’s just pot she’s messing with.”
JT plucked the joint from behind his ear and moistened his lips, glad to be of service. “With pleasure.”
Ben took a lighter out of his pocket, leaning forward to offer the flame while JT cupped his hands around his face, blocking out the wind. It took him a few tries to get the joint started. When it lit up, JT’s eyes widened and he sucked in a lungful of smoke. “Tastes all right,” he croaked, holding his breath.
Grunting, Ben pocketed the lighter and glanced around to make sure no one was looking, although he’d smoked pot on this beach a thousand times and never been caught.
JT took another few hits for good measure and doused the cherry with his wet fingertips. Then he split open the paper and studied its contents.
“Well?”
“Give it a few minutes to kick in, bro. Maybe it’s creeper.”
Ben laughed a little, touching the bridge of his nose, as close to hysteria as he’d been to tears a moment ago. If memory served, the term meant that the high snuck up on you.
“Looks like regular shit to me,” JT added, pocketing what was left of the joint. “No black tar or white residue. No funny taste.”
Ben nodded, trying to feel relieved.
“Are you really that worried about her smoking dope, man? We did a lot worse when we were her age.”
“Maybe I don’t want her to end up like me.”
JT squinted at him, shading his eyes from the sun. He opened his mouth to respond, then got distracted by a pretty girl walking by and lost his train of thought.
Ben watched him with growing impatience.
JT waved a hand in the air, remembering what he was going to say. “Carly’s a great kid. With a face like hers, you’re lucky she’s not out running wild with boys.”
It made Ben uncomfortable that JT had noticed his daughter’s good looks, but the truth was that everyone did. Like Olivia, Carly drew stares wherever she went, and someday soon her beauty would surely be Ben’s agony.
It was no less than he deserved, for all the womanizing he’d done in his youth.
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.