Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Can - By Kat Martin Page 0,109
the break-in isn’t connected to Sullivan.”
“I’m staying at your house. No one knows I’m there. Surely it’s safe for me to drive myself to work.”
“I’ll pick you up at five. And don’t go out to lunch by yourself.”
Claire sighed. “All right, I’ll do it your way for a while, but it if looks like a burglary, I’m driving myself and moving home as soon as my apartment is ready.”
“All right, fine.”
The morning passed uneventfully. No phone calls, no one following the car or watching the building as they had driven away. Ben was being ridiculously cautious, but he’d always had a protective nature. It was one of the things she loved about him.
Sitting in the employee lounge eating the brown-bag lunch she had made herself that morning, Claire thought of Ben’s “practical” proposal. It wasn’t the hearts-and-flowers kind of marriage proposal she had dreamed of. It wasn’t promises of eternal love and devotion.
But she would be sleeping in Ben’s bed, and he would be making love to her. He would be a faithful husband, and both of them could take care of Sam. In time, maybe he would even come to love her. Was she brave enough to try?
He had asked her to think about it. Claire couldn’t seem to stop.
* * *
As he drove to his meeting at the Texas Café, Ben’s attention kept wandering. Claire was considering his proposal. He should be frantic. Why wasn’t he? If she married him, he would have to settle down, give up his freedom, give up other women. But now that he was a father, he had to settle down anyway. And though he had a strong sexual appetite, he had never been into counting coup, the way some guys were. He just hadn’t wanted to risk a deeper commitment.
It doesn’t get any deeper than marriage, buddy.
But it did. Love was the dangerous part and he wasn’t marrying for love. He was just being practical. The plan suited him perfectly.
He pulled into the Texas Café and spotted Danny Castillo’s plain brown police car. As head of the gang division, Castillo knew everything there was to know about drug trafficking in the city.
Ben shoved open the door to the café, and a tall, knockout blonde named Ashley Sommerset walked over to greet him. “Hey, Ben.”
She was Maggie Rawlins’s sister, married now to a Houston multimillionaire named Jason Sommerset. She didn’t have to work, but she was studying to be a chef. She loved the café, and her husband indulged her.
“Hey, Ash. How’s the family?” Ashley had a baby, a little girl less than two years old.
“Great, how about yours? I hear your son is living with you now.”
He felt a rush of pride. “That’s right. His name is Sam.” It took all his willpower not to pull out his iPhone and flash a picture of Sam around like one of those old geezers in the park showing off his grandkids.
“Bring him in sometime,” Ashley said. “I’d love to meet him. I’ll make him one of my special chocolate shakes.”
“That’d be great. Sam loves ice cream.”
“Detective Castillo is already here. He said you’d be looking for him.”
He headed in the direction she pointed, slid into one of the pink vinyl booths and ordered a cup of coffee.
“How’s the investigation coming?” he asked, not mincing words.
Castillo took a sip from his steaming cup. “From what the body showed, it looks like it may be the work of a guy named Diego Santos. Those cigarette burns on the forehead are his trademark. He likes to look his victims in the eye while he’s burning them.”
“You got him in custody?”
“Not enough evidence to arrest him. It’s all just hearsay, rumor and word on the street. We’d bring him in for questioning, but we haven’t been able to find him.”
Not good. “What about motive?”
“We think Sullivan may have dug a little too deep. Pissed some people off.”
“Last night Claire’s apartment was vandalized. Any chance Santos was torturing Sullivan to get some kind of information, something Sullivan had that Santos wanted?”
Castillo sat up a little straighter. “Sullivan’s apartment was trashed, too. If they tore up Claire’s place, maybe they didn’t find what they were looking for.”
Tension rolled through him. “Hard to believe Sullivan didn’t give it up, considering what they did to him.”
“Unless he gave it to Claire and was trying to protect her.”
Ben didn’t like where this was going. “If Claire’s got it, she doesn’t know it. She’s told you everything she remembers.”