“I went surfing pretty early. I didn’t check on them first.”
“Is it possible that Lisette left in the middle of the night? Snuck out?” There was an awkward silence, during which no one answered verbally. Instead of taking advantage of it, letting it draw out, the cop forged ahead. “Is that typical behavior for her, to leave early, without saying good-bye?”
“No,” Carly admitted. “Usually she hangs out longer.”
“Did anything out of the ordinary occur while she was here?”
Neither Ben nor Carly responded, but Sonny could practically feel the room ignite with tension. She had to see their faces now, so she entered the room and sat down, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible.
“You can tell him, Dad,” Carly prompted.
Ben did not have the countenance of an innocent man. Sonny felt something snap inside her, unleashing an emotion she didn’t know she could feel, didn’t realize she was capable of. She pushed it back, denied it, focused only on his face.
His handsome, perfect, lying goddamned face.
“Tell him what?” he asked, darting a glance Sonny’s way.
“About the pot.” Carly tilted her head toward the officer, as if preparing to divulge all. “He caught us smoking a joint in my room. Totally freaked out about it, of course. I’m still grounded.”
The officer looked to Ben for confirmation.
“Teenagers,” he said with a charming shrug that may or may not have been an admission.
To his credit, the cop wasn’t fooled. “Mr. Fortune, a girl is missing. If you have some information to share, I would recommend you do it now.”
Ben’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything more. Sonny realized that he hadn’t answered a single question directly, and that he knew exactly what he was doing. He’d been through an exhausting round of interrogations in the days after his wife’s death, an experience that must have had a profound effect on him. He was now a man who guarded his family, his privacy, and his words. He also understood the system. After all, his father was a retired criminal court judge, and his brother a public defender.
“Did you confiscate the marijuana?” the officer continued.
“There wasn’t much left to confiscate, but yeah.”
“What did you do with it?”
“I got rid of it,” Ben said in a defensive tone.
Carly leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest, adopting Ben’s uncooperative attitude and presenting a united front.
The cop gave up on the drug angle. In Torrey Pines, smoking weed was more of a revered local pastime than a crime. “Tell me what she said or did last. Her attitude before she left. Anything that might help us find her.”
“I don’t remember anything but falling asleep,” Carly said, twirling a lock of hair around her slender finger. “We were, like, totally stoned, you know?”
“Mr. Fortune, did it ever occur to you to notify Lisette’s parents that she left early?”
“No.” He glanced at his daughter. “Carly didn’t mention that she was missing.”
Carly tossed her hair back with dramatic flourish. “I didn’t know she was, like,
She was laying on the Valley Girl routine a little too thick, but the cop only nodded, as if he also suspected Lisette Bruebaker would turn up on her own. Before he left, he focused his attention on Sonny, surprising her. “By the way, ma’am, can I ask how you got that busted lip?”
Behind his back, Carly’s eyes widened with panic, and she shook her head pleadingly.
Sonny pasted a smile on her face, hoping it wouldn’t crack under the strain. There was no time to consider her decision, so she just went with it, up-ping the total of liars in the room from two to three. “Carly did it. Kitchen cabinet.” She made a motion with her hand, like a door hitting her in the mouth. “An accident.”
He tapped his pen against the notebook in his hands. “Well, thank you for your time.”
After the door closed behind him, the three of them stared at one another. Ben broke the silence. “I should call Lisette’s mom. See if she needs anything.”
As he left the room, Sonny crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for Carly to do some serious explaining.
“Thanks for not mentioning James.”
“Is he in trouble?”
Carly didn’t meet her eyes. “Not that I know of. But he’s kind of weird about us, won’t tell his dad and stuff. If the cops showed up at his house, his dad might freak out on him.”
Sonny nodded, flexing her hands. She had a plan now, and it didn’t include a morning jog. Although a physical release, in lieu of beating Ben senseless, might be in order. “You still want to run?”
Carly nodded. “Yeah. But I think I’ll go on my own, if you don’t mind. Sometimes I just need to get out, go fast, be free. You know?”
She knew.
In the kitchen, Ben hung up the phone quietly, his back to her. Carly could be seen from the west-facing window, already halfway down the beach, her hair flying out behind her like a wild Arabian’s.
“They’re organizing a search party,” he said. “Some of the other parents are meeting over there at noon.”
His expression was severe, the perfect portrait of a concerned father with his own teenaged daughter to worry about. Underneath all of that was guilt. Even if Sonny could pretend nothing was amiss for the sake of the investigation, it wouldn’t ring true to her character. Summer Moore may not be a hard-eyed cynic like Sonora Vasquez, but she was nobody’s fool. “What did you do?”
He smoothed his hand over the black granite countertop, looking down at it, instead of at her. “Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me.” She moved closer, forcing him to face her. “Please don’t lie.”
He met her eyes. “What are you asking me?”
Sonny considered that question carefully. “If you slept with her.”
He started to speak, then appeared to think better of it, and remained silent.
It hurt, so much more than she thought it would. So much more than she should have allowed it to. Because she’d known the instant he’d gone along with Carly’s story that the lie had been one of omission. He’d caught Lisette and Carly smoking pot two Saturdays ago, not last Friday.
So what had actually happened when Lisette spent the night? She gave herself three guesses, and the first two didn’t count.
“I’m going surfing,” he said, walking outside. He may as well have added, “Fuck you.”
Shaking with fury, Sonny followed him to the poolroom. It was as posh as the rest of the house, with its designer shower stalls, custom surfing gear, and built-in sauna. When she came through the open door, he was tugging on his state-of-the-art, titanium-lined wetsuit. It fit him like a second skin.
She had to take a moment to calm down before she was able to speak. “You told me you hadn’t been with anyone since Olivia.”
He pulled a surfboard down from the rack, his movements swift with anger. “Don’t ever”-his eyes were intense, his tone vehement-“talk about my wife.”
Sonny didn’t bother to heed that warning, although it cut through her deeper than the phantom blade from her nightmare. “What did she do when you cheated on her, Ben? Look the other way?”
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Don’t compare yourself to her. Do you think I owe you my loyalty because I’ve tried to fuck you a few times?”
She felt the color drain from her face. “You owe me an explanation.”
“I don’t owe you a fucking thing.” He brushed by her, crossing the patio and making his way down the winding steps to the beach.
She wanted to shout obscenities at him, to push him down the stairs and pummel him with her fists, to scream and yell and smash his handsome, arrogant face.
Instead, she turned her back on him.
In his tumultuous emotional state, Ben hadn’t bothered to lock his door or engage the security system, and she was going to take full advantage of it. Don’t get mad, she reminded herself. Get evidence.
