Sugar Daddy by Sawyer Bennett

sex front, we know quite a lot about each other, and I figure the more he’s distracted with sex, the less chance he’ll ever have of figuring out the woman behind the façade.
    After I had been here four days, I decided I needed to get my bearings and figure out if there was anything about my current arrangement that was going to help me murder Jonathon Townsend. I searched Beck’s home top to bottom one afternoon after my classes got out. It was pristine, almost sterile, and in a fit of anxiety over not finding anything, I dumped out all of his clothes from his drawers to make sure I didn’t miss something. That, of course, led me to an impromptu lie when he came home and found me sitting amid all of his clothing.
    But if I’m only here for a month, the clock is ticking, and I’m closing in quickly on the halfway mark. I’ve got to get closer to Beck and figure out more about his relationship with JT. Only then will I be able to determine if there is a way he can unwittingly help me achieve justice.
    The only potential I’ve seen so far is his locked office. I’ve searched high and low for a key, and the only one I’ve been able to identify is the one that Beck keeps on his key chain with his car and house keys. He’s used it twice since I’ve been here, merely going in after work and placing some documents he brought home in there. He always has those keys in his pocket when he’s out and about, but when he comes home he places them on the side table by the foyer door. I haven’t quite figured out how to get in his office, but I’m mulling it over.
    And while my ultimate goal is to use Beck to my advantage in my quest, there is a more pressing goal that came to my attention just last night. Beck had gotten to the condo around six P.M. , which was usually standard. As normal, he had his mail that he’d picked up in his hand, flipping through it. I was sitting at his dining table, which sat perpendicular to the length of the open living room and afforded a gorgeous view of the bay at sunset.
    He’d started a habit of walking over to me and kissing me on the top of my head. The first time he did it, I was taken aback. It had been so long since I’d been shown a spontaneous act of affection I wasn’t sure I liked it. But the next night he did it, it felt nice. And the night after that, even better.
    It had gotten to where I expected it now, and it was a silly ritual that brought me a measure of almost schoolgirl giddiness, something I don’t think I ever experienced since my interest in high school boys was killed that night ten years ago. I avoided them like the plague thereafter and didn’t even kiss another man until I was twenty years old and quite drunk.
    So Beck walked over to me at the dining room table and plopped the mail down by my books. He kissed me on the top of my head, and then grabbed my ponytail, tugging on it so my face tilted. He kissed me from above, this time on my mouth, and murmured, “Hey, gorgeous.”
    “Hey,” I whispered back.
    “What do you feel like for dinner?” he asked, releasing my hair and pulling his jacket off.
    “I’m not picky,” I said. “And I’m done studying.”
    “Let’s do something casual,” he said, and started walking back toward his bedroom. My eyes dropped to the pile of mail, and I saw an envelope that he had already opened with what was clearly a birthday card sitting on top of it. My hand reached out, never once considering his privacy, and I picked up the card. It was generic-looking with a birthday cake on the front. On the inside just a simple printed message, HAPPY BIRTHDAY .
    Under that it wasn’t even signed, but was stamped in calligraphy with the names MR. AND MRS. BECKETT NORTH, SR.
    His parents.
    A rush of anger and sadness hit me all at once, that this was the type of card they would send their son. I got up from my chair and walked into Beck’s bedroom. He’d already shed his work clothes and was pulling on a pair of jeans. He