secret agent side of her, either. Yeah, she could handcuff him to her headboard. Anytime.
“Is Carly here?”
Ben snapped out of his S &M daydream. “She’s upstairs,” he said, listening to a few dark chords of the gloomy Goth music that was emanating from her room. She’d been holed up in there for the past hour, playing the same breakup song over and over.
It was driving him insane.
“I’d like to talk to you about Olivia.”
His blood chilled. “Then get a warrant for my arrest.”
Something like hurt, or maybe even sympathy, darkened her beautiful eyes. “I don’t think you killed her, Ben. I never did.”
He thought he’d assuaged his anger, as well as his desire for her, last night. He was wrong on both counts. “Then what were you investigating?” he asked, giving her body an insultingly thorough perusal. “My stamina, or my technique?”
She crossed her arms over her breasts and looked away, her jaw tense with annoyance. Ben got the impression she was holding back a scathing retort, and he liked that. Her cheekbones were flushed and her eyes were flashing blue fire, and he liked that, too.
In jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, she didn’t look like an FBI agent. It was her face that was different. She was closer to his own age than he had originally estimated, and about ten times more jaded.
It infuriated him that she’d deceived him so completely, and so easily.
“I think the killer is someone close to you,” she said. “Someone who knew both Olivia and Lisette.”
Ben felt some of the fight leave him, taking his indignation along with it. He didn’t want to be a part of this. Any of this. For months after Olivia’s death, he’d been plagued by nightmares. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face.
Now all he wanted was peace.
“What do I have to do?” he asked.
Hope leapt in her eyes, and he felt a matching twinge in his chest, an ache he was afraid to analyze. “Take me to Lisette’s wake tomorrow morning. As your date.”
“Your cover is blown,” he argued.
“Who’ve you told?”
“No one,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “But we’re”-he gestured to the space between them, which all but crackled with animosity-“broken up.”
She arched a fine brow. “So now we’re back together.”
Heat flared, low in his belly, as he was assaulted by images of how well they’d gotten back together against the wall in her apartment last night.
“Fine,” he muttered, telling himself he was doing it for Olivia, for Carly, and even for Lisette. Not because he had any interest in spending time with Special Agent Sonora Vasquez, or getting wrapped up in her strong, slender arms again.
CHAPTER 20
By dark, Stephen and James had cleared out most of the trash filling every square inch of the house that had been in the Matthews family for generations. Beneath the relentless squalor, buried under piles of filthy magazines, liquor bottles, and empty cigarette cartons, hidden below dirty dishes and dirtier clothes, there was a home.
A home their mother had kept tidy when she was alive. The linoleum floors were scuffed and scratched, but they both remembered when Gabrielle Matthews had mopped them with pine-scented disinfectant every Saturday afternoon. The drywall was damaged with holes and water stains, but still bore a few faded rectangular shapes, reminders of the framed photos and seascapes she used to have hanging there.
The furniture had never been expensive. Now most of the chairs and couch cushions were riddled with cigarette burns and stank of Arlen’s fetid breath. The stuff wasn’t worth the hauling fee, let alone reupholstering, so they broke it into pieces with a sledgehammer, tearing fabric at the seams, ripping arms and legs, splintering wood.
When they were both hot and tired and dirty, and Stephen figured James’ hand was throbbing like a son of a bitch, they silently agreed it was quitting time.
With a little work and a lot of money, the place could be fixed up to sell. They hadn’t discussed it, hadn’t discussed anything, really, as they dragged garbage bags into the backyard, studiously ignoring the gaping hole in the earth. They just made the various grunts and shrugs working men had been using to communicate since before the human race had evolved to standing fully upright.
Being too worn-out to talk suited both of them just fine.
Stephen hadn’t had any meth in days. His body was humming for it, taut as a wire, but he denied the constant, sticky urge clinging to him like a thorn-studded vine. Instead, he walked down the block to the convenience store to get some suds.
He was tired of being ruled by dope, tired of wanting it, needing it, craving it. When he did get a fix, it was never enough. He couldn’t even get high anymore. The most he could achieve was a level at which he could function as a normal person rather than an asphalt scraping. Hell, he needed a little snort just to sleep nowadays; otherwise he stayed awake, sweating, aching, panicking.
And since the whole point of speed was staying awake, using it to sleep totally defeated the purpose.
Besides, now he had James to take care of. Stephen was his legal guardian until he came of age. He couldn’t stand the idea of his little brother getting caught up in his and Rhoda’s addiction and dysfunction, or being a party to her perverted bedroom games.
For all his good intentions, Stephen was a drug addict, and it wasn’t just a major personality flaw, it was a debilitating weakness. He needed something to take the edge off, so he grabbed a six-pack of mediocre beer, something strong but smooth, just in case James needed a little liquid comfort, too.
Stephen found his brother in the backyard, staring at the unearthed grave beside tree-trunk-sized chunks of concrete. He’d thrown most of the wood from the torn-up furniture into the hole, and they had the makings of a macabre campfire.
Stephen lit some old newspapers to get it started, then hunkered down on a concrete seat, setting the brown bag beside him. The liquor bottles clinked cheerfully, music to his ears. He popped the cap off one using the base of his cigarette lighter. “Want one?”
James glanced over at him absently, lost in thought. “Nah,” he said, and went back to staring at the fire.
Stephen shrugged. “I know you don’t drink, but I just thought, with your hand and all…”
James looked down at the bandage wrapped around his swollen knuckles.
“How’d you do it? Planting one on Carly’s dad?”
The corner of James’ mouth tilted up, just barely. “No. I demolished their cordless phone. One minute I was talking to you, the next I was bleeding all over their fancy carpet.”
Stephen snorted, well able to imagine that scenario. His brother’s words rang out in his ears,
“I broke up with her,” James announced.
Stephen sputtered beer into the fire, where it made a loud hissing sound. “Are you out of your mind? Why?”
James focused on the flickering flames. “She was getting too clingy. Hanging all over me and stuff. You know how it is.”
“Oh, yeah,” he replied sarcastically. “It’s so annoying when an unbelievably hot girl gives you a happy ending at the movies.”
James stood, swiping the bottle from Stephen’s hand. “I already told you she didn’t do that,” he said, taking a swig and making a grimace of distaste.
Stephen smiled and popped the top off another bottle. “What did she do?”
James sat down again. “Nothing.”
