They stared at each other for a long moment. Then she put her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his fervently, wriggling on his lap.
James groaned, thrusting his tongue into her mouth and stroking her with his fingertips. He had never gotten a girl off before-at least, not on purpose. In the past, expediency had been key, not technique, tenderness, or generosity. With Carly, he wanted to give everything, ask nothing in return, so when he paid attention to what her body wanted, rather than his, he gave them both their first orgasm. Hers was the first she’d had with another person, and his, the first he’d granted someone else.
Afterward, she lay panting in his arms, her face pressed against his neck. “Do it again,” she whispered.
“I’d love to, Carly, but I’m having some…technical difficulties.” He took his hand out from underneath her skirt, moving slowly, trying to think unsexy thoughts. The danger zone was about to explode.
He set her away from him, very gingerly.
“What happened? Did I hurt you?”
“Give me that Coke,” he ordered. When she did, instead of drinking it, he put it in his lap. Through the layers of denim (his own) and cotton (borrowed, after a hasty shower this morning in the poolroom), the cold didn’t do much good.
“Oh, God! I did hurt you. I’m sorry.” She knelt in front of him, trying to find out what was wrong. “Did I smash your…parts?”
“No, Carly,” he groaned. “I’m about to come in my pants. And since I’m wearing your dad’s underwear, that would be a bad, bad thing.”
She clapped a hand over her mouth, muffling a burst of hysterical laughter.
He closed his eyes. “I’m glad one of us is having a good time.”
She was still on her knees when the police found them.
Nathan was having a splendid afternoon on the deck of his sailboat with Peter. They were moored off the coast of Catalina Island, enjoying the cool breeze, a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, and each other.
When his cell phone emitted a few notes of “Wipeout,” the ring tone signaling a call from Ben, Nathan slipped his hand into his pocket. “I’ve got to take this,” he said, dropping a kiss on the top of Peter’s sun-warmed head.
Whistling cheerfully, he skipped down the steps leading to the galley, for privacy and to get out of the wind. The interruption couldn’t have come at a better time. Peter was charming, handsome, successful, and…yawn. Tediously boring.
“Hello?” he said into the receiver as his eyes adjusted to the change of light.
“Nathan? Where are you?”
Ben seemed frantic. Nathan felt a smile quirk his lips. “I’m out on the water. Must you always call when I’m otherwise engaged?”
“Sorry. I’m in jail.”
“In jail?” Nathan placed a hand over his heart, no longer enjoying his brother’s distress. “Whatever for?”
“Summer Moore is a cop.” He muttered a string of inventive curses, the volume fluctuating as he shifted the phone to his other ear. “That’s not even her real name. It’s Vasquez or some shit. She’s been investigating me the whole time.”
Nathan was astounded by this news. He considered himself a good judge of character and he’d liked Summer. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Now Carly’s friend is missing and they seem to think I had something to do with it.”
“Which friend?”
“Lisette.”
His stomach sank. Lisette Bruebaker was trouble with a capital
“Why would they think you’re involved?” Nathan asked carefully.
Ben sighed. “She was last seen at my house, staying overnight with Carly. And the rest…the rest I shouldn’t say over the phone.”
Nathan gripped the phone in his hand until his knuckles turned white. His brother wouldn’t have touched Lisette, or any other underage girl, with a ten-foot pole. So why did he sound so worried? “Okay,” he said, checking his Rolex. “Hang tight. It will take me a few hours to get there.” He paused, considering the next course of action. “Have you called Dad?”
“No,” Ben said. And then, “Fuck, no.”
Fair enough. “What about Carly?”
“She went to the movies with James. I haven’t been able to reach her. You’ll have to call her cell phone, tell her where I am.”
“Do you think that’s wise?”
“It’s either that or let her freak out about the bullet hole in the ceiling when she comes home,” he said, raising his voice.
“Jesus Christ, Ben! Were you resisting arrest?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. They broke into my room like gangbusters. I almost had a heart attack. I didn’t know what the hell was going on.” The connection crackled with interference. “Is it even legal, for them to barge in like that?”
“In some cases,” Nathan admitted.
“Like what?”
“Murder investigations.”
Ben was silent for a moment. “What should I do?” he asked quietly.
Nathan was taking the stairs up to the deck two at a time. “Try to stay calm,” he said, motioning for Peter to pull anchor. They needed to get back to the mainland, pronto. “And whatever you do, don’t say anything.”
Before heading to the crime scene, Sonny went back to her apartment, took out her laptop, and ran Arlen Diels through VICAP, the FBI’s main informational database for the apprehension of violent criminals.
Sure enough, he had a history that read like a Spanish-language telenovela.
As a teen, Arlen had spent some time at a boys’ home, and the resident psychiatrist, a man by the name of Sparks, had written detailed notes.
Arlen had been born in Beaufort, North Carolina, to fifteen-year-old Cora Lee Diels. Cora Lee died of a drug overdose in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district during the Summer of Love. It wasn’t a great loss for Arlen, who’d been raised by his grandparents and never known his real mother, but Grandma Lynelle took the news hard. She passed on soon after, leaving Arlen at the mercy of his grandfather, an Onslow Bay fisherman by the name of Max Diels.
Max taught Arlen everything he knew about fishing, fists, and force. Grandpa Max loved his daughter, Cora Lee, more than a father should, but he hated Arlen. Just as Arlen would do with his own son, in a sad, vicious cycle, Max varied between beating his grandson senseless and calling him queer.
After Max drowned, under suspicious circumstances, in the Albermarle Sound, Arlen was placed in protective custody. At Black River Home for Wayward Boys, he quickly obtained a reputation for brutality. He also spent a lot of time in psychotherapy with Dr. Sparks, who found Arlen an excellent subject for study. In the good doctor’s opinion, Arlen Diels was a sadist-and a sociopath.
By the age of nineteen, two years before meeting Anita Vasquez, Arlen had killed a man during a bar fight in Sarasota, Florida. Instead of waiting for the police to sort things through, he fled to California, just like his mother had done so many years before.
The rest of the story Sonny had to fill in from what information she knew of Arlen since his hasty departure from the Southern seaboard.
In San Diego, after spending some time with Anita Vasquez and her young son, Arlen found work aboard a small fishing vessel called
Arlen proposed immediately.
Gabrielle was probably delighted that Arlen offered to take her last name. Stephen came along nine months later. Gabrielle stuck around long enough to get pregnant with James, and to raise both boys into elementary
