DEAD TO THE MAX

BOOK ONE IN THE MAX STARR SERIES

Jasmine Haynes

Copyright 2010 Jasmine Haynes

Cover design by Rae Monet Inc

This is copyrighted material. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

Previously Published through Liquid Silver Books, 2003.

Author Note: This book contains explicit sex

Summary

Thirty-something, down-on-her-luck accountant Max Starr has the unfortunate gift of being psychic, a newly-discovered wrinkle in her already messed-up life. Her husband, Cameron, is dead, killed in a botched 7-11 robbery two years ago. In her grief, Max has cut herself off from friends, moved out of her San Francisco home in favor of a studio apartment, and dumped her flourishing career as a CPA to do temp work.

Now Max has developed an annoying penchant for attracting the spirits of murdered women. Okay, they possess her. And to exorcize them, Max must unmask their killers. But how?! By stepping into the void their deaths created, taking their jobs, befriending the loved ones they left behind. Max goes wherever she has to go and does whatever she has to do, with a lot of help from the ghost of her late husband Cameron and hunky and very enticing Detective Witt Long.

In Dead to the Max, Book 1 in the Max Starr series, Max steps into the shoes of a murdered accountant and starts to learn that even supposedly boring accountants can have secret lives and secret desires. Max just has to hope the secrets she uncovers don’t get her killed, too.

Dedication

To Ole, for always believing in me

Acknowledgements

Thank you to everyone who made Max Starr possible. Rose Lerma, Pamela Britton, Cherry Adair, and Susan Plunkett, my first critique group who lived through those early drafts and helped make the stories shine. Linda Eberharter and Mike Feury of Liquidsilverbooks, who first took a chance on Max. The LSB girls who were with me through the whole process, Jenn Mason, Terri Schaefer, Dee Knight, Cheryl Clark, and Moni Draper. And to my Aqui support group, Bella Andre, Shelley Bates, Jenny Anderson, you girls keep me sane! To Rosemary Gunn for putting together my graveyard photos into some really cool covers. Thanks to everyone else not mentioned who helped me on this long journey. And to the Max fans who emailed me to say they fell in love with Max, Witt, Cameron, and the cast of characters in the Max Starr books. I couldn’t have done it without all of you.

Prologue

She’d dressed in a long, black skirt and white blouse, flawlessly pressed. She was perfect. The perfect daughter, perfect wife, and perfect employee.

Tonight she longed to be the perfect lover. They’d stolen quick, furtive moments together, but this was the first time she would have all night with her lover. Her body hummed, with anticipation, with guilt, with fear.

She’d parked her silver Maxima in the farthest corner of the San Francisco International Airport long-term lot, then caught the shuttle bus to the terminal building. She’d done everything he asked. Except wait outside the terminal. She wasn’t supposed to pace in front of the arrivals monitor, trying to decide if she liked the anxiety, the foreboding.

She slipped her wedding band and sapphire engagement ring into the inside pocket of her leather purse. His plane was five minutes late. Checking the arrival time for his flight one last time, she crumpled the bit of green paper with the flight information he’d given her, threw it on top of an already full trash can, then walked to the lounge area to take a seat.

His gaze swept her as he stepped off the escalator outside security, and her heart sank to the toes of her sensible pumps. The glare he shot made her tremble. Was he pissed? Had she ruined everything?

Two confused, blank-eyed children clung to his big hands.

His estranged wife met them, ready to take his kids from him.

He neither kissed nor touched the pretty, plump blonde. Her sole purpose was to pick up the children after they’d returned from a visit with his parents.

His hands now empty and his bag slung over his shoulder, he walked several steps behind them. His wife chattered at the children and ignored him. Clusters of travelers engulfed them until they disappeared in the throng surrounding the baggage carousel.

She lingered in the waiting area another ten minutes, then rose, dragging her leather purse up her arm to her shoulder, and headed for the front doors, a lump in her throat. Once outside, she stood at the curb for the next long-term bus. He was at the other end of the island, the way they’d arranged. His wife had unknowingly played into the scheme, telling him she’d pick up the kids but he’d have to take a taxi.

She wondered why he and his wife still played this silly game.

The night had cooled. Her silk blouse was thin, but the heat from rumbling buses swept beneath her skirt and set her on fire. She could feel the hot lick of his gaze as if twenty feet didn’t separate them, his anger and desire a potent combination.

Need, hunger, dread, and excitement formed a squirming package in her stomach. Butterflies. Spontaneous combustion.

He sat in the back of the bus, she in the front. They neither spoke nor looked at each other. The ride to long-term was the longest ten minutes she’d ever known. Finally they turned down her aisle. She couldn’t believe she was doing this, couldn’t imagine stopping it now. Wouldn’t stop it even if her life depended on it.

She exited from the front of the shuttle, he from the rear, the overnight bag now in his hand. Pulling out her keys, she pressed the remote alarm.

The bus pulled away. Her heart hammered.

His bag was on the ground beside them and his hands were up her skirt before she had the car door open.

He dragged her into the back seat. She spread her legs over him, straddling his thighs. The roof of the car scuffed her hair. Tugging on his zipper, she took him in her hand. He sucked in a breath; in the past, he’d always initiated. There wasn’t time to fish the condoms out of her purse. When she slid down onto him, he groaned, but he didn’t take his eyes off her face.

She’d never been so wet, so vocal, or come so willingly in her life.

Three power-thrusts later, he came.

She screamed.

Chapter One

She screamed out her orgasm. Tears gummed her lashes and rolled down her cheeks. Hands circled her throat. From the floor of the car, the rumpled bit of green notepaper, the one she’d thrown away, taunted her, and the empty condom wrapper shouted her shame. How had it come to this?

In that moment, before fear gripped her, before instinct took over, when her guilt was strongest, she welcomed Death. Welcomed it as the life was choked from her, welcomed it until her eyeballs ached and colors exploded behind her lids. Until blood from her bitten tongue leaked down her raw, bruised throat. And then her body fought for survival.

She tore at the fingers, shrieked, twisted, kicked, scratched, and punched. And still she couldn’t drag in a breath. Terror fisted around her heart and squeezed. Fear of death. Fear of life. Fear like she’d never known. Not even the night someone put a bullet in Cameron’s head.

Max Starr woke clawing at her throat, Cameron’s name breaking the thrall of the dream. Blood drummed in her ears. Her heart pounded against the wall of her chest.

But she could breathe. Oh God, she could breathe, sweet, clean air smelling of early morning, green leaves, and hope. She was here, in her bedroom, where she belonged. Safe.

“Are you all right?” Cameron’s voice, not spoken but inside her head, comforting, familiar, the way a dead husband’s voice should be, the only way a crazy, grieving widow should hear her husband’s ghost. But she’d have given anything to feel his arms around her right now. For real, not just in the erotic dreams he brought her.

Sometimes fantasies weren’t enough.

Like now, when her throat still ached. She lightly caressed the flesh, her fingers cool, her skin tender with residual effects of the nightmare.

“It was a dream,” she murmured for both their benefits. Maybe her worst nightmare—except for that night two years ago when Cameron was killed—but still just a dream. After a deep inhale, then a long sigh, the tension dribbled out her fingertips and the soles of her feet.

Physical, reality-based sensation returned—sheets tangled around her legs, her back stuck to the cotton. She pushed the bedclothes aside to let cool air from the open window blow across her naked body. In the elm outside her window, the stray black cat gave a pathetic mewl. She shouldn’t have fed it yesterday, but knew she’d do the same thing today. Her racing heart eased into a steady, normal beat.

“That was a vision, Max, not a dream.” Cameron’s voice again, always with her, inside her.

It had been his name that woke her. It wasn’t part of the dream, vision, whatever it was; his name was something she’d interjected into a reality that didn’t belong to her. Even now she sensed remnants of another’s strong emotions inextricably linked with her own.

In the dark corner across the room, dear departed Cameron’s eyes flashed. Despite the two years since his death, those glittering points of light, all she ever really saw of him, still gave her a little jolt, part excitement, part fright. The red tip of his spectral cigarette glowed. He’d loved them when he was alive. They’d been the death of him in the end, not by cancer, but by gunshot at the corner 7-Eleven where he’d gone to buy his last pack.

That was all Cameron was now, sparks of light the same color as his eyes, that damnable glow of his cigarette, and his voice inside her head. Nothing more.

“Please don’t start with the psychic stuff. It’s way too early.” Max rolled over to squint at the digital clock. Five a.m. She had another hour before the alarm went off, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep again. Sitting up too quickly, she wrapped her fingers around the edge of the twin-size mattress as a wave of dizziness blurred her vision. She swept the feeling aside and stood, her legs weak beneath her.

“Sit,” Cameron urged. “Give yourself a minute to recover.”

“What’s there to recover from?” Her shrug belied the lingering effects of terror, shame, and resignation. “I’ve had worse nightmares.”

But none so tangible as this, right down to the coppery taste of blood at the back of her throat. Max slipped back down on the bed, her head spinning. Such a strange sensation. She didn’t feel quite...alone in her own body.

“That was a vision, Max.”

No. “I’m not psychic. I prefer to be called crazy.” It was easy to say. Even flippant.

“What about that little girl? You led the police right to her body. I think that would be construed as psychic, not crazy.”

Damn. She’d been calming down. Sort of. Cameron’s words in her head started the anxiety all over again. “I walked by. I saw her feet in the bushes.”

“You climbed a barbed wire fence because you thought you heard a child crying. Then you saw her feet.”

“Climbing the fence was a short cut.” But to what? She hadn’t known then, didn’t know now. She’d simply felt a compelling urge to do it.

“And how’d you know who killed her? You led the police right to him.”

A trail of goose bumps raised the hair on her arms. She didn’t know how. And she didn’t want to talk about it. That was a year ago. She’d put the whole thing behind her.

“Ever considered this has something to do with my death?” The room cooled around her, the perspiration on her skin chilling. Cameron went on. “You never had visions before I died. Now you hear me, even though no one else can." His voice gentled. "You opened a door when you couldn’t let me go, Max. It’s too late to shut it now. You heard a dead child’s cries. Now you’re seeing that woman’s last moments on earth. You know she’s dead.”

She had two choices, make a joke or pick a fight. She chose the former. “By jove, I think you’ve got it, Watson.” She shook her finger at him, and the next joke died on her tongue. What came out was stark reality. “Watching your husband get shot by thugs, planting him in the ground, and throwing a few clods of dirt on his coffin does something to a person.”

In fact, it drove a person crazy. That’s just what Max wanted to be. She didn’t want psychic. Crazy was better. Crazy meant that she could keep on talking to Cameron as if he were alive, that she could swear he was there in her bed every night, making love to her, filling her body full to its last empty corner. In sane moments, she craved real hands on her, but she’d never give Cameron up. Being crazy meant he was hers forever.

She didn’t have to say any of those things aloud. He knew her thoughts, lived in her mind, her soul. He knew her.

“What a pair we are, Max. You’re slowly dying. And I’m already dead.” He shed his tears for her in his voice, in his words, in the pitiful cry of the cat outside.

His voice in her head was a blessing and a curse. A blessing because even in death he’d never left her, a curse because her life had stopped that night in the 7-Eleven market. She’d been there. She would never block out that memory. She would always live with it.

She knew she had to let him go one day, yet every night she prayed he’d still be there in the morning. She couldn’t imagine what life without him would be like, didn’t want to imagine it.

Max tested her legs, almost surprised to find that enough feeling had returned to support her.

Grabbing her short robe from the straight-back chair beneath the window, she pulled it on, skirted the bed, and headed to the bathroom. Her studio apartment was small. With five steps, she was there.

The interior of the bathroom was dark except for Cameron’s phosphorescence. After two years, she should have been used to the way he moved faster than her eye could follow.

Max flipped on the light, and his glow vanished.

Like a bad omen, a crack, running the length of the medicine cabinet mirror, bisected her face. Dark pouches clung beneath her eyes, fine red veins traced through the pale skin of her cheeks. Her dilated pupils almost obliterated the brown irises. Her dark hair stood on end. Party hair. Or fright.

“You’ve lost more weight, Max.”

He was right. She looked worse than if she’d pulled an all-nighter on a tricky audit. She rubbed beneath her bloodshot eye, then moved to one side of the mirror’s fissure.

Holy hell. Long reddened furrows, just short of bleeding, stood out on the flesh of her neck. She started to shake from the inside out.

“Cameron?”

“Yes, my love?”

She ran a hand down her throat, the phantom roar of jet engines in her ears. “If that dream was real”—staring at her injured throat, she realized that wasn’t such a big if—“then the woman’s body is somewhere in the long-term parking lot at San Francisco Airport.”

* * * * *

“I don’t know why we’re going on this wild goose chase.” Max wished she’d never mentioned the airport. The eensy-teensy bit of alarm she’d felt had faded with the morning sunlight. She’d relegated her “vision” back to the dream realm. But Cameron wouldn’t let it alone until he’d gotten her into her car.

“Guess an eensy-teensy bit of alarm is why you wore a turtleneck on a warm day to cover the marks on your throat. How about trying the word panic?”

Max ran a hand through her short, no-fuss hair as she took the airport exit. Okay, so she had felt a touch of panic. She was better now.

It was early, a little after six a.m., but traffic around the airport boxed her in like peak rush hour. Two yellow taxis honked as they vied for the same spot in the right lane, and the thunder of jets overhead rattled the frame of her red Miata. Cameron had bought the convertible for her the year she’d made manager at KOD; Kirby, O’Brien, and Dakajama. The year before he died, when she was on the fast track and life was still normal. Before KOD meant Kiss of Death.

“You have a psychic gift you can’t ignore.”

“If anyone is psychic around here, it’s you.”

He laughed. “I’m dead. Psychic is all that’s left. But you’re the one who hears ghosts.”

Which was only another indication she was just plain crazy. “Well, you’re the one who acted weird right before you—”

“Died?”

It should have gotten easier to say it aloud, but the word still tied up her insides. “For days before, maybe even weeks, you acted strangely.”

“I can’t remember.” According to Cameron, he couldn’t remember anything. Except that he’d died. That he’d loved her. That he still did.

Her heart contracted with not being able to see or feel him next to her. She’d brought this uncomfortable conversation on herself. “Maybe, subconsciously, you knew something was going to happen to you.”

“Maybe that’s why, when it finally happened, I couldn’t leave you. We’re tethered, Max. I can’t get more than twenty feet from you without feeling like I’ve ceased to exist even in this insubstantial form.”

Max bit her lip, but the small pain didn’t cure the much larger ache of losing him. “I’m going to be late for my interview,” she muttered, hoping to end the subject she should never have brought up in the first place.

As easily as that, Cameron let it go, as if his death was as painful for him as it was for her. “You didn’t want that job anyway,” he snorted, a ghostly resonance absorbed into the vinyl liner above her. “You hate working for a temp agency, and you hate accounting.”

“I love working for Sunny. She’s wonderful, and the temp jobs are great.”

“You’re lying to yourself.”

“Accounting pays the bills.” And had been well on the way to giving her an ulcer before the age of thirty. Now, at thirty-two, Max had learned you did some things for the money and turned the rest off when the clock hit five.

“I can pay the bills if you let me,” Cameron whispered somewhere near her left ear, the sound whooshing away as if it came from outside the car. “Use my life insurance money.”

She bit down on the inside of her cheek. So he wasn’t letting the subject drop, just coming at it from another direction. “Blood money. You didn’t die so I could pay the rent.”

She belatedly realized she’d said the dreaded word, and her teeth clamped together.

“It’s been in precious metals for two years. Use the income.”

She’d somehow escaped the devastation of the economic downturn. “In-bred blood money. I still won’t touch it.”

Because touching it made his death final. Something she’d avoided for two years simply by closing her eyes, listening to his voice, and seeking his ghostly touch, as if he were beside her, flesh and bone.

“So what do you plan to do if we find a body?” She preferred any subject, even murder, to talking about the blood money.

Thankfully, this time Cameron let her steer the conversation away. “I think we ought to figure out who killed her, don’t you?”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’ve had that little strategy up your sleeve the whole time.”

“Max, Max, Max. I don’t have sleeves. I’m heavenly.”

Life with Cameron had been heavenly. Sunday afternoons spent scouring used book stores for old mysteries. Long motorcycle rides in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Sex in a secluded mountain meadow, once without even removing helmets or leather jackets. There’d been something erotic about it, definitely kinky with an element of risk that had made it all the more exciting.

She’d sold the Ducati a month after Cameron’s funeral.

Max took the turn for the long-term airport parking, the subtle scent of Cameron’s cigarette drifting by, muted by time and fading memory.

“If we keep this under eight minutes, I won’t have to pay,” she said, punching the button and pulling out a ticket.

“You need to call to check that flight 452 from Boise actually existed.” He referred to the number their unknown lady had written on the green note. “If you got yourself a new computer, you could just do it right there on the Internet.”

Her old laptop had blown its motherboard or something, and she’d never replaced it. She didn’t need e-mail or the Internet. She didn’t need to be connected.

“Calling will work just fine.” She’d told Cameron the whole dream sequence, from the woman’s arrival at the airport, her anticipation, the fear her lover evoked because she hadn’t stuck to the plan, then to the parking lot, and finally, to the dying. But some things were missing. Whole chunks. Exactly whose hands had been at her throat? Why had the woman welcomed Death, as if she deserved it? Max’s dream psyche seemed to have done a big fast forward, leaving the answers behind in that missing footage.

The parking lot was packed, empty spots scarce, cars circling the aisles. “Which way?” Cameron prodded.

Without thought, Max turned to the right and headed slowly out to the south end of the lot, bits of last night’s dream sifting through her head. “Something just came to me.”

“A name perhaps?”

“That paper, the one with the flight number on it. She threw it away in the airport before she went back to her car.”

“Maybe it was a different note.”

“It wasn’t.” She rolled her lower lip between her teeth. “Someone put it back in her car. Even she knew it was out of place—or something.” Exactly what had the woman been feeling about that paper being there? Shame. That was all Max could remember.

Cameron interrupted her thought. “Someone?”

“It had to have been her killer.” The windows were up, the morning warm, but Max shivered as if a cool breeze had passed over her. She hadn’t phrased it as a question. “She was followed.” Stalked. Hunted.

The feelings went a long way in suggesting that the man who’d made love to her wasn’t the one who’d killed her.

“Does it?”

“He couldn’t have known where she threw out the note or even that she’d written down the information.”

“Maybe she retrieved the piece of paper.”

“No. I don’t think so. And there’s the condom. They—she and her airport lover—didn’t use one because they were in such a big hurry.” Her clitoris tingled with palpable memory, the heat, the need, the rush. “But there was an opened wrapper on the floor of the car. Someone else must have been there.”

“Maybe they did it again, and that time they used one.”

“No. I’d remember.”

“Just like you remember whose hands were at her throat?”

He had a point. There were so many pieces missing. But... “It’s a feeling. Just like your feeling that we had to come here this morning, couldn’t wait, had to be now.” Cameron’s urgency had thrummed through her. “What is it you know?”

“Feelings can’t be explained, Max, they’re just there. Like visions. You go with the flow, do what they tell you. Mine told me to be here. Yours told you which way to turn in the lot, where to go.”

Max cruised the last aisle. The light post ahead sported a dulled, gray section sign. She’d seen that identifying section letter, too, out of the rear car window. Surrounding the pole, yellow barrier tape flapped in the wind.

Oh Jesus. There really was a car.

A silver Maxima. New. Dealer’s plates still on it, black smudges by the door handles, the windows. A black and white had parked on the opposite side as if on guard, the officer in the front seat blowing steam off a cup of coffee. When had they found the woman? Couldn’t have been too long or the car itself would have been gone.

“Drive slowly.”

“That cop’ll get suspicious.” Still, fascinated, she pulled closer to the line of parked vehicles and took her foot off the accelerator until the car slowed to a crawl.

“What do you feel?”

“I can’t believe this is real. And I don’t feel anything.”

“Way too quick, Maxi.”

“You know I don’t like it when you call me that, Cameron.” He’d always goaded her with the nickname, using it to push her to do what he wanted.

He ignored the comment. “What do you sense?”

Once she let them in, feelings swamped her. “Pain. Anger. Despair,” she whispered, then closed her eyes and put her foot on the brake. “She was incredibly alone.”

“Guess you’ve accepted it was a vision, huh, Max?”

Given no choice, she had. The long-term shuttle lumbered up behind her, its engine vibrating in her chest. The vehicle pulled alongside, then passed her, its windows coated with years of dirt, neglect, and black exhaust.

She wouldn’t have seen the face at the back window if the man hadn’t raised a hand to swipe at the grime built up on the inside. She couldn’t make out his features beyond a set mouth in a long, narrow face, but his intense stare pierced her body.

He shifted his gaze to the dead woman’s car and focused on it as if nothing else existed. One hand pressed against the dirty window as the bus pulled away.

She punched the accelerator.

“What do you feel?” Cameron demanded, hushed excitement animating his voice.

It wasn’t a sight or a sound or a smell. It was something inside her. She knew that man, knew his eyes, pale yet intense eyes, drilling straight through to her inner organs. She could lose her sense of right and wrong in that gaze, lose herself in wanting him, needing him.

Oh my God...the woman wasn’t dead dead. She was living inside Max’s head. All those feelings were hers, not Max’s.

Cameron didn’t comment, asking instead, “Who is he?”

“Her lover,” Max whispered, as much to herself as to Cameron. It wasn’t attraction she felt for the mystery man, nothing so trivial as desire or a man-woman thing. It was as if he knew her every secret, inside and out. And she knew his.

The victim had been with him in the back seat of that Maxima. So had Max. She’d seen it in detail, lived it exactly as that woman had lived it. Everything else about the vision seemed to have gone hazy, but not this, not him. She felt him between her legs, inside her, tasted him on her tongue.

The bus sped up in a cloud of exhaust. For a moment she lost sight of the man, and when the haze dissipated, he’d turned his head away from the dead woman’s car.

“Follow him.” Cameron urged.

Almost at the same moment she said, “You knew he was going to be here, didn’t you? That’s why we had to come.”

“I told you I didn’t know what we’d find. I just knew we had to come.”

She didn’t know whether to believe him. Sometimes...sometimes she thought he kept things from her, that he knew more and remembered more than he admitted. No time to analyze that now, though.

Since they’d been at the far end of the lot, the shuttle was on its return to the terminal. She got snagged at the entrance with one car in front of her while the bus skated through its own gate. A tow truck entered a side entrance and turned south toward the dead woman’s car. Max’s head felt like a ping-pong ball as she flashed glances between the truck and her quarry. The bus hit the road. She inched forward, rolled down her window, held out her under-eight-minute ticket, and the attendant waved her on. Three cars were now between her and the bus on the frontage road as they headed toward the freeway.

“Why is it getting on the freeway? I’ll lose it.” She shot through the tail end of the yellow light, the chase giving her an adrenaline rush.

There were now five cars between her and the minibus.

“Hot damn.” It was the only vehicle to exit onto the airport flyover. She caught up with the bus before a rush of commuters merged in from the southbound access. The Departures route was heavily packed, and the shuttle stopped at every airline while she sat in the wake of its fumes and the racket of honking horns and traffic whistles.

“Will you recognize him?”

“I’ll know him.” She hadn’t seen the man well at all, and the back of his head had disappeared from the window as if he’d gone forward to gather a bag or wait near the door. It didn’t matter. In the dream, she’d memorized every line on his face.

She knew the moment had arrived before the bus even came to a complete stop and opened its doors. She gave the steering wheel a hard yank to the right and squeezed into a spot between a minivan and a shiny Lexus.

The shuttle’s doors opened with a vacuum-packed whoosh, disgorging its occupants onto the sidewalk teaming with travelers. Max jerked her car door open and jumped out. Hot air blew up from the second roadway beneath them.

Max saw him only five feet away as he used the rear exit. The noises, the scents, the flashing lights faded into the background. He was mid-thirties, a tall man, a good head above her five-feet-six. His sandy hair sported a short, neat cut; his dark, mirrored glasses were an early sixties style. A fine shadow covered his jaw, indicating he hadn’t shaved that day. His face was long and lean, and from the side, a slight bump marred his nose as if it had been broken. He’d dressed in worn jeans and chambray work shirt. Scuffed, tan work boots covered his feet. A small workout bag dangled negligently in one hand, and a newspaper was tucked beneath his arm. In the next moment, he pulled out the paper, gave it one last cursory glance, then threw it in a trash bin.

He turned, looked at her, a break in his long-legged stride the only indication that he might actually have noticed her from behind those mirrored lenses.

Her heart tripped over itself, then pounded. Her sunglasses slid down her nose. Her fingers trembled with the need to touch him, an alien need not her own. Where the hell did it come from?

A fresh wave of passengers carried him into the terminal.

“Don’t lose him,” Cameron pressed.

Max started to run.

A shrill whistle blew close to her head, punctuated by a sharp, “Hey lady, you can’t leave your car unattended.” A beefy hand on her arm jolted her to a stop.

The traffic cop had insinuated himself between Max and the terminal door. “You aren’t leaving your car unattended, lady, and no excuses. I’ve heard ’em all, so don’t even bother.” His white shirt was too bright for the early hour, his belly too large to push past, and her checkbook too lean for a ticket.

Behind him, the automatic doors slid shut, the interior of the building obscured by the dark glazing.

Her quarry was gone.

The only thing the man left behind was his folded newspaper.

She tried to smile simperingly at the guard. “Can I get my paper? I dropped it over there.”

She didn’t wait for the cop’s agreement, simply dashed the three steps to the trash and grabbed the newspaper off the top.

“You’re out of breath,” Cameron whispered in her ear.

She got back in the car. “I was running for the paper.”

“You’re breathless for the paperboy who left it behind.”

“I wanted to see what he’d been reading.”

"But you lost him, Max."

"I know that." She resisted the urge to smack her hand on the steering wheel.

"He went out there specifically to look at her car."

"We don’t know that."

"Come on, you saw the look on his face. He knew that car. He knew her."

Yes, Cameron was right. She knew without a doubt that Paperboy was the dead woman’s dream man.

"But how would he know she was dead, Max?"

Unless he killed her. The unspoken words hung in the air.

No, no, no. There had to be another explanation, she just knew it, felt it inside like the double-time beat of her heart. “Maybe...” She unfolded the paper still on her lap, found the brief title of the short article on the back page.

“Woman murdered at SFO. That’s how he knew,” she whispered.

When was she murdered? How long ago was she found? Long enough to make the morning edition deadline. But not so long they’d had time to take her car away.

"What’s it say?" Cameron urged.

The words of the article shouted at her. She ignored the sharp whistle of the airport cop, the slap of his hand on her car hood. Her vision blurred around the edges of the name printed in the article, the sight somehow as bad as if she’d seen her own name there in black and white. The woman wasn’t anonymous anymore. She wasn’t just a vision. She was real. And she was dead. It had taken someone twenty-four hours to notice her. She’d been murdered the night before last—the night before Max had a vision of her last few hours alive.

No, it couldn’t be, it wasn’t possible.

She gasped. “Cameron, what’s happening to me?”

“Don’t you know?”

“It’s like I’m feeling all her emotions, like she’s inside me. Taking over.”

“Max, darling, I think you might be possessed.”

Chapter Two

Several hours later, her job interview dispensed with, Max dropped by the Wright temp agency that employed her. One thought occupied her mind. Cameron was correct. Psychic or crazy didn’t make a difference; she was possessed by something. She had to get rid of whatever it was in any way she could. The thought of someone else’s emotions running rampant through her body was...scary.

“I’ll take those in for you,” Max offered solicitously as she breezed past Roger, Sunny Wright’s administrative assistant.

Without a pause, Max slipped her forged pink message note between the six she’d snatched off Roger’s desk.

On her fifth read-through of the newspaper article, Max, with a lot of help from Cameron, figured the only way to exorcise Wendy Gregory—that was the woman’s name—was to find her killer. Didn’t all those old horror movies depict that solving the murder was the way to exorcise a ghost? It sounded a little wacky, but then so did admitting she was possessed.

But where to start her investigation? That was easy, find out everything she could about Wendy Gregory, and to do that, she had to slip into the woman’s shoes. She’d begin by taking over Wendy’s job, which was where Sunny Wright and her temp employment agency came into play.

The reporter who’d written the story had done his job. The who, what, when, where, and how concerning Wendy Gregory’s murder had all been covered in detail. The only question he hadn’t answered was the why.

Discovering that answer fell to Max, with a little help from her pushy ghost of a husband.

Being too anxious about getting Wendy’s job would look suspicious, if not to Sunny, then to Remy Hackett, Wendy’s boss, the man who’d reported her missing yesterday. Wasn’t that strange? In one neat swing, Max had two suspects: the husband who hadn’t reported her missing, and the boss who had, far more quickly than any normal employer would. One work day missed doth not a murder mystery make.

She had to take over Wendy’s job to ferret out the answers. Making her move would be tricky. If this plan back-fired...she’d think of something else. Because Max knew the woman couldn’t “go into the light” until her killer was brought to justice.

Aside from that, Max felt an odd compunction, a need, to give Wendy justice. Perhaps because she’d experienced Wendy’s last living moments. Or maybe it was that Cameron had never gotten justice. His killers were never caught. They’d never paid for what they’d done to him. Sometimes she still prayed for vengeance.

“You never got justice either, Max,” Cameron’s voice floated through her mind, then he was quickly gone. She didn’t want to dwell on what he meant by that.

Max casually flipped through the notes as she shut the door of Sunny Wright’s office with a tap of her foot. Pulling out the one she’d written herself, with Remy Hackett’s name, number, and a vague job description, Max smiled. “This one’s interesting.”

“Snooping through my messages?” Sunny looked like her name. The floor-to-ceiling windows behind her were the perfect backdrop for her golden hair piled neatly on top of her head. For Max, she wore a wide, welcoming smile that displayed a mouthful of white teeth, worth every cent she’d shelled out for those gorgeous porcelain caps.

“If you’d use voicemail, Sunny, I wouldn’t be able to snoop.”

Sunny only let callers go to voicemail if it was after hours. “You’d be the first to complain if you never talked to a real person.”

“I would never presume to call Roger a real person,” Max said, her brow raised.

Sunny smiled. Sunny always smiled. Her perpetually “sunny” attitude was one of the things Max liked best about her. Her boss was a breath of fresh air. “Sit down, and tell me how the interview went.”

Max handed over the stack, her note on top, then sat in Sunny’s cushy yellow chair. “Shitty.”

She’d barely made it to the interview on time, but she’d no longer been interested in the job the moment she read about Wendy Gregory in the mystery man’s discarded newspaper. After a few minutes of planning in her car once the job interview was done, she’d rushed right over to Sunny’s office.

“They don’t need me for data entry, Sunny.”

“They want the data evaluated as it’s entered.”

“I don’t clean windows, and I don’t do data entry. It doesn’t pay to underutilize me. How about that full-charge bookkeeper?” She indicated the pink paper with Remy Hackett’s name on it.

Sunny picked it up and read. “Who took this?” Her smile never faded, but the tone suggested a hint of annoyance. “It isn’t Roger’s handwriting. I insist the assistants sign and date these for me.”

The thing about Sunny was that as nice as she sounded—as nice as she was—she had a will of iron. People tended to underestimate her soft manner and usually conciliatory tone.

All of which was why the best way into Wendy’s job—into her life—was through Sunny’s temp agency. It also meant any suspicion would first fall on Sunny. Max felt a twinge of guilt at using her boss, but her options were limited at this point.

“Give him a call,” Max urged with much the same tone Cameron used when trying to manipulate her.

“Hackett’s Appliance Parts. I’ve never heard of them. I wonder where they got my name?”

“Probably the phonebook. With a position like this, you can bill my full rate. Go ahead. Call him.”

Sunny tapped her fingernails on her desk, then picked up a pencil and used the eraser end to dial the phone. “Mr. Hackett, please.” Her nose wrinkled with distaste as if she’d just been insulted. “Sunny Wright with the Wright Solution Employment Agency,” she said through lightly pursed lips, then covered the receiver with her hand. “Not a particularly professional atmosphere.”

“Good, then I won’t have to worry about a new wardrobe.”

Sunny looked Max’s habitual attire up and down. Black blazer and black pants. Her only concession to femininity was her three-inch black heels, and usually, the only concession to color was a black-and-red striped tie. Today, however, she’d had to do without the tie and white shirt.

“I like the turtleneck,” Sunny said. “It’s a different look for you.”

Max didn’t mention what was hidden underneath, long scratches on her throat.

Sunny’s attention snapped back to her call. “Yes, Mr. Hackett. I got your message concerning your need for a full-charge bookkeeper.” A pause. Sunny’s blue eyes clouded. “You didn’t?...perhaps someone on your staff called...ambulance-chaser?” Her eyes widened with shock. She gasped. Max held her breath. “Well, I never. In all my career...I wouldn’t dream of...I demand an apology”—a longer pause this time—“I agree, you couldn’t have been more wrong...well, I should think you’re a bit embarrassed...I’m terribly sorry about what happened, but that gives you no right...no, that is not good enough...I wouldn’t let one of my people work for you if...” Sunny looked straight at Max across the expanse of her desk.

Please, please, accept the apology. If this didn’t work, she’d have to apply for the position without Sunny’s intervention and think of a good excuse later for how she’d found out about the job.

Sunny let out an exasperated breath and went on. “Yes, I’m sure it’s been a strain...please, Mr. Hackett, there’s no need to feel so badly over this...well, perhaps you could be more specific about the position...I think I have a suitable person in mind...I can fax her resume, but under the circumstances, I’m not sure it would be right for—” Sunny tipped her head to one side, a questioning gaze set on Max.

Max sighed a breath of relief and nodded her head vigorously.

“Well, all right then...What time?...Tomorrow at seven? That’s rather early...I’m sure she could continue for the day if you’re agreeable...The address?” Sunny pulled a yellow pad in front of her, scribbled, then dotted an i with a decisive stab. “No further apology is necessary...Thank you, Mr. Hackett.”

Sunny held the receiver over the bed of the phone and let it drop the last three inches. “I’ll wager a three-course luncheon at Petrocelli’s, including their divine bread pudding for dessert, that you turn him down within the first five minutes of the interview.”

“If the job’s right, I can hack it.”

Sunny smiled, though it was slightly less brilliant than her usual. “Funny girl. But this is no laughing matter. If the man doesn’t turn you off, the reason the job’s available will.”

Max steeled herself. She’d never been much of an actress; Cameron could always see right through her attempts to lie. She went for the unconcerned approach. “I’m all ears.”

“The previous bookkeeper was murdered two days ago.” Sunny was clearly stunned over the information, her eyes wide and her perpetual smile absent for the moment.

Max let her mouth drop open dramatically. “You’re kidding.”

“That’s why Mr. Hackett was so disturbed by the call.” She shook her head. “But I can’t understand who called in the request for a temp. He had no clue.” Sunny straightened her shoulders indignantly. “But that gave him absolutely no reason to speak to me in such an insulting manner.”

“Of course not.”

“You don’t want that job, Max.”

“I’m a bit short on the bucks right now, Sunny.”

“And that man is a donkey’s behind.”

“You mean a horse’s ass.”

“A phallic symbol.”

“A dickhead.”

“I can find something better than this for you.”

“I’m tired of doing bank recs and ledger analysis.”

“No pun intended, dear, but this job will be murder on you.”

Sunny had no idea how right she was.

* * * * *

“How’d you know Wendy Gregory was a bookkeeper?” Cameron mused.

“It said she was in the article.”

“No, it didn’t.”

Max snorted. “It was there. I just skipped that part when I read it to you.”

At the end of the day, she sat on her back stoop, a four-by-four area constructed of plank decking at the bottom of the flight of stairs leading to her small room. She’d left her blazer upstairs as the evening worked its way into comfortable after the heat of an early September day. The little black cat whined in the tree above.

Max lived in a renovated Victorian, the upper floor having been converted into studios with bathroom, hot plate, closet, and bed. It housed mostly students attending nearby Santa Clara University. The deck, however, was hers alone, as were the stairs to her lodging. She paid a little more for the privacy, but it was worth the few meals she had to skip.

“I do believe you just told me a flat out lie, Max. You knew Wendy was an accountant just...because. Didn’t you, my love?”

Busted. “I’m not psychic. I’m just crazy.”

“Queen of Denial,” he said in a sing-song voice designed to piss her off.

She didn’t rise to the bait. “All right, if I’m possessed and I’m psychic, why don’t I just know who killed her? Why don’t I have her memories?”

“I don’t remember what happened to me. Maybe she’s no different. You need to work with her, not against her.”

Living with a lawyer, first when he was alive, then for the two years after his death, she’d learned to turn the tables on Cameron. “You’re the one with connections to the ‘other side’. Why don’t you interview Wendy and find out who killed her?”

“Now, Max, if she’s inside you, how can I—”

On a roll, she cut him off. “You could write a book about it. Murder in Long-term. We’ll say it’s ghost-written.”

“Very funny, darling.”

“You don’t sound like you think it’s funny.” But she thought it was, and the light-hearted switch tamped down the unease his words generated. She did crazy, not psychic. And certainly not possessed. She didn’t want to feel another woman’s messed up emotions. She had more than enough of her own.

“Feed the cat, Max.”

“You always change the subject when you don’t like what I’ve said.” Yeah, she wasn’t the only one who knew that trick. “Now, admit it was funny.”

“The cat’s hungry. Give it the rest of the tuna before the can rots in that tiny, broken-down refrigerator of yours.”

“If I feed it again, it’ll hang around like a buzzard.”

“I think it looks a little like Louis, don’t you?”

She closed her eyes for the briefest moment. “You won’t make me feel guilty.” But he had, despite her best intentions. “I couldn’t keep Louis once I moved in here. He’s got a good home.”

“With your best friend whom you haven’t called in two years?”

Right under her ribcage, an ache throbbed for her former friend Sutter Cahill. She went deeper into denial mode. “I hardly talked with Sutter after you and I got married.”

“I guess dinner twice a month didn’t count as ‘talking.’”

God, those dinners. All the laughter they’d shared. She’d been able to tell Sutter almost anything.

Yet she could never have told Sutter how it felt to watch Cameron die. Or about the men who killed him. Or the terrible things that came after. Instead, she’d dropped off Louis on Sutter’s doorstep and ignored her friend’s phone calls.

She would never talk about what happened that night. “You need to talk with someone, Max.”

“Please drop it. Sutter’s part of the past.”

Cameron sighed, a faintly fed-up sound. “Whatever you say, Max.” He’d bring it up again. He always did. “Doesn’t that cat’s pathetic cry break your heart?”

The little mewl sounded weaker than it had in the middle of the night. She rose and dusted off the seat of her black pants. She had four pairs in her limited wardrobe. “I’m only doing this because you’re making me.”

Cameron snorted softly. “Since when have I ever been able to make you do anything?”

“That time in the Dodge Ram truck.” She climbed the stairs to her studio.

“That was a dream I gave you, Max.”

She shrugged and smiled with the memory. Just as he spoke to her in her mind, Cameron could make love to her in her dreams. She could feel his touch on her simply by closing her eyes. “It felt real.”

“Yeah, and you loved it. Especially with the black and red flannel shirt I was wearing.”

“Hated it.” Loved it, just like he said. One of the best damn orgasms she’d ever had. Seeing a black Dodge Ram with red-lettered emblems on the street never failed to remind her.

But a dream wasn’t reality. In the worst of times, she ached for a real touch. Ached so badly that she did things she wasn’t proud of. Things she and Cameron didn’t talk about. Sometimes, dreams just weren’t enough.

She retrieved the can from the dorm-size fridge. The tuna was a little crisp and aged around the edges. Sort of like her life.

“Come here and get your din-din, you little buzzard,” she called, setting the tin on the window sill.

The black cat, with a sudden burst of energy, leaped the three feet from limb to ledge, devoured the tuna in four bites, then rubbed the length of its emaciated body against the sleeve of Max’s white turtleneck.

It did look a little like Louis. Louis, whom she’d abandoned, along with everything else, the day Cameron died.

She stroked the cat’s rumpled fur.

Night had fallen. She always felt most alone at night, the time when married couples were settling in for the evening, maybe sharing a glass of wine, snuggling on the couch, breath mingling, pulses quickening, the heady scent of arousal perfuming the air...

She prowled her small room, feeling itchy and on edge. Was it Wendy Gregory’s need trembling inside her? That intensely erotic sense of anticipation that had buzzed inside Wendy on the night she was killed?

Opening the closet door, Max stared inside. She’d thrown out all her skirts. All but one. Now she reached out to finger the material. Short, sexy, seductive. A skirt to turn a man’s head.

As much as she loved and needed Cameron, she longed for a man’s touch. She longed to feel a man’s hand on her skin, calluses, a work-roughened finger. Real hands, real fingers. Sometimes she thought she’d go mad she needed it so badly.

She felt Cameron in the air around her, the gentle glide of atmosphere against skin. “One day you’ll find a man worthy of you, Max, I swear it.”

A worthy man wasn’t what she wanted. A worthy man would want some sort of relationship, and any man she let into her life for more than a night would preclude Cameron. She couldn’t stand letting him go.

“You will. When the right man comes along.”

Her heart ached. He was preparing her for that day. “So you want to palm me off on someone else?”

“I want you to start living again. You can’t do that with me.”

“I can, Cameron. I have. For two years.”

“You buried yourself right along with me, baby.” She felt his essence wrap around her, his voice entreating. “It can’t go on forever.”

Instead of comforting, his words chilled her. She couldn’t go on without him. Please don’t ever leave me.

“You will go on. You’re strong enough. You’re just too scared right now.”

Strong yet scared. The words seemed poles apart. Cameron had a far greater estimation of her strength than she did, but he had her fear pegged exactly. “Please,” she whispered, “stop it.”

She closed her eyes and actually felt his body against her, his breath wafting the hair at her temples. “All right, baby. For now.”

He’d agreed, but the ache wouldn’t go away. “Touch me tonight, Cameron. Like you did in the Dodge Ram.”

She could still feel the lingering impressions. She loved the dreams he gave her, yet in the morning, she knew that’s all they were. Just dreams. She knew deep inside, in the pit where her deepest fears resided, that he was right; they couldn’t go on this way forever. But for this moment, she didn’t want to think about that. She needed him now. Badly.

“Take off your clothes. Lie on the bed.” She felt his voice almost like a physical touch.

As if her hands weren’t a part of her own body, her fingers tugged the hem of her turtleneck from her waistband. As she pulled it up, her blunt nails brushed across her abdomen and her breasts in the thin bra, abraded her nipples. They sprang to life. With their beading came a gentle rush of moisture between her legs.

Her slacks went the way of her turtleneck, thrown across the room. Then her panties. She crawled beneath the covers of her twin-size bed and pulled them to her chin. Outside the window, the little buzzard mewled amongst the branches.

Max closed her eyes. As long as she kept them closed, as long as she concentrated, she could feel Cameron, actually experience his touch. She stretched, intensifying the need humming in her center. Drawing one leg up, she let it fall to the side, opening herself to Cameron, opening her mind to his.

She felt the brush of his tongue against one nipple, a slight pinch on the other.

“Oh, baby, you taste so good.”

She arched her back, moaned, and held his head against her breast while he sucked. The sensation shot all the way down to her clitoris. Then he was there, right where she needed him, entering her with two fingers.

“God, I love it when you get so wet for me.” He rubbed the pad of his thumb against the sensitive button.

Her hips moved into the touch. She bit her lip and rotated to increase the pressure.

“That’s it, sweetheart. I want you to come.”

“Not yet,” she murmured, then thrashed her head on the pillow. “I want you inside me.”

“First, I want to taste you.”

The brush of flesh on flesh started with the tips of her breasts then continued down the length of her arms, moved to graze her belly, then finally the thatch of hair between her legs. His tongue, moist and warm, glided over her, parting her, seeking the burgeoning clitoris. He sucked, drew back for a quick swipe, delved for deep penetration, then returned to lave her with her own wetness. Parting her legs, she reached to hold him close against her. She ran her fingertips around the shell of his ears, glided over the thinning hair at the back of his head, then raised herself to knead his shoulders.

Smooth skin met her touch. The slight tang of a recently smoked cigarette tickled her nose, underlined with a musk that was uniquely Cameron.

Orgasm tingled just on the horizon.

“Now, Cameron. Please, now. I want to come with you inside me.”

He grabbed her hips with hard, bruising fingers and entered her with a deep thrust. The bed creaked and rocked beneath them as he pumped. She buried her nose against the rough hair of his chest, felt it scrape her cheeks as she turned to the side to snag a breath.

“God. Oh my God.” Tension built inside her, leaked from her mouth in a low moan. She wrapped her arms around him and held on tight as his body pelted her, the ridge of his pelvic bone rasping against her clitoris. His groan filled her ears, as did his words.

“God, I love you, Max. I’ll always love you. No matter what.”

Letting go of him, she reached above her head and clung to the wooden slats of the headboard. Clutching with a near frantic grip, she arched, grinding against him to increase the pressure on her clit.

“Please, please, please.”

Then orgasm rolled over her, starting at the point their bodies joined and rushing out to the tips of her fingers, her toes, and the crown of her head.

She screamed. Someone pounded on the ceiling beneath her. She didn’t care. She let herself come until she was nothing more than a boneless puddle in the center of the bed.

She lay there until she could breathe again, until she smelled the faintly acrid scent of his freshly lit cigarette.

“Was that good for you, baby?” he whispered into the complete darkness behind her closed lids.

“Yes.”

It was. But she was afraid to open her eyes. Once she did, his touch would be gone. God, what she wouldn’t give to hold him in her arms with her eyes wide open.

She felt the nuzzle of his nose against her ear.

“As good as the Dodge Ram?”

“Better,” she lied. She had to, because to tell him the truth, that she still felt hollow inside, wasn’t acceptable.

Not that he couldn’t read her mind and see through the lie.

Worse than that, she had to pee. Could she make it to the bathroom with her eyes closed? She lay in the bed as long as she could, drinking in the deep sigh of his breath against her throat, his weight on top of her. Don’t open your eyes. Don’t let him go.

Then she had to move. She pushed the covers aside.

“I love you, baby.” They both knew what would happen when she opened her eyes. Cameron would fade back into a phosphorescent glow.

She slipped from the bed and let her eyelids rise slowly. Would the day come when she couldn’t feel him even with her eyes closed? She shoved the paralyzing thought aside.

Street light filtered through the tree branches, bathing the room in its soft glow. She tried not to look back, but she seemed to have no control over the movement of her head.

The bed was empty. She’d left behind only the imprint of one head on her pillow and one body in the middle of the slightly sagging mattress.

All evidence of Cameron was gone. She knew he’d never really been there. He never would be again. She was crazy, with a fertile imagination that extended even to tactile sensation. She’d never understood how she could imagine something so utterly physical right down to the quaking of the bed.

The air pulsed around her. “It might not be real, Max, but it’s all I have left to give you.”

In one moment he gave her ecstasy, the next, he brought home that their reality existed only for a fleeting instant. In darkness. Behind closed lids. She ached for one last real touch.

His voice was a honeyed, agonizing whisper in her ear. “Don’t you know I’d live a lifetime in hell for the chance to make love with you in the flesh one more time?”

It was enough to make even a strong woman cry. But Max Starr couldn’t. Not now.

Because if she did, she’d never stop.

Chapter Three

“You want me to what?” Max stared at the phonebook Remy Hackett had laid in front of her.

The night was over. What she and Cameron had done in the night was over. She’d shoved aside her messy emotions and hurried off to her appointment with Wendy’s boss. Ex-boss.

Max had never wanted a job more than this one. Even making manager at Kirby, O’Brien, and Dakajama hadn’t been this important. Granted, at KOD, there’d been no visions, no ghosts, no dead women in her dreams, no ghostly lover. But this man wanted her to—

Hackett stood over her shoulder, pointing. “Add those high-lighted phone numbers on the calculator.”

His closeness gave her the heebie-jeebies. It wasn’t so much a gut reaction as a familiar sensation deep in her belly. Wendy hadn’t like her boss, not at all.

Max stared at the dash of yellow highlighter across the page. The black numbers were slightly smeared, but still recognizable. She rubbed her nose, her only sign of irritation.

“But that’s like—” Like asking a nurse to demonstrate a blood pressure cuff or a computer whiz if he knows how to send an e-mail. Some things are second nature.

She looked from Remy to the Sharp ten-key—a brand name she’d used exclusively—and back to the phonebook again.

As a boss, the man would suck. As a suspect, Remy Hackett gave her an adrenaline rush. Max positioned the fingers of her right hand on the keypad and dusted off the list of numbers in less than five seconds with one hundred percent accuracy. “Would you like me to do it again? Maybe with some different numbers?”

Remy Hackett beamed. “I know it sounds bizarre, especially after looking at your resume, but you wouldn’t believe the number of people who...” He seemed to search for the polite description. “Let’s be honest. They lie on their work history. Lying is one of my pet peeves.”

It was a logical explanation from a man she’d thought at first wouldn’t need to explain anything to anyone. “I suppose in a small business, they figure they can get away with it,” Max offered, giving him the benefit of the doubt only because she wanted the job.

Remy Hackett wasn’t a big man—though he’d certainly be the big fish in his little appliance-parts pond. He was under six feet, close to forty years old, and ten pounds overweight. When he stood, he sucked in his gut and puffed out his chest. He’d combed back his overlong hair to hide a bald spot. A mustache tried to preserve the masculinity of an otherwise soft face.

She wondered if his budget was as big as his head. Though his oak desk was huge, it was dwarfed by the size of the man’s office. He had a genuine leather sofa and a kidney-shaped coffee table in the right corner. Yet the single chair he’d placed opposite the desk, the one he’d perched Max on, was a cheap wooden straight-back as uncomfortable as hell. It reminded her of the Punishment Chair she’d had to sit on when she’d committed some childhood infraction. After forty-five minutes of Remy’s interviewing techniques, her butt had gone numb.

Moving once again behind his desk, Remy sat down. On the out-breath, his middle sagged over his no-iron, Expandomatic slacks. He crossed his hands over his belly, drawing her eye right to the weakness he’d probably meant to hide.

“So, tell me why a CPA wants to do temp work.”

“It keeps my options open. If I don’t like a situation, I just call up Sunny and say find me another job.” Sticking as close to honesty as possible was the best policy.

Remy raised eyebrows that were two shades lighter than his dyed hair. “And I can call her just as expeditiously.”

The sudden insertion of his fifty-dollar word almost threw her off. It didn’t suit him. Max made a quick recovery with a knowing smile. “You catch my drift.”

“I like your style.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hackett.”

“Please, call me Remy. This isn’t a formal workplace.” He smiled.

She wasn’t charmed. Max moved to her main interview objective. “I have to admit the circumstances are...unusual.”

“You probably feel awkward.” Remy stopped, sniffed the air like a dog on the hunt. “You don’t smoke, do you?”

“No.” Cameron. She should have known he wouldn’t allow her to do this alone.

“We don’t smoke inside Hackett’s.” Remy made it sound like it was a rule of his instead of the law.

Which was, of course, why she’d seen five guys smoking outside the roll-up door in back when she’d driven around the building. Max wondered how much more she’d learn if she took up smoking.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Max smiled, nodding agreement.

“Back to Wendy’s story. It’s tragic. We knew something was wrong the minute she was late. She often got here at five in the morning to stay on top of the job. But she was never late.”

Five in the morning? Now that was weird. “She might have been sick.”

“If she was ill, she always called before seven in the morning.”

“A good employee.”

“Exemplary.” There he went, popping a word in that didn’t fit the rest of his speech. “And I knew she was upset about something when she left the night before, really upset.”

“But you didn’t know what?”

Watch it, baby, don’t sound like a cop. Don’t make it seem that important to you.

But Remy didn’t seem to find the question too probing. “Wendy was a quiet person.”

Cameron was right, in asking too much, she might lose everything. Max backed off, saving the rest of her questions for another, more opportune time. Besides, at this point, she’d learn the most by listening. “I’m very sorry.”

“Thank you. I’ll miss that girl. She was my right-hand man around here. She did everything. You might even say Hackett’s would have fallen apart without Wendy. I don’t quite know how we’ll replace her.”

Oddly, Max believed every word Remy Hackett said. He leaned forward, elbows on his desk, fingers laced, index finger tapping his lips. He seemed to have forgotten she was in the room.

Then he sat back abruptly, resuming the original position, hands folded over his paunch. “You’ll have to forgive me.” He was all business again. “About the job. I still haven’t found out who called your agency. But I will.” His lips tightened, whitened, then relaxed. “But it was...” He circled his hand in the air as if searching for a word. “Fortuitous,” he finally found. An appropriate word, but again, somehow out of place for him. “You’ve impressed me. Sunny Wright faxed me the rate sheet along with your resume, and I’d like to try it out if you’re willing. But first I need to know if you’d consider making this permanent?”

“Permanent?” The word sent a trickle of fear skipping down her spine. She didn’t do permanent. Max took a deep breath. She was okay, just playing a role. “Well...if everything worked out, if we all got along...”

“We?”

“You. Me. The rest of your staff.”

His folded hands tensed on his stomach. “I make the decisions around here.”

Yes, he would. She had a feeling he’d crush anyone who thought too much on their own.

“So, what do you say, Max? If you and I like each other, we’ll do temp-to-perm?” He beamed. Boy, that man could beam. It was a sight to behold. A display of his salesman personality. His mustache lifted, his teeth gleamed, even his brown eyes sort of smiled.

Now that the initial rush of permanency fear was over, Max didn’t hesitate. “Okay, Remy.”

“Wendy had a set of keys. Unfortunately, they haven’t been...returned to me.” With just the right amount of discomfort, he looked down, around the room, anywhere but at Max. The man was concerned, upset. Or putting on a darn good act. “We’ll get another set. Now, we do have a few rules around here I’d like to go over.”

“Should I get out a notepad?”’

He laughed. Max laughed with him. “They’re easy,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll remember, and if you don’t, I’m always here to remind you.”

“Shoot.” Don’t give him any invitations. Max smiled and let Remy Hackett think she smiled at him instead of Cameron’s not so subtle reminder of why she was in Remy’s office.

Remy held up the index finger of his right hand, and she felt it like a jab to her nose. Deep on the inside, Max cringed. Remy had done an awful lot of finger-jabbing at Wendy.

“First,” he enunciated with a harsh bite. “Lunches are half an hour. That’s the law. I’m not about to get reamed by the state again. If you come back early, don’t bother clocking in until the half hour’s up.”

She felt her jaw drop. “You want me to clock?”

“Everybody clocks.”

Max blinked. She’d never had a job ruled by the time clock. “I can handle that.”

In a pig’s eye. Cameron’s chuckle filled her head.

Remy’s middle finger went up. Luckily it still had the index finger to offset its usual meaning. “Second. No swearing.”

“Certainly not in a professional atmosphere.”

“Oh, I’m going to like you, Max. That’s what this place is lacking. Professionalism.” He beamed once again, and up went his ring finger. “Third. You do timecards. Report immediately to me on anyone who abuses overtime.”

“Abuses?”

Remy’s glower was as potent as his beam. “These hourly workers know every trick. They work thirty-seven hours one week, then forty-three the next and end up getting time-and-a-half for three hours. They’ll screw you out of every dime.”

She’d have to remember “screw” wasn’t a swear word. “Sounds like a real problem.”

“It won’t be if you do what you’re told.”

Her hackles rose. “I’ll report it to you immediately.” Dickhead, she added silently.

Remy’s pinkie, elaborately adorned with a ruby class ring, went up. Four unblemished fingers. Wendy had torn at the fingers around her throat. Remy didn’t have a scratch on him. Damn.

“Fourth,” he enumerated. “Never try to cover up a mistake.”

“You mean don’t lie about it.”

He gave her a wide grin. “You’ve got my number, Max. Be honest with me, I’ll deal fairly with you. But you lie, you die.” Not a second after he’d uttered those words, his face drained of all color. His eyes widened in horror. “I can’t believe I just said that.”

“Neither can I.” Normally, Max would have been sympathetic. Remy Hackett, however, needed to be cut off at the knees. “Don’t worry, though, I won’t tell the police about it.”

Flesh tones returned. Remy figured she’d made a joke. “They were here quite a while yesterday going through Wendy’s stuff.”

“Did they make an arrest?”

“Not anyone here.”

“Well, hopefully they’ll be able to find some evidence.”

Remy followed her lead perfectly. “I’ve heard they always look to the husband first.”

“And do you think they’d be right?”

He opened his mouth, on the verge of something, then shut it. A moment later, “We’re straying from our real topic. As long as you follow my four little rules, we’ll be set.”

She had the job, but she was pretty fricking sure she wasn’t cut out for this undercover detecting thing. She’d have a very hard time not giving Remy the finger he deserved. “I’m ready, willing, and able, Mr. Hackett.”

“Please. Call me Remy.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot.”

“Remembering is key, Max. Now, let’s get you started.”

The whole thing seemed like prostitution without hope for an orgasm.

* * * * *

“Remy Hackett did it. I don’t care that he didn’t have any scratches, I know he did it,” Max murmured to Cameron as she drove away from the store. She’d clocked out for her mandatory half-hour lunch, setting her watch to beep five minutes before she was due back.

“Little Hitler of Hackett Appliance Parts. But that doesn’t make him a killer, my love.”

“Details. Anyone with that many rules is neurotic. Plus, it was more than four. There was the one about doing what he wants when he wants. And the one about neat desk drawers.”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t have found Wendy’s appointment book if he hadn’t insisted you clean up her desk.”

“My God, what a mess.” Max shuddered. “I had to straighten all those piles of paper before I could even look at the drawers.”

“Speaking of neurotic.”

“I was speaking of the disarray.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t feel right. Her notebooks and binders were so neat and organized. Why was the desk such a mess?”

“Maybe the cops did it when they searched?”

“Yeah, well, they sure didn’t search very hard. True, the date book was shoved to the back with some rubber stamp pads on top of it, but...Columbo wouldn’t have missed it.” You had to love old reruns—which was just about all she got with her cheap-as-dirt basic TV service and her Goodwill-vintage fifteen-incher.

“Columbo had one case at a time.”

“And it only took him two hours to solve it. These guys’ll take months if I don’t help.” If she left it up to the police, she’d never get rid of Wendy’s spirit.

Max turned down a side street, away from the heavy traffic on the main road. It was an industrial area, no sidewalks, no trees, no grass. She pulled over and parked. Heat rose in waves from the concrete. With the top down on the Miata, the sun beat on her head. At least it was September with the promise of cooler weather around the corner.

She plucked Wendy’s planner out of her purse. She’d barely managed to shove the book inside before Remy returned.

Nope, she wasn’t cut out for this detecting stuff.

Max flattened the book on her lap and flipped pages. A monthly calendar with small blocks for each day, the appointments were registered neatly in different colors. Aqua every other Monday at 4:30, a woman named Lilah, a phone number written beneath. Max rescued a bit of scratch paper from the bottom of her purse and jotted down the info. Lime green Tuesdays at five p.m., Dr. Shale, a phone number.

“Our little Wendy was methodical,” Cameron reflected.

Something ran the length of Max’s body. Not a chill, not a shiver. More like the feeling she got when she listened to a beautiful song or saw a gorgeous guy wearing black and red flannel.

“Wendy loved color. Colors soothed her, made her feel safe. Did you see the folders in her filing cabinet? Different shades of blue, pink, purple and more.” Brilliant splashes of color like a painter’s pallet. “And rollerball pens in every hue imaginable.”

Max decided the colors soothed her, too. Had they always? Or only since the nightmare vision?

Cameron went on listing Wendy’s appointments. “Purple, one Saturday a month at ten a.m., Divinity, another phone number.”

“Something religious?”

“You’re the psychic, my little Max, you tell me.”

Max pursed her lips without answering that question. “Orange, third Wednesday of each month at six p.m., BeeBee.”

Max leafed through to December. The appointments had been colored in until the end of the year. “How can anyone possibly plan out their life like this?” The monotonous routine of Wendy Gregory’s days was almost frightening.

“Look at the month of September,” Cameron urged.

Max read, sucked in a gasp. “Monday, the day she died. She scratched out her regular with Dr. Shale the next day.”

“She annihilated it. What does it mean, Max?”

Her scalp went icy despite the heat of the sun on her crown. “How should I know?”

“Close your eyes.” Cameron’s voice was hypnotic.

For a brief moment, she remembered last night’s command, and her body reacted with a thrill between her legs. Take off your clothes. Lie on the bed.

She shoved the memory aside and let her eyelashes flutter down. The sun in her eyes became a swirling golden mass that sucked her into its vortex. Her breathing deepened. Her arms prickled right down to her fingertips. Her toes curled in her high-heeled shoes.

As if her body anticipated a man’s touch.

Anger and exhilaration roiled in Max’s stomach. Terror. Desire. Emotions pooled low in her belly. She wanted, needed to stick her hand between her legs and palm herself, anything to relieve the awful, needy tension.

An image formed in the opalescent whirlpool behind her eyelids. Max strained to see it, grab it, force it closer. Her fingers reached, ached.

The beeper on her watch shattered the image into brilliant shards of color. She’d set the reminder for five minutes before her half hour—no more, no less—lunch break was over. For a moment, she sat dazed, the sun too bright, the steering wheel hot beneath her touch. She couldn’t remember clutching it.

“What did you see, my love?”

“Don’t you know?” They spoke in whispers.

“If I did, I wouldn’t ask.” A note of apprehension shimmered through Cameron’s voice.

“I saw...someone.” It was the best Max had to offer. Like Cameron, Wendy might not remember the last moments of her life, thus making it impossible for Max to identify her killer.

“It was him, wasn’t it?” Cameron intruded.

“Who?”

“The paperboy.”

“What makes you think that?”

“You’re...breathless. Like you were at the airport.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Max bent to pick up Wendy’s book where it had fallen to the floor of the car.

Cameron didn’t push further as she read aloud. “Monday. Blue ballpoint ink. 7:59. Nickie.” Beneath it, Wendy had written the numbers 452.

The flight number on the note in Max’s dream.

Something bothered her as she stared at the writing. Ballpoint. Blue. It wasn’t a Wendy pen or a Wendy color.

“Who’s Nickie?” With his question, she lost her train of thought, and for just a moment, Max desperately wanted Cameron out of her head.

The feeling disappeared as quickly as it had come, and she answered. “Nicholas Drake, former warehouse manager. I found his personnel file in the Terminations drawer.”

“Paperboy?” Cameron insisted.

“Yes, all right,” she snapped. “I think he’s Paperboy. But he didn’t kill Wendy.”

“You’re just a little too rock solid on that, Maxi sweetheart. I think he cut out yesterday morning for Boise.”

She didn’t even correct his use of her hated nickname. “You know he didn’t.” A dream fragment led her to believe he’d been returning from taking the kids to his parents in Boise for a visit when Wendy met him at the airport. Something like that. Maybe he had only gone to the airport yesterday to see Wendy’s car, as Cameron suggested.

“And I don’t think he’s a bad guy,” she added, then started the engine and pulled away from the curb.

“Your psychic powers at work? Or your libido working overtime?”

Wendy’s libido, certainly not Max’s own. “Simple deduction. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to return to the scene of his own criminal act. Besides, he had to read about it in the paper, which means he didn’t know exactly what happened to her.”

“Or he wanted to see if the police found anything that might incriminate him.”

“I know Remy Hackett killed her,” she snapped, instead of answering his accusation.

“You want him to be the killer. Why?”

“It’s a feeling.”

“It’s because you’re afraid for Nicholas Drake.”

“I don’t even know him.”

“Don’t you?”

It wasn’t a question that required an answer. They both knew just how strong Wendy’s feelings were. And how much they tugged on Max.

“Why was he fired, Maxi dear?”

“Don’t needle, Cameron. It stated in the file that his termination was voluntary.”

“Voluntary? That could mean any number of things. Like someone found out about his affair with the company bookkeeper, and he quit rather than be fired.”

“Wendy would have been fired, too.”

“Hmm.” His sound rumbled inside her chest. “Maybe he wanted to give it one more try with his little wife.”

“No.” The answer had a hard, angry bite to it. She couldn’t take back the sound once it was made. She couldn’t deny that she knew about the wife. The knowledge was there inside her, stabbing.

“Pricked a nerve, didn’t I? Is that what he told Wendy? That he was thinking of going back to his wife?”

The dead woman’s pain twisted inside her. Cameron was close to the truth—all he had to do was read her mind—yet Max couldn’t betray aloud Wendy’s fears of a reconciliation. “We haven’t proved they were lovers.”

“Don’t disappointment me, Max. You know exactly what they were to each other.”

But this time Cameron was wrong. She didn’t know. Mostly because she didn’t think Wendy even knew. Lovers, yes, but what else?

She felt a fresh thrust of despair that left her breathless.

Max didn’t say another word, but she was very much afraid Wendy’s emotions were getting stronger. And Wendy would do anything to prove Nicholas Drake wasn’t a killer.

Chapter Four

“Appreciate the call, Miss Starr.”

“Mrs.,” Max corrected lightly. After getting the detective’s number from Remy, she’d called right after clocking in from lunch. The cop had shown up in her office less than an hour later.

Detective DeWitt Quentin Long was nothing like she’d thought he’d be. The name conjured images of morticians, self-centered playboys, or toilet paper salesmen.

Somewhere in his mid-thirties, Detective Long was a man’s man. An inch or two over six feet. Big hands. Rambo-tough body without an ounce of fat. Thick blond hair and almost white eyebrows.

He was the antithesis of Cameron, or rather, of what Cameron had been; medium brown hair, medium build, medium height. She liked medium. This man was big, too big. So why the hell did he make her...breathless? Perhaps it was a lingering residual of Wendy Gregory’s erotic energy. Or maybe it was Detective Long’s dimple, an almost endearing Dudley Do-Right cleft in his chin.

Of course, the real Dudley had been rather insipid, and big men were sometimes slow and slumberous. The detective had yet to prove himself.

He wore a dark blue suit, white shirt, and an unimpressive, plain navy tie. When he sat, he had to unbutton the jacket disguising his imposing chest, and the suit pants stretched taut over his muscular thighs. She’d offered him the spare office chair, a rickety thing she was afraid he’d break like a twig.

Detective Long had too much brawn for Max’s taste. Most definitely. Even if her palms were just a tad sweaty, and she had a hard time tearing her gaze away from his over-sized hands. Masculine hands. Real hands. That was it. Her attraction was nothing more than a yearning for a taste of the real thing. As opposed to the ghostly thing.

Max had called him to determine if working with the cops was her best option. Of course, she would never withhold evidence, but if he was a bungler, she sure as hell wouldn’t let him botch any leads she came up with.

Like Columbo, his questions were dogged. That was a point in his favor. So was the fact that he pulled a notepad out of his pocket, flipped it open, his trusty Bic recording her every word. While he listened, his glance flickered over the bookcase, the desktop, the file cabinet, the box on the floor filled with Wendy’s personal items. He had an amazing ability to multi-task.

“Where’d you say you found the appointment book?”

“In here.” Max turned in her ergonomic chair to pull the pencil drawer open an inch.

They sat in her office, a small, windowless room the size of a walk-in closet. Pressboard bookcases stood floor-to-ceiling on the left wall. Two lateral files and a copy machine took up position on the right. Too much stuff crammed into the narrow space gave her claustrophobia. The desk stood at the opposite end from the door and was piled high with binders, most of which she’d already glanced through. For the detective’s visit, she’d closed the door since the noise from the bullpen outside would be distracting.

“The book was at the back of the middle drawer,” she explained.

Long arched one eyebrow, giving himself an enticingly devilish flair despite the light color. “Suppose that’s why I missed it the first time around.”

Yeah, right. Knowing the police had already searched the office bugged her and was the reason she suspected the detective might blow Wendy’s case. How on earth did a cop worth his brawn miss something as important—and potentially incriminating—as the murder victim’s date book?

“I’m sure you did a thorough search.”

She waited for his flash of irritation at her sarcasm. It didn’t come. His gaze again roamed over the contents of the office, and his words and tone, slightly testing, turned the interview back in his favor. “As thorough as yours, it seems.”

She met his suspicion head on. “I want to do everything possible to help.”

“Why?”

His immediate retort threw her for a moment. She recovered quickly. She’d actually prepared an answer, though she hadn’t really believed anyone would care enough to ask. Maybe Detective Long was no slouch despite his laidback, casual manner.

“I sit at her desk, work with her things. I feel for the poor woman. Wouldn’t anyone want to help under those circumstances, Detective?”

“Not everyone.”

“I’m not everyone.”

“Bet you’re not.”

He raised one of those brows. She couldn’t decipher the meaning behind his comment, but it stirred something inside her. Her nipples chafed against her bra. The physical reaction was not good, not good at all. Wendy’s libido again?

She thought she heard Cameron snicker.

“Miss Starr—”

“Mrs.”

“For a temp, you’re awfully interested in Wendy Gregory.”

“How did you know I’m a temp?”

“I’m a detective. My job is to flush out information.”

Hmm, that put her in her place. “I’m a bit of an amateur sleuth myself, Detective. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

“Not if you don’t get yourself in trouble, ma’am.”

She had a million questions clamoring for answers, but one thing she’d learned from good old Columbo, cops got suspicious when you asked too many questions or supplied too many answers. She’d said too much already. It was obvious he hadn’t just “missed” Wendy’s date book, and the fact that Max had been the one to find the calendar was not a point in her favor.

“I’ll do whatever I can to help,” she volunteered, as neutral a statement as possible.

“Sure.” Detective Long nodded sagely, then tossed her another question. “Her desk drawers were a mess. Always thought accountants were extremely neat.”

Max thought of a few she’d encountered on audit and shuddered. “Accountants are pack rats. They never throw anything away.”

Though certainly neither the meticulous nature of Wendy’s appointment book nor the state of her paperwork supported that she suffered from that particular mania.

Long looked at the rows of binders in the bookcase. “Suppose you’ll go through the whole office to get up to speed on the job.”

“All two square feet of it, Detective.” Max smiled congenially.

He put his notepad in his shirt pocket. “Anything else we missed the first go round...” The sentence trailed off as he pulled out a business card and set it on the desk, tapping it with a thick finger.

“If I find some cryptic note written on the edge of a ledger page, you’ll be the first person to know.”

“Thank you for your sar—cooperation,” he said within the same beat. He didn’t smile.

Did anything besides an automaton lurk beneath his beefy exterior?

Then, as if he might have heard the acerbic thought, he said, “I see you’ve hurt yourself, Miss Starr.”

Her hand went reflexively to her throat, her bare throat. She had only the one turtleneck she’d worn yesterday and that needed to be washed. Today, she’d had to don her usual dress shirt, complete with red and black tie. It didn’t hide the scratches. The way the detective tracked her movement affected her like a physical touch, giving her a dry mouth which had nothing to do with fear.

Ooh, bad reaction to the man investigating Wendy’s murder.

“Bug bites,” was the first explanation to burst out of her mouth.

“Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” he quipped softly.

“I don’t have bugs in my bed.”

He raised one eyebrow, as if to inquire what might be in her bed. Or what she might want there.

Beds, detectives, and being possessed by a murdered woman didn’t mix. She squashed the image. Like a bug.

He stared at her throat a moment longer. God, he wasn’t wondering if Wendy had put the scratches there? No. Of course not. Like Columbo, he was simply taking note of everything.

“Call me if you find anything else interesting,” he said finally, with a glance at the loosely packed box she’d put against the wall.

Max followed the look. “A few of Wendy’s personal things. Remy called her husband to pick them up at his convenience. Did you want to look through them?”

If she’d harbored the slightest hope he might let slip the whereabouts of Hal Gregory the night his wife went missing, it was dashed the moment Long opened his mouth. To yawn. “Excuse me, been a long two days. Recorded the contents in my notes while we talked. Nothing I didn’t see yesterday.”

So that’s what he’d been writing down furiously. “You must have laser vision to see right through that cardboard.”

“I do, ma’am.” He didn’t crack a smile, and she could have sworn for just an instant his eyes flickered to the front of her blazer. To the maddeningly raised nipples beneath the fabric.

How had that happened?

God, what a team Wendy had working for her. Max Starr, faux-psychic investigator, her ghostly husband, and Dudley Do-Right with the big hands. Though she’d actually begun to like the man, even suspected he had a dry sense of humor.

And, as indicated by the fact that he’d come right over for the appointment book, he also seemed to care about solving Wendy’s case, which was the biggest point in his favor so far.

Detective Long stood and straightened his already straight tie. “Miss Starr—”

“Mrs.”

“I’d like you to take a trip down to the department.”

With that serious face, she could be sure it wasn’t some sort of detective come-on.

“We’ll need a set of elimination prints.”

“Elimination prints?”

“Friends, contacts, anyone whose prints might reasonably be on or in the victim’s car, her purse.” He paused, his mouth curved with just a hint of smirk. “Her appointment book. We did the other Hackett employees yesterday.”

“Oh.” Her fingerprints were all over the damn book, every page of it. It would look odd. Suspicious. Or just plain nosy.

Nosy she could handle. She gave him her best sheepish look, one perfected during years of attempted husband manipulation. “I looked through it. I hope I didn’t contaminate any evidence.”

“That’s why we’ll need your prints, ma’am. To eliminate them.” He blinked, Max almost thought it was a challenge. “Trust we won’t find them on her car, right?”

He bore a calculated lack of facial expression. The man was no naive Dudley Do-Right, despite the cleft chin.

She waved her hand to encompass the cluttered desk and ledger-filled bookcase. “Does this look like a job worth killing for?”

He almost smiled. “Tomorrow. Okay with you? Noon?”

“I only have half an hour for lunch.”

“Hackett will accommodate the investigation.” With a hand—a big hand—on the doorjamb of her office, DeWitt Quentin Long turned to her for the last time. “You know, you really shouldn’t smoke in here. No ventilation. Bad for your health. And it’s against the law.”

* * * * *

Cameron blasted her the moment she hit the freeway after leaving Hackett’s for the day. “Why didn’t you tell the detective that 452 was a flight number?”

“He already knows that from the notepaper found by Wendy’s body.” The one she’d seen in her vision.

“You should have told him it was a United Airlines flight.”

Max had verified that there was indeed a flight 452 arriving from Boise at 7:59 the night Wendy died. Not that she’d truly needed the confirmation. At this point, she no longer doubted the “vision.”

She just doubted Cameron’s conclusions. “We don’t know Nicholas Drake had anything to do with Wendy’s death. It would be wrong to incriminate him unless we know.”

“Remember all your logical deductions? Nickie’s name at 7:59 in her date book, same time as that Boise flight—”

“It didn’t say a.m. or p.m. And there’s no proof.”

“—and Paperboy got off the shuttle at the United terminal.”

“Coincidental.” Not. And well she knew it. But that didn’t make Drake a murderer. “Stop badgering me, I’m trying to drive.”

“Why didn’t you tell the detective about the personnel file?”

“If he’s worth anything, he’s already checked the files.”

“You’ve got to tell him everything you know, Max.”

“You’re crazy, Cameron. I’ll be his prime suspect. He already asked why I’m so interested in Wendy and how I got the job. He even wants my fingerprints.”

“He’s not going to arrest you. He’s hot for you.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “He is not hot for me.”

“And you’re hot for him.”

“I am not.” Yet her cheeks heated. Thank God she was sitting on them so no one could see.

“I can smell your creamed panties, Max, all the way up here in heaven.”

“You aren’t in heaven.”

“Maybe he’s the one, Max,” he whispered like a mesmerist. “Maybe he’s worthy of you.”

Oh God, Cameron was searching for his replacement. Not the detective, please. Whatever slight attraction she’d felt to his big hands had been an aberration. “He’s a cop. He’s investigating Wendy’s murder. That’s all he is.”

“You liked him.”

Dammit. She should have told Cameron he couldn’t hang in the office while Detective Long interviewed her. “I don’t even know him. And I’m not going to know him. He’s dangerous.”

“But he makes you hot.”

She gave up trying to hide it. Cameron wasn’t buying denial. “Sex isn’t everything.”

“Didn’t you beg for it last night?”

Yes, in the dark of the night, she’d needed, she’d wanted. “Will you please be quiet?” She wanted to jam her hands over her ears, but that wouldn’t keep him out of her head.

“He’s not your enemy. Whoever killed Wendy is.”

“Why are you picking a fight with me?”

“Why are you protecting the woman’s lover?”

“So that’s what this is all about. You think I’m hot for Wendy’s lover. I told you, it’s all her, not me.”

She pulled into the drive, shut the engine off, slammed the car door, and stomped across the wood deck. Narrowly missing the gap between the rungs with her spiked heels, she lunged up the stairs to her studio apartment. She’d left the window open. The cat had already started its pathetic cry on the window sill.

Cameron might be pissed at Wendy’s effect on her libido, but she was pissed that he was trying to shove another man into her life. Beneath the anger lay fear. Cameron wanted to leave her.

“I don’t have any tuna,” she shouted at the little buzzard.

“We’ve got some milk,” Cameron whispered close to her ear, his breath warm, almost comforting. She clung to her anger like a safety net.

“I told you I won’t feed that cat again.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight with you, Maxi—”

She whirled on the shimmering nothingness in her small room. “Next time you call me that, I’ll look for an exorcist.”

“Come on, sweetheart, I said I was sorry.” She felt his warmth wrap around her, as if he had arms to hold her, lips to kiss her, and a body to love her with. “Mmm. You smell sweet, baby. Like gardenias. I love you in gardenias.”

“Cut the crap. It won’t work. Besides, you just told me I smelled like something else entirely, and I don’t think you meant it as a compliment.”

“Your sweet scent of arousal makes me hot.”

“Stop it.” Max steeled herself against him, against the heat creeping through her loins. She crossed her arms over her chest, tapped her foot on the hardwood floor, and glared at him. Or at least at the corner of the room she thought he’d backed into. “You wanted me to use my intuition. So, I’m using it. Nicholas Drake didn’t kill her.”

“Screw intuition. You wear your attraction like a badge.”

“Remember Wendy? She feels it inside here.” She fisted her hand against her chest. “He had nothing to do with the murder. And she was the fricking murder victim. Maybe you should listen to her.”

“Why so willing to use your psychic gift now, sweetheart? You’ve fought me every step of the way so far.”

“Why is it so important that I accept this bizarre psychic gift anyway? Is it your pathway to heaven? Is it your good deed that’ll get you through the pearly gates?” A headache sliced through her temples.

“Is that what you’re afraid of? That I’ll leave you once you find your own power?”

Yes, yes, yes! Of course, he had to already know that, but she still didn’t want her fears out in the bright light of his scrutiny. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I won’t leave you the day you admit the truth to yourself.” He was at her back, surrounding her, as if he covered her with his hard, protective body. “I won’t leave you just because you accept the gifts God gave you.”

She stepped away from his warmth, away from the weakness stealing into her bones. “You already left me, two years ago. For a goddamn pack of cigarettes.”

His breath caressed her nape. “You want me to quit smoking?”

She should have pointed out that he’d just done the typical male shuffle to get out of answering the real question. She could have pointed out that ghosts can’t smoke. She could have pointed out that he was already dead. Instead, she whispered, “Yes.”

The ever-present aroma of fresh cigarette smoke disappeared as if she’d snapped her fingers. The air pulsed with peppermint, a sharp, sweet, clean smell. Cameron had always chewed peppermints when he was somewhere he couldn’t smoke.

“I think I’m going crazy.”

“I love you, Max.”

God, how she ached for him.

The cat screeched, a hideous sound closer to that of a dying chicken than a hungry stray. Max puffed out a breath, then sucked it back in. Finally she pulled a saucer off the single shelf where she kept her one-place setting and put it on the sill. The cat didn’t wait for Max to fill the saucer before jumping to the ledge. It lapped at the stream straight from the milk carton.

“Poor buzzard,” Max murmured, the resemblance so close to her lost Louis, she itched to stroke him. She reached out a tentative hand.

“You’re going to fall in love with that animal.”

“This is the last time I’m feeding it.”

“No, it’s not.”

She rolled her lips between her teeth and held her breath, fingers only inches from the dull, matted fur.

“I trust him, Max.”

She jerked. “The cat?”

“The detective.”

“DeWitt Quentin Long?” Her voice rose to a squeak. Why bring him up again? She couldn’t follow Cameron’s thought patterns. “Why do you trust that guy, of all people?”

“It’s just a very strong feeling I have. He’s good for you.”

So, it was okay to be attracted to the detective, but not okay to have an attraction for Nicholas Drake. They weren’t even her own feelings anyway. Rising, she put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes in his general direction. “Please don’t tell me you’re match-making with Detective Long.”

“Merely using my intuition about him, darling.”

“Well, why don’t you just use that ghostly intuition to find Wendy’s killer? Maybe do a little eavesdropping, a little poking around in somebody else’s head.”

“You know I can’t do that, sweetheart.”

“Yeah, I know. You get so many feet away from me and lose your ethereal presence. You can only read my mind, invade my life, my house, my office, my car—”

“You sound bitter.”

She was. He’d been stolen from her with the twitch of a nervous finger on a trigger. She wasn’t bitter, however, that he’d stayed with her for two years. How much longer could she keep him? It didn’t bear questioning. “We were talking about Detective Long, and why you find him so utterly trustworthy.”

“He’s not stupid, Max. He checked that drawer. He knew the book wasn’t there yesterday.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not stupid, either, Cameron. I know someone planted it.” She tapped her fingers against her cheek. “Remy. He’s the only one who could have done it.”

“Or an ex-employee who still has a key?” Meaning Nick.

“You’re so transparent. No pun intended. Her killer could have stolen her keys from her purse. Remy let on she had a set.”

“We won’t know for sure who until we figure out why the book was tampered with.”

She shook her head lightly. “You know, something about that book bothers me. Maybe it was the fact that she used blue ballpoint for Nickie’s name. His name should have been written with something wild like cherry or fuchsia.”

“Maybe she was in a hurry, and blue was all she could find. One thing’s for sure. Wendy knew the person who killed her.”

“I never thought otherwise.” The hands around her throat had not been a stranger’s hands.

“Ask the detective if her keys were missing from her purse.”

“He’ll wonder why I’m so interested.”

“He knows you’re up to something anyway.”

Max snapped the milk carton closed and put it back in the fridge without answering.

“Tell him the truth, Max.”

“And what, exactly, is that?”

“Tell him you’re psychic. You and your powers will be irresistible.”

“Don’t play up to me. You’re still on my shit list. Oops.” She covered her mouth, muffling her next words. “Remy’s rule number whatever. I’ve gotta practice not swearing.”

“Come on, Max.

“What? My psychic abilities will bring the detective to his knees?”

“Yeah, baby, oh yeah.”

The impact of what she’d said suddenly hit her. The sexual impact. Dammit, that was not an image she should be having of the detective. She turned it back on Cameron. “Have you noticed how you always make what I say into something sexual?”

“Oh no, Max, you’re the one who does that all on your own.”

* * * * *

Max spent the rest of the evening calling the numbers she’d copied from Wendy Gregory’s appointment book. Disappointed, she hung up as soon as she got voicemail at each of the four numbers. Manicurist, hair stylist, psychiatrist, psychic reader. Instead of the big clue Max was sure she’d uncover, she learned Wendy Gregory was a high-maintenance woman. Somehow the image didn’t fit. Yet, facts were facts. Wendy was incredibly self-absorbed. Or searching for God-only-knew-what in the strangest places.

It was Max’s job to discover if that search somehow got Wendy killed.

She called United Airlines next. They had not had a flight back to Boise yesterday around the time Nicholas Drake was at the airport. It only confirmed that remembered fragment of the Wendy vision. Her lover had taken his kids to Boise for a visit, that was all.

So where had he been running to when she saw him at the airport? Or what had he been running from?

Once her head hit the pillow for the night, Max’s scheming brain wouldn’t shut down. She couldn’t fall asleep. Instead, she’d planned her frontal assault on Detective Long.

She used her lack of sleep as an excuse for why she was so ill-prepared to find Hal Gregory sitting in her chair when she entered her office the next morning.

Of course, she shouldn’t have known it was him.

She told herself the only reason she did was because he had the box of his wife’s personal effects on his lap. Yeah right. She got the same queer little quiver in her belly that she’d felt upon first meeting Remy. Wendy hadn’t been any more enamored of her husband than she was of her boss. No wonder she’d had an affair.

He held a ceramic coffee cup in his hand, logo side facing him. The words ‘No Fear’ stared up at him. Wendy’s motto, one she’d striven for, but never reached. The cup had been a reminder, a positive reinforcement, but more often an accusation.

This time, Max didn’t wonder how she knew.

Hal Gregory didn’t notice her in the doorway. Max could barely breath. The air pulsated with Cameron’s peppermints, her own perspiration, and Hal Gregory’s misery.

His legs were far too long for the height of her chair, the box bunched up against his chest. A skinny man with a hawkish nose and angular face. His hair, a light brown, was fine against his scalp. He looked to be in his early forties, a good fifteen or so years older than Wendy had been. Max couldn’t imagine Wendy, a woman of so many colors, with this pale shadow of a man.

In the next moment, Hal Gregory smashed his wife’s mug against the wood veneer of the desk, shattering the ceramic into a million irretrievable pieces.

Chapter Five

Max shrieked.

Hal Gregory’s gray eyes widened. The box slid slowly down his knees to the floor, somehow managed to land flat, its contents intact. Hal then rose to his full height.

Jeez, the guy was tall. A beanpole, with long, thin arms in a short-sleeved shirt. His bony hands ended in skeletal fingers, a gold wedding band on his left.

Max didn’t trust a man with long, skinny fingers. Unless he composed music or painted. She certainly couldn’t picture Hal Gregory making anything beautiful or colorful.

“I’m sorry I startled you.” Max smiled. Death made the need for polite, unnecessary introductions irrelevant. “I’ll get something to clean up that mug.”

Yesterday, she’d noted a brush and pan in the bathroom. She was back in two seconds flat, afraid he’d leave before she could ask him why he hadn’t reported his wife missing. She’d have to work up to it. Hitting him straight off with the question wasn’t an option if she didn’t want to blow her cover.

“I don’t know what came over me.” Voice grave and grating on her ears, Hal smoothed shards from the desk into his cupped hand.

“You’re upset. It’s understandable. Don’t cut yourself.”

She used the excuse to study his hands more closely. If Wendy had scratched him, it didn’t show.

“That’s generous, but you can’t begin to understand what I’m going through.” He dusted his hands over the waste basket and began scooping at the other end of Max’s desk.

Down on her haunches, brush and pan in hand, she stared up at him. “My husband was shot in a robbery. I know how you feel.”

She never told people about Cameron. Still, the circumstances were extraordinary. If she wanted something from Hal Gregory, she’d only get it if she put something on the line.

He drew back, his lips compressed. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

In a different situation, she’d have labeled him a dickhead. His wife, however, had just been murdered. If he wasn’t guilty of the crime himself, then he deserved to blow off a little steam.

“I’m not mouthing platitudes.” She spoke with her head down, pretending concentration on the mess he’d made. The harder she brushed, the deeper the shards ground into the carpet.

She heard him sigh, looked up to find he’d closed his eyes, leaned against the wall, and crossed his arms over his chest. The action wrinkled his blue-and-white striped shirt.

After a deep breath, he said, “Sorry, but I’m sick to death of all the pity.”

Max suspected the largest dose was self-inflicted.

As an apology, it sucked. But Max accepted it as a truce. Her knees creaked as she stood. “I’m sure it isn’t easy.”

Eyes open again, he pulled away from the wall, rested his hands on the back of her chair. “Hackett let me in.”

She hadn’t asked and didn’t know why Gregory needed to explain, but took it as a sign he’d eventually spill his guts.

“I’ve gone through all the drawers,” she said. “I think what’s in the box is everything.”

She dumped the contents of the dustpan in the trash and came within a foot of the man. He smelled, not badly, just a hint of sweat as if he’d spent a restless night, then skipped his morning shower.

He stepped back. “Sorry about the way I sounded. I’m preoccupied. I hope you’ll forgive me.” He nodded toward the ceramic dust still coating her desk.

“It wasn’t my mug, Mr. Gregory.”

He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing. The shadow cast by the overhead light gave the contours of his esophagus a lizard-like quality. The man radiated bad vibes.

She touched his arm and reeled him back in. She wasn’t done with him yet. “You must have been terribly shocked the night she didn’t come home.”

He looked down at her plain, short nails. “There was nothing my wife could do that would shock me, Mrs. Starr.”

So, Hackett had imparted her name.

God, what she would have given to be a fly on the wall during the conversation between the two men. It might have been tug-of-war, stiff politeness, or down-and-dirty knuckle grinding. The suspense was killing her.

Max wanted to push, wanted to know if Wendy had finally done something that shocked her husband. Maybe there was a motive for murder there. The lack of scratch marks on his hands didn’t deter her, but she didn’t know which questions would bring him around, which ones would turn him against her.

Time slipped away. He stepped around her to pick up the box of his wife’s belongings.

“After my husband died, I couldn’t talk to friends. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to strangers.” She knew Cameron would forgive her that lie. The truth was she hadn’t talked to anyone except him. Sutter Cahill might have understood, but Max hadn’t called her. “I’d like to invite you out for a drink.”

In mid-bend, Hal stopped, then straightened. A hand to his mouth, his jaw working back and forth as if grinding his teeth, he regarded her with an unreadable expression.

Unreadable, that was, until he spoke. “So tell me, how does it feel stepping into my dead wife’s shoes?”

The words slapped her in the face as if the man had read her mind. Her cheeks flamed. Hal Gregory’s anger was there in the white line of his mouth, the tense muscles of his cheeks, the narrowing of his distant gray eyes.

Before she could answer, he gave another non-apology. “There I go again. I’m no good with other people’s sympathy.”

Despite the placating words, the guy was pissed as hell. Pissed enough to kill his wife?

“I wasn’t good with other people, either.” She still wasn’t. “The offer stands if you need it.” She prayed he would because this disastrous interview hadn’t answered her main question: why hadn’t he reported his wife missing?

“I’ll call you here if I do.”

Max accepted, then pointed to a bushy spider plant, a multitude of babies hanging from its long fronds. “The plant was your wife’s, too.”

He stepped toward the lateral file closest to the desk. “How did she grow it with no window?” he murmured, then shook his head, as if his wife, and not the plant, had been the mystery in his life.

“Florescent lighting,” Max offered. “Plants love it.”

He turned to her suddenly. “You keep it. I’d kill it.”

Then he walked out.

Max wondered what else he might have killed.

* * * * *

In less than a day and a half, Max knew everything there was to know about Hackett’s Appliance Parts from ten different points of view, thanks to the copy machine—the now dead copy machine. Not a person walked into her office for a copy who didn’t offer an opinion on who had killed Wendy Gregory. It was the husband, a lover, the boss, the janitor, even Marvin, the copy repairman. By ten o’clock, when the copy machine finally choked on a glob of toner, she hadn’t learned a thing that brought her closer to finding the murderer, but she did know Hackett’s grapevine inside and out.

Peggy from Payables confirmed the whole office knew Wendy was having an affair with “somebody,” but no one knew who.

Theresa from the front counter said Wendy carried her planner everywhere. Of course, that was after Max accidentally-on-purpose let it slip she’d found the appointment book in the desk.

Archie from the warehouse thought Wendy acted strangely that last day. When Max pushed for more details, he’d shrugged.

It was a start. Not perfect. But more than she knew when she’d walked in the door.

But she wasn’t getting info without that copier, or rather, from the people who used it.

Max resorted to asking the counter girl’s help.

“The copier’s in your office. It’s your job to get it fixed.”

Theresa was anything but sweet sixteen. She dressed like a harlot. Her butt cheeks hung out of her short red skirt, and her skimpy shirt bared half her midriff. A shocking shade of crimson that a hooker would die for resurfaced her full lips, and her stiletto heels topped Max’s by two inches. Being out-heeled by a leggy teenager was not something Max appreciated.

Max’s smile was saccharine sweet. “Then I vote we move the copy machine out here so it’s everyone’s job.”

The suggestion was a calculated risk. What she wanted was a repairman, now. What she had was teenage attitude that needed nipping in the bud.

“No way will Remy let you put that copier in the bullpen.”

The bullpen was the store’s main office. It housed Susie, the fifty-five-year-old Accounts Receivable clerk, Peggy, the Payables girl, four 800-line guys, and two part-time sales girls, of which Theresa was one. With phones ringing, and the warehouse guys slamming through the swing doors every five minutes, the noise level was deafening. Remy Hackett liked his customers to see activity. Max figured what they encountered was total chaos.

And Theresa’s size-D breasts at the front counter. They were enough to make any self-respecting male come back for more. The Four Musketeers manning the 800-lines drooled.

The calls went unanswered as Theresa wriggled her little butt for her audience and responded to Max with superior disdain. “Remy locked the copier up so none of these lame brains”—she hooked a thumb over her shoulder—“could use it for personal stuff without asking. Remy’s real generous, but he doesn’t like to be used.”

Max wondered just how generous Remy was with Theresa. The girl had invoked his name at least six times in the course of the five-minute conversation. And Remy’s word was law.

“Well, Theresa, since you don’t appear to be included in the same category as those other lame brains, I’ll put you in charge of getting it fixed.”

“Remy’ll blow a gasket. He’s real particular about how things are done around here. The copier was Wendy’s job. And he’d like go totally postal if anyone else did it for her.”

“Postal?”

Theresa rolled her eyes as if Max should be included with the other lame brains. “You know, like ballistic, pissed, whacked. In fact, they had this huge blow-out the day—” Theresa did have the grace to blush at that point. “On Monday.”

Max raised her eyebrows. The day Wendy Gregory died. “Bit of an over-reaction, wouldn’t you say?”

The sarcasm went right over Theresa’s highlighted airhead. “Wendy was bouncing off the walls, you know. I’d never seen her like that before. Sort of freaked us all out. Remy especially. She was usually the little brown mouse type. But wow, that day she was like a lioness.” Theresa seemed at last to have found something admirable in Wendy.

“The copy machine?” Max prompted.

“Remy found out she hadn’t called Marvin. So, he dragged her into his office, slammed the door, and yelled up the ying-yang.”

Max wondered about Theresa’s level of exaggeration. “And then?”

“She opened the door and walked out. Then Remy had me call Marvin, the copy guy.” Her heavily mascaraed eyes were wide as if nothing of the kind had ever happened in the history of mankind. “And now she’s dead. So...I won’t touch that machine.” She shrugged her shoulders and pointed through the open door of Max’s office. “Maintenance number’s on the inside door.”

With that, she turned to wiggle her way past the salivating phone jerks to her spot at the front counter, leaving Max in a cloud of Poison perfume.

Damn, bested by a sixteen-year-old nymphet getting high-school work credits for her part-time act.

Max went back into her office, pulled the machine open, and wrote down the number on a lined yellow pad. She cajoled, pleaded, and begged. Marvin the copy machine repairman would arrive within the hour. His huffing and puffing said it was the best she’d get out of him. Max knew when to quit.

Fifteen minutes later the great man himself walked in to use the damn copier. Remy’s mustache twitched. He turned on her with a smile, one she didn’t trust. “It doesn’t work.”

Well, duh. Max kept the comment to herself. With everyone else, Max had their life story by the time they’d stacked their copies. Sometimes she trailed them out the door if she’d missed something. With Remy...she felt an immediate violation of her privacy. Why, the man didn’t even knock, just barged in because she had possession of his copy machine. How the hell had Wendy Gregory stood for it?

Unlike Theresa, Wendy had not idolized him.

The man wore a mask. He could charm the pants off you when he beamed and flay flesh from bone with the same mouth. Wendy had been privy to both sides. Max knew it for fact.

Max typed one more number into her computer, using the moment to bury her irrational reaction to him. “I called the repairman.”

“How long ago?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“When did he say he’d be here?”

“Within an hour.”

“He’s always late.” A vein bulged at Remy’s temple.

“I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.”

“Meanwhile, no one can get their work done.”

“You can use the fax. It has a copy function.”

“Inkjet smears when it gets wet.”

“We can recopy it once the machine’s fixed.”

“The efficiency of an office depends on its equipment.”

“I’ll let you know the moment Marvin gets here.”

“Call him back and tell him he’d better not be late.”

“If he’s one second late, I’ll call his cell.”

“I said now.”

Rule number something-or-other. This was a test. Remy Hackett stood with his feet apart, hands on hips, shoulders back, and gut sucked in.

Max thought of her reasons for taking this job. Step into Wendy Gregory’s life. Learn what made her tick. Catch her killer. Very simple goals.

Problem was she wanted Remy squashed like a worm beneath her heel, wanted it bad.

What would Wendy have done? Cameron’s voice was a breath of sanity in her ear.

Max didn’t wonder. She simply picked up the phone, punched in Marvin-the-copy-guy’s cell number and left a message. Remy stood guard over the copier until Max’s phone rang back.

“You rang, Ma’am?”

“I want to confirm you’d be here no later than an hour.”

“Forty-five minutes,” Remy interrupted, staring pointedly at his watch.

“Excuse me, Marvin, forty-five minutes from now.”

“I told you one hour.” The phone crackled.

“Just checking. Thank you, Marvin.” His cellular clipped off before she got the final word out. “He said he’ll be here.”

“And thank you, Max.” Remy gave her that smile again, the one that said you’ll never get the better of me, baby. “See how well we do together when you follow instructions?”

Her lip quivered with the effort it took not to snarl like a rabid dog. That, too, was how Wendy would have felt. Max knew it in her bones. Wendy had hated him.

Remy Hackett got perverse pleasure from knowing it.

He was the kind of man who’d enjoyed pushing buttons and watching people squirm. He’d have enjoyed beating Wendy down at every turn.

Max would make sure he didn’t get another moment of satisfaction. “By the way, I’ll need extra time at lunch.” She gave him her own especially smug smile. “The detective has some more questions for me.”

Remy’s eyebrows shot up. “For you? You didn’t know Wendy.”

“I suppose he thinks I’ll be unbiased.”

“You can do it after work.”

“He might think we’re impeding his investigation.”

Remy drummed his fingernails on the doorjamb, then narrowed his gaze. “Fine. You’ll stay late to make up the time.”

“Yes, sir.” Asshole.

With the doorway once again empty, phones rang in the bullpen and raunchy laughter drifted in through the warehouse doors. Max turned back to Wendy’s small, neat writing in the margin of the ledger she’d been studying.

“Why did you stay and even give that dickhead the time of day?” Max whispered aloud. She could make lots of assumptions about Wendy’s feelings, but none of them answered that question.

Chapter Six

Max sat across from Detective Long at a plastic picnic table outside a noisy, crowded Kentucky Fried Chicken situated on Fast Food Row. Burger King, Taco Bell, Round Table, and KFC covered the four major food groups, American, Mexican, Italian, and Southern. Since restaurant row was less than half a mile from the police department, Max had insisted they walk. Her high-heeled feet ached, but she hadn’t wanted to be alone in a car with the man.

He had a disconcerting effect on her, as if she’d danced with her best friend’s husband and felt a hard-on poking her hip. Did you or did you not mention it?

Besides, the sun was bright, the day was warm, and she’d needed to get the stink of the police station out of her head. The odor reminded her of an old folks’ home.

“I’m honored you invited me to lunch.” She also wanted to know exactly why the detective had done so.

She’d been politely and apologetically fingerprinted in a small room off a noisy hallway in the beaten-down police building not far from the airport. The traffic had been horrendous for a non-commute hour, and if Remy was true to his word—she never doubted that he would be—she’d be working very late tonight.

Knowing that, she’d accepted Long’s lunch offer. Not because she was charmed by that dimple either. She merely wanted whatever information she could wheedle out of him.

“Sorry you don’t have time for more than fast food.”

Detective Long had a cute, lopsided smile. It made him almost endearing, especially with that trickle of butter running down his chin which, at any moment, would land on the lapel of his rumpled suit. Max felt no compunction about letting it happen. Brown was not one of her favorite colors. Maybe he’d have to get a new one.

“You know, Detective, you really ought to wear pink.”

He looked at her dumbfounded, a faint flush rising in his cheeks. “Pink?”

She waved a hand. “Well, not pink-pink. More like a rose. Dusty rose. For the shirt, I mean. And a blue suit to go with it. A pink-and-blue striped tie would do the trick, I think.” Something fluttered through her stomach at the thought of dressing him, or undressing him, as the case may be. “Of course, if that’s too much for you, teal would do nicely.”

My, aren’t we color-conscious today? And all this from a woman who’s stuck in black and white. Cameron’s snide comment drifted through her mind.

At least he hadn’t connected the color thing with Wendy.

That was exactly my point, darling.

Max ignored him, broke off the tip of a chicken wing, then chewed on the crunchy end. “I love fried chicken. Of course, I’ll be sick as a dog tomorrow, but it sure tastes good.”

She hadn’t eaten like this since...God, since she was a teenager, and then she’d ended up with her finger down her throat to get rid of the stuff.

DeWitt Long didn’t say a word. And he was blushing. Could cops actually do that?

Max figured she’d stunned him and decided to give the conversation a jump-start. “So, Detective, I’m sure you don’t have time for a social visit.” She tried keeping her voice low, but with the whoosh of the cars along the curbside and the chatter of a multitude of office workers out for their nooners, Long had to lean closer and hold his hand up to his ear. She restated for him. “I said, why don’t you come clean on why you really asked me here?”

Gosh, he smelled good. Something musky and very male. Had he been wearing aftershave yesterday?

“Ma’am, you’re a helluva lot more direct than most people.”

“Well, Remy did tell me you’d try pumping me.”

The detective choked.

“For information, I mean.” Her explanation didn’t help. His face turned a dangerous beet red. She wondered if she should loosen his tie for him.

God, he really was choking! On a chicken bone. The Heimlich maneuver wasn’t her forte. She clapped him on the back and felt better when his eyes started to water and his breathing returned to normal. For a moment, Max thought he might actually be stifling a laugh.

He wiped at his eyes. “And what information exactly does he think I’ll pump out of you?”

She licked her thumb and index finger and noted that he was noticing the action. “Probably that you think he killed Wendy Gregory.”

A breeze ruffled his buzz cut like freshly mowed grass. “That what you think?”

What she thought wasn’t the point. What Detective Long knew was. “Don’t you guys always look at the husband first, not the employer?”

He shook his head. “Just who’s asking the questions here?”

They both still wore their sunglasses against the bright noon sun. Max was glad. Sunglasses hid all manner of intent. They also hid little white lies. “You’re in charge, Detective.”

Her stomach rolled ominously, but she wouldn’t waste the last bite before tossing the gnawed bone into the cardboard box. Across the street, the sun glinted off the windshield of a car and almost blinded her despite the dark of her shades. She blinked the spots away, and just as they cleared, she saw him in the window of Taco Bell.

The image was indistinct, but she knew. The man from the airport—Nicholas Drake. Watching her. A light changed and another wave of cars blazed past. In the brief break, he’d disappeared into the body of the restaurant. She was sure it was him. Positively. Maybe.

“What’s the matter? You’re pale. Like you’ve seen a ghost.”

She reached for a wet wipe. “Trust me, the last thing on earth that would unnerve me is a ghost.” Max squeaked as her empty butter packet fell into her lap. “You’re damn lucky that didn’t leave a mark on my black pants. I just had them cleaned.”

Cameron laughed from somewhere near the fully laden trash can.

“Pardon?”

“I was talking to myself, Detective.”

“Sure you’re all right?”

Get used to it, pal. She’s a weirdo. Even if she wants to jump your bones bad.

Max pursed her lips and kept her more choice comebacks to herself. “Look how clumsy I am. I swear I don’t touch a thing, it just happens. Okay, Detective, what did you want to ask me?”

“Need your help.”

A gaggle of high school girls twittered by. Max waited until they were gone. “I gave you my prints and Wendy’s appointment book. What more do you want?”

His lips curved ever so slightly, just at the corners, and she knew exactly what more he might want. Were detectives allowed to flirt like this? Except that it wasn’t flirting. It was...weird chemistry, or physics, same wavelength kind of stuff. Despite the heat of the sun, a shiver traveled her arms, and yes, there was that erotic bead of warmth between her legs.

“I mean,” she amended, “how can I help your investigation, Detective?”

He gave a white-toothed Dudley Do-Right smile that matched his Dudley Do-Right chin. The man was, however, anything but stupid and insipid. He knew he made her hot and uncomfortable, but at least he was gentlemanly enough not to mention it. “Advise me on everything. Every bit of gossip dropped around Hackett’s”

“You know gossip is usually stretched to fit the imagination, if not an out-and-out lie.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t act on anything you tell me without corroboration from another source.”

“I don’t get it. You’ve questioned everyone down there. What makes you think I’ll get any further than you?”

“You’re a helluva lot prettier.”

She laughed. “That doesn’t cut jack with Theresa, our sweet teenage...” She avoided using the word bimbo. It wasn’t polite. “You’d get more out of her than I’d ever want.”

He gave that lopsided grin again. “STDs aren’t what I’m looking for.”

“STDs?”

“Sexually Transmitted Diseases.”

Surprised he could say it without blushing, Max wagged her finger at him. “Very bad, Detective. Theresa is only sixteen.”

“Going on thirty-six.” He finally wiped the butter from his chin. It hadn’t made it to his suit. Too bad. He might have been forced to replace the brown with blue. Maybe he’d have asked her to help him with that, too.

Bad, bad girl.

As he balled the napkin in his big hands, he no longer smiled. “Help me. I haven’t got a damn thing to go on yet.”

“You’ve got Hal Gregory.”

He regarded her a moment before answering. “Anyone ever call you tenacious?”

“My husband calls me bullheaded.”

“Thought your husband was—”

“Dead? He is.” She wondered at the ease with which the word rolled off her lips, then stopped. Hey. “How did you know?”

Long shrugged unapologetically. “You were on file.”

A shudder passed over her shoulders. “You read everything?”

“Yeah. Sorry about what happened to your husband. And what his killers did to you—”

She smacked a hand on the plastic table. “Don’t.” The word came out more strident than she’d intended.

Max shuddered, trying to cover it with a shrug. God, did everyone know her dirty secrets? Or had Cameron had psychically nudged the man into asking simply to get her to talk about his death. And what came after they shot him.

Not even I’m that callous, my love.

She swallowed with difficulty. She should have known that. “What I meant was thanks for the condolences, but I’d prefer not to discuss it. Not any of it. Did you do your research before or after I gave you Wendy’s calendar?”

“Before. Right after you called.”

“Why yesterday’s game with calling me Miss?”

He smiled, neither contrite nor sheepish. “Cops enjoy a little push. Make a statement; wait for a reaction.”

“I feel like I’m being investigated.” It was a very uneasy feeling.

“You passed, for now, if that’s any consolation.”

“You mean my name’s not on your list of suspects, and asking me to help you isn’t some weird Columbo ploy?”

He cocked his head. “Did he do that kind of stuff?”

“You’re avoiding the question, Detective.”

“Call me Witt. Say you’ll help.”

The plea skittered across her flesh, made her quiver. Why did everything the man said have to seem sexual?

Because you’re hot for him.

She’d have liked to shake her finger, or worse, at Cameron. Instead she turned the tables on the detective. “Something’s going on here I don’t quite get. The police on TV never involve civilians like this.”

“Obviously you watch too much TV.” He held up his hands. “No ulterior motive here. Truth is, the longer a case goes on, the lower the odds of solving it. Cleared every case I’ve ever had. And I don’t intend for this killer to escape justice.”

Every victim deserves justice. Nice sentiment. She wondered if he really believed that or if it was some public service line they taught in cop school. “So what you’re saying between the lines is you can’t pin it on Hal Gregory.”

He shook his head, a slight smile creasing his face. He found her terminology amusing, she was sure. “His alibi is rock solid. For the time being. He was with the father of the victim during a three-hour window surrounding the ME’s—sorry, medical examiner’s—estimated time of death.”

“I know what an ME is.” TV was useful for some things. “What about Wendy’s mother, was she there, too?”

“Deceased. Died when the victim was born.”

The flat statement didn’t surprise her. In fact, she’d have been far more surprised if Witt had told her Wendy’s mother was alive. In many ways, she and Wendy were alike. Here was an example. Max had lost her mother when she was very young, eight years old. Then she’d gone to live with her uncle, and... “Okay,” she said, shaking off the suddenly bad thoughts, “so the husband’s got an alibi. What about motive?”

“Nothing concrete.”

This was where it got sticky. If Wendy had an affair, as Max was sure she had, then Hal Gregory had motive. Jealousy. Yet if Max said anything, then Witt would have a laundry list of questions like who, what, where, when, and how.

Which brought up Nicholas Drake.

Of course, the detective would wonder how the hell she knew this stuff. Instinct told her to keep the information to herself for now.

Or that was Wendy Gregory’s insistent voice inside her.

You’re hot for the detective. But she’s hot for the paperboy.

Cameron was right about Wendy’s emotions. A low level buzz flowed through her veins. She glanced at Taco Bell’s window. Nickie hadn’t returned. Later, if it was necessary, she’d consider telling the detective about him. Right now, there were a whole lot of other places to look.

Max went on the offensive. “I still don’t think you’re supposed to tell me all this stuff.”

“My lieutenant gives me a lotta latitude.”

“It sounds like information you’d want to keep to yourself to rule out copycats.”

Witt laughed outright, a deep-throated sound that vibrated in her chest. Gosh, he was damn cute when he laughed. “Gotta get you to stop watching TV. No multiple murder scenario here. She was bumped off by someone she knew.” Which was nothing new to Max. “And you want to help me find that person.”

The fact that he’d picked up on that so easily was enough to make her heart race . It wasn’t as if she’d done anything wrong, though. “What makes you think I want anything to do with this?”

“You called about the date book.”

“That was my civic duty.”

“Without a second thought, most people would have put it in the box of personal stuff for her husband to pick up.”

Max figured it was time to stop looking a gift horse in the mouth. He had information. She wanted it. What more could a girl ask for from an attractive detective, even if he did wear brown? “All right. We’ve got a deal. I’d look at Remy first. He’s not a middle-of-the-road kind of guy. They hate him or they love him. I looked through the personnel files. Did you know he’s terminated ten employees in three months?”

Witt’s blue eyes widened. “Terminated?”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re laughing at me.”

“Course not.” A car back-fired, Max leaned closer to hear him say, “Go on.”

She caught another subtle whiff of his enticing aftershave. Then she told him everything she’d learned that morning, except the affair part, none of which turned out to be news to the detective.

He drummed his fingers on the table. “Anything else?”

Damn. She was actually disappointed she hadn’t one-upped him with stuff she could tell him. “That’s all, folks.”

Skepticism was written all over his face. But Witt Long was a gentleman. He didn’t call her on it. Instead he gave her his card. Again. As if he thought she might have thrown out the other one. “Call me. Tell me whatever you find out. No matter how insignificant it seems.”

“Sure.”

“Don’t let me down.”

Max couldn’t see his eyes behind his dark glasses, and she was glad he couldn’t see behind hers. As it was, a telltale heat crept into her face. While it was sexual, it was also tinged with guilt. Still, he hadn’t mentioned Wendy’s keys or outright confirmed that the date book hadn’t been in the drawer when he’d checked. She felt justified in keeping a few things to herself.

At least she’d gotten something out of the whole deal—besides a really bad stomach ache—Hal Gregory had an alibi.

She’d chip away at it the first opportunity she got.

Chapter Seven

The opportunity came a lot sooner than she’d expected.

By the time she returned to Hackett’s, the copy machine was fixed, a bill lay on her desk, and Hal Gregory was on voicemail.

In an indirect way, he accepted her invitation for drinks. He was concerned about “developments.” He was “distraught” with the thought of staying at home another night when he should be out looking for his wife’s killer. He ended by asking Max to meet him so she could shower him with sympathy. Her words in his mouth, admittedly, but enough to tell her the man had another motive. That was okay. So did she, but the advantage was hers because Hal Gregory didn’t suspect her ulterior reasons.

Max smiled and called him back immediately.

She met him at her favorite hang-out, Billy Joe’s Western Round Up, at nine o’clock that night. It was Friday. The dance floor was a mass of bumping, grinding bodies as Brad Paisley ended his song about lost love on three big-screen TVs overhead. Max liked the Round Up. She liked the music, the noise, and the politeness of the California-suburban cowboys.

Cameron hated the place. And the men. He hated that Max sometimes needed to come here to— She cut off the thought. She had to concentrate here, not dwell on things that were best left alone.

Over the music and the laughter, Max couldn’t hear Hal and he couldn’t hear her. She moved in closer. “Sorry, guess a dance bar was a bad idea.”

She unbuttoned her jacket and hooked her heels over the rungs of her stool. She hadn’t bothered going home to change. She owned four black suits, six white shirts, five silk ties, all with a dash of red in them. She didn’t think Hal Gregory would appreciate the difference.

Besides, it wasn’t a date. It was a fishing expedition.

Hal shifted uncomfortably. “It’s a little difficult to talk in here.” He winced as Martina McBride hit a particularly high note. “Could I suggest somewhere else?”

He wasn’t at home in the down-and-dirty atmosphere. That was her point. He’d ordered a gin and tonic as cowboys tilted longnecks. His striped button-down and linen slacks flew in the face of the attire of choice: boots, jeans, and hat. He sat straight in his seat like he had a stick up his butt when slouching with elbows on the lacquered table tops was the regular mode.

Max stared at her Corona’s sizzling bubbles. “I don’t know you, and this place is a little less...threatening than somewhere quiet.” The objective was to get him off-balance, then swoop in with an apology and a comforting hand.

Hal Gregory fell for it, wrung his hands and sputtered an excuse. “I, uh, didn’t think of it from a woman’s point of view.”

She wondered if Hal had ever thought of anything from anyone else’s point of view, especially his wife’s. Her belly rumbled with...rage? No, nothing that strong. She couldn’t put her finger on it, as if Wendy had lived through her marriage with the mute button pressed.

Max brushed Hal’s thigh with her knee, then pulled back as if it had been an accident. “You sounded upset when you left that message.”

He stared at the dance floor a moment, then turned back. “I probably shouldn’t involve anyone in this. It’s my problem.”

“Involve me? In what?” She laid a hand on his arm, leaned closer so that the scent of her hastily donned perfume rose from her barely there cleavage. Sexual attraction was power. She’d use it on him without compunction. “I meant it when I said I was a good listener. There isn’t anything you’re going through right now that I didn’t feel at the time my husband died.”

His lips tensed and whitened. His nostrils flared. “Did they hold his body for days on end while they ran test after test?” Images of what the coroner would have done to Wendy Gregory’s body flashed across her mind before she could stop them. Then she thought of Cameron. Her stomach turned queasy. Autopsy. She hated thinking about that.

The bent of the conversation didn’t seem to affect Hal; he was on a roll. “Did they claim it was ‘evidence?’ No funeral, no end to it all. They won’t even let me have the car. It’s a crime scene.” He caught himself then, heard what his words sounded like, blanched. “Of course, I’d never drive it again. I’d sell it.”

Self-centered asshole or pissed as hell that his wife was having an affair? “Of course, you couldn’t bear to use it.”

“Exactly. You understand. I just want to get rid of it. The reminders, you know.” He touched her hand. Wendy’s skin shriveled. Max couldn’t define the emotions, but none of them felt like love.

“You’ll feel it’s over when they find her killer.”

“Is that when it was over for you, Max?”

Peppermints in the air. Cameron was near, his soft breath in her hair, the only thing that kept her sane while she answered Hal’s question with far less than the whole truth. “The police never found my husband’s killers.”

Most people would have offered sympathy. Not Hal Gregory. She wasn’t sure what she would have said if he had. “Killers?”

“Three men.”

“What happened?”

She saw it all, a mental Polaroid. Cameron amidst crushed bags of Doritos, broken jars of salsa, and a hole in his forehead. There hadn’t been all that much blood, but there should have been. That’s what she’d been thinking when the men had dragged her out of there. Such an odd thought at a time like that.

“A simple robbery.” Her hands were cold. Cameron blew warmth on them. Nothing had been simple since the evening they’d walked into that place to buy his last pack of cigarettes.

“I’m sorry.” Ah, finally the words, though she doubted Hal Gregory could even begin to understand.

She stuffed her memories back down and went on with her act. “I know it’s hard to believe, but with time...” Her words trailed off.

Not all things healed with time. And Cameron had never really left her.

Mired in his own pain, oblivious to hers, Hal laughed, a derisive, hollow sound. “I seriously doubt that trite phrase.” Softening the bitterness in his voice, he put his hand on top of hers and squeezed. “My wife was cheating on me.”

In her excitement, Max ruthlessly crushed all vestiges of self-pity. Motive. Just as she’d suspected, the man had known. She didn’t even worry about whether this was something she’d tell Detective Long. Right now, her only intention was to milk it for all it was worth.

Max let her eyelids fall. She sighed deeply, then shook her head. “Oh Hal, I’m so sorry.” Biting her lip, she then took a deep breath as if she’d suddenly come to a major decision. “I’ve never told anyone this before. I’ve always felt it was so...shameful.”

An avid light lit Hal’s eyes. “You don’t have to share your secrets.” But he begged her to with a press of his fingers.

“I want to, Hal.” The weepy tone, the near-tears sheen in her eyes, the earnest tremble of her lips—she deserved an Academy Award. If she didn’t puke first. “Cameron was...there’s no easy way to say it. He was a philanderer.”

God, she loved that word. Cameron, however, did not. A gust of wind ripped across the table and toppled her beer bottle. She caught it just in time.

“What the hell was that?”

“Sorry, I knocked the table with my knee.” Of course, it was bolted to the floor, and her leg was six inches from contact.

Hal Gregory actively molded her fingers with his slender, bony ones. His palm was damp. His body odor was off. The man had a nervous sweat. He was angling for something from her.

“Did you hurt yourself?”

Nah, I’m used to my dead husband knocking over my beer bottles. “Are you sure about your wife?”

Pain, then malice flickered in his gray eyes. “She acted oddly.”

“Oddly?”

“Manic. Up one minute, down the next, changing with a snap of my fingers.”

“Bouncing off the walls,” Max murmured, remembering Theresa’s description.

Dropping her hands, his fingers curled into fists, and his jaw tightened. She witnessed the same anger, maybe even despair, that had gripped him when he’d smashed Wendy’s mug. “How could she do that? I gave her everything, took care of everything, managed every aspect of her life for her, cared for her the way her father did. Even better. She didn’t have a worry in the world.”

Wendy’s father? What an odd statement for a husband to make. Perhaps that was the problem. Wendy had needed a husband; instead, she’d gotten another father. Max’s stomach muscles clenched, her chest hurt. Wendy cried inside her, and she knew she was on the right track. The things Hal wanted for his wife had never been the things Wendy wanted.

Unsure for the moment what benefits this discovery gave her, Max nudged Hal back to Wendy’s indiscretion. “It must have been horrible to find out she was having an affair.”

The dark look on his face said she didn’t know the half of it. “If I knew who it was, I could accept it and go on.” He looked away, down, then at the dance floor and finally back at Max.

It was coming, she knew. He’d ask her to spy for him. Max egged him on, all wide-eyed innocence. “How would that help you?”

His lips worked as if he searched for the right words. He was good, she’d give him that. Under different circumstances, she might have believed him.

She covered his hand on the table, told herself the touch was necessary. But...yuk. Inside, Wendy shuddered. “If there’s anything I can do...” The offer lingered.

He stared at their joined hands, his still a fist. “I believe it might have been someone she worked with. Wendy was a little introverted, and she didn’t go out much.”

“Someone at Hackett’s?” Wendy’s date book flashed across her mind. Nickie. Monday. The night Wendy died. Had Hal entered the name in ballpoint, then used Wendy’s keys to hide it in her desk after her death?

Maybe. But would he have known she called her lover Nickie?

“Perhaps if you hear anything,” Hal said. “People talk. I need to know. So I can move on.” Move on, go on, a repetitive phrasing he seemed to have practiced.

“Of course, I’ll help you. I know how you must feel.” She really didn’t want to know a thing about how this man felt. He creeped her out.

Pulling his hand away, he reached into his hip pocket, fished out his wallet. “My card. Call me. Leave a voicemail. I always check.” He slid the business card across the table. It was his work address and phone; Hal Gregory, Attorney at Law. A lawyer, she should have known. The only lawyer she’d ever respected was Cameron.

“And if there’s anything you need,” he added belatedly.

“How kind of you.” She put the card in the front pocket of her purse. “I’m taking a little trip to the ladies’ room. I’ll be right back.” She dragged her purse off the table and wound her way through the throng of people. Wendy had her stomach tied in knots.

In the bathroom, amidst chattering female voices, she splashed her face, then put her hands under the hot stream until the chill faded. She shouldn’t have touched him. Her skin felt clammy.

She wasn’t even close to cracking his alibi. But she had access to him now. That was a damn good start.

Leaving the restroom, she stopped a moment at the end of the passageway leading to the dance floor. Alone at their table on the other side of the bar, Hal stood out like a city-slicker in a Brooks Brothers suit. He grimaced when the DJ started the Macarena. Would the life cycle of that dance song never end?

“Get rid of him.” A voice right behind her, the man’s warm breath against her hair was sweet with peppermints. Like Cameron’s. The scent turned her inside out before it was eclipsed by an angry swirl of cigarette smoke despite the fact that Cameron said he’d quit.

She felt the guy at her back, his husky voice beating through her body as a fever raced across her skin. He rested warm hands on her hips beneath her jacket. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t speak. All she wanted to do was lean back until his erection nestled between her cheeks. She didn’t doubt he had one.

She knew who he was without turning around.

Nicholas Drake. Nickie of Monday night, Boise Flight 452, and the backseat of a nice, shiny new car. Wendy Gregory’s lover.

Quite possibly her killer.

Just what the hell was he doing at the Round Up watching her with the dead woman’s husband?

Chapter Eight

Dancing with Nicholas Drake was suicide.

“You’re holding me way too tight, Nickie.”

He didn’t let go. His thighs, molded to hers, robbed her of her objectivity. So did the hard-on wedged between their bodies. Yep, she’d been right about that. His scent, masculine soap and the lingering snap of mint, made her throat dry. The aromatic reminder of Cameron was an unfair advantage. The only saving grace was the knowledge that her reactions belonged to Wendy.

Undulating bodies bumped against them. Keith Urban sang a bone-melting ballad. Nicholas Drake’s hips did a slow slip-slide against her. The aroused ridge forced a shiver deep inside her.

To hell with cracking Hal Gregory’s alibi.

Max had gotten rid of Hal in three minutes flat. She’d patted her purse where she’d stowed his card, promised to call the moment she heard anything titillating, and vowed to herself to somehow get herself invited to Wendy’s funeral. Once the body was released.

It was a morbid ploy, but all was fair in flushing out a killer, even behaving in poor taste.

So bye-bye Hal, for now.

Then she’d ended up on the dance floor with Nick.

Her lower body deliciously vacuum-packed to his as they danced, Nick pulled back to stare down at her with pale blue eyes. “Why did you call me Nickie?”

“It was in Wendy’s planner. Monday night. 7:59 p.m. 452. I’m sure the police are looking for Nickie. I’m not sure they know who he is yet.”

Something flickered in his gaze. Fear? No, not from this man. More like a banked fire that would turn into a raging inferno with a moment’s notice. The bump in his nose from a long-ago break proved he’d lost control at least once. Volatility, however, did not make him a killer.

He ignored her implied threat, took their bodies together into a sweet dip as the song ended and another bump-n-rub, slow-dancing tune started. “And you just naturally associated the name with me, a man you saw at the airport?”

A man whose magnetism left her breathless even from a distance, his current proximity was driving her slowly insane. And yet...she seemed strangely detached, as if, while the physical sensations belonged to her, the emotions did not.

They most definitely belonged to Wendy.

But now wasn’t the time to analyze. Max forged ahead with her probing, trying to catch him off guard. “So you did notice me there? Don’t forget it was the long-term lot. And you were staring at the crime scene of a woman you...knew.”

His eyes narrowed. Again, he masked that quick flash of something.

“Then, of course, there was the Taco Bell two blocks from the police station.”

His lips smiled. The sentiment did not reach his pale eyes. “I thought you’d spotted me. You forgot that you’ve seen me outside of Hackett’s, too.”

She hadn’t noticed him, and the knowledge sent a shiver along her nerve endings. She didn’t mind being watched; she just wanted to know when it was being done. “Why have you been following me?”

“You’ve got me at a disadvantage, ma’am. I don’t even know your name.”

“You don’t need to know it. And you didn’t answer.”

“Why have you been following me?”

“On the contrary, I’ve been trailing Wendy.”

“She’s dead.” Cold, flat, angry, but not self-pitying like Hal.

“That’s why someone needs to speak for her, to tell everyone what happened that night.”

His arms tightened across her back. She almost bit her lip. There was great strength in those arms. Liquid heat stole through her extremities. God, she was melting.

You sound like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Vamoose! She didn’t need Cameron butting in. She was in total control.

Wasn’t she? Well, yes, except for the desire to drag Nick off the dance floor and have her wicked way with him in the backseat of a car parked at the far edge of the lot.

That part of it was all Wendy’s need. Despite what had happened to her in a backseat, she still wanted Nickie.

Instead of slipping her arms around his neck, Max clutched Nick’s hard biceps and the rough material of his shirt. He wasn’t dressed like the rest of the men in the bar. He wore work clothes much the same as he had at the airport. Denim shirt, worn jeans, and tan, beaten-up, steel-toed work boots. His features were lean with a masculine ruddiness, unlike colorless Hal. Nick was tall; even wearing heels, Max had to lean back to look in his face as he spoke.

Wendy had loved that sensation.

“And you think you know what happened?” he taunted.

“Only her killer knows for sure.”

Again, that mirthless smile, and a slight tightening of his muscles against her. “I take it you’ve decided I did it.”

“You were her lover.” Dying for confirmation, she stated instead of asked. Any sign of weakness on her part would give him the one-up.

“You think you know everything, don’t you?”

“I know enough, Nick. I was her friend.”

“Try again. Her husband didn’t allow Wendy to have friends.”

“You seem to know a lot about their marriage, Nickie.”

“Did you know she’d left him?”

Everything stopped inside her, the blood in her veins, the breath in her lungs, even the rush of sexual heat. “Did he know?”

A slow, knowing sneer spread across Nick’s face. “Like you, Hal Gregory thought he knew everything about Wendy.”

“But she surprised him?”

“I don’t think he quite knew how to take it. If he had, he’d never have let her out of the house that day.”

“This gives you motive, doesn’t it?”

“This gives Hal motive.”

She tipped her head to one side. “But Wendy made demands on you, didn’t she, Nickie?” It wasn’t even a guess.

“I know how to deal with a demanding woman.”

By killing her? “If you know all this, you’ve proven you saw her that last night.”

“It was you I saw that night.”

A chill spread over her skin. The crawling sensation along her neck and the flush of fear and shame on her skin were completely her own, nothing to do with Wendy. “What are you talking about?”

“I saw you.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

“No way.” She had been to the Round Up Monday night, but only briefly, then she’d left again. Alone. She had to admit she didn’t always leave alone. Once in awhile...God, she couldn’t ignore the overwhelming, unstoppable, unquenchable need to feel a real touch. She loved Cameron, she needed him, but his touch was only real when she closed her eyes and sometimes, she had to have it eyes wide open.

“I’ve seen you before. When I’ve come in for a drink with a few of the boys from Hackett’s.”

Max swallowed hard. She’d never noticed Nick at the Round Up. She’d certainly never noticed him watching her go for the conquest.

Her hands turned frigid. Her nipples shriveled inside her white cotton shirt. All her dirty little secrets seemed to be unraveling. First with Witt Long and what happened the night Cameron left her, now with this man and her...extra-curricular activities.

Max shrugged, feigning indifference. “I like to dance.”

“And you always leave with a different guy.” He tipped her left hand, looked down at the ring on her finger. “What does your husband think of that?”

Not always. He made it sound sordid. Okay, it was sordid, but even before the words were out of her mouth, she hated them. She didn’t need to explain. “He’s dead.”

God, how horribly easy it was becoming to say that word. The effortlessness scared the crap out of her.

Until death do you part. Though Cameron was dead, they’d never parted, but he could only love her in her dreams. Sometimes she ran to the Round Up to pretend it was him.

Liar. She ran to the Round Up to feel someone real.

Nick’s nostrils flared as he took in a breath, his lips twisted. “I’m sorry.”

She’d succeeded in surprising him. Damn him, she didn’t want a sympathetic glance from those pale, understanding eyes. “What did your wife think about your little affair?”

“I’m not married. Not anymore.”

“You were when it started. So was Wendy.”

“The state of my marriage doesn’t have a bearing on this.”

“Like hell it doesn’t.” She tossed her head when he glared down at her. “What about Wendy’s marriage?”

“Leaving that ass was the best thing she could have done.”

“Except that she got killed the night she did it.”

The slow thrum of music ended. The DJ picked up with a foot-stomping, line-dance beat. Still moving slowly, Nick’s arms wrapped around her, they were in the way.

He dragged her off the dance floor, keeping a tight hold on her wrist. Leaning close, his breath bathed her cheek. “If I take you home with me, do I get to know your name?”

“Bastard.” Max stumbled as she pulled back, tugging against his grip. “Let go of me.”

“Do you tell any of those guys your name?”

She jerked free. “Don’t ever put your hands on me again.”

“Only when you beg.”

She thought about slapping him, but he might have liked the challenge. She settled for a man-hating glare.

He spread his hands. “Hey, I thought you wanted to accuse me of murdering Wendy.”

“Did you kill her?” she snapped back.

“Why don’t you stick around and find out?”

Max grabbed her purse from the table where she’d left it. Stupid, someone could have ripped it off, and so engrossed with him, she’d never have seen. She backed away, unwilling to take her eyes off him in case he tried to grab her. “I don’t hang around with murderers after dark.”

“But do you sleep with them?”

Her skin turned alternately hot, then cold with his words.

He raised a brow. “No, I forgot. You only pick up urban cowboys. Much safer that way. Except for sexually transmitted diseases. But there’s condoms for that, isn’t there?”

Why did everyone keep bringing up—yeah, the detective—STDs with her? As if she wasn’t quite clean in some way.

That was probably exactly how Nick saw her. Unclean. Tainted. Diseased. He knew her secret. He knew her shame. He knew her. “Get away from me.”

“Till we meet again, Max Starr.” He’d known her name all along.

She’d totally lost control of the whole info-mode thing.

Her heart pounding, Max did something totally in conflict with her goal of finding Wendy’s killer.

She ran away.

* * * * *

“What does he want from me?” Max lay in her claw-foot tub, steam rising into the air, perfumed bubbles up to her chin, her handmade gardenia soap—one of her few indulgences—in the tray beside her. She’d turned the lights off, lit scented candles and lined them up along the tile wainscoting. The mixture of flowers and vanilla intoxicated her. So did the memory of Nicholas Drake’s hands on her body as he held her close, rubbing his cock against her. She was sure Wendy Gregory was somehow influencing her.

“Sex,” Cameron said.

“What?”

“He wants sex.”

“I’m serious. He has ulterior motives.”

“I’m serious, too. I think you should give it to him.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“Why? You give it to every other Tom, Dick, and Harry that can dance the pants off you.”

“That’s really a low blow.” Nor was it true. It wasn’t every Tom, Dick, and Harry. It wasn’t even that often. Why couldn’t he understand that sometimes she just had to get out or...die?

She was glad when Cameron didn’t seem to hear the thought, or at least ignored it. He merely went on needling her about Nick. He was just dying to pick a fight. “You want him bad, sweetheart. I know all your little signals.”

“Stop it.”

“The dreamy, half-closed lids. The quickened breath. The hardened nipples. The sweet little moan in your throat.”

“I didn’t moan.”

“Don’t deny it. You’re wet, and you’re hot, baby. I can feel it. And this time it’s not for the macho detective.” The water swirled gently around her.

She slapped the gardenia bubbles as if he were next to her. “What do you expect? Of course, I’m hot and wet. I’m in a steaming bath.”

“Why didn’t you just fuck his brains out the way you’ve been fantasizing for the last fifteen minutes? He was offering.”

“Hey.” She sat up, water and bubbles streaming down her breasts. “You know damn well that was all about Wendy’s emotions.”

“Sex. That’s what it’s all about, what it was always about. Even with me. You always called it sex, Max, never making love.”

Her body chilled in the steamy bathroom. She couldn’t deny his accusations, but nor could she answer them. “Where is all this coming from? Why are you so angry?”

“Did we ever make love, Max?” His voice was a whisper in the air, soft as a teardrop on her cheek.

She closed her eyes, breathed deep. “Of course we did.”

“Then how can having sex with strangers replace what we had?”

It couldn’t. It never had. It only kept her warm for a little while. The way it had before she’d ever met Cameron. She’d never had a relationship before him, just...casual sex. She’d given all that up for him. He left her anyway, even if it wasn’t his fault.

“A woman has needs,” she whispered. The need to feel flesh-and-blood arms around her.

His answering murmur reached inside her, tore her heart out. “You need a real man for that, Max, not a fleeting encounter with some useless gigolo you meet only in the dark. Someone you can wake up and face in the morning. Someone who loves you back.”

“I’ve already had that.” She couldn’t bear to let him go. She couldn’t bear to even the contemplate that kind of loss ever again. She wouldn’t survive it a second time.

“I never meant for you to stop living your life, baby. I only stayed to protect you. Because I thought those bastards would kill you that night, too, if I didn’t watch over you.”

“I don’t want to talk about that.” She was cold, so cold, despite the heat of the water.

“I only stayed afterward to help you get over what they’d done to you, what you watched them do to me.”

“Please don’t,” she whispered. “Not another word.” First the detective. Now Cameron was reminding her all over again. Twice in two days was more than she could handle. She stood, grabbed a towel to cover herself, and resisted the urge to clamp her hands to her ears. Been there, done that. Right now she needed control.

“I’d have thought picking up guys in bars would terrify you after what my murderers did to you. How can you bear to have strangers touch you now?”

“I’m not discussing this with you.”

“You’re burying yourself with those barflies, hiding what you really feel. But you can’t hide from it forever. You’re going to explode, and God help me, Max, I’m afraid what will happen when you do. I’m afraid you won’t be able to live with what you’ve turned yourself into.”

“Get the hell out of my head, Cameron. Please.” The words hurt her throat and all she wanted to do was hunker down in a tiny ball. Hiding from everything he said.

Cameron ignored her strangled voice. “It’s not like this is anything new to you. It’s how I found you, what you’ve always done under stress. Isolation by shutting off your emotions and fucking men whose names you don’t even ask.”

She could not take one more moment of it without breaking into a million tiny pieces. “I said get out.” Her voice was a shriek in the quiet of the night, the sheer out-of-control quality of it almost frightening. Steaming water lapped at her legs. She shivered anyway.

“I’m sorry, baby, so sorry.” His whisper faded away into the darkened bedroom, leaving behind only the scent of peppermints, vanilla, and gardenias.

The mixed aromas turned her stomach. His words made her sick. She made herself want to vomit.

Dropping the towel on the tile floor, Max slid back down into the water, slipped beneath the surface where she tried desperately to drown every memory of the night Cameron died.

Chapter Nine

“You stupid cunt.” The male tone was almost casual, devoid of anger, pain, and love.

Max dreamed, knew it was Wendy’s dream, but fell slave to it even so. Terror lodged in her chest.

“You’re a sniveling, whining, good-for-nothing slut.”

Max, as Wendy, sat back on her knees on the hard cement. She wore a green-and-black striped wool skirt with suspenders made of the same rough material. The childish outfit was a favorite. She wore it like a talisman against evil.

Today, it had failed.

The giant towered over her, faceless, soulless, and pointed his index finger in her face, his other huge hand curled into a fist, the ruby stone of his class ring winking. He’d given her a black eye with that fist on more than one occasion.

“You drop your panties for any scumbag who promises to watch over you, protect you, and steal you away from me. You’re stupid, you’re weak, and you couldn’t live without a man to take care of you, you little whore. Tell me who the cocksucker is.”

She listened, a woman trapped in a child’s body, a child’s nightmare. God help her, she believed. But she didn’t give him a name.

His fist rose, ready to strike. She buried her face in her hands, took the blow on her ear. Fire burned across her skull. Shooting stars flashed in front of her eyes. Bells clanged inside her head. When she looked at him again, she was deaf. His lips moved, she heard nothing. A generous gift from a God that had suddenly remembered her after years of desertion.

In the blink of an eye, Max stood across the darkened garage, apart from Wendy who still huddled on the concrete, her shoulders shaking with silent tears. In shadow, the monster loomed over her, fist clenched for another strike.

“You want this,” the monster said. “You need this. You must have my punishment in order to feel whole again.” And Max felt the monster’s sick sense of pleasure and anticipation.

Wendy turned, the woman and the child all rolled into one portrait, a beam of heavenly light illuminating her face, just before the fist pummeled her head.

Max woke. Sweat drenched the bed sheets. An acrid scent rose from her skin. She lay curled in a cramped ball, her arms covering her head, as if anticipating the next blow.

She wiped the wetness from her cheeks. Wendy’s tears. Max didn’t know how to cry.

Was it a vision or a disjointed dream? She didn’t know. Usually she could ask Cameron. Not tonight. His peppermints hung in the stale air, but she didn’t call out to him. It wasn’t anger that kept her quiet. It was fear. She’d rather endure the visions than give him another opening into that long ago night he died, or to the things she’d felt tonight while dancing with Nick.

They’d had fights when Cameron was alive, both of them too stubborn to end it before it escalated into a screaming match. Back then, he’d disappear for a day or two. But he’d always come home. With flowers. Or her favorite mocha.

He hadn’t left her again since the day he died.

His apology was a far off echo she had to ignore.

She didn’t want to talk about how the dream, while she knew it was Wendy’s memory, was also a statement about her own behavior. She was the slut being punished, for all the men, all the amoral desires.

Unfurling, she sat up, pulled her feet beneath her, then stretched across the bed to push up the window. Over-painting had made the slide stiff. She yanked, and it rose with a start, toppling her over onto her hip. She lay there, the night air gently caressing her.

She imagined it was Cameron. She knew he’d come to her in a sweet dream if she wanted, wash away the nightmare, wash away the earlier argument.

She also knew that afterward, he’d want to talk about...everything. And that she couldn’t bear.

Something soft rubbed against her face, and a purr vibrated near her ear. “Buzzard,” she whispered.

The cat pushed its nose against hers, rubbed its sleek face across her cheek, staked its claim of ownership, then flopped on the bed, warm fur pressed to her belly.

Max let it stay, just for the night, and fell asleep with the comforting warmth of something alive tucked close to her body. The scent of peppermint drifted in through the window.

She remembered the ring the moment before sleep claimed her.

A ruby ring. Like the one Remy Hackett wore.

* * * * *

Cameron didn’t talk to her all weekend. She didn’t talk to herself either.

By Sunday night, alone in her too-narrow bed with nothing more than Buzzard the cat, she was going mad.

“I’m sorry, Max.”

Weren’t cats supposed to hiss a warning when there was a ghost around? Buzzard had neither raised his head nor opened his eyes. “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” she whispered.

“You thought that was a bullshit movie line when I was alive. You sure as hell don’t believe it now that I’m dead.”

“Have it your way. But that was Friday night, Cameron. You don’t need to apologize. Let it go.” She wished she could.

“Status quo, huh, Maxi?” he murmured, then left it alone the way she wanted him to. “Wanna talk about the vision?”

The vision? For a moment, she hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. Oh yeah, the Wendy dream. She’d begun to think of it as one of her own, not a vision, not some dead woman’s memory, but her own personal nightmare inspired by her actions over countless nights for two years, the needs she couldn’t control.

There were, however, parts of it that were undeniably Wendy. And someone else. She could almost feel the cold, hard concrete floor beneath her knees and the fist against her ear. Then, quickly, the physical sensation of hurling that blow, consumed with the need to hurt, humiliate, and control, the almost sexual thrill of it and the swift stab of pleasure when the fist connected.

Both themes sickened her. Power over weakness. In one way she was the abused, in another, the abuser.

“I figured it out,” she murmured into the dark.

“You said you forgave me.”

“I do.” She would always forgive him. It was herself she wasn’t so sure about.

“You don’t sound like you mean it,” he singsonged.

“Nag, nag, nag.” She had to fight the smile wanting to rise to her lips. He was here. That’s all that mattered.

His laughter swirled. “Okay, now you sound like yourself again. So tell me about the dream.”

“You’ve already read my mind.” She prayed he hadn’t read any of her emotions concerning the nightmare.

“I know all about your emotions.”

“Then you know I don’t want to talk about them.”

She was the bad girl, a very bad girl. She knew it. Cameron knew it. That’s why he’d made those awful, sarcastic, cruel but very true comments on Friday night. She deserved the punishment.

His warmth surrounded her as his words filled her head. “But I was talking about the substitution of sex with strangers for intimacy. I was talking about why you do that, not about punishment.”

“Please, Cameron, not tonight. Please don’t start this again tonight.” It was the closest she’d come to begging for anything in...maybe forever.

“What do you want to beg for?”

She wanted to beg for him to be alive.

“I’m as alive as you make me. Take off your T-shirt.”

There was experiencing a real, physical touch. And then there was feeling a real man’s touch, even if he was dead. God, the truth was she craved both equally. Still, she didn’t move.

“Take it off,” he insisted with a beguiling heat in his voice.

She wanted touch, his touch. Sitting up, she disturbed the cat cuddled against her. It stared at her with wide yellow eyes, then jumped from the bed to the sill and finally to a branch outside.

Peeling the shirt off felt like rubbing silk against her breasts. She flopped back against the mattress and closed her eyes before he told her to.

“I’m going to lick your breasts.”

Her nipples peaked inside his warm wet mouth. The nice thing about an ethereal lover was that they could be everywhere at once. His tongue captured both breasts and the burgeoning button of her clit all at the same time. She arched on the bed.

“Moan for me, baby.” The other nice thing was that he didn’t have to stop sucking on her when he talked.

Max moaned loudly. A pearl of heat and moisture beaded between her legs. She put her hands there to intensify the sensation, to make him tongue her harder, faster.

Then he took his mouth away. “I don’t want you to come too soon.”

“But you can make me come over and over.”

“No. Just once.”

“But I want more.”

He whispered a kiss, scented with her tangy juices, across her lips. “It’ll be so much better because you had to wait for it. Now roll over.”

“Roll over?”

“I’m going to kiss your back. All over. Remember how you loved that?”

Her back was an erogenous zone. His tongue would tickle, and she would writhe. She’d always come the quickest with his kiss on her back, a hand shoved beneath her, a finger sliding across her clit, and a deep thrust hitting home between her legs.

She rolled over. First came the light caress of his lips, from her shoulder blades to the base of her spine. Moisture creamed the inside of her thighs. She rolled her hips against the mattress.

Then came the tongue. He lapped at the indentation of every vertebrae. He reached beneath and pinched her nipples. He gave her clitoris a swipe. He was everywhere. Trembling, she raised her butt and spread her legs slightly, inviting his penetration doggie style. He continued kissing, licking, sucking every bit of flesh, his chest a hairy mat rubbing against her. She wriggled, but it earned her only the blunt tip of his cock massaging between the wet folds, not the penetration she craved.

The pressure was intense, yet still building.

“Finger yourself,” he commanded, feathering delicious light kisses all over her back.

“I want you inside me.”

“I’ll stop if you don’t finger yourself. I want to watch.”

She’d die if he stopped, so she shoved her hand between her legs and found her clitoris. She rubbed, her body moved, humping her hand as if it was his cock.

“God, it turns me on watching you.”

She pretended to herself that he could really see. With her eyes closed, she imagined the feverish light sparking in his. She reached inside, coated her fingers and went back to her clit. So slippery, so delicious, so incredible, especially knowing that he watched and liked what he saw.

She felt him slide beneath, the rush of warmth as he blew hot air on her hot body, on her hot, hot clit. While she toyed with herself, he stuck a finger up inside her, then two, and massaged her canal.

“Oh my God,” she gasped. “Oh my God, I’m going to come.”

He immediately pulled out. “Don’t you dare.”

“Oh God.”

“I said don’t come. Stop touching yourself.”

She felt him jerk her fingers away, and the come hovered on the edge of the horizon. “Please. Tongue me. Fuck me. Anything.”

He rose behind her. As she’d played with herself, she’d risen to her knees, her butt high in the air. Now, he soaked his cock in her juices, rubbed between her cheeks, then nudged her rear entry.

“What are you doing?”

“I want to fuck you in the ass until you scream.”

She froze. “No,” she said.

“Yes,” he countered.

“It’ll hurt.”

“But you said you deserved punishment.”

“Yes—I—no.” He had her so hot, she couldn’t think.

Then he changed his tone, cajoled. “It won’t hurt, baby. That’s the nice thing about being a ghost. You don’t need condoms and you don’t need lube.”

“But...”

“I’ll let you come only if I get to fuck you in the ass.”

Her body wept. She was a mass of sensation from head to toe. Her clit throbbed. Her muscles twitched with need. The tip of his cock breached her, then a finger rubbed, once, twice, across her clitoris. She bore down on the touch, accidentally taking a tiny bit more of his cock.

“That’s all you get if you don’t let me fuck you in the ass.”

“I can give myself my own orgasm,” she said, still fighting him.

“It won’t be as sweet.”

She needed that extra sweetness. She’d do anything he asked to get it. “Just do it then. Please.”

He laughed close to her ear. Triumphant. Excited by his mastery of her will. He eased in another inch. She felt filled, stretched, pushed beyond some limit that wasn’t physical. He was right; there was no pain. She pushed a little harder, taking more. He hunched over her, slid a finger over her clit, two more inside her, then he thrust deeply.

She almost screamed, as if he’d ripped her in half. Yet still, there was no pain. He rocked against her, the bushy hair at the base of his shaft tickling her. She pushed back.

And finally, after two years, she felt all those empty spaces inside her filling up. A bubble of tension built in her clitoris, inside her channel, even at the nerve endings he penetrated with his cock. He moved faster, harder, and plunged deeper, his testicles slapping against her butt.

“Is it good, Max?”

She moaned and went down on her elbows to give him a better angle. He rammed deeply, infiltrating the hollow places inside her. She’d never thought she’d like this, she thought she’d hate it. So undignified, so violating. Yet she loved it. She needed it.

She hit her orgasm at precisely that moment, splintering into a million pieces, coming endlessly as he continued to pound into her. His taking was relentless, fingers and cock draining every last sip of cream from her. Her knees and elbows gave out, and she flopped to the mattress with him still inside her. Not wanting to lose the sense of weight on her, she didn’t open her eyes. His breath sawed against her ear, then finally slowed to a gentle puff.

“Why did you do that?” she whispered so softly it was almost her mind to his.

“You liked it.”

“I’m not sure I did.”

“You loved it.” He shifted, his hairy chest scratching, tingling nerves up and down her back. She could go at him again.

“Are you sure you weren’t just punishing me for...everything,” she asked. Though it hadn’t felt like punishment at all.

“That was true intimacy, Max. You trusting me. You can’t have that with strangers.” His words whispered away in the dark, pierced her heart.

His weight was suddenly unbearable. She tried to roll him off, but she was too boneless to move. “So that was some sort of object lesson?”

“Let’s call it a pleasure lesson.” Smugness seeped through.

“I think you enjoyed making me do what you wanted. I wouldn’t let you do it when you were alive, so you figured you could trick me into doing it now.”

“If I’d really tried, I could have gotten you to beg me for it even when I was alive, Max, and you know it.”

“Not.” Yes. Of course.

But while he might have meant to teach her a lesson about intimacy, she’d learned something else entirely.

Cameron had just one-upped her by getting her to do the one thing she’d always refused, by making her love it. And by proving only a dead man could give her what she needed.

That was its own form of punishment.

Chapter Ten

She slid her new key to Hackett’s into the lock. Monday morning and a new week was almost like a new life, if you really thought about it. She’d put the weekend behind her.

It was early, a little after six-thirty. The lights weren’t on, and the front office was empty. She moved quietly down the hall with only the fire exit light for illumination. Max wasn’t sure what she’d find out by arriving before everyone else. But Wendy used to get in early, too. Real early.

Trying the door of Remy’s office, she found it locked. Jimmying was out. She needed the job, and she figured Remy would hate B&E more than he hated smoking, swearing, and lying.

“What are you looking for?” Cameron sounded normal. A little mystified, a little peeved, a little sarcastic. In other words, normal. They were both going to pretend last night—and Friday night, for that matter—hadn’t happened.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” she muttered. “Maybe I’ll know it when I see it.”

She tapped a finger against her lips as she walked back down the hall to her office. “Something else occurs to me. The more I think about it, the more I conclude that we missed an important detail concerning Nick Drake.”

“I didn’t miss anything about the man.”

She ignored his snide tone. “I think he was trying to tell me that I was his alibi. He saw me at Billy Joe’s Monday night.” She took a deep breath, hoping Cameron wouldn’t once again pounce on the reasons why she’d been at the Round Up on Monday.

“Timing?”

Ah, he’d let it pass. “Witt said Wendy died around ten.”

A moment of silence, then, “Witt never gave you a time.”

“He did. Sort of. He said Hal was with the victim’s father during a three-hour window surrounding the ME’s estimated time of death at ten.” She unlocked her door, turned on the light.

“Except you added the time.”

“She died at ten o’clock, okay? Do you have to question everything?” Yet that was normal, familiar, almost comforting.

“You live in denial of your talents.”

She was quite happy that way, too.

Wendy’s plant drooped sadly on the lateral file. “Oh, would you look at that?” She lifted the limp fronds.

“Why don’t you tell me about this alibi?”

“I was trying to tell you”—before he got on her case—“I was at Billy Joe’s from approximately nine-thirty until a little before eleven. So despite what Nick thinks, that still gives him time to kill Wendy and get there to see me before I left.”

“Jury’s still out on Nick then, huh? If logic prevails.”

She ignored the dig. “Wendy might not believe he did it, but I require proof.”

Cameron snorted. “So what do we have here? Remy wears a ring similar to one you saw in a dream—”

“I’ve got to get a better look at that ring.”

“And Nick implies you’re his alibi for the time Wendy died. Let’s face it, sweetheart, we haven’t got a shitload of useful evidence in all this. Even if the ring is exactly the same, what the hell does it prove?”

“It proves Remy beat her at one time or another.”

“It only says that someone wearing a ring exactly like his was in your dream. Because you never saw a face, did you, Max?”

Dammit, no, she hadn’t seen a face. In addition, while she didn’t like Remy, she hadn’t picked up quite the same level of malevolence from him that she’d sensed in the bad man of her dream.

Max headed to the tiny lunchroom, flipping light switches as she went. In minutes, the rich aroma of brewing coffee filled the area. Her stomach growled appreciatively. She filled another pot with water and returned to hydrate Wendy’s thirsty plant.

With liquid and light, it perked up in minutes. Its death would have been a bad omen.

“What am I doing wrong, Cameron? Why can’t I figure this all out?”

“Are you talking to yourself, Max?”

She jumped. Water from the half-full pot splashed all over her black suede shoes and the legs of her slacks. “Jesus Christ, you scared me, Mr. Hackett.”

“Call me Remy. And please don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”

She passed a hand across her brow. Jesus Christ was bad. Screw was okay. All right. Fine. She’d get the hang of it.

“I’m sorry. I forgot myself for a moment.” Dickhead. She enjoyed the word, even if it was only in her mind. “Well, now that my heart rate is back to normal...” She fanned herself. “I was just thinking what a nice class ring you have. Rubies are one of my favorite stones. May I see it a little more closely?”

Her approach certainly lacked finesse, but Max was past caring. Cameron laughed from somewhere in the breakroom. He’d undoubtedly gotten high on the scent of fresh coffee. Or he’d sneaked a cigarette.

Remy held out his hand. Max refused to actually touch his fingers. “It’s not a ruby,” he said. “I preferred a garnet.”

Max saw that now. Damn. The stone was not the bright, eye-catching red of the gem in her dream. Remy’s was rustier in color. She hadn’t seen the dream ring closely enough to notice other contrasts, but Remy wore his on the pinkie, whereas the monster in Wendy’s vision wore it on the fourth finger.

“Quite diaphanous, don’t you think?”

Diaphanous. She wasn’t sure he’d used the word correctly. Then again, she wasn’t sure he hadn’t.

“It’s very nice.” She stepped back, catching Remy’s speculative look. All she could do was throw him her best ditsy, dumb-blonde smile. Even if she wasn’t blond.

“You’re in early, Max.” He stood in the doorway of her office. Somehow, she felt trapped.

She spread her hands. “An accountant’s work is never done.”

“I’ve asked. No one admits making that call to your agency.”

Max turned, fluffed the fronds of Wendy’s spider plant. “Oh well, must have been a ghost.”

He made a sound halfway between a laugh and a snort. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

From the breakroom, there was a crash, then the sound of something heavy smashing on the linoleum tile floor, then more crashes, in rapid succession. Remy jerked, turned, then half-ran, half-skipped across the bullpen, with Max fast on his heels.

Cameron was calling attention to himself again.

Remy stopped two feet into the coffee room. Max almost slammed into his back. Sidestepping around him, she shook her head as she gazed at Cameron’s mélange of broken crockery. He’d knocked the entire rack of mugs off the wall. Of the twelve they’d started with, only four survived.

“What a mess. I’ll clean it up. I already know where the broom is.” Max turned and stopped dead.

Remy’s face flamed red. “I-I-I—” he stammered, never making it past the pronoun.

Remy Hackett looked as if he’d seen a ghost.

What had Cameron done to him while her back was turned?

Not a damn thing, I swear. On a stack of Bibles.

“Remy?” She thought about waving a hand in his face or snapping her fingers. “Mr. Hackett?”

He took a deep, gulping breath, then continued with their conversation as if nothing had happened. “As I was saying before we were interrupted, because you see, I hadn’t actually finished my sentence, and what I meant to say was that I don’t believe in ghosts per se, but I’m sure in some metaphysical sense there’s always the possibility that they coexist with us on some alternate plane—” He stopped abruptly and stared at Max.

She stared back at him with eyes that felt as round as saucers. “What are you talking about?”

Remy laughed. A self-conscious, artificial sound that raised goose bumps on her arms. “Oh, nothing. Silly.”

Whatever. He was a strange one. “I’ll clean up, then bring you a cup of coffee,” she offered.

“Yes. Good idea.”

He turned on his heel and left the room.

She could only stare after him.

“Catching flies?” Cameron blew in her ear.

She snapped her mouth shut, then she shook her head back and forth. “That was undoubtedly the strangest thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life. And I’ve seen a helluva lot.”

“He told a lie,” Cameron whispered.

She blew a rude noise through her lips. “About not believing in ghosts? Yeah, right.”

“He definitely believes.”

“Well, I suppose seeing a ghost, especially one as scary as you, is enough to make anyone a little wonky.”

“You don’t get it. He couldn’t see me. I didn’t make him wonky. It was the lie.”

“Oh for God’s sake.”

“It’s his Achilles Heel, Maxi. Milk it for all it’s worth.” With that, he left, in a swirl of peppermint, coffee, and sudden silence.

Max tipped her head, considering. Cameron was right. They’d caught Remy in a lie. Even if it was a strange, incomprehensible lie, one not even worth telling in the first place.

But just how did Cameron expect her to milk it for all it was worth?

“Yeah right, make a mess and leave me to clean it up.” She forgot to yell at him for calling her Maxi.

Chapter Eleven

Lilah Bloom, nail technician extraordinaire, sat on a raised, red brick dais in the window of the Hair Hunters Salon on Main Street, three blocks down from Billy Joe’s Western Round Up. In her early thirties, Lilah was a throwback to an earlier time. Her red hair beehived to the amazing height of at least six inches, purple and black tortoise shell glasses framed her eyes with sixties-era cat’s-eye rims, and her hot pink plastic earrings curlicued to her shoulders. She looked like fallout from a nuclear bomb scare. Sitting across from her, Max was afraid she’d either get radiation poisoning or die from overexposure to polish remover.

Lilah buffed Max’s thumbnail with stubby, plump fingers painted a sparkly fluorescent pink as if Minnie Mouse had gone mad with a psychedelic nail job. “So you were a friend of Wendy’s?”

“Yes,” Max answered. It was six o’clock on Monday evening, and the seven stylist chairs in the salon were filled. The small shop resonated with the sound of blow dryers, laughter, and ringing phones. Perm solution polluted the air. A harried, young woman sat on a chair in the waiting area, hissing “no” at the small child beside her.

Seated next to the window and huddled over the manicurist’s table, with the cacophony around them acting almost as a cocoon, Max probed. “It’s just terrible what happened to her.”

Other than a slight raising of one plucked eyebrow, Lilah ignored the statement and tugged on Max’s fingers. “Relax. Just let your hand go limp. That’s better. You’ve never had your nails done before, have you?”

“No. But Wendy had beautiful nails. I know that doesn’t sound like a good reason for calling you, but—”

Lilah cut Max off. “Wendy could never relax her hands. She’d start talking, and before you knew it, her fingers were all tensed up. I had to shake her.”

Max quit trying to explain why she was there. Lilah didn’t care. “What did she talk about that got her so upset?”

“Work, home, you name it. She hated her marriage. She hated her job. I’m a real good listener. I think I was like her mother-confessor or something.” Lilah filed and shaped Max’s blunt nails, squaring them off. “I felt sorry for her, you know. She didn’t have any friends, like that husband kept a leash on her or something, always approving and disapproving whatever she did.”

So that’s how Hal had “taken care” of her. Max felt Wendy’s tears in the back of her throat. Wendy’s best friend was a manicurist she saw for an hour every other week. It was damn sad. “Sounds like you didn’t like her husband.”

“The men in her life treated her like dog crap, pardon my French. No man would get away with that kind of bull around me. A frying pan right between the eyes is what they’d get.” Lilah reached for a pair of clippers, then cut back Max’s cuticles. “I used to say, ‘Wendy, get a grip. You don’t have to take this. Tell ’em to go blow. Give ’em a taste of their own medicine.’”

“And did she?”

“What do you think?” Lilah rolled her eyes beneath heavily mascaraed lashes. “She’d say ‘you’re right, Lilah,’ and then she’d come back the next time with the same story. I encouraged her, I even coached her exactly how to say it, but she just didn’t have enough...” Searching for a word, she waved the nail implement in the air. “Moxy, I guess.”

“Did she ever fight with her husband?” The questions went on. During the next half hour, Max learned everything she could possibly want to know about Wendy’s feelings, but not one thing that might lead to her killer.

The buffing, filing, shaping, and clipping part was done, and the manicurist was silent a moment as she poured white acrylic powder into one small bowl and some foul-smelling astringent solution into another. “This might sting a little when it first goes on.” She moistened the powder and spread it onto Max’s nails. “I was the last person to see her alive, you know.”

The damn stuff did sting. “Mmm.” Max’s answer was non-committal, designed to draw Lilah out. Not that the woman needed any help. This could prove promising.

“The last person except for her killer, of course. The police are real interested in whatever I might know,” the manicurist continued.

Ahh, so Detective DeWitt had already been here. Max would’ve been disappointed if he hadn’t traced every move of Wendy’s last day on earth. “I guess they must have asked you if Wendy seemed strange or preoccupied.”

“Sure did. She was real keyed up. Worse than usual. I couldn’t get her to relax, even had to redo her polish on two fingers when she muffed ’em up.” The stroke of the brush against Max’s nails was almost soothing. Lilah went on. “Wendy always wore real placid colors, you know, pastels, like Hawaiian Sunset or Bali Blush or Peach Blossom. Not that they didn’t look good on her, but she never went for the wild stuff.”

That didn’t jibe with the vibrant colors in Wendy’s date book.

“I tried to get her to go for Down-n-Dirty Burgundy, but she freaked just at the name. It was that husband of hers.” Max’s blood pulsed a half beat faster as Lilah spoke. “He hated it when she wore anything bright. He was the one who insisted on a silver car. Wendy wanted red. She loved red. But I never could get her to wear Red Hot Lips.”

Lilah didn’t miss a brushstroke as she talked, dipping the tip into both solution and powder. She finished one hand and waggled her fingers for the other.

“And that’s what you told the police? That Hal wouldn’t let her wear red nail polish?”

“Are you kidding?” she scoffed. “What the hell would they care what nail polish she wore or that her husband even had to approve the color of her car?”

What those insightful goodies revealed about Hal and their relationship would definitely interest Witt.

Lilah lifted Max’s hand, studying the thickness of the goop she’d just applied on each nail. “What I told the police was that after wearing pastel colors for the five years she’s been coming here, Wendy suddenly wanted Cajun Spice. And she bought some navy mascara when she was strictly black-brown.”

Max gasped for emphasis. “Where do you think she went that night?”

“Somewhere that husband of hers would have been pissed as hell about if he’d known.”

An image of Nicholas Drake popped into Max’s head, followed by that of Hal Gregory admitting his wife had had an affair.

The question was had Hal known Wendy planned to see her lover that night? And if so, what had he done about it?

* * * * *

Max’s fingers still tingled as she left the shop. Holding her nails up to the late afternoon sunlight, she admired the Cajun Spice polish. It was bright, not quite red, not quite orange. Sexy. It made her feel sexy.

“Like a woman who enjoys letting a man fuck her up the ass,” Cameron murmured from somewhere off to her right.

“Quit mentioning that,” she whispered in case anyone noticed she was talking to herself.

“I’ll quit talking about it when you admit you liked it.”

She had liked it.

“Say it aloud, so everyone can hear you. So you can hear yourself.”

Never. But she did wonder if Cajun Spice had made Wendy feel sexy and alive at six o’clock last Monday night. Five hours before she died.

Max ran across the street, then turned at the corner by the bank.

“Oof.” She smacked into a well-muscled chest. Her nose bumped the man’s chin, and her purse skidded down her arm. She had time only to register the fact that he smelled of some subtle aftershave before she remembered her manicure. “My nails!”

He steadied her, his big hands on her shoulders—God, he smelled good—and asked, “All right now?”

Damn, she knew that voice. Max stared at Detective Witt’s button-down shirt. “You’re wearing teal.”

“Yeah, well, plain brown had me stuck in a rut.” He tugged her purse back up her arm to her shoulder. His hand remained there. Her flesh tingled even more than they had with the nail products.

“Wendy loved teal,” she blurted.

“How do you know?”

She looked up into blue eyes way too penetrating. He hadn’t let go of her shoulder. “It was in her planner. She used that color a lot.”

“You might try a little teal yourself.” He fingered the lapel of her black, utilitarian jacket, the back of his hand narrowly missing the upper swell of her breast, then took a step back. Detective DeWitt Quentin Long up close and smelling too good to be true was heady. A pace back, dressed in a black suit, teal shirt, and striped tie, the man was downright devastating.

She had trouble catching her breath.

“See you managed to find our witness.”

“Witness?” Max wondered if her brains had suddenly dribbled out her ears. She should have had an explanation prepared for just this eventuality. On second thought, a good answer should have popped into her head. She was sure, if not for his disturbing proximity, one would have.

Witt picked up her hand in his big paw. “Nice manicure. What’d you two talk about?”

Her fingers were on fire where he held them captive. Truth seemed to be the only way out of a sticky situation. “I asked her if she knew who killed Wendy.”

A ghost of a smile touched Witt’s lips. “And did Lilah have an opinion?”

“I think she’d put her money on Wendy’s husband.”

Witt picked up her other hand. His skin was warm. He made her whole body warm. With his palms up, laying hers over his, he examined her fingers. “Nice color. Cajun Spice.”

“How do you know?”

“Lilah was very particular about the difference between it and Bali Blush.” She suspected he was laughing. Then he looked straight in her eyes. “It looks good on you. I like it.”

She gulped and ignored the shiver that threatened to course down her arms to the places he touched her. “Wendy never wore Cajun Spice until that last night.”

“Didn’t wear navy mascara, either.”

“I think Lilah believes Hal killed Wendy because she had an affair.”

“Or Lilah wants you and me to believe that.”

“Hmm. That’s one conclusion.” She pulled her lip between her teeth, considered it. While another small part of her brain asked why the hell she stood on the sidewalk outside the bank letting the detective hold her hands.

And why did it make her sort of gushy inside?

“Any other conclusions?” he prompted.

“That Hal Gregory was a very controlling man, and when he found out he could no longer control his wife, he offed her.”

He tugged on her hands to get her to look up. “Good cops are always suspicious,” he said. “If the husband is broken up, we ask if it’s an act. If he’s stoic, we ask what he’s hiding. If he wants her car back—which, incidentally, is considered the crime scene—we ask why he wants it so badly. If he never asks about it, we wanna know what’s wrong with him since it’s a new model. If the manicurist says the victim never wore Cajun Spice, we ask why she wants us to know that.” He paused. It was the longest speech with the most full sentences Max had ever heard him make. “And if someone keeps turning up to question the witnesses, we ask why she’s so interested in the death of a woman she supposedly never knew.”

Whammo. He’d aimed right below the belt and pulled the trigger. It almost sounded as if he suspected her. Ridiculous. He couldn’t suspect her. Could he? Max did the only thing she could. She looked at the man, ignored the question in his soliloquy, and asked, “So did Hal ask for the car or didn’t he?”

She already knew the answer, but waited for Witt’s reaction.

He hesitated, and she was sure there was a glint of something, maybe even admiration, in his eyes. “Confidential information, my dear Miss Starr.”

“It’s Mrs. You’ve crushed my manicure. And why are you holding my hands?”

“Evidence.”

“Cajun Spice?” Weirder and weirder.

“The fact that you scoped out Lilah Bloom.” He let her fingers slip through his. Her hands suddenly felt cold. She hoped the polish hadn’t smeared.

“You did ask me to help you, Detective.”

“At Hackett’s. Not sitting in Lilah Bloom’s window like a flashing red light.”

Max almost laughed, then sobered. She wasn’t sure he was joking. She wasn’t sure Detective Witt knew how to joke.

“You followed me here.” It didn’t take a psychic to figure that out.

He nodded.

“Well, I’ll help you anyway.”

“Help by doing what I ask you to do, not what you decide you wanna do.”

Humph. She’d ignore that. “Don’t you have some important detective type stuff to do?”

He folded his arms over his chest and smiled. Lazily. As if he had her right where he wanted her. When he’d let go of her hands, he hadn’t stepped back. Her fingers still prickled, and his musky aftershave tickled her nose.

“Figure I won’t have to do any work at all if I just keep on your tail.”

Now why did that make her think of sex? With him? Would he fill up all the lonely places as sweetly as Cameron did?

Bad thought, very bad thought. Scary even.

“You’re very cagey, Detective. First you want me to think Lilah purposely sent me off in the wrong direction, then you hint there’s something strange about Hal and Wendy’s car, now you’re implying I’m a suspect.”

“You are.”

* * * * *

Two hours later, Max was still pissed at the detective’s attitude. “The nerve. He actually thinks I might have killed Wendy.”

Though the sun was almost down, the September evening remained hot and the mosquitoes were out. She’d ventured down the stairs to her small deck and taken up her usual seat in the shadow of the big elm that stood outside her window, a cool glass of beer sweating in her hands. She nursed it, savored the foam and the yeasty smell. The air was filled with the soft rhythm of cars whooshing by on the nearby freeway, children’s laughter as they played a game of tag, and the occasional bark of the neighbor’s dog. But in the near dark, Max felt isolated on her back porch. Her landlord wasn’t home—he lived on the main level—and the rest of the house was silent, devoid of college students for the moment. Except for Cameron, Max was alone. She liked it that way.

“He doesn’t think you killed her.” Cameron’s voice came from behind her. “And you’re just pissed because he’s the first man you haven’t been able to wrap around your little finger.”

“I never wrapped you around my little finger,” she mumbled.

He ignored her statement. “You’ve got the hots for him, don’t you?”

“First it’s Nick I’m interested in, now it’s the detective. Make up your mind.”

“With you, it’s probably both.”

Max snorted. “If you weren’t a ghost, I’d say you had your head some place where the sun don’t shine.”

“Anatomically impossible.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. Cameron had that sanctimonious, holier-than-thou tone he’d used when he knew he had a defendant by the balls. She’d called it his strutting voice.

Just as quickly, the laughter disappeared. God, she missed Cameron in action. He’d been gorgeous in his three-piece courtroom suits. To die for. Her mood spiraled. She pulled herself out with a dig at Cameron. “I’d think you’d be pissed as hell he suspects me.”

His voice shifted, coming from somewhere to her left. “You wouldn’t be a suspect if you’d listened to me and told him the truth in the first place.”

“If I’d never listened to you, I wouldn’t be a suspect, because I wouldn’t have looked for Wendy’s murderer.”

“You’re looking for Wendy’s murderer because she compels you. Now admit you want the burly detective, and I’ll shut up.”

“I don’t want him.”

“Liar. You were thinking about doing him. You really perked up at that ‘tail’ comment.”

Cretin. She chose to ignore the double entendre. “You’re my husband. You’re not supposed to push me at other men.”

“I’m your dead husband, and I’m just pointing out facts. You liked what we did last night, and you’d like to do it with him.”

God, there he went using that bad word again. Dead, dead, dead. She hated that word. Even if sometimes she used it herself.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered. “Let me go down on you and you can pretend I’m whoever you want me to be.”

“You’re sick.” But she turned hot and moist between her legs.

“You know you want a man’s tongue on you.”

Or a cock inside her. Yes, she wanted it. Badly. “What would the neighbors think?”

“All they’ll see is you basking in the late afternoon sun with a beatific smile on your face. Just don’t scream when you come.”

Upstairs, the phone rang before she could beg him to stop talking and just do it.

She set the beer on the decking and dashed up the stairs to her room. Her answering machine would come on after six rings. Most people never made it past four. Most of the time she was just as happy missing their call.

Except this time, when she’d almost spread her legs in broad daylight. In her own goddamn backyard. Jesus. Saved by the bell had never been more apt.

“Hello.” Her voice was husky, out of breath.

“Max Starr?”

“Yes.”

“Hal Gregory.”

“Hal?” She almost choked on her own excitement.

“The coroner released Wendy’s body. The service is Wednesday.”

“Oh Hal, I’m so glad. You can put her to rest. Things will get easier after this.” Yeah, right. Things never got easier, and the dead didn’t rest. Wendy certainly hadn’t. Max could feel her thrumming inside, anger, pain, despair, shame, all the bad emotions.

A peppermint-scented breeze blew across her body. Cameron. There, but blessedly silent, as she lied to the man on the phone.

“I’d like you to be there, Max. You’ve been a great help to me.”

Damn. It had been so easy. Too easy. “Of course, I will. Sitting at her desk, seeing her workpapers, I feel like I know Wendy.”

He gave her the details of the funeral service in a few brief words and hung up.

“Why the hell did he invite me?” The room was fully dark now, and she stared at the lighted windows of the house next door.

“It’s what you wanted him to do.”

“Of course, I wanted it. But why does he want it? And don’t tell me it’s sex.”

“Whatever it is, I’d bet my next corporeal life that Wendy’s killer will be there.”

Max would, too. “So, who is it?”

“How the hell should I know? You’re the psychic.”

“You’re hopeless.” She went to the closet and pulled out her jacket.

“Where are you going?”

“I have to get some nail polish remover.” She’d suddenly decided she didn’t like Detective Witt appreciating her nails. And she didn’t want to think about why, all of a sudden, right on the heels of Hal’s funeral invite, Witt’s admiration felt incredibly threatening.

Or maybe it was the fear that Cameron was too damn close to the truth. If she’d let him go down on her out on the deck, she just might have started imagining it was the detective.

Chapter Twelve

“Pull the shade down. This is a private transaction, and I don’t want any witnesses.” The voice, low, indistinct, genderless, leaked from the shadows behind her.

She did as she was told, a slight tremble in the hand adjusting the blind across the front window of the shop. Max stared at that hand—short, pudgy fingers, sparkly pink polish. Lilah’s hand.

Turn around and look. Show me the face, let me see who it is. In her head, Max shouted, but Lilah never turned.

Max knew it was a dream she was powerless to control. Lilah sucked her in, pulled her down, and mired her in another woman’s body, another woman’s life.

For Lilah Bloom, this was all too real.

Wearing Lilah’s skin, Max sat down again at the small manicurist table, then picked up an orangewood stick to push back her cuticles. She stared at her nails instead of her visitor as she spoke. “We were supposed to meet at the restaurant, tomorrow.”

“I wanted our business handled as quickly as possible. How much do you want?” The speaker was just a tad closer now.

Oh God, please, let me see who it is, Max cried.

Neither God nor Lilah heard her.

Fear tasted metallic in Lilah’s mouth, but she kept doing her nails. Appearance was everything. “I’m not asking for much, but I have a small son and he—”

“Spare me the sob story. How much?”

“Twenty-five thousand.” She put the stick back in the Quats solution, the pungent disinfectant stinging her nostrils. Next, she chose a thick coarse file to shape the nails.

A low chuckle slithered across the hairs at her nape. “Will you take a check?”

“It’s a cash transaction,” Lilah answered, just barely managing to keep the tremor out of her voice.

“And what guarantees do I have this will be the end of it?”

“None,” she agreed.

“Not even your word?” Again, that chuckle, closer still, neither male nor female. Evil had no gender.

Turn around. I have to know who it is. Max screamed, knowing what was about to come as clearly as Lilah did.

Lilah had a gun in the drawer, but blackmail was better tended to in a very public place. It was what she’d intended, but God, she’d been stupid. Underestimating her victim was the first rule she’d learned. And now broken. If she wasn’t goddamn careful, it might be her last. “A new car. That’s all I want. Then no one ever has to know the things Wendy told me.”

A strange snap. She suddenly recognized it as the sound of a latex glove, the kind hair stylists wore for perms and colors. Her heart pounded in earnest now. Hunching over, she slipped her hand down, quietly slid the drawer open, and put two fingers on the cold metal insurance.

“I thought it was your son you needed the money for?”

Lilah didn’t hear it coming. Until pain shrieked through her scalp. Her head jerked back. A hand mercilessly wrenched the roots of her hair. Her assailant grabbed her arm and twisted it up behind her back, her shoulder bursting with fiery agony. She never had a chance to grab the gun.

Her eyes teared. Her attacker’s hand rose in her line of vision, her orangewood stick gripped in the fist like a knife. She screamed. The stick plunged. Piercing. Tearing. Burning her skin. She grabbed for her throat with one hand, gasped, tried to suck air but couldn’t. Then she panicked. Kicking. Flailing. Bucking. The distant sound of shattering glass. The scent of disinfectant and seared flesh. The bright flash of light as her lamp crashed to the floor, the pop of electricity as it cracked against the brick. Her chair flipped out from beneath her, and she went down on her knees. She couldn’t even scream. Her limbs seemed weighted with concrete as the light around her started to fade.

Oh God. The tinny taste of blood. The numbness of her fingers. The blinds in front of her blurred. She should have left them open. She should have gone for the gun sooner.

Instead, she was going to die.

* * * * *

The detective’s mouth was a thin, white line. “Lilah Bloom was a real fighter. She died hard.”

Max shuddered. She could have closed her eyes and seen the dream all over again. The ghosts of Lilah’s fear, pain, and helplessness jabbed at her. The worst was what she hadn’t seen: the face of Lilah’s murderer.

The morning sun had only just come up, the porch light was still on, and the detective’s blond hair looked almost white. Like he’d seen a ghost. Or one too many dead bodies.

“In the end, she suffocated on her own blood.” Witt used full sentences. He was as bothered by Lilah Bloom’s murder as Max.

“And you show up at my door at six o’clock in the morning to tell me this?” she snapped, mostly because of the dream, but also because she wouldn’t have been upset if he showed up at six for something else entirely.

“You were the last person connected with Wendy’s case to see Lilah alive.”

Max gripped the handle of the screen door and literally quaked in her slippers. Which was one of the reasons she hadn’t opened the door for the detective. Letting him in was tantamount to making her nightmares a reality.

Lilah Bloom is dead. Your nightmare is reality. Cameron whispered close to her ear.

“I damn well know that,” she said to both of them.

“Repeat for me every word Lilah Bloom said to you.”

A sudden spurt of guilt stiffened her spinal cord. “You don’t think this was my fault?” Just as quickly, without waiting for his answer, she shook her head. “Of course not. I only talked to her.”

“What did she say?” His tone was no-nonsense. This was the man a suspect would meet in an interrogation room, the one who would barrel through any roadblocks in his quest for justice. The authority in his voice actually made her hot. Damn, she hated these inappropriate thought bursts when Lilah Bloom was dead.

“I told you yesterday. She went on and on about Hal Gregory. Have you talked to him?”

“He has an alibi.”

“Don’t tell me. The father-in-law again.”

Witt was silent a moment, narrowed his eyes. “You know too much, Miss Starr. Way too much.”

“It’s a logical deduction, Detective.”

“Yes, but you’re in the right places at the right time. A good detective has to ask himself why.”

Her legs were bare beneath the long, cotton sleep shirt. She felt naked, exposed. But her body buzzed with awareness. Not good, especially considering why the man was at her front door.

“Seems to me I’m in the wrong places at the wrong time.”

He didn’t laugh. She was completely serious.

“No one at Hackett’s remembers calling your agency, Miss Starr. No one at your agency remembers getting a call.”

Jeez, he’d talked to Sunny, too. Hard to believe, but the man was investigating her.

Though the screen door was between them, Witt took a step closer. Jaw unshaven, eyes weary, he hadn’t changed the teal shirt he’d worn yesterday. For some odd reason, she wanted to smooth the tired lines from his brow.

Get a grip, she told herself.

She could slam the door in his face, but he’d be back. He was a bulldog. Evasiveness had been Max’s best strategy throughout this whole Wendy affair. Except with Witt. He just didn’t let her get away with it.

Tell him the truth. Cameron’s insistent whisper irritated her. “I haven’t got a clue what the truth is.”

“The truth is Wendy Gregory had a nylon cord wrapped around her neck so tight it cut her flesh. The truth is Lilah Bloom was stabbed in the throat, her air passage occluded by her own blood, resulting in suffocation. The truth is you’re too damn interested in both of them for mere coincidence.”

Max clutched at the base of her throat reflexively. For just a moment, she felt searing pain, couldn’t breath, and the detective’s features faded in front of her. “It was an orangewood stick,” she whispered.

Silence. Total. She couldn’t hear the trucks on the freeway or the crickets or the distant honk of horns. She couldn’t even hear Witt breathe.

But she wanted him to touch her. God, she really was crazy.

“And the blue stuff was disinfectant. It burned like hell before she died.”

His eyes were unreadable. “What size shoe do you wear, Max?”

“Huh?” With anyone else, she would have suspected it was a non-sequitor. But not Witt. His use of her first name trickled like acid down her spine.

“Better open that door and let me check your shoes, Max.”

She did, taking a step back, turned on her heel, wobbled, caught herself with a hand on the wall, then climbed the stairs.

Buzzard lay amid the tangled sheets of her unmade bed. Max pointed to her small closet. Witt opened the door, ignored the two pairs of high heels, and picked up her black suede half-boots.

“Size eight,” she supplied.

He turned them, ran a cursory finger along the tread. Her shoes appeared abnormally tiny in those big hands of his. Putting them down, he squatted to look at her white tennies, followed the same procedure. “Is this all?”

“Imelda Marcos I’m not.”

He didn’t laugh, didn’t ease her tension one bit. His body filled her small abode to capacity, causing near asphyxiation. He rose, peered into the bathroom, then crossed the room to pull up the bedspread hanging over the side and look beneath.

“I assure you, I only have four pairs.”

He stood with his hands at his waist, massive thighs spread. “Spartan,” was his only comment.

“Did I pass your test?”

“I have more questions before I decide.”

“Fire away.” She offered the detective the only chair available, the one at her small desk. He didn’t take it.

“Tell me how you know so much.”

She would have liked to take the chair herself. Instead she admitted, “I have dreams.”

He didn’t make it easy for her.

Max went ahead and signed her own death warrant. “I dreamed I found Wendy’s body. She wore a long black skirt and a silk blouse when she died.” She bit her lip. “And there was a piece of green paper on the floor by her hand.”

For a big man, he was awfully still, not even the tick of a muscle betrayed what he was thinking.

“It had a flight number on it. 452.”

“You killed her,” he murmured, almost in wonder. “Didn’t you?”

She should have been terrified, but with the strange excitement that suddenly gripped her, the accusation went right over her head. “Is it true? Was she wearing black and white? Was there a green note?”

As horrifying as the dreams had been, as tangible as Wendy felt inside her, she’d never quite believed this could all be real. She still wasn’t sure Cameron hadn’t given the dreams to her for his own abominable reasons.

Witt neither confirmed nor denied what she’d seen. He simply ignored the questions altogether. “What about Lilah?”

“I dreamed I was her. And I was murdered.”

“Who did it?”

She widened her eyes, mocking him. “I thought you said I did.”

“I asked you who did it?” His voice was harsh, the words grating.

“I couldn’t see. He was behind me.”

“He?”

She rubbed at her temples, squeezed her eyes shut a moment. “I’m not sure. I never saw him. And the voice could have been either gender. But aren’t killers”—she spread her arms, then let them flop down to her sides—“usually male?”

He gave her a penetrating stare that made her squirm. “No, they aren’t. Tell me the rest.”

She swallowed. “He held my arms back so I couldn’t pull the stick out. I couldn’t breath. I kicked, thrashed around, knocked everything over. But he wouldn’t let go. Then...I died.” Her description didn’t come close to the horror of it.

Witt sat on her hard desk chair. Rather he plunked down on it as if his legs suddenly gave out. “Are you saying you’re psychic?”

She didn’t hesitate for a moment. “Of course not.”

“If you are, then who did it?”

“I said I’m not psychic.”

He scrubbed a big paw down his face, then stared at her. Hard. “Max, if you don’t have an alibi for last night, I suggest you manufacture one ASAP.”

Was he trying to protect her now? “Are you going to arrest me?”

He stared at her, said nothing.

Max shivered. “But I have the wrong shoe size, and the tread doesn’t match.”

He didn’t confirm it. One blond eyebrow rose. He stood. “Give me your hand, Max.”

“You want me to just rip it off and give you the bloody stump?”

He didn’t laugh. She wished she could.

“Your hand.”

She held it out. “Haven’t you had enough hand holding, Detective?”

Grabbing her left wrist, he placed his right hand against hers. His hands were warm; he probably always had hot hands. Hers were frozen. When he touched her, her thoughts froze, too. The tips of her new Cajun Spice nails didn’t reach the ends of his fingers. Damn, she should have used that nail polisher remover last night. She watched his face as he mentally measured, sure he didn’t feel the electric current arc between their fingertips.

“Too big, too small?” she prodded.

He stared intently one moment longer. “If you aren’t a killer, Max, then you’re sure as hell going to be the next victim.”

Chapter Thirteen

It had taken Max less than twenty minutes to decide the detective was full of crap. Witt was far more of a threat to Wendy’s killer than she was. He’d simply tried to throw her off balance by appearing to trust her one minute, suspect her the next, then finally claim she was in danger. All that weird tension he generated between them by touching her hands was just another of his tricks.

The man had a hidden agenda, and Wendy’s murder had become a Pandora’s Box. Witt seemed to think she had some sort of key to the whole thing when, in actual fact, she didn’t know where the hell she was leading him. Talk about the blind leading the blind.

Wendy Gregory’s funeral was at ten o’clock on Wednesday, thirty-six hours after Lilah Bloom’s death. Max wore another of her black suits, good for just about any occasion. Attendance was piss poor, the accommodations even worse.

The cemetery Hal Gregory had chosen for Wendy’s interment sported a sign declaring the Everlasting Home of God’s Beloved Sons and Daughters to be an historical landmark and the oldest Protestant graveyard in California. Max thought it was the eeriest, dampest, ugliest plot of land she’d ever seen. Huge oaks and evergreens towered over tumbled headstones, slippery moss covered brick walkways, and a small stream bisected the center. In the rainy season, the waterway probably became a relentless torrent that eroded words from ground-level markers, stole the last testaments of loved ones, and buried the stone beneath layers of moldering leaves and bottom sludge.

This was the place to which Hal Gregory banished his late wife? He must have hated her with all the passion he’d never found in loving her.

Jeez, funerals were a bad scene. It made her remember her mother’s funeral. It made her remember about the years after her mother died.

“Max.”

Obviously accusing her of murder had moved Witt beyond the Miss—or Mrs.—stage. He stood just behind and a tad to the right, close enough for her to feel his disconcerting male heat. He’d made no approaching sounds, simply appeared like a graveyard ghoul. And she was kinda glad since it abruptly cut off her trip down a not-so-pleasant memory lane.

“Fancy meeting you here.” He was tall and had to bend at the waist to get his lips next to her ear. His breath warmed her temple and other regions to the south. Then again, she was so cold in the absence of any sun penetrating the dank foliage that anything with a little life in it would seem warm. Even Detective Long.

“Got an alibi, yet?” he asked.

“My shoe size hasn’t changed, and my hands look exactly the same. I figured I didn’t need one.”

“Evidence can be misleading. So what about that alibi?”

“Nothing. Unless you want to question a cat or a ghost?”

“Guess I’ll ignore that since there’s no time to figure out what the hell you mean. And don’t think I don’t realize you do that on purpose.”

“I’m working on the alibi, okay.” Things couldn’t be too bad; he hadn’t advised her to get a lawyer or psychiatrist...yet. “Would you please shut up? The minister’s started his eulogy.”

Witt didn’t shut up, he whispered once more against her hair. “Care to give me a reason for being here? Can’t say you really knew her well.”

“I was invited.”

He made a throaty noise, one of suspicion, sarcasm, and ridicule, but it still made her tremble just to hear it.

“The bereaved husband?” he murmured.

“Exactly.”

“First her job, then her husband?”

“First her job, then her murderer. And don’t think I don’t realize you’re baiting me, Detective.”

Witt snorted softly. He was getting to her, no doubt about it; all those noises he made, reaching inside to touch her.

Through a space between Theresa’s and Remy’s heads two paces in front of her, Max stared across Wendy’s open grave directly into Hal’s disapproving gaze. She was glad the spot she’d chosen was slightly apart from the rest of the group, so that Witt’s words couldn’t be overheard. Hal stood with hands folded across his groin, pale skin totally devoid of color against his black suit. To his left, stood a shorter, powerfully built, gray-haired man. Wendy’s father. An easy deduction since he stared over the pit they would bury his daughter in. Though he might also have been staring at Theresa’s indecently short, black pleated skirt. Max could feel not an ounce of emotion emanating from the man. His hands, like Hal’s, were folded, left over right.

They bore no scratches. Another strike out.

“You do work fast, Max.”

She glanced sharply at Witt, for any sign of sexual innuendo. It was definitely there in his bright blue eyes. The jerk was laughing at her.

“Why, Detective, you’re almost jovial. I’d say you’ve certainly recovered from looking at Lilah Bloom’s body.”

“Bodies are my business.”

“God, that’s a great slogan. Use it on your business card.”

His only response was a chuckle, no doubt a rare sound for the detective. Darn, there was that disgusting little tingle again.

He seemed to have gotten over her little “psychic blast” concerning Lilah’s death; he didn’t so much as mention it. “How’d you explain to Remy that you wanted to attend the funeral of a woman you didn’t even know?”

“I told him it was simple respect, since I’d taken her job.”

“Lame.”

“His curiosity is what keeps him off balance around me.” She snapped her head to the right, looked at the detective. “Just like you.”

“Worked the balance beam in college. Didn’t fall once.”

“There’s always a first time, especially when you’re cocky.”

He smiled slightly, shook his head. “Why are you really here? I’ll keep asking until you give me an answer I believe.”

Ah, time again for the truth. It was the only thing that seemed to throw him off balance. She turned her head slightly and murmured out of the side of her mouth. “Sympathy. Enough of it, and Hal will either try to use me, be afraid of me, or trust me.”

“Or kill you.”

His eyes darkened, his voice held menace. She was glad he was on her side—he was, right?—but that look was a little too damn proprietary.

“You can’t scare me with that danger stuff. With you dogging my steps, the murderer couldn’t get close enough to pull it off.”

“You hope.” He was silent a moment.

She thought she was off the hook with all his questions. “All right, Detective. So you think he’s the one—”

“Haven’t set my sights on anyone in particular.”

“Not even after all those interrogations you’ve conducted?”

“Interviews.”

“Semantics. But it’s still pretty damn coincidental that Lilah accuses Hal, then gets an orangewood stick in her throat.”

“We’ve already established your prime suspect,” Witt insisted. “Who else could have done it? Got any ‘vibes’ about anyone in particular?”

Vibes. Hmm. So he hadn’t quite gotten over her Lilah dream and couldn’t resist the jab. Max surveyed the black-shrouded assemblage. Damn poor attendance. Wendy’s mourners numbered less than ten, including Witt and herself. A beanpole of a man—obviously a Gregory relative—stood to Hal’s right, the short, plump woman next to him most likely his wife. Add to that Remy, Theresa, and the father, it was pathetic. Wendy Gregory had died without friends. Max wondered if Lilah would have attended.

Witt waited for an answer. “Wendy hated Remy,” Max mused. “I’m not sure the feeling was mutual. Unless she crossed him.”

“How?”

“Who knows. Broke the copy machine, told a lie, messed up on one of his rules.”

“Anal, huh?”

She shuddered at the word, as if he could know what it made her think of. “The man’s not just anal. He is an asshole.”

At her side, she felt the detective chuckle again. She liked it when he did that. She wondered how it would feel if he did that while he was holding her close.

“Being an asshole doesn’t stand up in court,” he said. “Most of the time. Who else?”

“Theresa’s a viper. She enjoyed tearing Wendy up.” But sweet little Theresa didn’t have scratches either. Max did have them, on her throat, though, thank God, they were almost healed. Could Theresa have immobilized Lilah?

“Not much motive there. Would have been more fun to keep Wendy around than to kill her.”

“All right. What about Wendy’s father?”

“Bud Traynor.”

He looked like a Bud or a Bubba. Ex-football hero. Macho man. Whose side would he have chosen if he thought his daughter was having an affair? “He’d turn on her in a second.”

The certain knowledge frightened her. The man himself did, as well. He looked up—at her—without raising his head, just his eyes. Black, soulless eyes. He reminded her of her uncle. Max shivered. She imagined he knew her, everything about her.

Inside her, Wendy cowered like a whipped puppy beneath that gaze.

“I must be crazy,” she whispered. Hal must have told him who she was.

“Go on,” Witt urged.

“He’d lie for Hal if he thought Wendy wasn’t a proper wife. In his world, men stick together no matter what.”

“Would he have done it himself?”

She narrowed her eyes and breathed deeply as she pondered that. “He’s certainly capable of it.”

They were both silent, absorbing the idea.

Max tilted her head to look at Hal’s beanhead brother. “Who’s he?”

Witt confirmed what she already suspected.

She bit down on the inside of her cheek, then let it go. “Nah. He didn’t know her well. Wendy and Hal didn’t socialize much.”

“You’re scaring me.” He wagged a finger at her. “You know too much again.”

“I take it I’m right.”

“Quite an isolated couple,” he agreed.

No wonder she’d bared her soul to Lilah Bloom. Wendy had no one else. A deep loneliness washed over Max, her vision blurred, her chest hurt, her throat clogged. Wendy flailed inside her.

“Where’s the Cajun Spice lover?”

The question popped Max out of whatever spell had fallen over her. “What?”

“Cajun Spice, the color she wore the night she died, instead of her usual. Points to a lover.”

“Cajun Spice and navy blue mascara,” she murmured. “If she had a lover, Hal wouldn’t have put him at the top of the guest list.” Should she tell him Wendy had allegedly left Hal before she died? She turned, almost fully facing Witt. Beyond his shoulder, at the edge of the baseball diamond in the park across the street, something glinted in the sunlight. A man, the sun on his watch as he put his hand to his jaw.

She knew who it was without seeing his face. Nickie. He’d come to say good-bye. He was the kind of man who would do so despite the danger to himself.

She averted her eyes before the detective could follow her gaze. “Hal did it,” she jumped in. “Give me time. I’ll use a little sweetness to get him to spill his guts.”

“Good cop, bad cop?”

The man had now risen from the bleachers and disappeared around the corner of the public restrooms. Max released her breath. “Yeah.” She met the detective’s gaze. “Partners?”

Witt countered with a slow side-to-side shake of his head. The preacher had fallen silent. Hal, then Wendy’s father, dropped clods of dirt on the mahogany-colored coffin. The remaining mourners, all pitiful four of them, filed past.

Hal approached her. Witt melted into the background. The good cop was on stage now.

“I can’t thank you enough for coming.” Hal grasped her hand in his, fingers cold and clammy, like the place in which he’d just buried his wife. Max returned his squeeze, despite the “yuk” that wanted desperately to burst from her lips.

Right. Seven mourners looked better than six. “I hope it helped.”

“I’d like you to meet Wendy’s father, Bud Traynor.”

The man had cold, assessing eyes and a strong grip. In his grasp, her wedding band dug against her middle finger. Wendy hid in terror, buried so deep, her emotions became no more than distant memories. Max looked down and ruthlessly cut off the scream in her throat.

Bud Traynor wore a ruby class ring on the fourth finger of his right hand.

Chapter Fourteen

Remy drove them back to work in his cushy Cadillac. Theresa sat in the front seat and drove Max crazy with her incessant sixteen-year-old chatter. Remy shushed the girl every time she brought up Wendy’s death—one of his new rules, thou shalt not speak of murdered persons.

Listening to the two of them, Max barely had energy to think about the implications of Bud Traynor’s ring, beyond the obvious, of course. If Traynor was the man in her dream, then Wendy, as a child, had been physically and verbally abused by her father.

So what’s new, Cameron whispered.

“You’re certainly unsympathetic,” Max scoffed aloud.

Theresa turned to glare at her. Remy eyed her in the mirror. Max contained the rest of her feelings until she’d climbed from Remy’s immaculate car and closed her office door on Theresa’s flaming description of Wendy’s final resting place.

Cameron started in on her immediately. “Wendy doesn’t need your sympathy. She needs your—”

“Help. I know, but she also needs someone to feel sorry for her. Nobody cared she was dead.”

“Lilah was there.”

“Give me a break. Lilah’s dead.”

“She was still there. At the funeral.”

“No more ghost stories, okay?” She was too angry to let the impact of his words sway her. “What about her father? He doesn’t even know how to spell the words love or grief, let alone feel them.” Max dropped her purse into the filing cabinet and slammed the drawer. “That man hit her, I felt it. That wasn’t the first time he’d done it, wasn’t the last either. And he liked it.” Her heartbeat accelerated, her blood pumped furiously.

“I only meant—”

“You have no idea what it’s like, to be shunned, to be treated like you’re less than nothing for something that isn’t even your fault.” She paced the small office, turning on her heel at the door and marching back to the desk.

“That wasn’t your dream, Max.”

“No, it was Wendy’s nightmare, and someone’s got to do something about what that man did to her.”

“You missed my point—”

“I’m not missing anything.”

“Listen to me.”

The sharpness of his tone was enough to stop her pacing. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “I’m listening.”

“The dream wasn’t about what happened to her when she was a kid. It’s a clue as to why she was murdered.”

“He did it.” The words and all her venom burst out. She wanted to hurt Bud Traynor, wanted to hurl accusations as angrily and easily as he’d done, wanted to take the nearest two-by-four and smash his nose with it.

“That’s not what I’m saying—”

“Then what are you saying?”

He sighed, and a puff of air whispered across the shoots of Wendy’s now-thriving spider plant on top of the file cabinet. “You’re not ready to listen.”

“Oh, don’t give me that psychological crap, Cameron.”

A knock. The door opened before Max had time to answer.

“I’m supposed to say come in before you open the door, Theresa.” She felt like snapping someone’s head off, and Theresa was as good as anyone.

The girl’s lower lip jutted in a pout. “I thought you were on the phone and couldn’t hear me.”

“Right,” Max muttered and turned to flip on her computer, punching so hard her expensive manicure chipped. Dammit, she had to get that stuff off before it became an obsession.

“Carla Drake is here, and she wants to talk to the accountant. That’s you.”

“Who the hell is Carla Drake?” Oh jeez. Nicholas Drake’s wife. Max actually felt a guilty spurt of adrenaline, and her face heated.

“She’s the wife of one of the guys that used to work here.”

Ex-wife, Max almost added. Why on earth was she feeling guilty anyway? She’d danced with the man, nothing more. “What does she want?”

Theresa rolled her eyes. “How am I supposed to know?”

“Has anyone ever told you that mastering courtesy and diplomacy is how you get places in this world?” Not to mention keeping friends.

Theresa gave an exaggerated snap of her gum, left Max’s office door open, and wriggled her way back to the front counter. Like a snake.

“I knew there was a reason I never had children,” Max muttered. “They grow up to be teenagers.”

“You can go on back.” Theresa’s sugary voice floated through the open doorway.

Carla Drake filled the space Theresa had just vacated.

Max recognized her immediately. The woman had played a small almost-forgotten role in the first of Max’s “Wendy dreams.” The dream that had started it all.

Nicholas Drake’s wife was tall and blonde, and at one time, she might have been quite pretty. Now her complexion was a mottled red, her hair a mass of frizzy, disorganized curls, and her body had never recovered from the birth of her last child.

A little catty, Maxi? Cameron whispered snidely in her ear.

Maybe so, but seeing Carla in her loose-fitting stretch pants, long T-shirt, and dirty, white tennies, Max wanted to dislike her.

Couldn’t be jealousy talking, could it?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Max wasn’t ashamed to admit it. After all, it was Wendy’s emotion, not her own. That made everything okay.

Carla, however, looked a tad thinner than when she’d picked up the kids at the airport. Max had to wonder how much of the dream had simply been Wendy’s perceptions.

Could Max be a victim of the dead woman’s fantasies?

She shoved the thought and the emotions aside to invite Carla in.

The woman waved a small piece of paper in the air and came fully into Max’s office, followed by the stench of three gallons of Joy. The wedding ring she hadn’t bothered to remove looked tight enough to cut off her circulation.

Max took note of those unmarked fingers. Another suspect bites the dust.

What if she’d only imagined that Wendy scratched her killer? What if it had only felt like a tremendous fight while, in reality, Wendy had been too weak at that point to cause any damage?

Now you’re thinking, baby.

Everybody became a suspect again.

“I have Nick’s COBRA insurance check.” Out of breath, Carla’s words came out shrill, like high-frequency waves pitched to burst eardrums. “I drove down here instead of mailing it. The kids are in the car, and it’s really hot out there. Do I need a receipt?” The woman’s sentences bounced around as if she had trouble keeping thoughts straight in her head.

“I’m afraid the check is late, Mrs. Drake.”

“I couldn’t help it.” Carla’s lip quivered like a child’s.

Max pulled a folder out of Wendy’s left drawer. Experiencing Wendy’s jealousy or not, Max herself wanted to irritate the blonde. If Carla got mad, she could reveal something that might prove helpful. “I’ve got a note here that we tried to give you a reminder call. Your phone was disconnected.”

Her face, passably appealing despite the blotchiness, suddenly turned ugly, her tone whiny. “I’m going through a divorce, and I had to move in with my parents.”

Get her address. We need it.

Cameron was right on the mark. “We’ll need your new address and phone number to continue the insurance policy.”

She handed Carla one of Wendy’s pink pens and a piece of paper.

She got back a childish, almost illegible scrawl. Max’s heart pumped harder when she finally made it out. “Foster City.”

Less than a handful of exits from the airport. Could the woman have enough strength to strangle someone? Maybe. If she was terrified someone was stealing her husband. Or pissed as hell. The whole thing about a woman scorned, ya know.

“Yeah,” Carla said as she shoved the pink pen in her purse.

Max wondered if she knew how apropos that “yeah” might really be. “We’ll be sure to call you when your check’s late again.” And it would be, Max was sure.

Carla flapped a hand. “It’s only a day late.”

“Try a month.” Remy appeared in the doorway, his voice harsh with just the right answer. He’d obviously taken stock of the conversation while standing outside the door.

Carla squeaked like a mouse at the sound of his voice, her lips a round O, her brown eyes wide as she turned to stare at him. A moment later, they took on a decidedly stormy look. “You must be Remy Hackett.”

Max took a seat for the confrontation.

Remy’s upper lip twitched. “Mrs. Drake, I presume.” He sounded like a Victorian gentleman. “I recognize your voice from your phone calls.” His tone suggested how unpleasant they’d been. “I see you tried to get around me by going to Max first. I told you we’d have to cancel your insurance if you were late again. Did you call in the cancellation yesterday, Max?”

He gave Max a look over Carla’s shoulder. Not just any look, a very meaningful one that said play along, follow his lead, don’t buck the system. It wasn’t exactly a lie, not the way Remy had phrased it.

Nudge him, Max. Test him. See what he does.

Cameron had plucked her thoughts out of the air. It was exactly what she intended to do. “Actually, Remy, I didn’t get a chance to call the insurance company. They’re back east, and it was after five their time when you told me to call.”

He came forward, pushing Carla aside to get to Max. “Why didn’t you do it this morning?”

He looked like a seething, growling Mr. Hyde taking over Dr. Jekyll. At any moment, she expected him to foam. She almost smiled. People gave away so much more when they were out of control.

“If you recall, we were at Wendy’s funeral.”

Remy’s teeth ground. “It’s an insurance company policy. Thirty-day-grace period starts at the beginning of the month, payment no later than August 31st.” He glanced down at his watch. “It’s now September 10th.”

Carla didn’t say a word, seemingly quite content for Max to fight her battle. She was sure it was the woman’s usual style. “Actually, that’s not quite the way Wendy’s notes read.” She was careful not to use the word lie. There was pushing, and then there was lighting a match next to a natural gas leak.

“Wendy’s notes?”

Max nodded, a curve to her lips. “She documented everything. Wendy was quite the little writer.”

Wendy had obviously learned the hard way to cover her butt. Her notes recorded the fact that Remy handled the COBRA all wrong, that some of his practices might even be illegal. Besides, he couldn’t cancel the COBRA himself. She’d told him, but he hadn’t believed her or cared enough to call the insurance carrier himself. Remy’s law was the only law.

Two steps from his elbow, Carla Drake beamed like a teenager pitting her parents against each other.

Remy did not have a naturally florid complexion, but he sure as hell looked apoplectic now. Max was afraid he’d pop a blood vessel. His lips worked. No sound came out.

She offered him a small out. “The COBRA conversation probably slipped your mind.”

Don’t back down, Maxi. Keep on him. Cameron was so very good at egging her on.

But if she pushed too hard, Remy could always cancel her contract, and solving Wendy’s murder required proximity to the major players. Besides, she’d done enough. Remy now realized Wendy had diligently noted the things he told her to do. If there was another lie, Max would catch him in it.

And he knew it.

She held out her hand. “You want me to take her check, Remy?”

Finally, without turning around, he held out his hand, his acquiescence shocking Max. An explosion had seemed far more likely. Inevitable. “Give me the check, Mrs. Drake.”

Laying it on his palm, Carla smiled slyly at Max. As if they were conspirators. Not in this life, lady.

“If you’re one second late next month, your policy is history.” Remy spoke to the woman behind him, but his eyes never left Max’s face. He’d recovered his composure and was attempting intimidation. Fat chance.

“Take care of it today.” He threw the check at her. Max let it fall to the carpet.

Someone should have murdered him.

The check landed face up. Finally, once the paper had settled, Max bent to get it. “Mrs. Drake, this check is dated August 31.” Prior to Wendy’s death. When Nicholas Drake was in Boise with his kids.

“Nick backdated it. He always does things like that.”

The answer was too quick, as if she’d expected the question. Or was used to shifting blame. Nick had given her the check before he left, told her to mail it, and she hadn’t. Max was sure.

“Be careful, Mrs. Drake.” Remy’s hands fisted at his sides as he turned on the woman. “I don’t tolerate lies.”

“And what makes you think I’m lying?” Something cracked in Carla Drake. Max wasn’t sure if it was the accusation, Remy’s threatening tone, or something sparking in her wayward brain, but Carla was suddenly on a spiteful roll. “You think I’m lying because my dear husband is so ethical, so morally upstanding that you can’t imagine he’d ever backdate a check?”

“Mrs. Drake—”

“But then you’re a man. And men always side with each other when it comes to their little flings, don’t they?”

Remy sighed, a long-suffering sound. “Your cryptic remarks confound me.”

He sounded like that Victorian gentleman again with his suddenly unnatural speech pattern. An obvious attempt at regaining the upper hand.

Carla snarled. “I know you were all in on it.”

He rolled his eyes. “What?”

Remy’s indifference only made Carla angrier. “Covering up my husband’s affair with that whore bookkeeper of yours.”

“Really, Mrs. Drake, don’t you think if I thought something like that was going on, I would have stopped it?” Remy didn’t sound particularly shocked by the news or the accusation.

“You probably watched them.”

“I resent that.”

Despite his apparent affront, Max had the feeling Remy found the idea funny and enjoyed baiting the woman.

Carla ignored him, almost talking to herself. “What did he see in her anyway? She was a drab little mouse.”

Wendy had wondered the same thing about Nick’s wife. The woman’s words sounded suspiciously like something Theresa had said. Max jumped on it. “Did you know Wendy, Mrs. Drake?”

Carla faltered then, but only for a moment. “I saw her. A wife has a right to find out what’s going on behind her back. And she deserved what she got.”

“I wouldn’t let the police hear you say that.”

“I don’t care. I’ll say it to them. It’s how I feel. The tramp deserved to die.”

The woman’s sentiment shuddered through Max. As did the knowledge that Carla Drake had known the identity of her rival.

She’d known the night unsuspecting Wendy sat thirty feet away from her in the airport terminal waiting for Nick to relinquish his kids to his wife.

It gave her an excellent motive for murder.

Chapter Fifteen

With the door open, the hum of voices filled her small office. Max ignored them, writing down Carla Drake’s new address and phone on a piece of paper she then shoved into the front pocket of her purse.

“She’s a real bitch, isn’t she?”

Her head popped up. Theresa leaned against the doorjamb, her hip jutted out, her pleated skirt school-girl sexy. A soft whiff of her dimestore cologne drifted past Max’s nostrils.

“I have no opinion on Carla Drake,” Max said, knowing the statement would evoke a litany of opinions from Theresa.

“She’s a cow.”

“It’s unpleasant to refer so disparagingly to someone’s weight, you know.”

As Max well knew, weight was not what Theresa meant at all. “She used to call him at least ten times a day. It drove us nuts. Remy finally told us to say Nick wasn’t available until break time.”

“Don’t you have customers at the counter, Theresa?” Max commented sternly. A lack of interest was the best way to keep the teenager going, to up the number of juicy items revealed.

As if Max had just begged her to tell all, Theresa took three steps into the office and leaned against the copy machine. She loved to lean against things; the table, the counter, the back of a chair, knowing it set her long legs off to best advantage.

Jail-bait.

Max looked at her. “Are you sure you’re only sixteen, Theresa?”

No one would ever mistake her for innocent. She’d probably done more sexual things than Max could imagine.

Theresa looked over her shoulder, shook her hair out with a careless flip, then turned back, smiling. She knew exactly what Max was thinking and damn if the little...woman didn’t seem proud of it. “Almost seventeen. I’ll graduate at the end of winter semester with my job credits. Now, don’t you want to hear about Nick and Wendy and Carla?”

The lunch rush was long over, the girl was bored and more than willing to tell every spicy detail.

“I don’t like gossip.” It was all Max could do to pretend disinterest.

Another step. Theresa leaned against the filing cabinet, no longer fully visible through the doorway. Except probably one butt cheek, exposed due the angle of her body and the brevity of her skirt. “This isn’t gossip. It’s about a murder.”

“Then you should tell Detective Long.”

“Oh, but I did.”

Max’s heart did a double back-flip. “When?”

“The first day he came here, the day after Wendy was found.”

Damn Witt. He’d known about Nick all along.

Well, of course, he has, Max. Isn’t that why Nickie’s been hiding out? Cameron piped up out of nowhere.

“Oh, shut up.”

Theresa sniffed. “I was just being friendly.”

Oops, almost lost her. “Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, kid.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“Sorry, my mistake.” Max opened the bottom drawer of her desk and put her feet on the rim. “All right, talk. I know you won’t leave until I listen.”

“You don’t fool me. You want to listen.”

Max looked heavenward. “Oh, the arrogance of youth.”

“I’m not the stupid one.”

“Just who are you referring to as stupid? You certainly couldn’t mean me.” Max put a hand to her chest with an incredulous rise to her eyebrows. “And I didn’t get the impression Carla Drake was stupid.” More like viciously jealous.

“I was talking about Wendy.”

“Wendy?” Ah, the interesting part.

“Yeah, Wendy. The paragon of virtue. She and Nick used to get here at five in the morning to screw their brains out before everyone else got to work.”

Max’s feet flopped to the floor, landing hard on the heels of her shoes. “Sure beats Wheaties for breakfast.” Her mind raced. Remy had commented on how dedicated Wendy had been, sometimes getting in as early as five in the morning. “So I suppose you want to tell me how you knew about it?”

“Some of the warehouse guys. Just because they don’t speak good English doesn’t mean they can’t see.”

“I find this pretty hard to believe, Theresa.” God, but she didn’t. A flash of Wendy’s desperation and despair washed over her, stole her breath.

“Everybody knew about it.”

Everybody didn’t know that Wendy had been slowly dying, and that Nick had seemed like her only way out. Max took a gulp of air, concentrated on Theresa’s avid features. “I doubt that. Remy would have fired them if he had.”

He’d said so, too. Or had he merely turned it into a question, thereby avoiding the lie?

“Oh, you’d be surprised. I think Remy sort of liked the fact that Nick put one over on Carla.”

“You’re making this up, Theresa.” Yet that was exactly the same accusation Carla had hurled at Remy not fifteen minutes ago.

Apparently the rule Remy missed was the one about the warehouse manager not screwing the office help.

He’d sure as hell have made Wendy pay for keeping the secret. The question was how high the price?

Why hadn’t Wendy left? Quit her job? Run away from her husband?

Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

A fist seemed to wrench her lungs. Cameron was right. Wendy had been paralyzed by the men in her life.

Maybe one of them had killed her the day she found the courage to paint her nails with Cajun Spice. The day she found the courage to leave Hal.

Then again, there was always the jealous wife.

* * * * *

Max left the grocery store with a flea collar, a pint of milk, six cans of cat food, and the smallest bag of dry mix she could find. Living with Buzzard was only temporary, just until the cat was fattened up and ready to catch mice for its dinner. In the meantime, she wasn’t about to be eaten alive by parasites.

Nicholas Drake lounged against the lightpost next to the driver’s side of her car, his boot resting on the front fender. A pair of aviator shades hid his eyes and the sleeves of his blue work shirt were rolled up to reveal a nice set of biceps. An extremely nice set.

God, he was delicious enough to drive a black Ram. Red lettering. Three-quarter ton. Max almost drooled. Damn Cameron for having given her that Ram fantasy in the first place.

She stepped off the sidewalk, pulled her keys from her purse, and held them in a defensive posture as if that would stop the frantic beat of her heart. The man made her downright squishy inside—Wendy’s emotions again—and she hated it. “Get your boot off my car, Mister.”

Her voice carried. Several yards away, three female teenage heads swiveled their way. A man walking by, drugstore bag in his left hand, missed a beat in his stride, looked, then moved on. A minivan stopped behind her, but when she made no move to get in her car, the engine gunned, then drifted off down the stretch of parking lot.

Nick straightened away from the pole, a slight curve to his lips which could have been amusement or derision.

The car top was down. Max leaned over, set the bag on the passenger seat, her black slacks stretched across her backside. “Your wife already brought the COBRA check in. Late. What more do you want?”

He ignored her question, didn’t even give her the satisfaction of a double entendre or a sexy look. Instead he laughed. “Remy threatened to cancel, didn’t he?”

“Of course.” The September afternoon was hot. She unbuttoned her jacket, slid it down her arms, then threw it across the bag of groceries. Nick watched. Despite the sunglasses he wore, she felt his eyes on her breasts beneath her thin cotton shirt. Though that might have been Wendy’s wishful thinking. It wasn’t the late afternoon heat, it was him. He melted her from the inside out. Just like he’d done to Wendy. It was happening because of Wendy. She had to find the woman’s killer soon, very soon.

“Remy threatens cancellation every month.”

Damn. For a moment she didn’t understand his comment, then she remembered what they’d been talking about. “I assume that means your wife’s late with the payment every month? Why don’t you just send the check yourself?”

He stepped off the curb, crossed his arms, pulling the blue material of his shirt snug against his chest. “I wouldn’t want to get in the way of their fun.”

Max tried not to think about watching him work shirtless in the hot afternoon sun. God, he would have made one helluva ditch digger. Oh yes, she’d bet the farm he drove a black Ram.

She tried to keep her head. “What if Remy did cancel, and your kids were left without insurance?” Facts were facts. Cancellation wasn’t an employer option. She tested Nick anyway.

He widened his stance, all trace of a smile wiped from his lean features. “I’ll see that my kids never want for anything.”

He would. No matter what. Max pushed a little harder. “And what about your wife?”

“Ex-wife.” His lips thinned, tensed. “At least, she soon will be, when the papers are signed.”

Hands on her hips, Max leaned in. “She doesn’t say ex, soon-to-be or otherwise.”

He flashed her a humorless smile. “Jealous?”

God, he sounded like Cameron, turning her own words back on her. “Don’t make yourself look ridiculous.”

A ghost of a smile touched his lips, as if he accepted she’d scored a point. “The divorce should have happened years ago. Would have except for my kids.”

“I suppose your infidelity had nothing to do with it, huh, Nickie?”

Head cocked to one side, he seemed to study her a moment. “No one but Wendy called me that. You didn’t pick that up from her date book. You knew her, didn’t you? She told you about me.”

He moved in closer as he spoke, invaded her space, turned the heat up. Her mouth went dry.

Max was tall, but he was taller by a lot. She tipped her head back. “I never met her.”

“Liar,” he drawled. “What’s your game?”

Max shrugged. “I don’t have one.”

“Is that why you were playing patty cake with the detective the other day?”

She laughed. “Patty cake?”

“He held your hands. Not very detective-like, if you ask me.”

Humor laced his voice. Imagining his laughter did something quirky inside her chest. She adored a man who knew how to laugh. So had Wendy.

He’d just given her an opening she couldn’t pass up. “What were you doing outside Lilah’s? Waiting to have your nails done?”

“Watching you.”

Yes, yes, yes. Please. “Or watching Lilah?”

“Still think I’m a suspect, Max?”

He was so close she could see the individual whiskers of his five o’clock shadow. She raised one eyebrow. “Definitely. You could have killed Wendy to hide your affair, and then you went after Lilah to hide your first murder.”

Nothing phased him. He didn’t back off the way a man should have when he’s just been accused of homicide. “There was nothing to hide. I’m a good listener, and Wendy needed someone to talk to.”

Her stomach lurched, as if Wendy screamed at his casual denial. “Before or after you started fucking her?”

The lines at his mouth deepened as his lips tensed. “I never fucked her.”

“You were just helping her build self-esteem by showing her how attractive she was? Is that what you told your wife?”

“My ex-wife knew nothing about Wendy and me.”

“Well, she certainly knows now.”

He rocked forward. His closeness dazzled Wendy, made Max herself lose her train of thought. Maybe even her sanity.

“What do you think you know?”

Know? She didn’t know anything except that the shape of his mouth would fit hers precisely, that he smelled of aftershave, that she was sick of her own reflection in his damn glasses.

“Someone hated Wendy enough to kill her.” She took a chance despite not being able to gauge his expression behind those mirrored lenses. “And your soon-to-be ex-wife had reason to hate Wendy. Maybe even reason to kill her.”

He backed off then, instantly, features frozen. Max felt the power shift. She had the driver’s seat now, and she drove right over him. “Why is she divorcing you, Nick?”

“Who says she’s divorcing me?”

“It’s way past time for games.” Though Wendy enjoyed playing hers through Max. “She threw you out. Why?”

He took a deep breath, lines of bitterness furrowed his brow. “Because I was a low-life, no good, lousy husband whose first priority was never the wife and kids.”

Max snorted. “God, if you believe that, you’re incredibly stupid. Every woman knows when her man is screwing around.” She’d have known in an instant if Cameron had even thought about it. The scent of guilt would have clung to him like skunk on a hound. “That’s why she kicked you out.”

“Believe me, she wouldn’t have been able to keep it to herself if she even suspected.”

“Unless she was planning retribution, Nickie.”

The pulse at the side of his neck throbbed. A blue vein stood out at his temple. “She never knew about the affair.”

“Why don’t you take off those bad-ass glasses, and let me see your eyes when you feed me that line?”

The glasses sat firmly in place, and not a muscle ticked on his face.

“You know she did it, don’t you, Nickie? That’s what you’re afraid I’ll figure out.”

A muscle rippled in his jaw. “My wife didn’t kill Wendy.”

It wasn’t lost on Max that his “ex” had quickly become his “wife” when he thought Max was threatening her. Whether they’d signed the papers or not didn’t make a damn bit of difference.

“Scared the mother of your children is a murderer?” she taunted.

His tension faded. He folded his arms across his chest. She could almost see his brain work. He thought he was on to something. “There’s one problem with this theory of yours.”

“Hmm?”

“My wife’s got an airtight alibi. She had the kids with her that night.”

Max merely smiled. “Your mother-in-law’s house is only five minutes from the airport. Have you checked if your wife was home with her little darlings at 10:00 the night Wendy died?”

His air of superiority died a quick death. “You don’t know a damn thing about what happened that night.”

“Maybe you don’t either—especially since you weren’t even aware she knew about you and Wendy.”

“My wife is not capable of murder.”

Wendy welled up inside Max, and the dead woman’s words slipped out her mouth. “Thought you were divorcing her, Nickie. Thought you couldn’t stand the sight of her anymore and that touching her made you want to puke.”

He took a step back, the heel of his boot hit the curb, and he stumbled. “Who the hell are you?”

Without those shades, she would have seen panic in his eyes.

Max closed in. Wendy’s roiling emotions drove her forward. “Are you still in love with your wife?”

“That’s over.”

“Your feelings for her are far from over, aren’t they?”

He swallowed. She knew he’d looked deep inside. “There are times she can be so damn sweet.”

“What about the times she can be so damn cruel?”

His hands fisted. “None of this is her fault. I had the affair. I broke up my family.”

“I was talking about cruelty, Nick. Couldn’t she be cruel enough to kill?”

“Carla had a real bad childhood.”

“That’s no excuse. Wendy had a shitty childhood, too. But she’s the one who’s dead.”

“Wendy’s parents never committed her, never had her subjected to shock treatments, and never left her alone at the mercy of fifteen unrestrained psychotics.”

“No, Wendy’s father only beat her and terrorized her and—” She cut off the last, worst piece. Even she couldn’t say that aloud. It was only in that short silence that she finally heard what he’d said. Jesus, everyone had a story, even Carla.

Nick narrowed his gaze, brought his face down to hers. “That’s bullshit. Wendy had a perfect childhood.”

“Yeah, right. Go on telling yourself that. Didn’t you want her because she seemed defenseless and damaged and needed you to protect her? Just like your wife used to need you.”

She wanted to rip the glasses from his face, stare into his eyes, see into his soul. She wanted the truth.

“You said you didn’t know Wendy.”

“I said I’d never met her.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. A sheen of sweat showed at the open throat of his work shirt. “Who are you?”

“You’re repeating yourself, Nickie.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to know you don’t have any secrets from me.” Unfortunately, he had far too many. She’d figure them all out. Eventually.

Max took perverse pleasure in rattling him. He was far too appealing for a man involved in murder. She had the same repellent attraction for hairy spiders, though she’d never wanted to touch one. “Come on, Nick. What are you afraid of?”

He popped then, like an overstretched bungi cord. She couldn’t say which taunt had pushed him over the edge. His lip lifted in a snarl. He glared at her through his dark lenses, an attempt to regain control. “Stay away from my wife.”

“What about you, Nickie? Shall I stay away from you, too?”

She ignored his threat, took a step closer. Her heart pounded, adrenaline rushed through her veins, need raged in her chest.

He grabbed her then, rough hands on her shoulders, and jerked her against him, crushed his mouth on hers. He tasted of anger, domination, and fear. He tasted of peppermints. Like Cameron. Max was sure she’d die. By his hands or in his bed, she didn’t know which.

The kiss was over so quickly, she never even had a chance to close her eyes. That didn’t stop her body from lubing up or her nipples from budding against her shirt.

Max put a hand to her mouth. One clear thought came through. Nick was as susceptible to Wendy’s persistent emotions as she was. He might not see her in Max’s flesh, but he sure as hell saw her shining out of Max’s eyes.

He looked down at her, mirrored glasses reflecting her stunned face.

“Yeah. Stay away from me, too. You really have no idea what I’m capable of.”

Chapter Sixteen

It was dark. It was late. The cool night air soothed her after the heat of the day. Max sat on a swing in a park three blocks from the Victorian where she rented her sparse room.

“You didn’t ask him if he drove a Dodge Ram.” Cameron was in top form tonight, riding her the moment she relaxed.

“The thought never even crossed my mind.”

“Liar. It crossed your prurient little brain at least twice. You were fantasizing about it on the drive home. Your fetish is beginning to border on the obsessive.”

“Don’t eavesdrop if you don’t like what you hear.”

She pushed herself back with her toe in the sand and stubbornly refused to discuss Nick Drake or the fact that her body still quaked from his touch. “I was reviewing suspects. Now you’ve ruined my concentration.” She held up her right forefinger. “Now. There’s Hal who thought Wendy was having an affair.”

“Use your skills, Max, not your logic. The answers are all right there if you just listen.”

“My skill is my logic.” Max held up another finger. “Then there’s Bud Traynor who used to beat Wendy.”

“He knows you went to see Lilah Bloom right before she died.”

“Bud Traynor?”

“Dammit, you know I’m talking about Nicholas Drake.”

“For your information, Nickie didn’t act like he knew Lilah was dead. But you want him on the list of suspects, fine. He’s there. Satisfied?”

Cameron was tellingly silent.

Max pushed off once more with her feet, sailed higher. “Now I’ll continue, if you don’t mind.”

“You haven’t got a clue who did it.”

The stars rushed by as the swing flew back, then forward. “That’s why I’m going over my list.” One more finger went up. “Then we have Carla Drake who knew her husband was having an affair with Wendy.”

“She had the kids.”

“She could have left them at her mother’s.”

“How would she have known Wendy was still in the parking lot? Your explanation doesn’t work.”

“She’s got motive—”

“You’d like it to be her, then he’d be free for you.”

“This isn’t about me. It’s about Wendy.”

“You’re overlooking all the logistical problems because you’re blinded by her emotions and her jealousies.”

It was so close to the truth that she ignored him and held up her pinkie. Her other hand curled tightly around the swing chain. “Next we have Remy. I just haven’t figured out his motive, yet.”

“Put your fingers down. You remind me of Hackett and his damn rules.”

Max straightened her feet out, watched them touch the sky, then she was on the down-swing again. “You’re acting like a baby. Why don’t we just clear the air? You’re jealous because Nick kissed me.”

She winced, realizing how much she sounded like Nicholas Drake. In denial.

Cameron’s voice followed her as she flew up, taunted her as she fell back to earth. “You weren’t in control. You lost your head. That isn’t like you. It could get you killed.”

She leaned all the way back until her short hair brushed the sand. “He’s not a killer.”

“You sound like him when he defended his ex-wife. Excuse me, his wife.” Damn Cameron for picking up on that telltale switch of Nick’s. “You’ve both got blinders.”

“I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“Is that why you didn’t tell Nick that Lilah Bloom had been murdered?”

She came down, slowed, skidded her feet across the sand. “So what?”

“You were afraid.”

A trickle of sweat ran down between her breasts. “I was testing him.”

“You were afraid he wouldn’t be surprised. Or that he’d act too surprised. Then you’d have to think he might have killed both women.”

She thrust herself from the swing, took three steps, sand sucking at her feet. “He had no motive for murdering Lilah.”

“Yet you suggested he’d go after Lilah because she might tell his wife about his affair.”

Cameron’s voice was all around her. She threw her arms out. “I didn’t believe it even when I said it to him. I just wanted to push. Carla was already divorcing him. It wouldn’t have mattered what Lilah told her.”

“You aren’t asking enough questions, Max.”

“I’m asking them all.”

“You haven’t said Lilah’s name to any of your so-called suspects.”

“Witt already talked to them. What the hell am I supposed to add?”

“You haven’t been to see the other people in Wendy’s appointment book.”

“Her psychiatrist.”

“And her psychic reader.”

“The first won’t tell me a thing because I’m not a cop, and the second can’t know any more than I do. She’s a crock.”

“Excuses, Max. You have way too many.”

“If you’re so omnipotent, why don’t you look in your crystal ball? Why don’t you ask Wendy’s spirit? Why don’t you give me some answers?”

“I gave you the questions. Ask Nicholas Drake where he was when Lilah Bloom was murdered. Don’t you think that’s important?”

She felt the sand sucking her down. Circling the swing, she grabbed the chain and threw herself into the seat again. Her head swirled with Cameron’s words, her body squirmed with too much sexual tension. With Nick, and before that, with Detective Witt.

She wanted out of this discussion, out of Wendy Gregory’s nightmares. She wanted relief. Something. Anything.

She closed her eyes and felt Cameron’s body pinning hers in the swing.

“You want Witt. Nick is just a remnant of Wendy mixing you up.”

“I don’t want either of them.” I want you.

“You have me.”

“Do me,” she whispered. If he didn’t, she was afraid she’d have to search for someone at the Round Up. And she didn’t want that either. She closed her eyes, willing him to give her what she desperately needed.

“Out here?”

“Right here.” It would be like that time on the motorcycle, sitting on the seat, her legs hugging his body, all slippery on the leather. It was dark out now, not like the other day on the deck.

Then again, maybe she hadn’t been as desperate the other day.

“You’re always desperate for me to fuck the hell out of you.”

She felt him slide his body beneath hers, the swing sinking with his weight.

“Spread your legs.”

She did, gripping the links of the swing’s chain. She was glad for the broken lights of the playground. What the hell would someone think of a woman sitting alone on a swing, her legs wide, her head thrown back with the anticipation of bodily pleasure?

“You don’t need a cowboy. You can ride me,” Cameron whispered.

His thighs tensed, the swing started to move. No zippers needed to be undone, no buttons popped. He could simply slip three fingers inside her, penetrate deeply. All the lingering wetness of the day’s encounters eased his movements. She undulated against him, leaned forward to thrust her clit against the palm of his hand, then bore down to increase the pressure.

“Make me come.” She could forget this wasn’t real while she came. She could wrap her arms around his neck without even moving a muscle, hold him close, never let him go.

“I’m going to fuck you, Max. Right here, right now.”

Her feet touched the sand just as his cock drove up inside her. She panted through open lips, pumped against him. Her shoes seemed to sink into the sand. God, he felt good. So big. He’d never been so large when he was alive, but now he reached so high he almost touched her throat.

“He’d be this big, wouldn’t he?”

“Who?” She bit her lip, trying to climb to the edge of orgasm.

“Witt.”

Witt of the big hands and big body. “Yes, yes, he would.”

“He could ride you until you came a thousand times.”

She imagined the big man’s hands on her butt, holding her still while he drove into her. He would smell like that musky aftershave and the scent of sex. He’d crush her into the mattress, the weight of him squishing all the air out of her lungs. She’d spread her legs wide and wrapped her calves around his butt, taking him deeper. She’d scream for him.

Yes, she’d come. Oh, how she’d come.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop,” she chanted. “Put your finger there. Yes, right there!”

“Call me Witt. Tell Witt what you want.”

She grabbed blond hair between her fingers, twisted it, while the detective’s callused fingertips stroked her clit.

“Oh God, Witt, please, touch me. Make me come.”

“So huge, you’re filled up, Max, past your throat, to your eyeballs. He makes your body sing.”

His lips clamped down on her exposed nipple, teeth grazing the distended tip. Then he sucked. She went into orbit, sparks traveling down her abdomen to that hot pocket of need centered right in her clitoris. Reaching behind, she stroked his balls and the crinkly, coarse hair surrounding them. Then she pressed a finger to the underside of his scrotum, where he was tight and filled with an impending explosion of semen. He raged inside her, grunted like an animal. Out of control. Concentrating on his cock and his need. Lost to it. His groans filled her ears. Her pussy gushed in response.

She humped and moaned and burst into flame with the power of her orgasm.

She kept her eyes closed until she could breathe again and the night air chilled her sweaty skin. When finally she looked, her hands were white-knuckled around the swing’s chains. Pain crimped her fingers. She’d braced her legs in the sand, the toes of her shoes buried in the soft stuff.

“How did you do that?” she whispered.

“You did it.”

“No. You morphed into him.” The morphing thing scared the crap out of her. Cameron had never done that before. It made her realize he’d been keeping a whole helluva lot of ghostly abilities to himself.

“I can be whatever you want me to be. And you wanted me to be him.”

“That’s not true.” She’d wanted Cameron to be alive, but that was beyond anyone’s power.

“You didn’t see me. You didn’t see Nick Drake. You saw Witt. You felt Witt.”

“You’re screwing with my mind.”

“You’re screwing with it when you won’t admit you wanted it to be him making love to you.”

“You called it fucking.”

“But it felt like more than that, didn’t it?” His voice came from a distance now, off to her left.

“I just needed to get off.”

“You imagined it was him getting you off. Not me.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. Cameron had brought Witt into it, but she’d gone along willingly.

“It was just a fantasy.”

Cameron laughed from somewhere outside the little park, and then his laughter stopped altogether. Maybe he’d gone home without her.

Max dragged in a breath, sucking in the scent of her own dampness.

And something else.

The unmistakable aroma of Witt Long’s aftershave. She trembled, remembering the feel of him inside her, the way he filled her to capacity.

God, what was happening to her?

Wendy wanted Nick Drake, a man who very well might have killed her. And God help her, Max wanted the detective who thought her capable of murder.

Chapter Seventeen

Max shoved what happened at the playground out of her mind. It was nothing. Just another of Cameron’s kinky fantasies. A nightmare. No, a morphmare.

Who ever heard of a husband wanting his wife to fantasize about another man? Even if the husband was just a ghost.

Enough. She went back to what they’d been discussing last night, before she’d allowed Cameron and her own body to take control of her.

Oh yeah, they’d been talking about asking Nick where he was the night Lilah died. Max decided to ask everyone except Nicholas Drake. Cameron wanted her to use her so-called psychic abilities. She would, and what she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt was that Nick could never have looked Wendy in the eyes as he strangled her.

Max knew what it was like to watch someone die. In those brief moments at the corner 7-Eleven, she’d seen Cameron’s spirit leave his body, seen it in his suddenly lifeless eyes. Heard it as his last breath left his body in a gurgle.

Nick would never have been able to watch Wendy die by his own hand. That took a special kind of person. A monster.

If he couldn’t have murdered Wendy, he’d never have needed to kill Lilah.

Max started her detective work with Remy. She had cause. Overnight, her office had been searched. Cleverly. Almost undetectably. If she’d been a little less tidy, she might never have noticed, but a pile of papers was askew, a binder in the bookcase pulled out a quarter of an inch beyond the others, her file drawer not quite closed, and a couple of the folders were out of order. What had the culprit wanted?

A little after ten, Remy entered, without knocking and without acknowledging that she was on the phone. “I need that—”

Max stifled an oath. “Excuse me, can I call you back?” She hung up with a nod as if the bank clerk could see her.

“Who was that?”

“The bank.”

“Why were you talking to them?”

“I had a question about the statement.”

“What kind of question?”

She bit the inside of her lip, reined in a vicious retort. She almost accused him right then of searching the office, but held back in the nick of time, reminding herself, be subtle. “A returned check. There wasn’t enough information to identify it.”

“I don’t want anyone dealing with the bank except me.”

Why hadn’t someone beaned the man over the head years ago? “Well then, could you please call them back and find out what customer it was so we can rebill?”

“Fine. Write it down.”

She wondered what he had to hide. Could it be that Wendy’s death had nothing to do with jealousy or the affair with Nick? What if she’d uncovered some illegal activity of Remy’s? Then again, it was most likely Remy’s Little Hitler syndrome at work again.

“Remy, when do the janitors clean?”

“Huh?”

“The janitors. Someone’s been moving stuff around in the office. I just wondered if they clean every night.”

Of course, they did. Her trash was always emptied in the morning. She was, however, more interested in Remy’s reaction to the fact that she knew the contents of her office had been searched. Because, golly gee whiz, wasn’t it coincidental that her office was searched right after she’d told Remy about Wendy’s detailed notes?

A flicker of impatience thinned his lips, but Remy gave no sudden start of fear, no bead of sweat on his upper forehead, no throat-clearing. “They’re supposed to clean every night. Is something missing?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Frigging illegals were looking for the petty cash box.”

“No, I don’t—” Damn. He’d manipulated her neatly, forcing her to defend the janitors and deflecting the original issue.

He pounded his fist on the top of the filing cabinet. Wendy’s spider plant bounced. “I’ll get a new service.”

“It was just once—”

“They’re robbing me blind.”

“Remy, I—” Max stopped to look at him. His mustache twitched. She could have sworn he’d smiled but managed to hide it before she could be sure.

Remy Hackett had just won the round.

He had not lost his cool, he had not admitted a thing, and he’d railroaded her, turning her own subtlety against her. It was not a satisfying feeling for a woman who was definitely into satisfaction.

She’d be back. The next time, Remy would be on the run.

* * * * *

“You should feel what you’re supposed to ask. You’re blocking yourself, Max.”

“I’m just not a mind reader like you think I am.”

“You are when it comes to Nicholas Drake.”

“That’s woman’s intuition.”

“That’s called falling for the wrong guy. Foolish women do it all the time.”

If he’d been in the passenger seat beside her, even at the risk of causing an accident, Max would have elbowed him. She didn’t care that he wouldn’t have felt it.

“Don’t call me stupid, Cameron.” He knew how she felt about that word, and he used it to needle her.

“I didn’t use it. You just wanted to hear it that way. Maybe because you know I’m right.”

Which is why he gave her that morphmare about Witt, to make his fricking point.

“Would you kindly get off my case. I’ve got bigger fish to fry right now.”

She planned to pay a surprise condolence visit to Hal Gregory. He hadn’t called her since his wife’s funeral. Max was afraid she might have lost her edge with him. Time to get it back.

“You didn’t ask where Remy was the night Lilah died.”

“I will, dammit.” She wouldn’t admit that the changes in her office had thrown her off. “For right now, he knows I know he searched Wendy’s stuff. It’s enough.”

The top on the car was down. The sun was warm, and her bones lost some of the chill that pervaded them. She’d been cold all day in the office. Could have been the murderous company she’d been keeping lately.

Or the onslaught of sensual daydreams and nightmares that heated her while she experienced them, but left her cold and empty in the light of day.

“Someone else could have made the search.” Cameron prodded.

“Remy and I have the only two keys.”

“As far as you know.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Wouldn’t the warehouse manager have needed a key in case you weren’t around?”

“We don’t have a warehouse manager. The position’s vacant.”

“It wasn’t. Did Nick give back his keys?”

“If he didn’t, you can sure as hell bet Remy had the locks changed.”

“Always jumping to Nickie’s defense, aren’t you?”

Max sighed, not wanting to argue. “I’m being logical. Like you said, if it was Nick, why, of any other night he could have gone through my office, would he choose last night? The night after I told Remy that Wendy kept meticulous notes on everything. Answer that, Cameron.”

He didn’t. Instead he posed another question. “Why would Remy have waited until last night, of all nights, to do it, when he’s had ample opportunity since the night she died?”

“Because Remy thought Wendy was cowed. He underestimated her.” He hadn’t figured on the notes she kept.

“Ah, Max,” he breathed next to her ear. Shivers danced across her nerves endings. “Now you’re starting to percolate.”

That’s exactly what it felt like, that her brain had percolated for too long and turned to mush. “I’m tired of all these questions. I want some answers.”

She pulled into Hal Gregory’s driveway with exactly that in mind.

The house was large and in one of the better Peninsula neighborhoods. Painstakingly trimmed shrubbery, neatly edged lawn, and freshly loamed flowerbeds. Hal loved order, but he’d pay to get it. Wendy, on the other hand, had reveled in the dirt caked beneath her manicured fingernails and the sun warm on her back. She’d loved the colors of flowers, the scent of them, loved knowing they flourished under her tender care.

Max closed her eyes. The name of the game was using people. Max wanted to use Hal to lead her to Wendy’s killer. Hal wanted to use Max to lead him to Wendy’s lover. Nothing wrong with that. People had agendas all the time. The only difference was that Max wasn’t above nailing Hal if he’d been the one to kill his wife.

His black car was parked in the driveway. Interesting that Wendy got the Nissan and he got the expensive Lexus. She rang the bell on his long, low house and waited, watching as heat rose off the boulders in his rock garden.

Footsteps echoed in the tiled entryway on the other side of the door. Standing on the pebbled porch, she was at a good six-inch disadvantage when he opened the door. Hal stared for a long moment, then a smile split his face, a purely raptorial grin that raised goose bumps along her arms.

Not that the man came even close to frightening her. He was a weasel, and she knew how to handle weasels.

“Max, how nice. Bud and I were just talking about you.”

“Bud?”

There were weasels, and then there were evil monsters like Bud Traynor, a force that even a man like Witt Long might not know how to handle. Max didn’t think she stood a chance.

Sweat slicked her palms, and her one and only thought was to run. Hard, far, and fast.

Chapter Eighteen

Bud Traynor. Not good. Max wasn’t prepared to deal with Wendy’s men in tandem. Wrong. She wasn’t prepared to deal with Bud on any level, alone or otherwise, at least not now. She needed more time to analyze her own feelings, her own reaction, not just Wendy’s.

Hal pulled her inside. The house was cool and air-conditioned musty, the air fetid as if something green and alien grew in the ventilator. Sick-house syndrome. Her heels clattered on the tile.

A sudden waft of peppermint floated beneath her nostrils, a soft sigh caressed her nape. Give ’em hell, Max. Cameron. She should have known she’d never be alone. She straightened her shoulders.

She’d wanted Hal’s reaction to Lilah’s death. Now she’d see Bud’s as well. Too bad the detective had tipped them off. It would have been a coup to see their initial surprise. No matter, Max was at least as good at battering them as Witt could be. Especially because they wouldn’t be expecting it.

They rounded the edge of a paneled wall, and Max followed Hal down two steps into the most gorgeous room she’d ever seen. Of course, it wasn’t the room itself, but the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sparkling blue of the sun on the water in the kidney-shaped pool outside, and the rhododendron bushes. Wendy loved their brilliant color in the spring. The room screamed of life, of Wendy. She’d sat on the soft leather couch with a steaming cup of tea, morning light bathing her face. She had renewed her energy in this very room and thought many times of leaving Hal.

And of leaving the man sitting on that same camel-colored leather sofa.

Love, duty, and fear. Wendy had wanted the first. Bud Traynor had inspired only the latter two.

Max shivered in the too-cold atmosphere. Hal’s fingers on her back urged her into the room, closer to Wendy’s father. Her skin shrank from the light touch.

Wendy hid inside her as Max marched into that emotional dungeon with each step she took, deeper into the Gregory home where Bud Traynor waited like a poisonous snake ready to strike, ready to immobilize and swallow her whole with minimal effort, as if she were a terrified mouse. The way he’d done with Wendy.

Bud was about to find out that Max was of a different ilk. Wendy, too, was going to find out just exactly who was in control of Max’s body.

“Mr. Traynor.” She nodded. “I hope I’m not intruding.” She didn’t care if she was.

“Of course not,” they both chimed at once, Bud with a reptilian gaze that Hal, his back to his father-in-law, couldn’t see. Without a doubt, they’d been discussing her. She knew it through Bud’s dark, assessing gaze. She wondered if she’d bitten off more than she could chew, then immediately quashed the thought. She would not let this man get the better of her before she even started.

“Would you like a drink?” Hal asked, his shoulders slightly rounded. He seemed to shrink in significance when in the same room with Bud Traynor.

“No,” then, after a slight but definite break, “thank you.” She added it merely for politeness, and the pause was for Bud, to let him know it meant nothing more. Not fear, not trepidation, simply choice.

“But we can’t drink alone.” Bud held his glass up. Sunlight shone through the ice cubes and the colorless liquid. Gin and tonic in the summer. Rye and ginger in the winter. Even at the age of eight, Wendy’d always had his drink ready when he got home from work. God help her if she hadn’t.

Bud Traynor was a functioning alcoholic. He got nasty on his third gin and tonic. Wrong word. Sadistic was better. His pleasure in causing pain, and, strangely, his control of himself, rose exponentially with the level of alcohol.

“Just a glass of wine perhaps,” Hal coaxed.

“Yes, wine would be fine,” she agreed, merely to move the conversation forward.

Inside her, Wendy curled into a fetal ball. Max looked Bud Traynor over dispassionately. He was a good-looking man, mid-to-late fifties, thick, graying hair, eyebrows several shades darker. He obviously prided himself on his physique; a well-toned chest and muscled arms lay beneath a hunter-green polo shirt.

For an old guy, he was sort of doable. As Wendy’s father, he made her want to puke. No finger down the throat necessary for that.

As Hal’s footsteps receded, Max did what she’d come here to do: test reactions. “Detective Long told me about Lilah Bloom’s murder.”

“Ah, the Bloom woman. Please, have a seat, Max.” Not an ounce of regret nor any other discernible emotion in Bud’s voice.

He patted the sofa beside him. When he smiled at most women, he set out to charm. When he spoke, he gave a woman his full attention. When he looked at Max, she only saw the relentless predator in his almost black eyes.

Max sat on the matching loveseat, out of his reach. Hal returned, approaching silently across the Berber carpet, set her glass on the coffee table, then moved to perch on the arm of the sofa opposite Bud. A pale shadow in her periphery.

With them both now present and accounted for, Max plunged ahead. “The detective believes the motive for Lilah’s murder could have been blackmail.”

“The detective has a lot of theories he’s discussed with both Hal and I. But what do you think, Max?”

It was a smooth maneuver, turning the question back on her. It didn’t fail her notice that neither Bud nor Hal questioned her interest. She decided to tell him exactly what she’d seen in her dream and hoped it would cause a flicker of apprehension.

“I think Lilah was supposed to meet a blackmailer at a restaurant, but he showed up at her shop and took her by surprise.”

Hal said nothing. Bud answered with another question. “So you believe Lilah’s killer was a man?”

“I could have said it.”

He raised his hand; the ruby ring glinted. Taking a mouthful of gin, he rolled it round his tongue before swallowing. “I’m so glad you’re looking out for my daughter’s interest, Max. I can see how much you care.”

The man was a master of deflection, and his emotions were too closely schooled to reveal a thing, especially guilt. Still, she tried more shock tactics. “Lilah had a gun. She missed using it by a fraction of a second.”

“Blackmailers usually get what they deserve, don’t they?” This time he waited for her reaction.

“Even if Lilah was a blackmailer, she didn’t deserve a death sentence.”

“What could Wendy’s nail woman know to use as blackmail?” Hal spoke this time, his voice harsh with anger. Was his emotion prompted by fear? Or by the very idea that Lilah Bloom might well have known more about his wife’s life than he did?

Max sipped her wine. “Wonderful bouquet,” she remarked, politeness all around. “The detective thinks Wendy might have told Lilah a lot of things about herself.”

“Only her hairdresser knows for sure,” Bud quipped. An uncaring remark for a man who’d so recently buried his daughter. Asshole.

“Something like that,” she agreed.

Hal moved then, took a spot on the loveseat beside her. She felt surrounded. Trapped. A chill shivered along her backbone. “So you think my wife spilled her guts to a woman who painted her nails for fifteen bucks an hour?”

Thirty-five. Wendy had lied to him about that, too. “Detective Long seems to think so.”

There she went again. She felt like a puppet citing Witticisms. Her fingers tensed on the stem of her wineglass, and she wondered where her usual snappy comebacks had flown to.

The answer stared at her from a pair of eyes black enough to give her heart palpitations. Maybe they were Wendy’s palpitations? Bud Traynor made her mouth go dry. His concentrated gaze, as palpable as a touch to her nipple, made her suspect he saw every secret inside her head. Wendy had never been able to hide a thing from him. How the hell had she hidden her affair with Nick?

The answer: she hadn’t hidden it at all.

Bud took control once more. He’d never let his son-in-law take over for too long. “Let’s assume our esteemed detective is correct. Lilah Bloom blackmailed Wendy’s killer.” Bud swirled the ice cubes in his glass. He tugged on the leg of his pants and crossed his ankle over his knee. “Perhaps Wendy told her the name of the man with whom she was conducting her adulterous affair.”

Hal’s lips tensed, but he said nothing.

Traynor said it so matter-of-factly, and yet she felt far more derogatory words hovered on his lips. She remembered the dream, knew exactly what it meant now. Wendy’s father had known she’d been with another man, had punished her for it and beaten her to extract the mans’ name.

It hadn’t worked. For perhaps the only time in her life, Wendy’s will had been stronger than her father’s. Nickie’s name never crossed her lips.

Neither would it cross Max’s. Not that it mattered. Max was pretty damn sure Bud knew everything Wendy did and with whom.

“His name. Now there’s a motive for murder, Max. Her lover killed them both to keep his secret.” Hal’s nostrils flared. “To think I encouraged her to go in at five in the morning so she wouldn’t feel so overworked.”

She wondered if Hal had figured that out before or after Wendy’s murder. Had someone at Hackett’s told him? The ever-willing-to-blab Theresa? Remy himself?

God, she felt sorry for Wendy. Hal surely had more than enough money to allow his wife to stay home. Instead he’d sent her to work at the crack of dawn so she wouldn’t feel overworked? How ass backwards was that? “I’m sure she still made it home in time to have your dinner ready.”

“There were some duties Wendy never forgot,” Hal said with an air of righteousness.

Yeah. Was blowing the beanpole one of them? Gross.

“I taught her well.” Bud Traynor smiled.

Bile rose in Max’s throat. Jesus, oh Jesus. He was a man of double meanings, and the thought of all the things he’d taught his daughter turned her stomach.

Worse yet, he was proud of it.

The man leaned forward, touched Max’s knee, and squeezed, his fingers cold through the material of her pants. Her leg shriveled. She wanted to run screaming from the room.

Buck up, Max. Don’t let him get the better of you.

Cameron was right. She looked from Bud’s fingers to his face, recognized the challenge, and met him head on. “I don’t know you well enough to allow you to put your hand on my knee, Mr. Traynor.”

He mimicked her actions, looked from his hand on her knee to her face. The pressure on her knee eased. He sat back, but his eyes gleamed. She could have sworn it was with admiration.

“Forgive me,” he said. “Forgive us both. This is such an emotional subject for Hal and I. Wendy told him she was leaving him. That was very hard on him.”

Harder than Wendy’s death? Of course. Death would have appeased Hal’s ego.

Hal sat like a rock, watched, probably even missed Max’s victory in that subtle skirmish.

“When did she do that, Bud?” With his name on her lips, she almost gave in to her gag reflex. Better to have stayed with Mr. Traynor.

Neither man asked why she directed the question to Wendy’s father instead of her husband. Nor did Hal try to usurp his father-in-law’s position.

Bud answered. “I believe, Max, that would have been sometime on Sunday.”

“The day before Wendy died?” Sunday, not Monday.

That was the reason why Hal had never reported his wife missing, the reason for the fury she’d witnessed that first day in Wendy’s office. Maybe even the reason Wendy was dead. Hal would have had plenty of time to plan a murder.

“We all knew my daughter was having an affair, that she was probably leaving Hal for this other man.”

“That would also be a motive for murder, wouldn’t it?” She looked at Bud as she said it. He ran the show, she was positive on that.

Hal opened his mouth to speak, to rage, to God knows what, but Bud held up his hand. Hal subsided against the cushions of the loveseat and let Bud speak for him. Again.

“We only want to know who killed her, Max. We want justice. Hal can’t move on without it. Do you understand that?”

She understood the inability to move on. She also understood the origin of Hal’s words the other night at the bar. The anger was his, but the phrasing had been all Bud Traynor’s.

Bud smiled, folded his arms. It was the same smile he used when he beat Wendy. “Of course, we know it could be a motive. For Hal. But he was with me when Wendy died.”

She raised an eyebrow. “So I’ve heard.”

He shot her an assessing look. “Are you suggesting a conspiracy in my daughter’s death?”

Noting Hal’s immobile features as his father-in-law defended him, Max went on, “I suppose it could be coincidence. And the night Lilah Bloom died?”

“Alas, we were again drowning our sorrows.”

She looked from one to the other. “How convenient for you both.”

Hal cleared his throat then. Bud Traynor ran a hand across the not-unattractive day’s growth of stubble on his chin. “She was my daughter, Max. I might not have agreed with everything she did, but I couldn’t possibly lie for a man if I thought he’d murdered her.”

Couldn’t possibly. The chill never left his eyes, and she knew there was nothing Bud Traynor wouldn’t do if it suited his purpose, even manipulate Hal Gregory into murdering his wife. Even if she was Bud’s own daughter.

“We need your help to find the man who killed Wendy,” Bud went on, his voice low, mesmerizing. “You know the people down at Hackett’s.”

“I don’t know them at all.”

“You have the chance to know them better. You have a chance to help us catch the man who did this to my daughter.”

His taunting tone numbed her bones. She was, she realized, looking at the man responsible for Wendy’s death. He might not have strangled her with his own hands, but everything Wendy had done was because of this man. She had welcomed death in the back seat of her car, her legs spread, her thighs covered with a man’s come, because of what her father had driven her to.

Max had seen the Devil the night Cameron died. She knew what he looked like. She recognized him in Bud Traynor’s bottomless black eyes.

Chapter Nineteen

The late evening sun beat down on her head. It went a long way to warming her insides, but it wasn’t enough. “I can’t do this anymore,” she whispered.

“You can’t stop,” Cameron murmured in answer, his words whipped away by the wind as she headed out to the freeway.

“I didn’t know myself in there.” She hadn’t been strong, hadn’t been in control. She’d been putty in the hands of evil. In the end, she’d damn near run out of there.

“You weren’t that bad. You’re living in Wendy’s skin. It’s understandable that you reacted the way you did.”

“I should have accused him, ripped him a new asshole.”

“That wouldn’t get justice for Wendy.”

“Who the hell cares about justice? She needs vengeance.”

“Vengeance against whom?”

“Against the guy with one hand squeezing my knee and the other reaching for my soul.” Against Bud Traynor.

Exhaust fumes wafted across the open vehicle. She merged into the sluggish freeway traffic between a Mercedes and a black Ram, though she couldn’t seem to drum up an ounce of enthusiasm for the fantasy truck. Behind her, Mr. Mercedes wore sunglasses and a scowl, and leaned on his horn. Max raised her hand in the air, middle finger up, then curled her fingers into a fist, and shook it at him.

Now that made her feel a world better. For a split second.

“Maybe there was more than one man who drove Wendy to her death,” Cameron urged.

She laughed mirthlessly. “Wendy was a magnet for scumbags.”

Bud and Hal and Remy. Nick, too. He’d wanted to help her, but he’d ended up getting her killed.

“Or killing her himself.”

Weary, she shook her head. “Please stop eavesdropping on my thoughts.” She slammed on the brakes as a white Honda zipped out of the commute lane and cut across two lanes of nearly stalled traffic. “Goddamn it.”

“Talk to me, Max.”

“I’m trying to drive.” Trying to block out his voice.

“Did you ever ask him why they didn’t go to her hotel room? She must have had one if she’d left Hal.”

She couldn’t wait. Max didn’t say it aloud, but Cameron picked it up out of the air.

“Afterward,” he whispered. “After Nick made love to her.”

She felt his words inside her, between her thighs, and she squeezed her eyes shut a moment, remembered the feel of Cameron, his hands on her, his lips, his tongue. Jesus, she even remembered the fullness of Detective Witt’s balls in her hand.

“They didn’t make love,” she whispered. They didn’t even have sex. “They fucked.”

The shriek of a horn jerked her attention back to the road. She’d kill herself arguing with Cameron.

“I’m tired.” Her voice cracked. God, she’d become weak. Snap out of it, girl.

“Tell me why Nick didn’t go with her?” he insisted. “Why they didn’t leave that parking lot together?”

Max ground her back teeth. “He didn’t kill her.”

“But why didn’t he leave with her?” The tension in his voice rose a notch.

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me.”

She gunned the engine, slipped into the commute lane and flashed past the line of cars. Screw the ticket she might get, even if it broke the bank. Hey, maybe the cop would be able to see Cameron sitting there. She could always say she saw him. Then they’d haul her away, lock her up, throw away the key, and she wouldn’t have to answer any more of Cameron’s questions.

“Why, Max?”

Push, push, push. Cameron’s MO stretched her nerves to the breaking point. Even violating the law, she couldn’t drive away from his insistent voice.

“Because they had a fight, okay?”

“About what?”

“I don’t know.” She’d only felt Wendy’s anger, then her loneliness, and finally her despair.

“Ask him.”

“I’ll probably never see him again.”

“You’ll see him, Max. He’ll find you. A dog can always find a bitch in heat.”

“That’s a nasty thing to say.”

“I’m only speaking the truth.”

It was true. About her, God knew. And about Wendy.

* * * * *

Max felt better the next morning. Bud Traynor may have zapped her energy, but a good night’s sleep without a dream to mar her rest was like an upper.

Then again, she might be bipolar.

Or Wendy’s emotions had taken over her life—again.

Which was worse, psychosis or possession?

It didn’t matter. At her desk, Wendy’s desk, she opened her notepad with the list of appointments from Wendy’s planner.

“Divinity,” Cameron whispered in her head.

“A psychic reader? Don’t make me laugh. The psychiatrist.”

“The psychiatrist won’t tell you a thing.”

Max twisted her mouth. He was right. “Fine. I’ll try her hairdresser.”

“What are you afraid of?”

She pursed her lips. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

“Then go see Divinity. Next to Lilah, she’s your best bet.”

Her fingernails drummed on the desktop. A refusal would be tantamount to admitting she was scared. Which was a ridiculous notion. “You win. I’ll go.”

Divinity. She traced the name with her finger. So other worldly, so out-of-character for an accountant like Wendy. Except that Wendy had committed desperate acts.

On the phone, Divinity’s voice wasn’t other worldly. It was scratchy with too many cigarettes. Yet the welcoming sound of it made Wendy cry out inside her. Max set up a 5:30 appointment for a half-hour psychic reading. The address was in an industrial area on the opposite side of the freeway to Hackett’s, only a couple of miles from the shop.

When she arrived at a quarter after, she found Divinity’s address wedged between a used office furniture store and a car repair shop. The sign above the window advertised plumbing supplies in faded blue lettering. Max looked down at the slip of paper in her hand and matched the number—it was the right place.

She climbed out of the Miata, slammed the car door, and darted across the four-lane road. Once on the other side, she thought she saw Witt’s innocuous tan vehicle parked three doors down from her bright red convertible. The angle of the sun, however, obscured the occupant, if indeed, that blob was a person.

“Still checking up on me, Detective?” She considered for a moment if she should run back and confront him. “Screw that.” He could rot inside the heat of his unmarked car. She jerked open the door of the plumbing supply house.

Avoiding him had nothing to do with that morphmare.

Inside the shop, narrow aisles were stacked floor to ceiling with pipes, fittings, and toilets. The light from the front window failed to penetrate the gloomy maze. A counter filled one wall, its glass so scratched she couldn’t make out what was inside. Years of fingerprints stained the surface. Dust powdered the air. An ancient mariner, wearing a sailor’s cap and a filthy navy shirt with the sleeves chopped off, sat on a stool. The tattoo of a naked woman undulated as he flexed his arm. He looked like Popeye. All he needed was a can of spinach and a pipe.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for Divinity.”

He grunted, grumbled, lifted his rear end, scratched, and finally pointed to a doorway two feet beyond his countertop. Light from a hallway window streamed through a curtain of gold plastic beads that twinkled and glittered in a slight current of air. Just behind, Max could make out a set of wooden stairs.

“Thank you.”

Max pushed aside the beads, and the scent of incense drifted down the stairwell. Better than any doorbell, the steps creaked as she climbed.

“You must be Max.” Voice unmistakable, Divinity stood at the top, her lips curved in a slight smile.

She was older than Max had expected, judging by the leathery texture of her skin. She wore black leggings and a loose sweater that stretched to mid-thigh, and held a pencil between her fingers as though it were a cigarette.

Stepping aside, she waved Max in.

The room was the antithesis of the store below. The windows were open, a breeze fluttered the lace eyelet curtains, and pots of incense sat on each of three round, flower-covered tables. A tall banquette separated the room from a small kitchen. Savory smells wafted from a crock pot on the far counter. Max’s mouth watered. Her stomach rumbled.

“Have a seat.” A rattan sofa scattered with pillows sat beneath the windows opposite a soft cushy chair that beckoned Max. She sank down into it.

Divinity perched on the sofa and pulled a pillow across her lap.

“Tarot cards?” A deck lay on the coffee table between them.

“No.” Max rolled her bottom lip between her teeth, then let it pop back out. “I’ll be honest with you.” The last time she wasn’t, someone died. She tried to sit forward in the chair, but the deep cushions wouldn’t give. “I didn’t come here for myself. I came to ask you about Wendy Gregory.”

Divinity shuffled the cards in front of her, then wrapped them up in a soft, black cloth and put them aside. “No cards, then. Instead I’ll need something of yours to hold. Something personal. I get vibrations, sensations. It’s how I’ll get to know you better. It will help the reading.”

“But I just said I don’t want a reading. I’d like to talk about Wendy.”

“Are you with the police?” Divinity assessed her.

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“I...knew Wendy. I want to know what happened to her.”

Divinity picked up the pencil she’d had when Max first walked in and waggled it between her fingers. “I used to smoke, quit over five years ago, but I still need something to hold.” She smiled, tipped her head to one side, sniffed the air, then looked at Max. “Some people prefer chewing on something when they quit, like peppermints.”

The words jolted her. Max tried to scramble out of the chair, but it sucked her back down. Cameron’s peppermints floated in with a pleasant stream of air.

Go away, she mentally insisted.

I’ll never leave you alone when you need me, Max. He never had, at least not since he died.

“Why don’t you give me something to hold, Max? It helps center me. It won’t hurt, I promise.”

Max had tucked her purse down close beside the chair. There were innumerable objects inside she could have offered. Her checkbook. The Bic pen she used. Her car keys.

Max pulled off her wedding ring and handed it to the woman.

Divinity closed her fist around the gold band, lowered her eyelids, and let out a soft sigh. “Over a year ago, I told Wendy she was going to meet an influential man.”

“Rich? Powerful?”

“Influential to Wendy. A man who would have a profound effect on her life.” Divinity opened her eyes again. “Why don’t you wear an engagement ring?”

Max looked down at her hands. They were bare now. “Did Wendy know who he was?”

“I told her his name was something like...Rick Blake.”

“Nick Drake.”

“Yes. A few weeks later, she told me she’d met him.”

“What exactly did she tell you?”

“Just that he’d started work at the store. She was amazed by the name. I told her to watch for his influence.”

“What else?”

“That was it.”

“What?” It was enough to galvanize her halfway out of the chair. “She never said anything else? Not a word?”

“Only reiterated that he was indeed a great influence, and then she never mentioned him again.”

Max’s jaw dropped. “But that’s not possible.”

“It is, Max. You didn’t tell me why you aren’t wearing an engagement ring.”

“I...what’s that got to do with Wendy?”

Divinity’s gaze never wavered. “Why...” She spread one hand in the air. “It has everything to do with Wendy.”

Max looked at her hands again and the explanation just rolled off her tongue. “I told Cameron it was all or nothing. No engagement. Just the real thing. Either he wanted me, or he didn’t. So we got married instead of getting engaged.”

Divinity held up the hand with Max’s ring and slowly unfolded her fingers. “So it was with Wendy. All or nothing. Put it on.”

What the hell did that mean? Scooting forward to the edge of her chair, Max took the ring and slipped it back on her finger.

“Now give me your hand.”

She did, laying her hand palm up in Divinity’s. Like a lamb to the slaughter.

“Why do you think you need me when you have more power in your little finger than I could ever hope to have after all my years of spiritual training?”

A trace of nervousness streaked up Max’s spine. “Give me a break.”

“You have all the answers about Wendy right up here.” Divinity leaned forward to tap Max’s temple.

Scalded, Max jumped back from her touch. She shivered despite the warmth of the room. “I don’t know nearly enough about Wendy to find her murderer.”

“You have power, Max.”

Power? The woman sounded like Cameron. Terrifyingly like Cameron. “Years of spiritual training,” she scoffed suddenly. Feeling far more than mere nervousness—it was damn near close to panic—Max went for Divinity’s jugular. “You live above a plumbing supply store in the dumpy, industrial part of town. Drug deals are probably taking place behind the body shop next door. I don’t see much spirituality around here.”

“That was my father you saw downstairs. He needs me.”

“Forgive me, but you charge sixty dollars an hour. Somehow that seems a little more mercenary than spiritual.”

“Perhaps you noticed the amount of dust on my father’s wares. Sixty dollars an hour supports us both.”

Max did a quick calc. “That’s almost a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars a year.”

“If I had every hour accounted for, which I don’t. It’s more important to spend time with my father.”

Max’s cheeks burned. Divinity displayed not an ounce of apology, anger, or offense. Her attitude put Max in her place. “I’m sorry. I’m wrong to—”

The woman waved a hand, smiled. “I understand. Lashing out is a common defense mechanism.” Okay, that really put Max in her place. And so true. “But we were talking about you, Max.”

“I was trying to talk about Wendy.”

“Wendy was a lost and lonely soul.”

“Did she say anything that would help point to her killer?”

“If she had, I’d have told the police. Mostly, I did the talking. That’s what she paid for, you know, my insight.”

“Then tell me what your insights were.” Getting information out of this woman was like pulling teeth. Max figured she needed a bigger pair of pliers.

Divinity didn’t answer immediately, staring off somewhere behind Max’s shoulder. “What did your husband look like, Max?”

Something prickled along the nape of Max’s neck. Divinity had used the past tense. “If you’re so all-knowing, why don’t you tell me?”

“He was older than you, perhaps ten years.”

“Older and wiser,” Max whispered, and wondered where he was right now.

“He’s here, behind you. He wants me to tell you that he won’t leave you until you’re truly ready, until you let him go.”

Her breath stopped on the inhale, choked her. “You can see him?”

“He’s opening a candy.” Divinity glanced at Max. “You can smell it, can’t you?”

God oh God, she smelled peppermints. “I only notice the incense.”

“Max,” Divinity chided softly. “What do you smell?”

“Sandalwood.”

Divinity crossed her arms over her chest. “Peppermint, Max. You smell peppermint.”

The chair was no longer able to hold her down. Max stood, legs shaky, heart hammering, chest tight. She turned, looked into the far corners of the kitchen. The fragrant vapors of simmering beef stew rose from the crockpot, three scented pots still burned on Divinity’s round tables, but layered beneath it all was the subtle aroma of peppermints.

Max grabbed her purse from the floor and backed toward the stairwell. Her rear end came up against the doorjamb.

“Max.” At the sound of Divinity’s voice, Max turned and clambered down the stairs. She missed a step, stumbled, grabbing the handrail to save herself from falling. Her knee twisted. At the bottom, she plunged into the relative darkness of the plumbing supply shop and banged her knee against a jutting toilet rim.

There was only room for one thought in her head: Divinity had seen Cameron.

Which meant Max wasn’t crazy or grieving or delusional.

She wasn’t psychotic; she was psychic. That was infinitely worse.

Throwing the front door open with a crash, she fell out into the light. Vehicles whooshed by on the divided road. She clutched her purse to her chest. Her car was miles away on the other side of the median. Keys, she needed keys. Yanking open the snap of the purse, she fumbled around inside, finally finding the cool metal with her fingers.

She realized then that she’d run out without paying the woman. Well, to hell with that.

Max stepped off the curb, pulling her keys out at the same time. Her brain seemed anesthetized, her fingers felt numb. The keys slipped through them and tumbled to the pavement just before she’d reached the center divide.

She bent just as a shout of alarm came from behind her.

Then the impact threw her to the ground.

Chapter Twenty

Dirt ground into Max’s cheek, the palms of her hands, and her stomach where her shirt had ridden up.

Besides a few scrapes and bruises that would show later, she’d landed safe and sound in the median. With a very big man on top of her. She’d know that body anywhere. One of his big hands had somehow managed to insinuate itself between the packed dirt she lay on and her right breast. Something blunt scraped her nipple.

My God, the man was copping a feel. It did indeed feel very good. Her nipples hardened. She very much wanted to wriggle and squirm until a rigid bulge nestled between her butt cheeks and she’d twisted the cup of her bra aside to allow full access to those fingers.

“Get off me, you oaf.”

“Some thanks for saving your life,” Witt growled in her ear.

Which had the effect of releasing a torrent of moisture all over her panties. “Saving my life? You practically broke my back flopping down on top of me like that.”

Witt climbed off her and stood, holding his hand out to help her to her feet. “Maybe I shoulda let the guy in that green 4Runner hit you while I wrote down his license plate number.”

Max ignored the extended hand. No way was she touching him. Once on her feet, she dusted the dirt from her hands and clothes and tucked her shirt back in. She gabbed her keys from the pavement before another car came, then, back on the median, she looked down at her suit, the scuffed knees, the streaks of dirt. “Oh man, I just had this one cleaned, too.”

“How can you tell it was that one you cleaned?”

She still felt Witt’s heated imprint against her back, his hand against her breast. He didn’t look like a hot and bothered man who’d just copped a feel or flattened himself to her body. No, he looked...unaffected, unruffled, the hint of a grin on his mouth. Where the hell was the rigid bulge he should have had?

Narrowing her gaze on him, she ignored his sarcasm. “As for your blowing a detail, I don’t believe you, Detective. You wouldn’t miss a license plate if it killed you.”

“If it killed you, ya mean.”

Witt took her arm and pulled her across the street to the beige sedan she’d seen earlier. Except for the cars rushing by on the road, causing the heat and dust to swirl around her, the street was empty. No one had run out of a shop to help. No other cars had stopped. She could have died on the four-lane road, and nobody would have cared.

Witt opened the car door and plunked down on the edge of the seat, feet planted firmly on the ground, to reach across for the radio. He ignored her as he called in the near hit-and-run.

Max looked him up and down from her vantage point outside the car. Not a hair out of place, his breathing even, his black suit unrumpled. Only one smudge of dirt on his sleeve and dust on his shoes. He hadn’t even broken a sweat. Or gotten a hard-on. Though that was kind of difficult to tell with him still seated. “So, did you get the number?”

He sighed. “Plates had been removed.”

“Hah. You did look regardless of the danger to my life.”

He raised one blond brow. “It’s a fallacy perpetrated by feminists that men aren’t capable of doing two things at once.”

Yeah, like squeezing her breast and saving her life all at the same time. Men never missed an opportunity.

“Did you recognize the guy?” she asked

“Guy was a figure of speech. Tinted windows. Didn’t see the driver.”

Damn. He made her feel ornery. Or maybe it was the way she’d had other bizarre sexual thoughts about him in those split seconds he lay on top of her. Tingling-thigh syndrome. Oops, there it was again, when she looked at his big hands. She was partial to big hands. Big hands and Ram trucks.

She narrowed her eyes on him, so much easier to take out her every frustration on him right here, right now, sexual or otherwise. “You were following me again, Detective. Why?”

“Murder follows you, Max. I’m just along for the ride.”

“How did you know I’d be here?”

“Charlene Finklemeyer called. Said some strange woman claiming she knew Wendy Gregory had requested an immediate appointment.”

“Charlene Finklemeyer?”

“Divinity. ‘Strange woman’ couldn’t have described anyone but you.”

“So you followed me instead of checking out real leads?”

“Case was cold until today. Nothing on Wendy. Nothing on Lilah.”

“Until today?”

“You aware that Nicholas Drake owns a green Toyota 4Runner?”

Max gulped. “No.”

It was obvious he knew Wendy had a lover, and Nickie was it. She was sure Cameron, always lurking nearby, bit his tongue on his “I told you so.”

I told you so.

“Bastard.” There, that would get them both going.

“Why, Miss Starr, I’m unused to such epithets.” Witt rose from the car seat and towered over her.

“Mrs.,” Max corrected and backed up a step or two. It wasn’t just his hands that got to her. The man did indeed have an impressive height and breadth to him. “About the Toyota?”

“Reported stolen this morning. Coincidental, don’t you think?”

“So coincidental that it seems staged, doesn’t it, Detective?”

His lips moved, tensed. He closed the space between them by one step, spread his legs in a militant stance, pushed his suit coat aside, then jammed his fists on his hips. “Are you really that stupid, Max, or do you just do this to irritate me?”

“Goodness,” she cooed, enjoying every moment. “I seem to have pushed some sort of button here.”

“You know damn well your life is in danger. I wasn’t the one following you. He was.” He pointed down the street in the direction the Toyota had gone. “Next time, you might not be so lucky.”

“There you go with that ‘he’ again. You must have seen something.”

“I didn’t see anything except your butt about to be flattened. He’s killed twice, and if you don’t stop playing cat and mouse with him, it’ll be three times.”

Wow. Full sentences. A lot of them. “If I didn’t know better, Detective, I’d think you cared.”

He moved, and suddenly she found herself backed up against his car, the beige metal warm through the seat of her slacks. With less than six inches between them, heat emanated from Witt.

“Let me spell it out for you, Mrs. Starr.”

Yup, he was definitely pissed. His usually blue eyes were dark, and his blond brows were pulled together with an angry slash line between them. And he pointed. She pushed at his jabbing finger. “It’s rude to point.”

“Don’t interrupt. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m on a roll.”

She flapped her hand at him. “I wouldn’t dream of disturbing you.” Of course, she might expire first from spontaneous combustion.

“Just being within five feet of you is disturbing.”

She knew exactly what he meant. Any man—almost any man—towering this close to her tended to get her blood going. In one way or another. The detective managed to do it in every way. He wore the same low-key, musky aftershave. She hadn’t noticed it at first, not even when he was on top of her. Of course, at the time her nose had been pressed into the dirt.

“You were about to spell it out,” Max prompted when he just stood there a few moments longer than necessary.

He shook his head as if to clear it. “Nicholas Drake.”

“The owner of a green 4Runner.”

“And Wendy Gregory’s lover. But you knew that, didn’t you, Max? Theresa must have told you within five minutes of your arrival.”

“Actually, I think it took five days.”

“He arrived on a flight from Boise the night Wendy died, his flight number was written on a piece of paper found at the crime scene, and his fingerprints were all over the car.”

God, she was right about that damn piece of paper. When they got Nick’s DNA sample, they’d match it to the semen found inside Wendy. They hadn’t bothered with the condom. Max shuddered. Witt was so close, she was sure he must have felt her reaction. He’d probably think it was because of him, too. “He’s been your prime suspect all along.”

“Not prime. Simply the only one not around to answer any questions.”

“Which makes you suspicious.”

“He’s hiding. Innocent men don’t hide.” Witt glared down at her, his mouth grim.

Max’s neck ached from tipping her head back. Traffic had picked up on the road. Her head swam with the diesel scent of a delivery truck. “He’d have to be pretty stupid not to wipe his fingerprints off if he was guilty.”

“Killers are stupid all the time. How do you think most of them get caught so quickly? They leave a trail a mile wide.”

“Someone else could have followed Wendy there.”

“We’ve got a surveillance shot of every single car going in and out of that lot. They all checked out.”

“They could have gotten in the same way Wendy and Nick did. On the terminal buses.”

“The simplest explanation is usually the right one. Conspiracies are for television dramas.” He swept a hand out in disgust, his jacket billowing. The material brushed her breast as he moved.

Her mouth went dry. She should have pushed him away, forced him to back off. She was afraid to touch him. “He still wasn’t necessarily driving that Toyota just now.” She tapped her lips, her arm between them creating just enough breathing space. “Who reported it stolen?”

“His wife did.”

“Hah. Just think of her motive. Dead lover. Jealous wife.”

Witt cocked his head to one side, but said nothing.

“Don’t forget Hal. He told me Wendy left him for another man.”

“Dead wife? Jealous husband?”

“Exactly.”

“Awfully interested in saving Nick Drake, aren’t you, Max?”

Her insides froze up, and she knew how she sounded. Desperate. Like Wendy. “I just want to make sure you don’t miss anything by going for the simple solution, Detective.”

“There’s more here than meets the eye. Tell me what you know.”

Wedged between Witt’s persistence and the car door, she reviewed her options. She could tell him Wendy had thrown away the note with Nick’s flight number on it. That someone else had picked it out of the trash and put it in her car. That same person had been following Wendy long before Nick got off that plane. But Witt would want to know how she knew. She didn’t think he’d like her answer. He’d already scoffed the first time she’d called herself psychic. He’d also suspected her of murder over the Lilah dream.

She wasn’t about to test him again. Instead she picked on something they both knew was fishy. “Wendy’s appointment book wasn’t in the drawer that first day you went through her office.”

He smiled slightly. “Correct.”

“Theresa said Wendy took that appointment book with her everywhere.”

“Right.”

“Which means that someone stole it out of her purse and planted it for you to find.”

“Highly likely.”

“Did you also note that Wendy never used ballpoint, except in one specific instance?”

Witt stared at her. She couldn’t tell whether he’d figured that out or not. Couldn’t tell if that was admiration sparking his blue eyes. “Go on.”

“His flight time was written in for the night Wendy died. In blue ballpoint. She was strictly colored rollerball. So...why would Nick Drake forge an entry in her book, then plant it in the drawer when the only person he’d be incriminating was himself?”

Something changed in Witt, like a light going on. He backed up a step—thank God—straightened his shoulders, stared down at her, hard. “How’d you know that was a flight time?”

Busted. God, how could she be so stupid? She opted for the truth. At least then he’d only doubt her sanity. “Same way I knew 452 was a flight number. I saw it all in a dream.”

He ignored her. “You’ve seen him, haven’t you, talked to him?”

“Of course not.”

“Goddamn it, he’s wanted for questioning. Where is he?” He pointed his finger again.

She knew she’d gone a tad too far. It wasn’t a good time to remind him she hated finger-pointing. She couldn’t remember hearing him swear before. She shoved his hand aside anyway.

“I have no idea.”

She suddenly became aware of eyes at the window of the shop opposite. A horn blasted; she jumped. Her eyes teared up from the road grit in the air.

Witt never took his gaze off her. “Where did you see him?”

Damage control. “He accosted me at the grocery store yesterday. On Friday, I saw him at a bar I...frequent.”

His lips thinned, turned white. He really was pissed. “You’re playing with fire.”

Shades of Cameron’s little speeches. “I should have told you, but—”

“Two women are dead, and someone tried to run you down. Are you an idiot or just crazy?”

“I really don’t think he kil—”

“You have no fucking clue what any of these people are capable of.”

There it was again. Another swear word. Worse than the last. “I assure you I know any one of them could be a killer.”

Witt suddenly stepped forward, pushed her flush against the rear car door with his body. Sirens sounded in the distance. His gaze was dark, deadly. “Someone just tried to kill you.”

“It was probably just a scare tactic.”

“Whatever game you’re playing, Max, it better be worth your life. Because that car would have hit you if I hadn’t seen it coming.”

“I wasn’t really paying attention when I crossed the street.”

“It pulled away from the curb and aimed right for you. If I hadn’t been here, the responding officers would have been calling for a body bag.”

She shivered. This time, she knew he could feel the tremors. His eyes darkened. He raised a hand to her face, trailed a finger down her cheek. “Am I scaring you yet?”

He did far more to her body than scare her. She liked it, the macho man act, the big hulking body, everything. “Yes.”

He watched the slide of her throat as she swallowed. “Good.” His voice and touch were soft. Like a lover’s. His gaze was absorbed. Angry. Hot.

“Just one thing, Detective. If he was over there waiting for me”—she pointed east—“and you were over there”—she pointed west—“why didn’t you see him and arrest him?”

The sirens were closer now, right on top of them, screeching, and the sudden cessation of sound as they cut off created a vacuum around them. His jaw tensed. “I should have seen him. I didn’t. I was watching your ass.”

God, a man who admitted making a mistake. She liked that about him. Dammit. And she liked that he’d been looking at her ass.

“You will tell me why you’re looking for Wendy Gregory’s killer, Max. Sooner or later.”

“You didn’t believe me when I told you before.” Her heart pounded in her ears. Her voice inside her head sounded distant, tinny, like a microphone caught on reverb.

He eased himself away from her. “You sit.” With his hand on the back of her head, he pushed her down on the front seat. “When I’m done here, I’ll follow you home.”

“I’m fine, I can—”

“Don’t argue. I’m not in the mood.” He pulled a pad and pencil from his shirt pocket. He’d taken three steps toward the officers in blue when she called his name.

“Yes, Miss Starr?”

Ahh, he was back to calling her Miss. Things couldn’t be all that bad. “Thanks for saving my life.”

He smiled then, a mere quirk of his lips. “Just doing my job, ma’am.”

Chapter Twenty-One

It was dark by the time Witt followed her home. He didn’t get out of his car, but stayed until she’d parked at the curb, pulled up the top on the Miata, then closed and locked her door. His headlights swept the drive as he made a slow U-turn.

Max climbed the stairs. She was tired, angry, and cold despite the fact that the heat of the day hadn’t fully dissipated in the stuffy apartment. She kicked off her shoes, dumped her jacket and shirt in the middle of the floor, then pulled out an old sweatshirt from the bottom drawer of the dresser. Tugging it over her head, she moved to open the window.

Buzzard sat on the big ledge. His plaintive meow ceased only after she’d set down half a can of cat food mixed with a handful of crispies. His backbone and ribs still stuck out ominously, but his fur was sleeker, and his cries had become less strident.

“You’ll hang around for the food or until something better comes along. Just like a man.”

With frantic woofs, the cat ate the meal in six bites, as if he were afraid someone would steal it right out from under his nose. Jealous, guarded, fearful.

She stood at the window. Black clouds had rolled across the sky, obliterating the stars. At first, she thought they were part of her imagination, brought on by her dangerous mood, but then she heard the first drops hit the leaves of the big elm outside.

“I am so pissed at you.”

She could smell him over the scent of salmon cat food and ozone on the concrete. Peppermints and aftershave. Cameron. He always did that when he wanted to con her, wore some sexy aftershave designed to drive her crazy with lust.

“I won’t fall for it.”

“You already did fall for the biggest con in the book.” His voice came from the recesses of the room.

She rounded on him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I didn’t kill her, I loved her.” With the backdrop of the rain, his impersonation sounded eerily like Nick, though she was sure Nick had never used the “L” word. “You fell for it, Max. A true sucker.”

“He didn’t kill her. You’re just jealous.”

It was her only weapon against him, the only way she was sure she wouldn’t break down or beg him to take her in the oblivion of her dreams. She was afraid of what he’d punish her with this time. A few whips and chains. Or worse, Witt Long going down on her. No, she couldn’t handle that, she really couldn’t. Her nipples still ached from that brief contact on the roadway.

“You’re blinded by your overactive libido. You want Nick, therefore he has to be innocent.”

If only it was just about Nick Drake. “You don’t like the competition.”

“He tried to kill you.”

“You don’t know that, Cameron, unless, of course, your modus operandi has changed suddenly and you can wander all over the planet. It’s a helluva lot more likely that his wife tried to run me down.”

“You’re not even frightened of him, are you? He’ll strangle you, then slit your throat just to make sure you’re dead.”

“You don’t know he was driving that truck. You don’t even know if he killed Wendy.”

She felt sick to her stomach. Wendy’s emotions roiled in her. Wendy was the one who believed unconditionally in Nick’s innocence. Max was the one who knew he’d do just about anything to protect his family. Even commit murder.

“He should have thought of that before he screwed Wendy.”

“Get out of my head.” Her throat hurt as if she’d screamed.

“I can’t.”

“Wendy would remember if he was the one,” Max insisted.

“Wendy doesn’t know any more than I know. We believe what we want to believe, even in death, Max. We carry our dreams and illusions with us. None of us wants to know the ones we love are the very ones who would stab us in the back.”

Images of his death, his blood, and his killers twisted like a knife in her gut, and she cried out. The cat, sitting in the window, stopped licking his paw to look at her, only his faintly accusing yellow eyes visible in the dark trees.

“I’m sorry, Max,” Cameron’s sweet whisper at her nape. “But I want you to see that Wendy will tell you only what she wants you to believe. What she wants to believe. But her vision of the truth is warped.”

She wanted to crawl onto the bed and curl into a ball until she’d managed to shut out the world. Instead, she swallowed bitter tears. “You’re deflecting,” she accused. “You don’t want to talk about why you sent me to Divinity without warning me. You knew what she’d say to me.”

“You wouldn’t believe me when I told you about your power.”

“And you were there, egging her on.” She clenched her fists. If he’d been alive, she might have slapped him.

“I never said a word to her.”

“You let her see you.” Her voice shook. She pulled her anger over her shoulders like a blanket.

“Being able to see me is her gift.”

“I’ve never seen you.” And God, it hurt so.

His voice gentled. She thought she heard tears. “Not because I don’t want you to. Your gifts lie in far more important areas.”

“Don’t try to get around me with those fake tears.”

“Please forgive me. I never meant to hurt you, or to be false with you,” he whispered and his voice was everywhere, inside her, like the full feel of him when they had sex. A terrible intimacy, the loss of self. His words, steeped with hidden meanings, sucked the breath from her.

“I’ve only wanted you to accept the gifts God gave you.”

“And once I do, you’re out of here, right? Like that’s your purpose? Your good deed that gets you into heaven?”

“I’ll only leave when you don’t need me.” He paused, his love and his pain undulating in the air, sneaking into her bones. “Or until I can’t help you anymore.”

Please don’t leave me, not again. I couldn’t bear it a second time. She hugged the words to her breast, knew he’d hear them, prayed he wouldn’t acknowledge them.

The fear was the worst. She’d never been so overwhelmed by it, not even when she was younger, before Cameron saved her. Fear of being unloved, unwanted, unneeded. Fear of dying. A sudden, horrible vision of Bud Traynor, fist raised, eyes bloodshot, rose relentlessly in her head.

“You aren’t Wendy, Max, and Bud Traynor isn’t your uncle. Your uncle’s dead, and he can’t hurt you anymore. Nobody, especially not Bud Traynor, will ever hurt you like that again. You don’t have to be alone to ensure that.”

Max whirled, searching for him, gunning for him in the darkness of her one room apartment. “You’re dead, Cameron. And I am alone.”

“You’ve chosen that with your temporary jobs, your temporary men, and your temporary cat. You can’t even hack having a cell phone, for Christ’s sake. Your whole life is temporary, and you’ll lose it if you don’t listen to someone. To Witt.”

She didn’t need a damn cell phone. If Sunny wanted her, she could leave a message and Max would call her back when it was convenient. But a cell phone wasn’t his big point. Max jammed her hands on her hips. “Is that what this is all about? Witt? Are you pushing me off on him? Big cop, big protector? Is that why you made me think he was the one fucking me on that swing?”

“I keep telling you that was your fantasy, not mine. You think you don’t need a man. But you do need someone.”

“Goddamn it, I’ve taken care of myself since I was eight years old.”

“You were a wreck when I found you.”

“I was a college graduate.”

“You weren’t living. You were going through the motions.”

“And you rescued me,” she scoffed, the ache behind her eyes slid down into her chest, tightened around her heart.

“I loved you for who you were.”

“A slut and a tramp.”

“That’s what your uncle called you. I never did.”

She rode right over his plea. “I was your great mission in life. So much so that you can’t even leave me alone in death.” She slapped her hands to her sides, turned on her heel, her stride eating up the small length of the room. “God, you sound like Nick talking about his wife. She was mistreated. She needed him. He had to save her,” she mimicked.

“You did need me.”

Cameron’s truth, the truth, cut to the core. She’d been so needy.

She stabbed a finger in the air at the spot his voice came from, hated him for being right. “I was your Eliza Doolittle. Your protégé. Your masterpiece.”

“You were my lover. My heart. My soul.”

“Then why did you die on me?” she shouted, fists slashing at the air, heart cleaved in two.

“I didn’t want to, baby. I wanted to be there forever.”

“Well, you can’t be.” She didn’t cry. She wouldn’t cry. She couldn’t cry.

“You’re right. I thought I was protecting you by staying, helping you through the worst of it. What my murderers did to you after—”

“Don’t you say it. Don’t you ever say it.” She turned her back on his voice, turned again when it surrounded her.

“You’ve never wanted to talk about it.”

The room was too small to pace. She turned in circles, her anger spiraling down along the same route. “I know exactly what they did. I saw the gun. I saw the blood. I saw them kill you.”

“And I saw what they did to you when I couldn’t stop them. I watched when they dragged you out of that store and into their car. I never left you. And afterwards I talked to you as you lay there, naked, beaten, and raped, in the park where they dumped you. Until the sun came up. Until the joggers found you.”

A litany of words, his voice and his warmth keeping her alive. She remembered that much. The rest? Most of the time she could pretend there was nothing else to remember except his loving presence.

Most of the time. If he didn’t make her think about it.

“Cameron, stop. Please.” She could squeeze her hands to her head, but that wouldn’t keep him out. His voice was inside her.

“I stayed to make sure you didn’t lose your will to live. And since then, there’s always been a reason why it hasn’t been the right time to leave. But it’s been too long. You’ve become what you were when I first found you, trailing from man to man, leaving behind bits and pieces of yourself. You’re lost again, Max. You’ve stored up so much stuff, I can’t even see you through it anymore.”

“My stuff.” She reverted to anger as her final defense. “That’s what you always said. Max, get over your childhood stuff. Max, I can’t deal with your stuff. Max, I need a couple of days to myself because your stuff drives me crazy. It’s always been my stuff, Cameron”—she jabbed a finger at her chest—“never yours. Well, I’ll deal with my stuff in my own way.”

“Your way isn’t working. It never did.”

“So now I’ve got to change because you think it’s best for me?” She writhed on the edge of his words, as if his voice were a string attached to her limbs. “Cameron says dance, and I dance. Cameron says find a killer, and I look for one. Cameron says don’t love this man, love that one. Fuck this one, not that one. You can’t tell me what to do anymore. I’ll have sex when I want and with whom I want. I’m in control, do you hear that?”

“Sex isn’t about power and control. It’s about making love.”

She wrapped her arms around herself, bit her lip until she tasted blood. “I’ve forgotten how to make love.”

“You never really knew how.” The words were just a whisper in the air.

They sliced her to the bone. “You were a lot of things, Cameron, but cruel never used to be one of them.”

“Cruelty is the only weapon I have left, my love.”

Anything she might have said would put her dangerously close to tears.

He was silent a moment. “I don’t like what we’re doing to each other. But I don’t know how to stop it.”

She rocked back and forth on her toes, eyes squeezed tight.

She felt him at her back, his lips at her nape, his arms curved beneath her breasts. “I will always love you,” he whispered next to her ear, his voice filled with real tears that seemed to fall against her own cheeks. “Forgive me for everything I’ve done to you, for all the mistakes I’ve made.”

Then the swirl of peppermint and aftershave vanished like vapor in sunlight, leaving only the echo of his final words, “Good-bye, my love.

She closed her eyes to the smell of rain on concrete, the tang of wet cat fur, frying bacon in a downstairs apartment. She sniffed the air, there wasn’t a trace of his scent.

“Cameron?”

She felt the silence like the sudden snap of the tether that bound him to her. He’d never said good-bye before.

“Don’t you dare walk out when we’re fighting.”

No answer. She bit her already abused bottom lip.

“This disappearing act doesn’t mean you’ve won.”

Nothing. She started to shake.

“Filthy bastard.”

It was a word meant to rouse his ire, a bone he couldn’t pass on, a gauntlet he’d never refused to pick up. It had always worked in the past.

She shivered even though the rain hadn’t completely eased the heat. “Please don’t leave me,” she whispered into the darkened room.

She focused on all her pain, all her anger, all her fear, then sent it out into the universe for Cameron to find, to feel, to despair over, knowing he’d have to come back if only to hold her in his arms one more time.

“I need you.”

A car honked a block away, across the street a mother called her son in for the night, and somewhere, a door slammed.

But there was not a sound in Max’s room except the jerky intake of her own breath.

Cameron was gone.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Since the day she’d met Cameron, there’d never been a time Max was truly alone. Or wanted to be. Sure there were the usual married couple fights, but she always knew he’d come back. He’d never actually said good-bye. She always knew eventually, after he cooled down, she’d hear his key in the door.

She sagged onto the bed beneath the weight of the silence in the little room. Buzzard leaped onto the coverlet, curled into a tight ball beside her. His bony spine jabbed her thigh. Within seconds, the cat was purring. The rain beat lazily against the siding. All other sound had died away.

“He’ll be back, I know he will.” Except that his words had seemed so full of anguish, so hopeless, so unlike Cameron who’d always been the one with all the answers.

So...final. Good-bye, my love.

She shivered again, rubbed her hands up and down her arms. Her chest hurt as if she’d run a long distance. Her eyes burned. She rubbed the ache, and her fingers came away wet.

God, she couldn’t be crying.

She never cried.

Not the day she’d watched them put her mother in the ground when she was eight years old.

Not the day she was forced to live in her uncle’s house, nor the day she managed to leave it for good.

Not the day she first touched Cameron, nor the day she laid him to rest.

Because she’d never laid him to rest, she’d never let him go, never thought she’d have to say good-bye. Or hear him say it.

The cat rolled over, stretched, then sank his claws into her leg. He regarded her with wide yellow eyes; the little buzzard had done it on purpose. She pulled the needles out of her skin and rose. Dropping her sweatshirt, pants, and nylons in a line as she walked to the bathroom, she took her robe off the door. The lights were still out. She left them that way; she didn’t think she could stand to see her face in the mirror.

The red numbers on her bedside clock were slightly blurred. She wiped a hand across her cheeks. They were still wet, as if her eyes had watered involuntarily.

Boots sounded on the deck outside. Max’s heart leaped to her throat. Someone banged on her front door.

Cameron.

She ran down the stairs without even asking why the hell he’d knock or how she could have heard the slap of his boots. He’d never worn boots.

And he was dead.

When she flung the door open, she asked God to let it be Cameron. The hole in her heart when she saw it wasn’t almost made her slump to the floor.

Nicholas Drake stood on her front porch, wet hair plastered to his head, blue shirt molded to his chest. She wondered how he’d gotten to her front door. Where had he been hiding? With whom? A friend? Or his wife?

She didn’t really care. Wendy was the one who cared. Too much.

“Can I come in?”

She didn’t open the door any wider. “You shouldn’t be here. Detective Long’s looking for you.”

“I waited to make sure he didn’t come back.” A drop of water ran down his nose. He swiped his hand across his face.

“How did you know where I lived?”

A smile. “You know I’ve been following you.”

Hell, she was leading a hide-n-seek parade. Any day, Nick and Witt were gonna trip over each other.

“Did you follow me after work?”

“I trailed you for awhile, but the cop showed up. I figured it wasn’t safe to hang around, so I waited here.”

“Good answer, Nickie.”

It so conveniently got him off the hook. He could’ve anticipated the question and come up with that smooth lie. Or he could be innocent. She opened the door and let him into the small alcove. Without Cameron, finding Wendy’s killer was all she had left.

Nick was close, drenched with the heady scent of rain and potent male animal. Body heat rose off him in the relatively warm foyer after she closed the door.

“You’re crying.” He traced her tears with his gaze.

She swiped at her cheeks with the back of a fist. “I just washed my face.”

Denial came too late. She’d felt the change in him. A subtle softening of his features, a hint of tenderness in his eyes, and almost a reverence in his fingertips as he brought them within inches of her skin without touching. Faint changes, so meaningful if she only knew how to interpret them.

Yet the bottom of the stairs was as far as he’d get. She didn’t trust the shift in him anymore than she understood it.

Max moved backwards, up six steps, and sat down, pulling her robe closed over her thighs. It reached her knees. Her calves and feet were bare. She actually wondered if she’d remembered to shave her legs. They were smooth beneath her fingers as she tugged the robe down another inch. Her arms were covered with goose bumps, and her nipples peaked against the terrycloth.

Oh, but she understood that shift in herself perfectly. Wendy wanted him. Badly.

She put her palms together and wedged her hands between her thighs. “Why are you here?”

“You know why. I couldn’t stay away.”

“I suppose I remind you of Wendy.”

His nostrils flared, and she could have sworn he’d looked inward for a moment and didn’t like what he saw.

“Do you think I’m capable of murdering her?” Soft. Low. She wasn’t sure what he was really asking for.

She took a chance on baiting him. “You came in that night on a flight from Boise. Wendy met you after you gave your wife the kids. You were on the bus she took to the long term parking lot, and you got off when she did. No pun intended. Your fingerprints were in her car, all over the back seat where you fucked her. Where she died.”

He neither confirmed nor denied nor even asked how she knew so many details. Nick simply stared at her perched on the step above him. His eyes and face were shadowed by the overhead light slightly behind and to the left of where he stood.

“Shall I go on?”

“I know the rest.” He was silent. She didn’t press. And then he started talking. “We had a fight after making love.”

Oh yeah. That was the part she hadn’t wanted to hear. The part Wendy hadn’t wanted to remember. “Making love?”

Her stomach lurched when he laughed softly, mirthlessly, at her question. “I know you wouldn’t call what we did making love. It was adultery. It was fucking. I fucked her. She fucked me.” He stopped. Took a deep breath. “Anyway. We fought.”

“About what?”

Silence again. It lasted only a moment. “She’d left her husband. I hadn’t asked her to do that. I couldn’t handle that. My wife...it was a mess. What Wendy wanted would have made everything messier. I wasn’t ready.”

Max stared at him, hated him. As Wendy had hated him that night. “You were only ready to let her unzip your pants and suck you off—”

“Hey,” he snapped, raising his fist. “Don’t talk about her like that.”

“I was talking about you, Nickie.”

“I can see what you think of me. It isn’t any worse than what I’ve thought of myself.”

She waved a hand. “Fine. Let’s move on then. You fought because she’d left her husband for you, and you didn’t want her.”

His gaze narrowed, but he went on. Perhaps telling her was his penance. “We fought. Then I got out of the car. Another bus came. I took it. I left her alone.”

He looked at her. If he expected sympathy, he wouldn’t get it. If he expected expiation, she couldn’t give it. “Was she alive when you left her?”

She couldn’t see his eyes, but she felt them, and suddenly she knew she’d given him exactly what he was looking for. Blame. Righteous anger. Max was the hair shirt he wanted to wrap around himself like a cloak.

“No, she wasn’t dead. But you left her alone to die, didn’t you, Nickie? You ran away before she started to cry because you knew you couldn’t handle it if she did.”

“I didn’t see her car leave the lot, and when the bus went back around, it was still there.”

“You knew you should have gone back, but you didn’t.”

“I thought about it. It was late.”

“You left her there. She counted on you, and you let her die.”

Max closed her eyes. It felt like she’d been transported to the dark, lonely lot. The roar of the jet engines thundered in her chest. The pain of his leaving ripped a hole in her heart and soul. He’d been her last chance. Her only hope.

Wendy had wanted to die. She’d looked into the face of her killer, and she’d wanted death. She hadn’t even put up a struggle when the time came. Not until instinct took over.

“Please don’t cry.” Nick’s voice was a whisper, an agony.

Her eyes snapped open. “I don’t cry.” She swiped at her cheeks. “You did love her, even if it was just a little.”

“I needed her.”

“Because she needed you.” Cameron’s words echoed. Need. It was what had bound him to her. Need. “For you, that just might be the same thing as love.”

It was as true for Nick as it had been for Cameron. For Wendy. Carla. And especially herself.

Nick ran a hand down one side of his face. “I remember the first moment it hit me. Remy had trashed her about something, I can’t even remember what anymore. He trashed her a lot. Remy’s a picker. Drove me crazy with it. But Remy seemed to terrorize Wendy. She didn’t know how to take it.”

“You were always there to help pull her back up when Remy smashed her down.”

“Yeah. That’s the best thing I did for her. That day, she was in her office, and I walked by. I wanted to hear her laugh.”

Max jerked back. “Wendy never laughed.”

“She was always laughing. I’d never quite met anyone who seemed quite so...full of joy.”

“Wendy?” She would have sworn Wendy didn’t even know what joy meant. Not with a father like Bud, a husband like Hal, and a boss like Remy. Maybe Nick only saw what he wanted to see.

Maybe Max only felt what Wendy wanted her to feel.

“She was so different from my wife, so undemanding. I felt...peaceful around her.”

God. Wendy the chameleon. She’d known exactly what Nick had wanted. Who had fallen into whose trap?

“But not that day,” Nick said. He moved to sit two steps below her. Max felt his heat. “She was crying. I think I would have done anything right then to make her stop. And just like that,” he snapped his fingers, “I was hooked. She needed me.”

He shrugged his shoulders. It had been that simple, that important, that transparent.

She hated him for falling so easily. Hated Wendy for being so weak.

Mostly she hated herself for driving Cameron away.

Nick was the closest person to take it out on.

“So, when did you start fucking her?”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Max thought he’d get pissed. Instead, Nick leaned his head back against the wall and gaped up at her with those pale blue eyes, a mixture of guilt and pain swirling in their depths.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I could smell her as soon as I walked in the door, she wore this perfume. It just seemed to lead me to her no matter where she was. And she had the sexiest laugh, the sexiest voice, especially on the phone.”

“You called her at home?” Damn, he was an idiot.

“Just interoffice. If she needed something in the back, she’d call. And I’d say something so she’d laugh for me.”

Max smiled slightly. “God, you were sickening.”

“That was only the beginning. I told her things about my life. She told me things about hers, about her husband, their sex life. Why she married him.”

“And why did she?” Max curled her arms around her knees, leaned closer to him, avid for the information, the confirmation.

“Her father. The law firm. He made Hal a partner when he married Wendy. The guy was secure, dependable.”

“Dictatorial.”

“Wendy didn’t mind. It kept her from drifting off course.” Yet another point of view. Maybe they all had some validity where Wendy was concerned.

“Her father’s course?” She tasted something sour just thinking about the man.

“Yes, Hal’s and her father’s.”

“But she drifted with you.”

“She drifted because of Remy. In ways, he was worse than Hal, always pushing, always finding fault. I listened to her, tried to tell her she wasn’t to blame. Remy was born a dickhead.”

Yes. Hadn’t she used the same expression herself. “Did she believe you?”

He gave a snort of laughter. “Her father and Hal did way too good a job on her.” He paused, scraped at his chin with blunt fingers. “I helped for a very short period of time.”

“Maybe you helped her finally find the courage to leave Hal.”

“All I did was get her killed. If we hadn’t...if I had...”

The debate wasn’t worth it. Hairshirts weren’t removed as easily as they were donned. “So neither Hal nor her father listened to how bad it was with Remy?”

“If they’d said she could quit, she would have. As it was, they both told her she needed to buck up.”

Max laughed, shook her head. “Jesus, I can hear Bud saying it. Buck up, girl.” She did a fine imitation. “She could have quit without their approval.”

He looked at her oddly. “Sometimes you seem to know her like a sister, and other times, you’re so off, it isn’t even funny.”

“You’re right. Wendy wouldn’t have quit with them against her.” She rested her chin on her hand. “What did you tell her in return for all her confessions?”

“I told her about my wife, that I loved her no matter what she’d done, that she never let me prove it, that she didn’t need what I could give. That all I’d wanted was to help her.”

Max wondered if that was the very thing Cameron had needed from her. The very thing she couldn’t seem to give. Unconditional acceptance of his help.

“You gave and you gave,” she whispered, knowing she’d never really learned the things Cameron had tried to teach. Not even how to make love.

Nick cocked his head, regarded her with unfathomable eyes. “That’s what Wendy said.”

She closed her eyes, savoring a vestige of Cameron’s voice inside her, then erasing it. “What else did Wendy tell you?”

Nick didn’t answer directly. “I’d dream about her at night. Then one day she came back to the warehouse. A problem shipment...something, hell, I can’t remember what. I just remember the guys were out to lunch. The place was deserted. Empty except for Wendy and me.”

He swallowed. Max figured he’d forgotten she was even there. Her throat tightened. Her pulse rate rose a notch. She felt like a voyeur, and yet she didn’t make a sound to stop him. Wendy wanted to hear. Badly.

“I told her I’d daydream on the drive home. About her. And she asked me what I’d been thinking. She didn’t look at me, but I had her crowded up against the worktable. I could hear her breath, it was fast, and her skin was flushed.”

He looked up then. He hadn’t forgotten Max, after all. Her breath came harsh, too, her skin felt like he’d scorched her with a blow torch, and the neckline of her robe had fallen open. A cool draft of air fingered across her breasts. She couldn’t move.

“I told her I’d been dreaming about going down on her.”

Ripples of desire and alarm ran across her breasts. She should have been horrified. She wasn’t. Neither was Wendy. The woman needed to hear it all again, and she dragged Max along for the ride.

“I shouldn’t have said anything. We could have gone on with longing looks and sexual innuendo. Everything would have been fine. But I asked her to meet me early the next morning.”

“At five,” Max whispered.

“No one else got to Hackett’s until six.”

“And her husband didn’t even wonder.”

“Hal wouldn’t have figured out a thing, because he thought he’d wound Wendy around his finger so tightly she couldn’t wriggle loose.”

“What about your wife?”

“She thought I was doing overtime.” He gave a quick, derisive laugh. He put a boot up one step, draped his arm over his knee, stared at her. “I went down on Wendy on a swivel chair in the warehouse. She was real quiet when she came, and then I made her stand up and took her against the table. I would have made her come again if I could, but she thought she heard a noise up front.”

Max leaned forward against her thighs, her head almost on her knees. “Why are you telling me this? You want to see some reaction? It’s some sort of test?”

The rain had dried in his hair, on his face, and his shirt no longer stuck to his chest. He was close enough to raise one hand from his knee and stroke her shin with the back of a finger, his flesh cold from the rain. Hers was hot. Fire shot up her leg.

She wanted to think of Witt touching her, even of Cameron taking her in the dark with her fingers wrapped tightly around the headboard as he pressed tightly behind her. But Wendy controlled her now, and Wendy wanted only the things Nick could give them.

“Maybe I just want to talk to you about it,” he whispered. “Let me tell you, Max. It’s all I have left to give Wendy.”

“To immortalize her with tales of your sexual prowess? How macho,” she muttered sarcastically, but God help her, she had to hear more. She was no longer capable of distinguishing between her own feelings and Wendy’s. Nick simply turned her bones to jelly, made her fantasize about his tongue between her thighs.

Slut. Whore. Tramp. Call it whatever you like. That’s what she was.

“That was the only orgasm I ever gave her during those early morning sessions.”

“So much for sexual prowess.”

He laughed softly at himself. “She cried after I did it. At the time, I thought it was because she’d never...”

“Committed adultery?”

“Yes.”

“Had you?”

“No.” Then he waved away the admission. “Later I realized she always heard a noise, pulled away. She’d get me off, and then...she found a way to stop the rest. I thought it was guilt.”

Max realized it was the thing that had bothered him the most about the affair. Wendy simply wouldn’t let him take care of her sexual needs. “Maybe it was her power.”

He considered that a moment. “Meaning that when she took me in her mouth, she had all the power?”

“When you came, that was all she needed.”

In a far corner of her mind, she saw the strangeness of the conversation, but all she felt was the intense intimacy of it, his hand on her leg, stroking, making her hot and wet.

She went into attack mode hoping to short circuit her body. “Neither of you cared about the risks as long as your needs were met.”

His jaw tightened. “You should know about risks. They’re worth it when you want something badly enough.”

“Score one for you, Nickie. Except for your wife and Wendy’s husband, of course, everyone knew what was going on.”

He shrugged, unconcerned. “A small shop, no one cares about affairs. But I never touched her if someone could walk in on us.”

“Never?” Max held her breath. Wendy wanted to know his answer.

He regarded her a moment, then let a slow smile creep across his lips. “I won’t ask again who you are. I won’t even ask why Wendy never told me about you. And yes, there was once. It was after that first time. She was in her office, alone, with a...look on her face.”

“You wanted to hold her.”

“I needed to hold to her, to let her know it would be okay. But I didn’t.”

Max closed her eyes. “What did you do?”

“I kissed her. On the lips. It was quick.”

Just a flash of his lips across hers, but Wendy had obsessed over the feel of that kiss. It had said so much, that he understood her pain, her fear, that he cared. It had never been a part of the sexual stuff. It had been natural. Special.

Max let out the breath she’d been holding and changed the subject, tried to barricade herself against the intensity of Wendy’s emotions. “What about the night she died?”

His eyes went distant a moment. “There was something different. She was aggressive, in control. Maybe it was leaving Hal. I don’t know. She wasn’t like the Wendy I knew. I touched her first, but she was the one who climbed on top of me, took me inside her.”

Max listened, her thoughts polarized on the dream images suddenly fresh in her mind, her body tensed to receive him. God, she was so wet and he was so hard and... “She climaxed.”

“Scared the shit out of me. She said she loved me. That she’d left Hal.”

Her lip curled almost involuntarily. “That’s when you failed her.”

“I failed her the first time I told her I wanted her. I was married. I couldn’t promise anything except...”

“Except what, Nick? Furtive sex on the warehouse worktable?”

He stared at her, his fingers wedged in the crease of her knee. He’d laid his affair out for her, dissected his feelings, affirmed his guilt, and allowed her accusations without lashing out. The intimacy of his voice, his touch, and his admissions stole her breath. She was naked beneath the robe except for a minuscule pair of thong panties. If she spread her legs, he would know exactly what she asked for. What Wendy asked for.

She gulped, sought distraction. “Why did Remy fire you?”

“He didn’t. Don’t ask me why. I never did figure that out.”

Maybe it was like Carla said. Remy knew what was going on, and he liked to watch. “So you quit?”

He shrugged. “Three months ago. One last ditch effort at my marriage.”

“Obviously it didn’t work.”

He laughed softly, sadly. “No.”

“Because you kept seeing Wendy?”

With a shrug, he said, “She’d call. Sometimes, I just...” He clenched a fist. “I needed something.”

Living with a dead husband, Max understood that only too well.

Nick raised his eyes to her lips, stared. He needed that indefinable something right now. From her.

“I want you,” he murmured.

As if he could read her thoughts. So like Cameron and yet so different. At least she could hide from Nickie when she needed to.

She took her lip between her teeth, not because she was afraid, but because she knew it would draw his attention, make him think of what her mouth could do. “This is sort of like asking Wendy to meet you early that first day.”

“It’s very different. I’m divorced. You’re widowed.”

She winced inwardly at the term. She’d never thought of herself as widowed. Until tonight. When Cameron left. Her fingers clenched in the folds of her robe. Nick Drake thought he could soothe that pain. He had no idea what he was up against.

“Your divorce isn’t final. You have to sign the papers, you know, before it’s legal.”

“That’s just a technicality. Does that matter?”

“I suppose not. Do you have dreams of going down on me?”

His eyes glittered. His fingers tested her flesh on the underside of her thigh. “Yes.”

“Making love to a ghost, Nickie?” Not that Max minded ghosts. She’d had two years of furtive wet dreams with her own ghostly husband.

Oh God, Cameron. Cameron who was gone. Forever and ever. She wanted to scream in agony, in need.

Cameron had left her to this. Deserted her. She looked at Nick, and with Wendy egging her on, she took the plunge. “I’m not like Wendy. I don’t need someone to take care of me. I like orgasms. And I don’t cry.”

“You were crying when I got here.”

The man could scent a needy woman on the wind, but she sure as hell didn’t need to confirm it. “You don’t know what you were looking at. And don’t expect to see it again.”

He came up on his knees one step below her, put his hands on her calves, slid them up to the backs of her knees. “I’ve seen you at the Round Up. You don’t need that. Let me help—”

“Don’t help me. Just fuck me.”

She grabbed him then, put her hands on his face, pulled him in.

He tugged the tie to her robe, untangled it until her lapels fell open. She watched his gaze track the lines of her breasts. Her knees parted. His hands slipped along her thighs beneath the terry robe, and he pushed his body between her legs.

His jeans were rough against her skin. She pulsed in secret places only Cameron’d had access to, despite the number of men she’d been to bed with since.

She closed her eyes and felt Cameron’s lips on her breasts, Cameron’s teeth on her nipples, Cameron’s hands on her hips as he pulled her flush against the rigid bulge in his pants.

She went back on her elbows. Nick trailed kisses down her stomach. His tongue delved into her belly button. She shoved her fingers through his hair, getting caught on the snarls left over from the rain. She knew what he wanted, knew exactly where he was headed, knew she’d let him do it despite the frightening intimacy.

His hands cupped her bottom, then his fingers tugged at the elastic waist of her thong. “Christ, I love these panties.”

“Kinky. Bet your wife never wore anything like these.”

He looked up, and she expected something dark, something menacing, in his eyes. Instead he gave her a lady-killer smile. “Neither did Wendy.”

She lifted her hips as he pulled her panties down past her knees, watched as he threw them into the alcove. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. It was the last chance to stop.

But Cameron wasn’t with her anymore, and she felt Nick’s warm breath on her pubic hair.

With the first moan that left her lips as his tongue touched her clitoris, she bound him to her. Her fingers tangled in his hair, urging him on, and she ensnared him. She bit her lip, moved her hips against him, cried out despite herself. His grip tightened on her butt as he held her relentlessly against his mouth and his probing tongue.

An image of Witt suddenly flashed across her mind, and she swore as she came, flexed her legs, held the man between them to her. She claimed him with every shudder that racked her body, marked him with her fingernails, but with her eyes closed, she saw Witt’s blue gaze impaling her.

Nick raised his head, gaze darkened by the fury of possession, then pulled away. She tugged at his button fly, the material popping, and with his help, dragged his jeans and underwear down his thighs. He braced his arms, and plunged inside her.

She almost climaxed, held it off with effort, waited for his mouth, his lips on hers. The edge of the step dug into her spine as he pushed into her. Her head fell back, bumping against the stair above. Then he kissed her. She tasted herself on his tongue. The eroticism of it sent her over the edge, and she cried out against his mouth. She bit down on her own lip because the name she wanted to scream wasn’t his. Moments later, he followed, his semen filling her with power, driving her higher, taking her places she never usually went.

Except with Cameron. And in that morphmare with the detective.

Witt was the name that echoed in her head until she looked at the man on top of her. He pulled out of her in one swift move, and her body closed in on itself. Inevitable shame nudged the edges of her dissipating afterglow.

Nick lay still between her legs. “I didn’t use a condom.”

His words made her feel open, vulnerable, cold. “I didn’t need one.”

She couldn’t have children. She and Cameron had learned that early on in their marriage.

“What about the Round Up—”

He stopped, and she knew suddenly he didn’t mean making babies. He meant disease. He meant her. She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut, but she kept them wide. “You don’t have to worry. I’m healthy as a horse.”

“I wasn’t saying...” But he was. She could see it in his eyes. He ran a finger gently down her face. “You don’t need the Round Up or those guys anymore, you know. I’ll take care of you.”

Her stomach clenched. “Take care of me?”

“I want to.”

“Nobody takes care of me but me.” She pushed at his chest.

“I didn’t mean—”

“You’re heavy.” She’d craved just that kind of divine heaviness since Cameron’s death. Now, it suffocated her.

His lids fell, shuttered his eyes, then he stood and pulled up his jeans. He towered over her, and the dynamic shifted. Man on top. In control.

Max sat, backed up one step, closed her legs, pulled together the lapels of her robe, and went for the jugular. It was the obvious power play. “Wendy died because of your affair.”

He stared at her as he fastened the buttons of his jeans. His jaw moved with the grind of his teeth. “Wendy died because I left her alone that night.”

Max stood, too, three steps above him. Buzzard mewled softly at the top of the stairs. “She died because someone knew she’d had an affair with you.”

“We’d stopped seeing each other when I left Hackett’s.”

“You started again.”

“No one could have known she was meeting me.” He grabbed her arms, shook her slightly. “Where the hell is this shit coming from? We just made love.”

She laughed at him. “Made love?” Then she shrugged him off. “We just fucked. The way you fucked Wendy every morning before Remy got there.”

“That’s not the way it felt when you came against my mouth.”

“I told you I like orgasms.”

She wanted him hurting, bruised, and down. She wanted him gone. She wanted her shame hidden from the light of day. Hidden from him. Then maybe she could hide it from herself.

“Wendy left her husband for you. And someone killed her because of it.”

The breath he took expanded the shirt across his chest.

She felt a sharp pain right beneath her bottom rib, as if someone had shoved a knife up there. And twisted. “Maybe you’ve got a clue about who’d have done that.”

He tensed. “Yeah?”

“Maybe it was your wife, Nickie.”

He went still, rock still, except for the muscle ticking in his cheek. “She didn’t know I was meeting Wendy that night.”

“She picked up the kids. She could’ve seen Wendy.”

“She didn’t know what Wendy looked like.”

“Don’t kid yourself.”

His gaze went flinty. “She couldn’t have known.”

“You know she did.”

He backed up, feeling behind him for the doorknob. “I warned you before. Leave my wife out of this.”

“Soon-to-be ex-wife. Feeling guilty that you might have driven your wife to murder?”

His nostrils flared. His fist tightened on the knob. His knuckles whitened. But he said nothing.

“Is she driving your 4Runner?”

“What?” He gaped at Max’s full frontal attack.

“A green Toyota 4Runner tried to run me down this evening. Your wife reported yours stolen this morning.”

Something flickered across his face. Anger? Fear? She couldn’t be sure. “Don’t push. You won’t like what happens.”

But Max couldn’t help pushing. It was what she did best. “Did she kill Wendy? Is she waiting out there to kill me after you leave, Nickie?”

He didn’t slam the door. He simply left without another word. She pushed the curtain on the door aside, but he’d gone as quietly as he’d arrived. She stared at the empty driveway.

“He isn’t coming back, you idiot.” Neither was Cameron. She let the curtain drop.

She reached down to pick up her underwear, and something warm trickled down the inside of her thigh.

Her face burned with her shame before she ruthlessly shoved the emotion aside.

Outside, gravel crunched beneath rolling tires.

Max’s heart kickstarted. She stepped back until her heels hit the first stair. If it was him, she sure as hell wouldn’t look anxious by peering out that window again.

A dark shape appeared. The pounding on the door was loud, authoritative. Max hesitated. Wendy screamed inside her.

Open the damn door.

She opened it to shut up the voice.

Her mouth went dry. A uniformed cop stood on the threshold, his fist still raised in the air. God, why? Did they know Nick was near?

The cop was young, his chin covered with peach fuzz. “You all right, ma’am?”

“I’m fine.” What had it been, five minutes since Nick left? It was close, too close. She thought about tucking her underwear in the pocket of her robe, but figured that would only call more attention to it.

“Ma’am, are you all right?” He scoped out the stairwell and the slash of room visible at the top.

She felt like throwing her hands in the air, but the underwear might just might catch the light. “Yes, I am very, very all right, Officer.”

Her bed was empty. The killer she’d harbored was gone. Her husband had left her for the astral plane. What a question. Of course, she was fine.

The cop tapped the brim of his cap. “Well, Detective Long wanted me to be real sure.”

“Witt sent you?” Now why didn’t that feel like a relief? It smacked more of checking up on her than looking out for her. But at least it meant he wasn’t lurking nearby.

“We’ll do drive-bys all night, ma’am.”

“I can’t tell you how safe that makes me feel.”

He looked at her, apparently figured there was no sarcasm in that comment, and smiled.

When he was gone, Max slammed the door, locked it, then ran up the stairs. She climbed into the shower before the water even got hot.

Witt. The beat of the water on the top of her head couldn’t stop the flood of shame.

She wondered what he would have done if he’d known how close the young cop had come to finding Nick inside her apartment. Inside her.

Jesus God, what had she just done?

Chapter Twenty-Four

It was dark. It was cold. It was stuffy. She hated the closet. Hated being afraid. Hated that he could make her feel so terrified.

Max put out a hand to touch the walls, felt something soft brush the top of her head as she moved. Clothing. Wendy’s clothing. Wendy’s closet. Wendy’s dream from when she was young. But it was Max’s nightmare, too, the one she began living when her mother died and they sent her to her uncle’s house.

Terror rose in her throat.

No, not again. Her own thoughts paralleled Wendy’s. She couldn’t catch her breath, the walls moved closer, and the sharp angles of Wendy’s Sunday shoes dug into her hip. She tugged her knees tight to her flat chest, wrapping her arms around them and clasping her fingers until the pressure made her hands throb.

Together, she and Wendy rocked on aching butt cheeks. Back and forth, back and forth, until she was dizzy.

Dizzy with Wendy’s thoughts. If she could just make it through to morning. He’d be sorry, put a hand to her face, beg her not to make him punish her again, beg her to be good, beg her to call him Daddy. All she had to do was wait till morning when he was so different from the nighttime Daddy. The bad Daddy.

The closet door jerked open.

She almost screamed.

He was a dark shape against the hall light, and all she saw were his legs wrapped in cotton pajamas and his ugly, bare toes. She was thirteen years old, and she knew what was coming. She had known since she was six. Sometimes it was better if he was naked from the start. That way he didn’t make her undress him. If he was dressed, he always made her touch him when she undid the buttons on his pajamas.

She hated touching him.

“What the hell are you doing in there?”

I knew you were coming, Father, and I hid. She didn’t say it out loud. Best to say nothing. She couldn’t win anyway. He was too strong. Always had been, always would be.

He grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet.

Max’s heart pounded, her head pulsed with a litany of run-away-run-away. But Wendy had stopped running years ago.

He shoved her to her knees, her bones slamming on the hardwood floor. The shockwave rumbled up her spine.

“I told you no party, no gifts, and you did it anyway.”

Just a small party, with her two friends after school. Just small gifts, playing cards with pink and yellow fish, a paperback book, Marguerite Henry. She loved Marguerite Henry’s horse books.

But he smelled deception like a police dog sniffed out drugs, and he’d come home early.

“How many times do I have to teach you a lesson before you finally learn it?”

She didn’t answer, reached instead for the pearly white buttons on his pajamas. She just wanted it to be over. He slapped her hand away. “Not until I tell you.”

She bit her lip. Her teeth shuddered.

He grabbed her hair, yanked her forward, ground himself against her face. The tinny taste of blood seeped into her mouth where her teeth had split her lip.

“Do it now. I know you can’t wait, you little whore.” Moments later, his blue pajamas lay bunched around his ankles, and she didn’t have to say anything anymore. He groaned.

Max started to cry, felt the tears on Wendy’s cheeks. Felt them on the inside, too.

Wendy felt nothing.

He wrenched a fistful of hair. “Get on the bed. Take that nightgown off.”

She undid the ribbons and bows of her floor-length, flannel gown, then lay on the bed. She prayed that if God were merciful, she would die right this minute.

But the God she knew had never been merciful.

“Whore,” her father whispered close to her ear.

When he was done, he stood beside the bed. “You’re worse than any whore. You push me and push me until I’m forced to punish you this way. Now get up and wash yourself.” He closed the door to her bedroom, and she heard the twist of the key in the lock.

She rose then, went into the bathroom, and used a washcloth. He was right. She always did something, made some mistake, didn’t properly anticipate what might set him off. Almost as if she asked for the things he did. Moonlight fell through the bathroom window across her face, illuminating her features. She didn’t even know what she’d done until warm, sticky blood seeped through her fingers and the new crack in the mirror cleaved her face in two.

Totally alone, Max woke deep in the night, and dry-heaved over the side of the bed. Nothing came up except her fear. She dragged her legs to the edge and sat up, gripping the mattress. Body still trembling, she rocked. The rain had stopped. The birds were silent.

It was a holy time for promises.

Eyes closed, Max whispered into the dark. “I’ll kill him, Wendy. One day, I swear, I’ll kill him for you.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

The dream lived in her, gave her purpose and a reason to drag herself out of bed before the sun rose. Bud was worse than an animal; he was an intelligent, charming predator. Max realized she’d merely played at the investigation game, gotten her toes wet, maybe even stuck her whole foot in. But her attempts had been lame, futile.

Not anymore.

Last night’s dream had given her focus, brought her clarity. Cameron would have called it psychic intuition. Whatever it was, she knew without a doubt that Bud Traynor had been instrumental in his daughter’s death. The knowledge crawled inside her like maggots on dead flesh. It made her squirm, turned her stomach, twisted her thoughts.

Bud Traynor wouldn’t sully his hands with dirty work. He was a manipulator and would have used his skills to manipulate Wendy’s murderer. All Max had to do was find the most malleable suspect.

There was cuckolded Hal Gregory who hated his wife for rejecting all that he wanted to give her. There was Remy Hackett who thought he owned the people who worked for him. There was Carla Drake who hated Wendy for stealing her husband.

And there was Nick. She ruthlessly added his name to the list despite Wendy’s silent scream of denial.

Among the four, it was quite simple to choose.

Max stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, cracked just like Wendy’s childhood mirror. Her hair stood on end from falling asleep with it wet the night before. Squished flat on one side, knotted and tangled on the other, no amount of combing could bring order. It seemed indicative of her life. She resorted to hairspray. She found a run in her pantyhose, but who the hell cared when she wore slacks.

Buzzard whined plaintively. She left him a can of tuna, water, and an open window so he could come and go as he pleased.

Just like Cameron.

She winced at the memory of her dead husband’s cruel words, and knew they were final.

She didn’t know how to make love. She’d never known, probably never would.

But she would make Bud Traynor pay for what he’d done. That, she could do.

An exercise in control, Max closed the door quietly behind her. It was just after eight, an ungodly hour for a Saturday morning. Murderers never took a day off; neither could she. Hackett’s would be open, of course, but Wendy had never worked weekends. Max promised herself, promised Wendy, that come Monday, neither of them would have to go back there.

The sky was a cloudy blue, the grass glistened, and the air smelled like fresh earth and wet concrete. The late summer rain heralded a change in the weather. More storms were on their way. She felt it in the air.

She was at the end of the driveway, three car lengths from her Miata parked at the curb, when she saw him. Witt was seated in a nondescript four-door sedan, probably the same one he’d driven yesterday. The color might have been beige, the car definitely department issue.

He stared at her, his window rolled down. She couldn’t tell for sure, but if she had to place her hand on a stack of bibles, she’d swear he didn’t even blink. His usually blue eyes were dark, but that could have been a trick of shadows inside his car.

“Hey.” Her stomach did a slow tumble to her knees when he didn’t answer, didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow in greeting.

A car rushed by between them, spitting wet macadam beneath its tires. After it passed, Witt opened his door and stood in the vee, one big hand wrapped around the frame.

Her feet were cold in her black suede shoes, and her heels clacked on the sidewalk as she took a step toward him. He looked in both directions, flipped the door closed, then crossed the street.

Jesus, she hadn’t known the man could scowl like that. Her heart pounded. She wondered how long he’d been sitting outside her house. All night like a chivalrous Sir Lancelot?

Not. He wouldn’t have sent Junior Cop if he had been. At least, she hoped not.

If he’d so much as spotted Nick, he’d have taken him in for questioning.

He might also have guessed what she’d let Nick do on the stairs. Her stomach somersaulted. She didn’t want him to know that, not ever. Shame, fear, call it what you like, she didn’t want Witt to know she was a slut.

He stopped two feet from her, and still said nothing. She itched to wipe her palms down her jacket. With him in the street and her on the sidewalk, they were almost of a height, yet the man made her feel two feet tall.

“Watching over me, Detective? Why, thank you.” Perfect. Nice breezy tone, just a tad flippant.

He didn’t answer, instead he whipped out his trusty notebook from his shirt pocket and flipped it open.

Max knew she was in trouble when he started to read in a flat monotone. “After leaving the alleged near hit-and-run victim’s residence at approximately seven p.m., I obtained dinner at the Burger King two blocks north on Fifth. I returned to the residence forty-five minutes later and set up surveillance one-half block down. I noted that the same vehicles were parked on the street as when I left, and the light in the alleged victim’s apartment was on.” As he spoke, he stared at her, his gaze sharp enough to fillet the flesh from her bones.

He snapped the book with a flick of his wrist and the page flipped over. She could have sworn he read from blank paper. A muscle ticked near his eye.

“At approximately nine o’clock, I observed the suspect leaving the residence.”

“What suspect?” She went the surprised route. It didn’t work.

Witt narrowed his eyes. He was a dangerous man with those eyes. “The suspect crossed the driveway and entered a red pickup parked on the street outside the alleged victim’s domicile.”

Oh God. “Could you quit calling me the ‘alleged’ victim?”

“No crime has been established at this point.”

“You saw the car try to run me down.”

“I saw a vehicle heading in your direction. The rest was assumed.”

Their roles had reversed. Yesterday, he’d been trying to convince her. “Stuff it, Long, I don’t have to listen.”

She sidestepped him to her car. He moved fast, planting himself between her and escape. Her heart pounded. She told herself it wasn’t guilt. Or shame.

“I followed the suspect.”

“Jesus, some bodyguard you are. What if I’d been bleeding to death up there?”

“I called a contact in the local department who dispatched a patrol car to the residence to check on the alleged victim.”

So that’s why the cop had shown up last night. She didn’t know which pissed her off more—that he hadn’t bothered to check on her himself or that he probably knew exactly what she’d been doing up there with the “suspect.”

Her secret was out. He knew she was a slut. Oh well. She could handle it. Couldn’t she?

He gave up all pretense of reading his notebook. His eyes bored a hole right through her forehead. “I followed the suspect to the station located on the corner of Fifth and Grand. He parked his vehicle and upon entering the facility, turned himself in to the watch commander.”

Her skin turned to icicles, her fingers numbed. “What?”

“Nicholas Drake surrendered to the watch commander, waved his rights, and confessed to the murders of Wendy Gregory and Lilah Bloom, and to the attempted murder of Max Starr.”

“That’s not true.”

“He stated that he’d gone to the alleged victim’s house intending to kill her, and that she convinced him to turn himself in. He further stated that on the night of September third, he met Wendy Gregory at the San Francisco Airport after returning with his children from a trip to his parent’s home in Boise. He followed the victim to her car located in the long term lot, had consensual sex with her, then killed her when she threatened to tell his wife about their affair.”

Panic and laughter rose in her throat all at once. “That’s ridiculous. He’s divorcing his wife.”

“He stated that he had intended a reconciliation with his wife. When he told this to Wendy Gregory, she became agitated, threatened him, at which point he strangled her.”

She backed away from him. “Will you quit talking like that?”

“I’m repeating the report. The suspect confirmed that Lilah Bloom blackmailed him over information Wendy had related to her. He stated that he killed her to avoid paying the blackmail, which he didn’t have anyway. The suspect also stated that upon learning of Max Starr’s interest in the murder victim, he began watching her. When he believed her to be a threat, he faked the theft of his own vehicle from his wife’s current place of residence and used it in the attempted hit-and-run.”

“Can’t you see how ridiculous it all sounds?” In one swift motion, Nick had cleared her of any wrong-doing, and he’d covered for his wife.

Protector to the bitter end.

None of what he’d said in his statement was true. Bud Traynor was responsible for what happened to Wendy. Not that Nick couldn’t be manipulated, but after everything he’d told her last night, Max didn’t think he’d be drawn into Bud’s web as easily as...say...his wife Carla.

“We have a confession. The inconsistencies in his statement will be ironed out.”

“You mean they’ll be ignored.”

“Like you ignored the law, Max?”

It was the first time in the entire exchange that he’d actually talked to her instead of at her. At that moment, he frightened her. He was big, he was close, and he smelled of righteous male anger.

She bristled. “Detective Long’s Law?”

“California law. Aiding and abetting a fugitive.”

“There wasn’t even a warrant out for his arrest.”

“How about obstruction of justice?”

“How can I be obstructing? I don’t know anything.”

“You always have an answer. Why did you cover for him?”

She couldn’t help the rising level of her voice. “I never even knew where he was. He was the one watching me, not the other way round.”

“Why did you lie for him?”

“I never told you any lies. I didn’t believe he killed her right from the beginning.”

“Why are you so interested in him?”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, you sound like Cameron.”

“Your late husband?”

The man had a memory like a steel trap. “Yes, my late husband.”

Everything was late, too late. Her anger seemed to fizzle. Her shoulders threatened to slump. If she’d been alone, she’d have gone back to bed and pulled the blankets over her head.

“You know Nicholas Drake is covering for...someone.” She wanted to blurt out that it was his wife, but she owed Nick at least the respect of keeping that thought to herself. For now.

Witt’s voice had an ounce of tenderness when he spoke again. Apology was in his tone, if not his words. Thankfully, he didn’t ask how long since she’d last talked to Cameron. “Off the record, Max, I agree with you. Inconsistencies are a challenge. I’ll find the answers.”

“But you won’t release him?”

“It’s not my decision.”

He closed his notebook and stuffed it back in his pocket. His suit was rumpled, his tie askew, and his eyes red and tired. He’d probably been up all night. She felt the slightest bit of sympathy for him, for the job he had to do.

“How many times did you see Drake after the victim’s death?”

She didn’t have to count. “Six.”

“Where and when?”

“At the...Kentucky Fried Chicken you took me to.” Damn, she’d almost blown it and placed him at the airport. “He was across the street. Then I saw him at the Round Up. A dance place I go to,” she added when he raised an eyebrow, and had the sense he knew she went there for a lot more than dancing. “I think he was at the funeral, but I can’t be sure. I saw him outside the grocery store once. And then...last night.” She didn’t mention Nick had been at Lilah Bloom’s nail shop. After all, she hadn’t actually seen him; he’d merely said he’d seen her.

“What about your dreams, Max? Your psychic visions?”

She wasn’t a hundred percent ready to tackle that argument right now. Instead she denied it. “I told you before, I’m not psychic. I just had a dream, that’s all. Besides, cops don’t believe in that kind of stuff.”

“I either have to believe in it, or I have to believe you killed Lilah Bloom. You knew way too much for any other explanation. Which one do you prefer, Max?”

“Neither.”

He didn’t push the issue. “That was only five. The sixth?”

“What?” Damn, she should have known he’d been counting.

“The sixth time you saw him.”

“It must have been five.”

“Was it at the airport?”

“I was never at the airport.”

He put his hand to his notepad. “Do I need to look up the date and time your car was caught on video tape?”

Busted. “All right, I saw him.”

His eyes narrowed. “Why do you keep holding back?”

She had the feeling he was talking about far more than information regarding Nick. But she wasn’t about to touch that thought with a ten-foot pole. “I forgot about that.”

He pushed aside his jacket, put his hands on his hips, and shook his head. “Tell me the truth. All of it.”

She wasn’t sure which of his many questions he wanted an answer to. She chose the easiest one, the least damaging one since Witt almost surely had the passenger manifest for Flight 452 from Boise. “He was on the shuttle in the long term lot. I followed him back to the terminal, and then I lost him.”

“He stated he’d returned to the airport the morning after her body was discovered to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind. He parked in short term and took the shuttle to avoid being recorded on the long term cameras.”

“If he was worried about having left something behind, why not return earlier? If he killed her, that was awfully stupid.”

“If most murderers weren’t stupid, we’d probably never catch them.”

“I know. You already told me. But you still would have asked him that question.”

“He stated that he panicked when he read in the paper that her body had been found.”

“Yeah, right. His story is so full of holes, it’d sink faster than the Titanic.”

He chose not to comment on that, asking instead, “What did you two talk about last night while he was in your apartment for almost an hour and a half?”

She cringed at the thought of Witt outside her place last night while she— “I don’t remember.”

“He stated he told you his predicament, and you advised him to surrender to the authorities.”

“Then that must be what we talked about.”

He looked at her then, and there was something disturbing in his eyes. If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn it was hurt. But he was a cop, and she couldn’t ascribe the feeling to someone in his position.

“Do you trust me, Max?” he asked.

She opened her mouth to lie. She didn’t have anywhere near the qualms about lying that Remy had. She sincerely believed that sometimes lies were necessary. What came out of her mouth, though, was completely unintentional. It was the truth. “No.”

She didn’t trust him, and she most certainly didn’t trust the way he made her feel. Hot and wet one minute, shamed and guilty the next. It was the shame and guilt that bothered her the most. She shouldn’t give a damn what Witt thought about her.

A car backed out of a driveway three houses down. Witt turned, stared as it headed toward them, then passed. When he looked back at her, his hands fisted at his sides. “You really know how to cut a man off at the knees, don’t you?”

“You’re not a man, you’re a cop.”

“Thanks. I feel a helluva lot better knowing that.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I meant it’s nothing personal.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s the problem.”

He reached out, drew a finger down her cheek, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake. She wanted to take the digit in her mouth and suck on it, suck him inside.

Abruptly, he rounded on his heel and started across the street to his car.

The flesh around her eyes tightened, as if she’d been crying and the salt of her tears had dried and cracked. “Aren’t you going to arrest me for obstructing justice or something?”

Halfway across, Witt turned. “The suspect stated you informed him he either had to turn himself in or you would do it for him. Without his testimony, I couldn’t make the charge stick.”

“But you want to, don’t you?”

“No, Max, that’s not what I want at all. That’s the whole fucking issue.” He yanked his door open, climbed in, started the engine, and drove away with a hard set to his jaw.

Anger Max could deal with, and jealousy was just a weapon of insecure men, but hurt made the perpetrator responsible.

She sure as hell hoped that hadn’t been hurt sparking Witt’s eyes; that was more than she could handle at the moment.

Shoving thoughts of Witt aside and armed with the name and address of Carla Drake’s mother, Max climbed in her car and hit the road in search of a killer. Carla had given the information herself, writing it all down right there in Wendy’s office. Max popped a CD in the player. Mick Jagger sang Sympathy for the Devil. Driving music. Hunting music. Her quarry? Bud Traynor’s minion. Nicholas Drake’s salvation.

She wouldn’t think about Witt, or about the fact that he’d been sitting outside in his car while Nick had been boning her on the stairs.

She certainly wouldn’t think about how, when she’d closed her eyes, Witt had been the one between her legs, or that when she came, Witt’s name hovered on her lips.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The house was a small, square bungalow in a neighborhood on the other side of the proverbial tracks. The place was neat, the lawn recently mowed and edged, the beds along the walk filled with late summer flowers, and the porch swing freshly painted. No vehicle was parked in front of the one-car garage, the curtains were closed, and the front light still glowed.

Carla’s parents lived in Foster City, close to the San Mateo Bridge. Jet engines roared overhead. Foster City was under SFO’s direct flight path, and only a few exits down the freeway.

Max pulled in across the street shortly before nine a.m. The place was far too quiet to be occupied by two small children. They should have been racing around the yard like wild Indians.

Was she too late? Had Carla taken the kids and run?

Max jerked the car door open and stepped into the road without looking. A car whooshed by, her hair rustling in its wake. Idiot. Too damn fast for neighborhood streets. Her heart rate didn’t return to normal quickly. Speeding cars made her nervous now.

The lingering tension was just as well. She needed her adrenaline high to enter this particular confrontation.

Max had to knock twice, the second time louder than the first. She’d almost given up when the door whisked open. The house smelled of last night’s tacos, cat pee, and cigarettes. The TV blared with the sound of cartoon voices accompanied by childish laughter.

The woman wore a short-sleeved, faded cotton robe pulled tightly around her bulk. It might once have been white with perky pink and blue flowers. The lines around her eyes appeared much older than the freshly applied blue-black tint in her hair. A drop of the black dye had oozed down her forehead and stained her pale skin. A hint of gray would have softened her, but Max didn’t think Carla Drake’s mother had ever been soft. The flesh of her face had the texture of leather. She’d smoked too many years to stop now. In a few more, she’d probably find out she had cancer and sue the tobacco companies before she died. It would be a messy suit and a messy death. In the end, she’d virtually suffocate to death because her lungs no longer worked, and the lawyers would get all the money.

Max shuddered and wondered how true the vivid image would be.

“Is Carla home, Mrs. Abrams?” Max didn’t know if Mr. Abrams was home. She wondered if he was the cause of the bitterness marring the woman’s face. She wondered, too, if Yvonne Abrams was the reason the yard was so neat, the man of the house worked it to avoid his wife.

“Who’s askin’ for her?”

“My name’s Max Starr. I work at Hackett’s Appliance Parts, and I needed to talk to her about her COBRA insurance.”

“That lousy husband of hers can pay the goddamn bill.” Voice deep, rough, and edged with anger, Mrs. Abrams didn’t know the meaning of happiness. Nor had she bred a happy daughter.

“I’m here to help. Remy Hackett—”

“That asswipe. We ain’t got a pot to piss in around here, and he’s threatening to cut off her insurance.”

“He can’t do that, Mrs. Abrams. It’s against the law. Please, I need to speak with—”

“Fuck ‘im. And get your bony ass off my front porch.”

“Gramma,” a puny voice called. Max could gauge neither the age nor the sex.

“Shut the fuck up, Jorey, Gramma’s busy.” She didn’t even turn her head to throw out the command, as if the words came naturally, a normal fragment of speech, an accepted element of Nick’s children’s lives.

Such was the house Carla Abrams Drake had grown up in. Max could almost feel sorry for her.

In the living room, the child hushed.

Max tried another tack. “Your daughter’s in big trouble, Mrs. Abrams.”

“If she is, she did it to herself. Dumping her brats here, then taking off until all hours of the morning. She deserves the frigging electric chair.”

Max’s heart stopped. For a moment, she thought she’d suffered cardiac arrest. Until her blood drummed in her ears. She cocked her head to one side, then the other. “You know, don’t you?”

“Know what?” Yvonne Abrams didn’t wait for an answer. “I told you to get off my porch.” She made a move to cut Max off, her yellowed fingers reaching for the bright green door.

“Carla brought the kids here the night she picked them up at the airport. But she didn’t stay, did she?”

Yvonne was stone silent. Her throat worked to erase the mistake her mouth had made. “Course she did.”

“The police can arrest you for perjury, Mrs. Abrams.” Max was rewarded with a tightening of the woman’s mouth, a spark of fear in her eyes. “The detective’s been here, hasn’t he?”

“They can’t do a thing unless I testify.”

“So you did lie.”

“I didn’t say that. I watch enough Law and Order to know you have to testify to commit perjury.”

“TV shows are known to bend the law to fit their needs.”

For a moment, Max thought she had her, but Yvonne’s claw-like fingers gripped the door, and her gaze sharpened. “I thought you came here to help Carla with that Hackett asshole?”

“I came to talk to Carla. Do you know her husband’s been arrested for murder?”

“The bum deserves whatever he gets.” Max was certain Nick’s confession came as no surprise to Yvonne. It was probably the reason Carla had left the house before nine a.m. Hiding out or celebrating, Max couldn’t be sure.

Max felt the slam of the door looming just ahead of her. But she wouldn’t go without a parting shot to shake the woman up. “You know your daughter could have done it just as easily as her husband.”

She saw the goose bumps rise on Yvonne Abrams bare arms.

Max pushed her advantage. “If you want to help her, you’ll tell me where she is.”

“Get offa my porch,” and this time Mrs. Abrams slammed the door in Max’s face.

Too late. Max already knew in her gut that Carla Drake hadn’t come home until the early morning hours the night Wendy died.

Her alibi was shot to hell.

* * * * *

Knowing Carla had motive and opportunity wasn’t enough to free Nick.

Max needed more. She needed someone to break. Carla was her best bet, but Max had no resources to find her.

Witt, however, did.

For the first time, Max bemoaned the fact that she’d refused to get a cell phone. Cell phones meant talking to people, and Max didn’t have a single person she wanted to waste time talking to. Unless she counted Cameron.

They said the dead sometimes called collect. If so, she’d missed the call.

It was tough to find a pay phone these days, but she pulled over at a gas station just before the freeway entrance, and by some miracle, the phone was still intact. She fished in her purse for change and Witt’s card. She got his voicemail. “I broke Carla Drake’s alibi with her mom. And Carla’s skipped. You better put an APB out on her.” She was pleased with her jargon and didn’t bother leaving her name. He’d figure it out. Of course, he’d also be pissed she’d gone there on her own. He’d be pissed she’d issued orders, too. The thought lifted her spirits; in fact, it delighted her. It somehow put her back in the driver’s seat.

Her mood nose-dived the minute she climbed into the car and realized she hadn’t a clue where to turn. Arms crossed over the steering wheel, she leaned her forehead against them. “Cameron, Cameron,” she whispered, “what do I do now?”

No answer.

She’d prayed for one, but she didn’t expect it. Hell, she’d never had a prayer answered.

With the windows rolled up and the sun off to her right, the car heated up. She hadn’t slept well; the warmth lulled her. The cars on the road, the voices from the mini-mart, the whir of the car wash, even her own inner dialogue that never quite seemed to shut up, all of it faded.

She thought of Cameron. She’d always think of Cameron. She heard his voice, couldn’t make out the words, as if he called to her from a great distance.

She jerked, her arm fell off the wheel, cracked against the side window.

And she knew where she had to go.

Hal Gregory’s office. He’d handed over his business card that night at the Round Up.

It’s Saturday, a doubting Thomas voice whispered, he won’t be there.

But he would be.

Something momentous was about to happen.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The parking lot of Traynor, Spring, and Gregory, Attorneys at Law, was empty except for Hal’s Lexus. Heat rose in waves from the hood of his car. Black wasn’t a good color for summer sun.

Max thought of Wendy. Sixteen hours inside a closed car during the heat of the day. It hadn’t mattered then whether the car was black, silver, or red. Color hadn’t helped poor Wendy’s body a damn bit. Max’s stomach twisted.

She parked near the edge of the lot beneath a shady tree, stowed her map in the glove compartment, and got out, leaving the top down. This wasn’t a neighborhood that worried much about theft.

The building was two stories with an open staircase to the second floor. Hal was in Suite C. She wondered idly who Mr. Spring was. Probably a skeleton buried in Bud Traynor’s closet. She couldn’t picture anyone holding their own between Bud and Hal.

The element of surprise. She didn’t knock, simply opened the door and walked in. The lobby was decorated in pastel shades, a little blue, a little aqua, a little mauve. Nothing overwhelming. Plants dotted the side tables between chairs, potted palms in each corner. The wood-paneled receptionist’s station was empty, but from the depths of Suite C came the clatter of a keyboard.

Max turned down a hall, passed a closed office, a conference room, then a cubed area with walls short enough for her to look over. The scent of fresh coffee made her stomach growl. Pine air freshener wafted from beneath the door of the ladies’ room.

Hal’s office was at the end and to the right. His windows overlooked the parking lot. The carpet was gray, the three armchairs were steel blue, and the coffee table was a chrome-and-glass rectangle. Someone had set an artfully arranged basket of silk flowers in the center. She was sure that someone hadn’t been Hal.

His desk sat by the window. The leather seat of his chair squeaked as he adjusted his position. His fingers curled like talons over the keyboard, and he’d jutted his head forward on his scrawny neck as he read what he’d just written. His nose, in profile, was long and hooked.

Hal Gregory looked like a vulture.

If he hadn’t been so intent on his typing, he would’ve known she was coming long before she stood in the doorway.

“What ya doing?”

He jumped, uttered a curse as his knee connected with his desk, then looked at her as if he’d seen a ghost.

“Cat got your tongue?” She sauntered into the room, boldly moving around the desk to see what he’d concentrated on so furiously. The angle of the screen distorted the letters.

“Max.” He cleared his throat and pressed the exit key. The document disappeared. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Is that your confession you’re writing there?”

He chortled, the sound unnatural, nervous. “Of course not.”

“But you do know exactly what confession I’m talking about, don’t you?”

His expression changed. No longer uneasy, he allowed the full extent of his ire to glow in his eyes. “You haven’t heard. The sonofabitch already beat me to it.”

“Nicholas Drake.”

One pencil-thin eyebrow rose. “Thank you for helping, Max.”

“I didn’t.”

He cocked his head. “They tell me you convinced him to turn himself in.”

All she’d done was convince Nick his wife was in big trouble. He’d made the rest of the mistakes himself. “So, if it wasn’t your confession you were writing...”

He rose, his backside against the credenza. Max blocked his only other opening. He had no way out without pushing her aside. Crossing his arms over his chest, Hal leaned back, one foot over the other, and pretended nonchalance. “Actually, it was my testimony.”

“Testimony? As in a trial?”

“I want to make sure I get the facts right. The memory can often fade with time.”

“Nick Drake confessed. There won’t be a trial.”

He breathed deeply, eyes feral. He had a target for his fury. All pretense disappeared. “There’s always a trial before they execute, just to make everything legal.”

The words sent a riptide of chills down the muscles of her back. “And you want to get your testimony perfect.”

“I want to make sure he dies.”

“For killing Wendy or for stealing your wife from you?”

He straightened, towered over her. “For both.”

“You don’t want justice for Wendy. You want it for yourself.”

His lip lifted in a snarl. “Don’t even begin to think you know me. I just used you to find her killer.”

“You mean Bud told you to use me.”

He ignored the insult, shook his head, looked at her down his long nose. Maybe he didn’t even see how he was Traynor’s stooge. “You remind me of her. In fact, when you first walked in, you sounded like her. She always used to say that. ‘What ya doing, Hal?’” The imitation was not pleasant. “She wandered around like a lost waif. She always needed attention. Constantly.”

“Is that why you hated her?”

There was such a thin line between love and hate. In Hal Gregory’s eyes, she saw how carefully he’d walked it. “At first, I would have done anything for her.”

“You mean for her father.”

He stabbed a finger at her. “For her. I didn’t love her because she was my boss’s daughter.”

“You don’t even know what love is, Hal.” Watching him now, Max was sure his rage would never die, not even if Nick Drake was executed. She stared at him, feeling the wonder on her face, in her voice. Wendy’s emotion. “She actually hurt you, didn’t she?”

His lips bared his teeth. “She told Bud first that she was leaving me, as if she had to test it out on him before she brought it to me. Do you know what that feels like?”

She flipped a hand in the air, mocked him with a widening of her eyes, pushing him, trying to discover how much he’d reveal. “Well, gee, Hal, that certainly was an indication of the state of your marriage.” She narrowed her eyes. “Is that when you decided to kill her?”

The muscles of his face twitched. He lips went white with tension. His hands fisted at his sides.

She whispered her next question. “Did Bud tell you his daughter deserved to die for what she did to you?”

His fisted hands spasmed. Open. Close. Open. Close.

She stepped around the credenza, reducing the distance between them. “Will you enjoy watching Nick Drake die for something you did? Is that what you’re waiting for?

He straightened, back ramrod stiff, his words neither confession nor denial. “Wendy died because of him. No matter how you slice it, Drake is guilty. And I will make sure he fries.”

He’d do his damnedest. It wouldn’t be that difficult. Hell, even Nick believed he was responsible for Wendy’s death.

Max just had to figure out how to save him before Hal Gregory got his day in court.

* * * * *

The sky was dark with premonition outside the two-story structure. At least that’s how it felt as Max started down the stairs from Hal’s suite. As though a curtain of clouds had been drawn across the early afternoon sun. Ominous.

A rush of air swept up the steps, swirled around her pants leg. She shivered. Yet shimmers of heat rose off the concrete parking lot, the shadow of the tree still covered her car, and she was sweating inside her black jacket.

A sleek white Cadillac pulled into the lot and parked next to her car. Tinting obscured the windows, but she didn’t need to see inside to know who was driving.

Something momentous. She’d thought it had to do with Hal, but he was just the appetizer.

Bud Traynor climbed from the car and slammed the door. He was dressed for golf, saddle shoes, plaid polyester slacks, and a polo shirt. His gray hair gleamed in the sun. Max stood in the shadow of the second floor stairwell, watching his approach. Walking in bright light with his sunglasses on, he shouldn’t have been able to see her.

Yet like the devil, he could see everything. He smiled.

Max was frozen to the spot by Wendy’s terror. Her mouth dried up, her heart pounded, and her ears rushed with a sound akin to a speeding freight train.

“Max.” He reached up to remove his glasses. Max winced, paralyzed for a moment by the mere thought of what lay hidden behind those dark lenses. Traynor slid them slowly from behind his ears, folded each stem, then slipped them in his shirt pocket. “How good to see you.”

She sighed, looking into his eyes. Just a man, she told herself. Not the devil ready to steal her soul.

She was on the third step from the bottom, and therefore held a height advantage. It should have been an advantage. It wasn’t. She immediately went into attack mode, didn’t even think about the wisdom of it.

“I know what you did.” The challenge was out, lying on the pebbled cement between them.

His eyes flashed. Grey to black to grey again. Too fast to follow, she had no idea what the expression meant. “What do you think you know, Max?” His voice was low, malignant.

She wanted to see him dead, had never wanted anything more in her life, yet she was debased by the strength of that need. Because it hadn’t come from Wendy. She suddenly wished for Cameron’s sweet peppermint scent, his energy, his sanity.

The thought of him rushed through her, calmed her. She started again. “Did you love your daughter, Mr. Traynor?”

The smile was slow to grow. A cold smile that never touched his cheeks or his eyes. “No.”

She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. A lie, at best. Certainly not such unvarnished truth. Wendy’s pain stabbed her heart. “God, the men she chose to surround herself with.”

A father who didn’t love her, a husband who’d ended up hating her.

“I like your wording. She chose.”

“Why?” The question came out on a breath.

“She needed strong men around her. She was that way.”

“Weak?” Max shook her head. “Not that last day.”

“Because she packed a bag and left? She would have been back before the week was out. I’d even have bet on Tuesday.”

Max heard phones ringing until she wanted to clamp her hands over her ears and scream to shut the sound out. Phones ringing. All day. That day. Monday. Wendy’s death day. “How many times did you call her the day she died?”

He wagged a finger at her. “Very intuitive, Max. You’re good at following things to their logical conclusion.”

“No, I’m just psychic.” God, she prayed Cameron could hear her, that he knew how much the admission cost her, that she’d done it for him. Or she’d done it for Wendy, to get back at Bud.

“Why did you call her, Bud?”

“I wanted to help her understand what things would be like without Hal. Without me. The car needed regular service. Hal always took care of that. He took her grocery shopping, bought her clothes, and paid her bills. Did you know she’d never filled her own car with gas? Or taken it through the car wash?”

Oh yes, Max knew. “Small things scared her the most.” Small things for which, as a child, Wendy’d received the severest of punishments.

“How would she have been able to get an apartment, start up the electricity, the phone, buy the furniture, and get her own insurance policy? The tasks ahead of her were horrendous.”

Max’s eyelids drifted down briefly. She bit her lip. Her insides turned to jelly. The immensity of it. Wendy had been terrified. Bud Traynor had known. He’d twisted the knife in her fear, poured salt, and listened to her writhe on the end of that phone line.

And enjoyed every gram of power he wielded over her.

“If you didn’t love her, why did you want her back?”

The smile disappeared, his nostrils flared, then relaxed. “I don’t like losing. Remember that.”

A dream image shuddered through her mind. Wendy cowering in the closet, praying for daylight when her good Daddy would come back. Wendy survived because of her delusions, but they’d also kept her prisoner. Bud Traynor had always been that nighttime Daddy, even in the light of day. If she’d known that, Wendy might have left long ago.

Left and lived.

“How long did you know about Nick Drake and Wendy?”

He shook his head, admiration glinting in his eye. “Damn, you’re good. I knew when it was just a glimmer in that girl’s head. She was so transparent. Hal told me she got up at four in the morning, because she had so much work to do. Work, my ass. I confronted her. She broke down. She wouldn’t give me his name, but the choices were limited. Unless she’d stooped to one of the boys in the warehouse, which I wouldn’t have put past her. Women find something so attractive about the lower classes.”

“What about Remy?”

“I thought of him first.” He pursed his lips, shook his head. “She didn’t react to his name. Nicholas Drake was a different story. Red face. Couldn’t meet my eyes. She was scared to death.”

“You mean you beat it out of her.”

The look in his eye was a challenge, enough to say, “Yeah? What of it?” Traynor didn’t even bother to comment on it. “I knew it was him.”

“Why the elaborate scheme for getting me to help you and Hal when you already knew?”

He sighed, his lids lowering lazily, satisfied, as if he’d just had his first cigarette of the day. Or an orgasm. “I did it to bring you closer. It’s such a pleasure to take off the mask. You can’t know what it’s like to have to hide behind all that civility.”

She suppressed a shiver of reaction and ignored the desire heating his black eyes. “Even with Hal?”

“Hal especially. I’m grooming him, and it wouldn’t do for him to know too much yet. He’s got years of training left.”

Grooming him for what? The question shuddered down Max’s legs into her toes and left them with frostbite. “I suppose I don’t present any challenge to you at all.”

“On the contrary, you looked at me with those big brown eyes and saw who I was the moment you shook my hand at the cemetery. That’s a first. I want more firsts from you.”

Her nipples puckered. God, it wasn’t even sexual attraction. It was something worse. Something Wendy felt hiding in her closet. A sinful, horrible, uncontrollable wetness between the legs. Fear reaction. Power overload.

He’d bred it into his daughter with years of abuse, a feeling so strong Max couldn’t shake it off. It made her sick. “If I didn’t have such a strong constitution, I’d throw up on your shoes.”

“I’m going to enjoy bringing you to heel, Max.”

She stared, incredulous, her eyes feeling as big as fried eggs. “Yeah right, after you spend a lifetime in prison for engineering your daughter’s murder.”

He laughed, a sound like nails on a chalkboard. “Why would I bother? Wendy wasn’t worth the sacrifice. In the scheme of things, she was nothing more than bugshit on my windshield.”

Wendy’s essence throbbed inside her, robbed her of her breath. “She was just a toy to you.”

“Everyone’s a toy. Even you. But some toys can be so much more fun than others.”

She clenched her fists so tightly, her fingers hurt. If he touched her right now, she’d scream. Or she’d come, and then she’d die because of it. She understood Wendy’s closet dream like visceral punch. This man had manipulated a child’s body into doing his bidding. She’d been susceptible to him ever since. He’d played her, debased her, then made her believe it was all her fault. Wendy had hated herself for that lack of control.

“You’re a monster.”

He gave a crooked half-smile, stroked his chin. “Thank you for the compliment.”

“Nobody can be that bad,” she whispered. “You’re yanking my chain.”

“You’re smarter than that. You know exactly who I am.” He leaned his head to one side, then the other, like an artist sizing up his model. “Hal likes you, but I like you better.”

He put his hand on her arm. The chill bled through her jacket, spread across her flesh. A gush of moisture drenched her panties. She could rush home and shower it all off, but she’d never be clean again.

She jerked away, resisted rubbing her arm, and said coldly, “I’ll kill you if you ever touch me again.”

“I do believe you’d try.”

“You will pay for what you did to Wendy. I promise.”

“I love a game of wits. But remember, I always win.”

He moved past her then, forcing her to turn to the side on the narrow stairway. His arm brushed her breast. Her womb tightened. Readied.

Just as Wendy’s had in the closet when she was thirteen.

Bud Traynor smiled before he disappeared along the second floor corridor. He knew the affect he’d had on her body.

The only thing more evil than what he’d done to the child Wendy had been was making her believe she’d deserved it.

Max understood just how he’d accomplished that, with the evidence of the shameful betrayal of her own body.

Stumbling down the three steps, she fell to her knees and threw up in the shrubbery at the bottom of the stairs.

God, if she kept this up, her body would waste away to a shadow.

And Bud Traynor would win.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The sun was down. Hackett’s parking lot was empty, windows, dark, and the street silent except for the train whistle a block away.

Max couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there.

The afternoon was a blank, as if she’d hidden next to the stairs outside Hal’s office building in a daze until dusk. But no, there had been a panicked flight, Wendy’s heart pounding in her ears, Wendy’s hands on the steering wheel, and Wendy’s frantic breath in her chest.

If spirit possession was real, not a product of her own fractured mind, then Max was well and truly possessed. She went with it. She had no choice. Together, she and Wendy rushed toward a goal like that train out there on the tracks.

The problem was that Max had no idea where to stop. She wasn’t sure Wendy did either.

She climbed from her car, rooted around in her purse for the key she kept on a separate chain. The shop closed at five on a Saturday and was empty by half-past. Deserted. Cold and creepy, like Bud Traynor’s voice along her nerve endings.

In her office, the fronds of Wendy’s spider plant crawled toward non-existent sunlight and water. She stroked a leaf, felt it with the tenderness of a mother.

Inside her, Wendy was pleased.

With the greenery once again happy, Max sat at the desk, stretched, and reveled in the silence. Pulling open a drawer, she ran her fingers across the tabs of the folders, flashes like a rainbow. When she closed her eyes, prisms of color danced against her lids.

She turned on the computer, went into the word processing program, and started her list.

Bud Traynor. She left the text black. For evil.

Carla Drake. She turned it green. For envy.

Hal Gregory. She chose yellow. For being the pale angry shadow of Wendy’s father.

Remy Hackett. Red. For draining the life blood of the people who worked for him.

Nicholas Drake. Blue. For sadness.

The computer froze. Her cursor stopped blinking. She hit the escape several times. Nothing. Damn thing. Remy wouldn’t spring for an updated model. Max crawled beneath the desk and reached for the power button. The CPU beeped, and the fan whirred.

“What’s going on here?”

She shrieked, jumped, rammed her head into the underside of the middle desk drawer, and flopped over onto one hip.

Remy.

“Jeez, you scared me.” She rubbed the bump on the top of her head, tried backing up, then wriggled around to peer out at his legs. She couldn’t see past his abdomen.

“What are you doing under there?”

I knew you were coming, and I hid.

Wendy’s words, just like the Closet Dream.

With them, Max tumbled straight into yet another of Wendy’s nightmares. This time, she was wide awake.

She slammed the phone down, anger and impotence shuddering up her arm and coming to rest in some soft, squishy part of her mind, diminishing her resolve. Father’s voice had always done that to her. Weak. Weak. “God, I hate you,” she whispered. Her father. Her husband. Herself.

Wendy’s office. Wendy’s voice. Wendy’s slight hand still on the receiver. Max was just along for the ride. Again.

She didn’t turn when she heard him breathing at her door. The dragon was out. Remy was pissed. Always. Endlessly. There’d never been a time she hadn’t done something wrong, hadn’t screwed up, hadn’t been stupid. Not before Remy came into her life, not now, and probably never in the future.

She seemed destined to gravitate to men like Remy. Like Hal. Like Father.

Remy hovered close to her desk. “Theresa says the copy machine’s broken.”

“Marvin isn’t answering his cell phone.”

“Call again.”

She looked at him, gut protruding, smile triumphant, and pinkie ring glinting under the fluorescent light. Some synapse in her brain misfired. “You want him here, you call him.” She never spoke to him like that, never braved the retribution.

She didn’t care anymore.

For Remy, that was the beginning, middle, and end of the argument. “In my office. Now.”

For Wendy, it was a divine revelation.

Something happened to her body. A dampness between her legs. A subtle contraction of her muscles. A pleasurable tug of heat. They were signs she used to ignore. She knew what he wanted. This time he would get so much more.

She rose, looked down at the coral polish of her fingernails, imagined them a crimson red. The color of his blood.

Theresa the viper stood just outside the office door, a self-important, back-stabbing smile on her freshly painted lips.

Trailing Remy down the hall, Wendy saw him disappear into his office. He didn’t turn, didn’t bother to see if she did as he ordered. He was so sure of her.

If she’d had a gun, she’d have shot him in the ass.

“Shut the door.”

She did.

“Lock it.”

She did that, too.

He stood in the middle of the room, just in front of his desk, legs spread, paunch resting on the top of his belt buckle. His pants wrinkled at the crotch.

“Get over here.”

Three steps. They stood nose to chin. Her eyes dropped to his erection.

“Get on your knees.”

She took a deep breath.

“Did you hear me?”

“I heard you.”

His penis jerked in his pants, jumping like a snake. Her mouth watered in shameful anticipation of the salty taste. The earlier moist rush increased. She’d done it so many times before, there was no question she would do it again, keep on doing it. Forever. Until the day she died. Unless...

“What are you waiting for?”

She pictured herself a gray-haired old woman down on creaking knees sucking a decrepit cock that no longer even got hard. She’d have lockjaw, her lips forever curled into a perfect round O to receive whatever man demanded sex from her. And she would still be masturbating quietly in shame in her lonely bed, a victim of her own unreleased desires.

Deep inside, someone howled. A death knell. Her own. “No.” At first a whisper. “No.” Stronger. Fuller.

“What?” Shock. It vibrated on his vocal chords.

“I said no. I won’t do it.” Power streaked through her extremities. The very power she’d always sought when she was down on her knees in front of them. The power she’d only had to stand up to find.

She would choose the cocks she sucked. No one else.

Remy reached out, fisted his hands in her hair, and forced her down on her knees. He pulled her head back by the roots, his gaze on her mouth. He didn’t even bother to look into her eyes, as if she was less than human. “Unzip my pants.”

“No.” A shiver ran through her, leaving a strange sense of control in its wake.

His mustache twitched like a rat’s whiskers.

“If you put it in my mouth, Remy, I’ll bite it off.”

He wrenched her hair, her scalp screamed. “Don’t ever say no to me.”

She didn’t raise her voice, didn’t shout. The word was all the more powerful for the softness of her tone. “No.”

He hauled her up, pain shot through her scalp to her ears, her neck and her shoulders. When he had her on her feet, he yanked her head back so that she had to look at him. “You’ll pay for this in a million excruciating ways.” He truly believed he could do it.

“You’re a dickhead, Remy. Call Marvin yourself. I quit.” Then she spat in his face.

* * * * *

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Max was still huddled on the floor, Remy towering over her. The vision seemed to have gone on forever, but she knew in reality it had lasted less than a minute.

Nevertheless, Remy had cursed at her. Her trance had unnerved him.

That gave Max all the insight she needed. He’d lost control when Wendy spat in his face. He’d had only one choice left. If you can’t control ’em, kill ’em. A new Remy motto.

“Why didn’t you tell anybody Wendy quit her job that last day?”

His mouth dropped open. He swallowed hard, took one step back. “You couldn’t possibly know that.”

She tipped her head to one side. “That’s why you killed her, isn’t it? Because she said no to you.” Finally. Irrevocably. Courageously.

Max felt pride. Wendy had said no.

He’d forced sex on her. Definitely something a boss would want to hide. But why hide the fact that she’d quit? “Were you afraid Detective Long would figure out everything if he knew Wendy had quit on you?” She tapped her lip. “Come to think of it, that’s probably why you searched my office the other day. You were afraid she might have written her resignation in her notes.”

Remy was too much of a control freak to stay down for long. He didn’t confirm her supposition, he didn’t have to. And he knew it. He straightened his shoulders, closed his lips. Recovered, he shook his head. “You are becoming troublesome.”

He didn’t state the obvious. If Witt knew Wendy had quit, he’d start asking why. Remy would have to lie. He wasn’t good at lying. Instead, he’d omitted the fact. With that one action, he’d branded the word “killer” into his chest.

Max was on her knees at Remy’s feet, halfway under the desk. Definitely not a one-up position, but that had never stopped her before. It certainly didn’t now. “Can’t answer the question? Afraid you’ll have to tell a lie?”

If she could keep him talking, she would find a way out.

He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a length of nylon cord. “You know, you could learn a lesson from Wendy.”

“And what’s that, Remy?”

“Stay on your knees and keep your mouth full.”

“Fuck you, Remy.”

He wagged a finger. “Max, you know my rule about swearing.”

“And fuck your rules, too.”

Her heart stuttered as he coiled the rope around his fist. “That’s why she died, Max, because she thumbed her nose at my rules.”

“Of course, it had nothing to do with the fact that her job description including sucking your cock every afternoon.”

She pushed with the language. Pushed with the sarcasm. Pushed him to the edge. Max figured when he made his move, cramped under the desk as she was, his maneuverability would be severely hampered, too. Then she’d turn the tables on him.

Remy only laughed and shook his head. “I know you must have been a friend of hers, but you really didn’t know her at all.”

“Yeah, I was a friend, and I know she hated your guts.”

Still smiling. “She needed me. I made her feel special.”

It was Max’s turn to laugh even as she braced her hands on the floor, waiting, watching for an opportunity to spring. “That’s the most pathetic bullshit I’ve ever heard.” She deepened her voice, mimicked him. “She wanted me to sexually harass her.”

“You had no idea what made her tick. Making me want her was power, and Wendy craved power.” He wound the other end of the cord around his left palm and pulled it taut.

Never let them see you sweat. “Did you do all this psychoanalysis before or after you forced her to have sex with you?” None of what he said fit the vision Wendy had given her.

Did it? Stronger than Wendy’s futility, a rush of the dead woman’s adrenaline high throbbed in Max’s veins. She shivered.

“She could have left any time, but she kept on doing it.”

“Right,” Max scoffed, but his words made her wince. She injected every ounce of venom into her voice. “So that’s why you killed her when she finally told you to go fuck yourself and called you a dickhead.”

“I killed her because—” He stopped, as if suddenly realizing the enormity of his admission. No matter the nylon in his hands. But once out, he just had to explain. Isn’t that what killers always did? “She shouldn’t have betrayed me with Nick. She shouldn’t have chosen him over me.”

“Guess that’s why you framed him by writing his name in her date book.”

Dropping one end of the rope, Remy lunged. The move took Max by surprise. She’d dropped her guard, listening to his lies about Wendy. Fingers digging into her arms, he dragged her upright, her head whacking the desk. Jerking free, Max stumbled, spots of light flashing. She fell against the filing cabinet, catching herself with both hands.

She’d be damned if she’d go down on her knees for him again.

She rested, head spinning, his voice close behind her. “She knew it was a game. She went to him. And when she was done, she came to me. I think she even knew I’d watched them.”

“You’re a fucking liar.” Her breath stuck in her throat.

Remy didn’t know how to lie. Panic flashed across her skin and raised goose bumps. She leaned her cheek against the cool metal, then rolled on her shoulder to look at him. “He put you up to this, didn’t he?”

He curled his lip. “Nick?”

“Bud Traynor.”

“What the hell does Wendy’s father have to do with it?”

“He goaded you into killing her, didn’t he?”

“It was my idea,” he shouted, as if it was a great achievement someone might steal from him. Then he calmed just as abruptly. “You’re trying to sidetrack me. It won’t work. Your Royal Canadian Mountie isn’t going to rescue you.”

“Witt?” She choked back a laugh, the sound almost frantic. Witt didn’t have a clue where she was. She faced the cabinet again, pulled herself upright as if she were doing chin-ups.

Stalks of Wendy’s spider plant caressed her face, the earthy scent of moist soil cleared her head. She felt Remy at her back, heard the snap of the nylon between his hands. “You can’t kill me here. They’ll know it was you,” she told him.

“I’ll clean everything up.”

“They’ve got that stuff that detects blood even after it’s washed away.”

“I’m going to strangle you. There won’t be any blood.”

She held her arm out to show him the scratch he’d left along her flesh, then rubbed the blood across the top of the file. “The mini-mart across the street is open all night. Someone’ll see you carry my body out to your car.” She smeared blood on the wall beside the file cabinet, too.

His swallow was audible. The smell of his acrid sweat reached her nostrils. “Keep your hands where I can see them.” His voice quavered. She felt him back off, one step, a scuff on the carpet, then another step.

She held her arms aloft, chanced a glance behind. He stood to her right, his hands busy with the rope, twisting, untwisting. “What are you going to do when they start asking you questions, Remy? Direct questions? They won’t let you get away with those ambiguous answers.”

He took a deep breath. “I’m thinking.”

“You’ll have to lie. No two ways about it.”

“Shut up,” he shouted. Agitation was good. Very good.

Max judged the distance between her hands, Wendy’s plant pot, and Remy’s head.

She saw him move, a flicker at the corner of her eye.

One second. Two.

She grabbed the pot, aimed, and met his lunge halfway.

The crack against his skull reverberated up her arms. The ceramic fell apart in her hands. Remy crumpled at her feet.

Like a horror movie monster, he could easily rise again. Max didn’t waste another second getting out of there.

She never made it to the front door. The lobby glass shattered with a great boom, something smashed against the front counter, and Max fell to the floor of her office, her arms over her head.

Oh God, Remy’d rigged the place to blow up.

Shouts. Someone called her name. No smoke. No flames. Just Witt. Hands on her, testing her arms, her ribcage, her face, then she was hauled against his hard body and the breath squeezed out of her.

“You all right?” he whispered, and she could have sworn there was a slight hitch in his voice.

“Hmm.” God, he felt good. Safe, solid. And warm.

She put a hand to his chest experimentally. He wore the teal shirt again. Freshly laundered. She closed her lids, burrowed into him. The man smelled good, too. She could have stayed in his arms forever. “You broke the door down?”

“Threw a potted plant into it.”

“Oh.” It was only natural to feel a trace of tenderness toward the first person encountered after almost getting killed. “Plant pots make great weapons,” she mused. Then her eyes flew open. She jerked back. “Remy.”

Witt looked down at her with brilliant blue eyes, but didn’t relinquish his hold on her. “Not moving. Did you kill him?”

“I cracked his skull.”

He rolled his eyes. “Who needs a gun when they’ve got you around? Never occurred to you to let someone be your knight in shining armor, did it?”

“Only if that someone wanted to be a pall bearer, too. If I’d waited for you, I’d be dead.” She gestured in Remy’s general direction. “Shouldn’t you check his pulse or something?”

“After I make sure you’re okay.” Witt ran his hands up and down her torso.

Oh boy, this was way too good. She wanted more. Max wriggled out of his grip. “We oughta call an ambulance. I don’t want anyone to bring me up on manslaughter charges.”

He stared at her a moment longer, those blue eyes of his unreadable—not that Max really tried anyway—then stood and held his hand out to her.

He made her skin tingle. She didn’t like it. Rephrase, she liked it too much. And that was dangerous.

“I won’t bite.”

She might like it if he did. She took the challenge and the hand he offered.

She looked down to Remy sprawled on the floor. “He’s a liar and a killer. We oughta cuff him, and then call the ambulance.”

Witt dropped her hand, turned all cop-like on her, reaching beneath his jacket to pull out a pair of handcuffs. Kneeling beside Remy, he checked his pulse, then rolled him over and snapped the cuffs on.

Sirens sounded in the distance. Witt glanced at her. “Backup. Called when I found both your cars parked outside, and the front door locked.”

“Does this mean he’s not dead?”

“Alive. And soon to be kicking when he wakes up.”

“Good. I want him to live in a tiny jail cell where he’ll learn how to bend over and get real used to being called ‘boy.’”

Witt chuckled. “Still too much TV, Max.”

Lying on his side, Remy’s face was covered with dirt and broken bits of crockery. His knees were close to his chest, fetal-style, his feet rammed up against the filing cabinet, the rope he’d intended to kill her with still coiled around his hands.

She thought of his hands curled around Wendy’s throat.

“He’ll soon learn the true meaning of the penal code.” She dusted her hands off, set them on her hips. “What about Nick?”

Witt’s features turned to granite. “What about Drake?”

“This means he’s free.”

“It means I can’t hold him for murder. There’s a load of other stuff—”

“Hey.” She stopped listening to Witt as another, more immediate thought took over. “How’d you know it was Remy?”

He rose, knees creaking. “I didn’t.”

“You didn’t?”

Amazingly, a flush of red swept across his face. “I—” He stopped, clamped his lips shut.

“You what?”

Remy moaned. They both ignored him.

The sirens screeched, then cut. Within seconds, the cramped office was filled with paramedics, uniforms, noise, bright lights.

Witt looked immensely relieved.

“You’re not off the hook, buster,” she whispered to no one in particular.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Max hadn’t cleaned house in months, at least nothing beyond pouring disinfectant into the toilet and doing laundry. The former she did simply because keeping a clean toilet was one of the basic tenets of life, the latter because she didn’t own enough clothes to last more than a week.

The day after Remy Hackett was carted off to jail for killing Wendy Gregory, Max celebrated by scrubbing the bathroom tiles, sweeping the dust bunnies out from under the bed, and giving Buzzard a flea dip in the bathtub.

Remy’s words resonated inside her head. Repeat, stop, rewind. Making me want her was power, and Wendy craved power. Repeat, stop, rewind.

The young Wendy had been powerless. Broken. Terrified. Sex would never have been her weapon of choice. The ensuing fifteen years couldn’t have wrought such changes.

So Remy had lied. His life depended on that lie.

Not true, Max, she had to admit. The only life in the balance at that moment had been her own.

Answers were scarce, questions endless. Arms filled with a grocery bag of garbage, Max hipped the side garage door open to dump the load. The wooden structure, built in the days of one-car families, was no longer usable for anything but storage. It was dark, damp, and cold. She shivered, thinking of Wendy’s closet.

With an elbow, she flicked the lid off the big plastic can. Someone had forgotten to roll the trash out last week, and the rancid odor burned her nostrils.

Gravel crunched beneath tires outside. A car door slammed. Footsteps approached the small garage, then stopped. Max shuddered. The walls closed in on her with the intensity of a nightmare. The closet wasn’t the only place Wendy used to hide.

Thirteen-year-old Wendy was still alive and well inside Max.

“I did what you wanted,” Max whispered. “I found out who murdered you. Why can’t you leave me alone?”

There’s more you have to do. Echoes of Cameron. God, she was demented, talking to herself the way her dead husband used to.

She yanked the garage door open.

Nick Drake stood outside in the bright morning, shades covered his eyes. The sun glinted off the windshield of a dusty, dented, red pickup behind him. He’d left the engine running.

Max didn’t know what to say. Wendy wanted to throw herself in his arms. Max moved to the left to go around him.

He stepped with her, blocked her, just as Wendy wanted him to. “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head, waved her hand in dismissal. “Look, it was just sex. No big deal.” Reminded of that final fight with Cameron, Max winced.

“That’s not what I was talking about.”

“For what then?”

“For leaving you alone when you needed me.”

“You should be saying that to Wendy.”

He had enough sensitivity to flush slightly. God, she’d wanted nothing more than to tell him to take a flying leap, but there were so many questions she still had about Wendy.

And why hadn’t she sought him out to get them?

Simple enough. Wendy had wanted him to come to her.

You know, if you’re living inside me, why can’t you just tell me it all at once instead of giving me this piece-meal crap?

Pissed, she glared at Nick. “So they released you. I thought they’d have to wait till Monday when a judge could sign the papers.” She hadn’t wanted to ask Witt. Too conspicuous.

“They never arrested me.”

“What?” Damn that Witt.

“The big guy didn’t believe my story, kept pointing out inconsistencies.”

Double-damn Witt. He’d led her on, used her to flush out the real killer.

“We need to talk.”

“I’m listening.”

“Not out here.”

“You can’t come into my apartment.” She didn’t trust Wendy alone with him. Her skin felt flushed, her pulse skipped beats, and her nipples were taut against her T-shirt. It wasn’t because the damn thing was damp. Oh, no, she was the one who was damp. Inside and out.

“All right. We’ll skip your place and go for a drive.”

A drive. At least the truck had no back seat. She glanced at it, only to find that it had one helluva a big bench seat that would allow more than enough room for... “I don’t think so.”

He came at her, put his hands at her waist, and lifted her bodily to the driver’s side door.

When he let go, she almost crumpled to the ground at his feet.

She jumped away from his touch. “A drive? Fine. I’ll get in the other side.”

He opened the door with one hand while barring her from going anywhere with the other. With a sweeping gesture, “Ladies first.”

When she hesitated, he laughed harshly. “Don’t trust yourself to be alone with me?”

She didn’t trust Wendy. Max felt the woman inside her head like the buzz of a high-tension wire. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

She climbed up and would have scooted to the far side, but he clamped a powerful arm around her shoulders and held her close. He put the truck in gear and backed out with one hand.

He frowned. “You love to fight, don’t you?”

“It’s a defense mechanism,” she admitted freely.

“I’m sick to death of fighting. Let’s try a little honesty.”

“You’re a man. I’m a woman. Honesty’s not possible.”

He shook his head and went on. “I ran out on you Friday night when I realized my wife needed me more than you did.”

“That’s not honesty. It’s brutality.”

“I’m sorry I left.”

“I’m not the one you should apologize to. Wendy is. As I recall, you did the same thing to her.”

He winced at the truth of her statement, then shook his head. “Jesus, you’re different. I’ve never met anyone so tough. So in control. You know what you want, and you go for it.”

She gave a half snort. “Who are you kidding?”

“It’s the impression you give.”

“I should get an Academy Award.” She pulled away, scrunched up against the passenger door and faced him. “You asked for honesty. Here it is. You ran out because you knew that Wendy’s death was your fault. Guilt. Plain and simple.”

“You’re right. I shouldn’t have left her alone that night.”

She pointed a finger at him. “You shouldn’t have had an affair with her. When I told you about the 4Runner trying to run me down, you thought it was your wife. That, too, you figured was your fault.” She tapped her temple. “You’re like an open book.”

He stared straight ahead, his jaw worked, then he jerked the steering wheel to the right. The high school parking lot was empty except for a few cars over by the track. Nick pulled in beneath a tree and turned off the engine.

The silence didn’t bother her, but she knew it drove him nuts as he raked his hands through his razor-short hair. Finally, he grunted through clenched teeth. “I was to blame.”

“Big Nick’s responsible for everything. Whatcha gonna do now that you know your wife didn’t have anything to do with it?”

He didn’t answer directly. “I’m staying at my buddy Rick’s. Carla came by this morning. She’s lost weight. She’s not meant to be a thin woman. She’s got broad hips from having kids, and she just doesn’t...look right to me. Doesn’t feel right.”

“You want her the way she was when she thought you were a god.”

“I was just the only one who stayed with her after the first fuck.” He swallowed, then turned to look at Max. “I don’t know her anymore. I don’t want to know her. I want you.”

Yesyesyes. Wendy almost jumped out of Max’s skin.

“And I don’t mean only the sex.”

Max closed her eyes and felt the power course through her veins. God, Remy had been so right. Wendy wanted this, wanted to be wanted, to be needed, to be loved. She’d wanted it the night she died. But even more, she’d given Nick that special gift, she’d let her body explode with his. And she’d never come willingly in her life, not unless she was the one giving herself the orgasm. That climax had been more than a sexual release, it had been an epiphany.

She had found the man who wanted her more than anything, the one who wanted her beyond the physical.

Then he’d left her.

Max’s eyes snapped open. “You told Wendy you wouldn’t marry her.”

“Yes.”

“When Remy showed up, she did everything he said, even let him kill her with a minimum of resistance.”

“Is that what he told you?” An edge crept into his voice.

“He didn’t have to. He was jealous of you, but you quit, and that satisfied him for a while. But when he knew she’d left him for you, he went crazy.”

“Since when did quitting a job become a reason for murder?”

“Quitting her job? Come on, Nick, get a clue. She quit having sex with him.” She wondered where her brutality came from. Wendy. Payback for Nick’s failure.

“That’s total bullshit.” His lips tensed, the edges of his nostrils turned white. “Wendy hated him. She’d never have—”

“Wouldn’t she?”

He stared straight ahead, said nothing. She watched the slide of his Adam’s apple. His fingers tightened around the steering wheel.

“You really didn’t know, did you?”

His nostrils flared. The cords of his neck stretched with tension. “She wouldn’t have gone near him. I know it.”

“He watched the two of you. She knew it.” God, yes, Wendy had known. She’d despised herself for liking it, but it hadn’t stopped her.

“She hated Remy.” He slammed the flat of his hand against the wheel.

“She needed Remy as much as she needed you. He wanted her, but when she realized he was just another trap like her father, like Hal, she wanted you to get her out.”

His lips curled in a snarl. “Jesus Christ. It’s obscene.”

“And what do you call the things you did?”

He breathed deeply, lips thin, white. She’d punched a button.

“Shall I name them for you, Nick?” She held up a hand, ready to tick off a list of his failures. His continued silence drove her to it as much as Wendy’s insistent anger. “You had an affair. You left your family. You fucked Wendy, then you dumped her. And you let her die in the back seat of her goddamn car.”

“Shut up,” he snarled through gritted teeth. The man could crush rocks to dust with that bite.

“Can’t stand it, Nickie? Can’t stand knowing another way you failed?”

He turned away from her, looked out the side window.

Blaming Nick was fruitless. Wendy was the only one who could have rescued herself.

“All she really wanted was to be loved.” By her husband, her boss, her lover. But mostly by her father. “He won in the end,” Max whispered.

“Remy?” he asked.

“Bud Traynor. Wendy’s father.”

“She’s dead. How did he win?”

She couldn’t put it into words without betraying Wendy. The things Wendy’s father had done to her were her last secret, and Max would keep it. He’d won, because in the end, Wendy had still turned to a man to save her. Men had always failed her. She was doomed from the moment she left her husband to run to another man. And Bud Traynor had twisted the knife, brought her down.

One day Max would make him pay for that. The day would come.

Nick regarded her, hand supporting his chin, index finger resting on his lip. “How did you know her?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.” Such a beautiful double entendre. Wendy came to life inside her once again. Like a light switch, the anger winked out, and desire blazed like a thousand-watt bulb.

In life, being wanted was what had made Wendy feel alive. She’d lost everything in the end, except for a little while, when she’d had complete control over her body’s responses, when two men had wanted her. Then, Wendy had power. Big-time power.

Max dug her fingers into her palms. Her body’s heatwave receded with the pain. She leaned forward. “I’m a psychic.”

She wondered fleetingly if Cameron would have approved the admission. He would certainly have approved her in-your-face attitude.

She expected shock, even anger. Nick merely nodded. “I knew there was something.”

“You mean you believe me?” She clamped her jaw shut when she realized her mouth hung open.

“I knew you were special. You scared the shit out of me when I first saw you. You scare the shit out of me now. You’re not going to be an easy woman to live with.” The assumption in the statement turned Wendy giddy.

“I won’t live in your wife’s shadow.”

“I don’t want you to. No fuckups this time. I want to start over.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You don’t understand. I mean it’s over. I’m not like your wife. I’m not like Wendy.”

“I know. That’s why I think I love you.”

She almost laughed, caught herself only at the last moment. Inside her, Wendy cried. To finally hear those words, the ones she’d wanted so badly, the ones she’d died without hearing.

He’d said them to the wrong woman.

For Wendy, Max wanted to see him hurting. “You don’t love me. You want to take care of me. You remember seeing me at the Round Up going from man to man.” A shiver ran like a spider across her shoulders, but she went on. “And you want to save me.”

“What’s wrong with wanting to help you?”

“I don’t want a man who acts only on his passions, his pain, and his guilt. I will not depend on you. I will not have my wounds healed by you. I will not have my one-night stands fixed by you.” She stabbed her chest. “I will do it on my own.”

The words were as much for herself as for Nick. A surge of power straightened her spine. She liked the feeling.

She just wasn’t sure she could live up to it on dark, lonely nights.

Her nose tingled with the elusive scent of peppermint. She sucked in her breath. “Are you eating candy?”

“What?”

She yanked open the glove box, found nothing but papers. “No peppermints,” she murmured.

He cocked his head, his mouth lifting at one edge in a smile. “Did anyone ever say you were a little crazy?”

She laughed. “Yes, my husband. All the time. Good-bye, Nickie.”

She reached behind her, opened the truck door, stepped down onto the pavement.

“Hey, wait a minute. Where are you going?”

“Home. I meant it, Nick. I don’t want to be with you.”

He looked at her, a play of unreadable emotions racing across his face. “I’ll drive you.”

“It’s only three blocks back to my place. I can do it on my own. I don’t need a man to take care of me.”

“Wait.” He held out his hand, his eyes intense, willing her to take what he offered.

She almost slammed the door on him, then changed her mind. “Tell me, Nick, when you were feeling so guilty because you believed you’d driven your wife to kill your lover, did you ever even think about the fact that by confessing, you would be leaving your kids to be raised by a murderer?”

Chapter Thirty

Nicholas Drake hadn’t followed her home.

As she moved from shade to warmth to shade along the sidewalk, she felt oddly empty. No Cameron inside her head, whispering, cajoling, or taunting. And now no Wendy. The woman was gone. Max wasn’t quite sure what had sent her away. Was it something she said, something Nick said? Did it even matter? Something had liberated the poor woman’s tormented spirit.

It was almost anti-climatic.

Wendy was free.

Max couldn’t say the same for herself.

Running to Nick had been the easy way out for Wendy, just as returning to her nameless, aimless one-night stands had been Max’s flight from Cameron’s death and the things his killers had done to her.

Sexual power.

It was key to Max’s psychic connection with Wendy. They were sisters in the crimes committed against them by men, sisters in their quest for regaining their own power through the very same method. With sex.

Why had Wendy deserted her now?

“I don’t get it,” Max whispered. Just as quickly, she understood.

Wendy had bared her soul to Nick, then her throat to Remy. Max had finally set her free by telling them all to go to hell. One simple phrase that Wendy had found impossible to say.

She’d freed Wendy and in return, Wendy had left her with certain knowledge. Sex was about power and control.

Making love was something else entirely—that’s what Cameron had tried to tell her.

Witt sat on her porch steps.

“Invite me up for a beer?” He wore faded blue jeans and a black T-shirt with the word Dodge emblazoned in bold red. The sight gave her a head rush, as if she’d stood up too fast. Perhaps there were pieces of Wendy she might retain forever, her love of color being one of them. But the love of a Dodge Ram was all Max’s.

The shirt wouldn’t get him off the hook. She put her hands on her hips and glared. “You never arrested Nick. You lied. And you used me to get Remy.”

He sighed. “Guess that means no beer.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You put my life in danger.”

“Didn’t expect you to make yourself a sitting duck. Figured it had to be the wife, or Drake would never have confessed.”

“Well, you were wrong.” She yanked the screen door open. “I’ve got Dr. Pepper, no beer.” She’d run out yesterday.

“Dr. Pepper will do.” He followed her up the stairs to her room. “I made a mistake, Max. It won’t happen again.”

“Damn right, it won’t.” His admission threatened to turn her to mush. Again. She’d certainly had enough of that particular feeling.

Dwarfing her one chair with his big body, he popped the tab on the can she handed him. She sat on the edge of the mattress. At least she’d made the bed, and the studio smelled springtime fresh.

“What’s with you and Drake?”

She didn’t ask if Witt had witnessed the episode by the garage. If he had, he’d drawn his own conclusions. If he hadn’t, she wouldn’t admit how badly Wendy had wanted her to say yes. Until Max had said no.

“Nothing,” she answered breezily. “In fact, I think he’s probably gone back to his wife now that he’s figured out she isn’t a murderer.”

That seemed to satisfy him. The cat jumped on Witt’s lap, circled, then settled and started to purr. He stroked the soft fur and guzzled the soda, all the while keeping his gaze on Max.

She tingled. If she closed her eyes, she’d feel his touch. God, she wanted to jump the man, but she wouldn’t. She was afraid he’d demand they make love, and she still wasn’t beyond merely having sex. With a real man, she wasn’t ready for anything other than sex. Certainly not a relationship.

“What’s its name?”

“It’s a he, and his name is Buzzard.”

“Buzzard. An odd name. Just like you, Max.” He didn’t give her a chance to say anything. “Thought you’d want to know Remy confessed to everything. He stole Wendy’s datebook out of her purse, wrote Drake’s flight in there in an attempt to frame Drake. Stole her keys to the store to cover his tracks.”

“He must have left the note there, too,” she said almost to herself.

“What note?”

“The green note on the floor of the car. She threw it away in the airport, he retrieved it, and left it to frame Nick, too.”

“Very odd, indeed,” Witt murmured, his eyes narrowed on her throat. “Wendy told Lilah about Remy’s activities at work—”

“Harassment.”

“So Lilah blackmailed him, and he killed her. He also admitted to stealing Drake’s 4Runner and trying to run you down.”

“Extremely cooperative, wasn’t he?”

“He’ll probably go for the insanity defense. He says Wendy’s ghost has been haunting him.”

“Remy never lies, you know.” That didn’t stop her from asking the next question. “Did he say anything about Bud Traynor?”

“Traynor?” Witt’s blue eyes sparked. “No. Why? What’re you thinking?”

Hoping. Praying. “Forget it.”

“You’ve piqued my curiosity. Can’t pull out now.”

Oh God. Her prurient thoughts, just as Cameron claimed, worked overtime on that double entendre, whether or not it was intentional on Witt’s part. He didn’t move a muscle. She wondered if he even got it.

“I just don’t like the guy,” she said, and the words felt far too mild.

He snorted. “Traynor asked me when he and his son-in-law could have Wendy’s car back. Company car, you know, owned by the law firm. I told him he’d never get the smell out of the upholstery. Didn’t even phase him. Man’s pure slime.”

Slime was not the word Max would’ve used. Slime indicated something organic. Lacking a heart, Bud Traynor couldn’t even be considered living tissue.

She suddenly realized her fingernails had dug into her palms. She looked at her nails. Damn, the Cajun Spice hadn’t worn off with all that frenzied cleaning. “It was uncharacteristic of him to let you see what he’s really like.” Traynor’s facade could be dropping. “You must make him feel awfully safe.”

She prayed Bud would underestimate Witt until the moment the detective slipped the cuffs on him for...something.

“Wanted him to be guilty, didn’t you?” Witt was too damn intuitive about Traynor—and her—for her own good.

She shrugged her shoulders in answer. Witt let her go for now, but she knew he’d come back to the topic of Bud Traynor eventually. Witt never forgot a thing. He reminded her so much of Cameron.

She went back to the thing that had bothered her yesterday after Witt had rushed to her rescue. “So tell me, if you thought it was Carla, why’d you end up at Hackett’s?”

Witt shifted on the chair. Uneasy. An atypical reaction for him. “You need something more comfortable here. This thing sucks.”

“Nowhere to put it.”

“Then you need a new place.”

She looked around the room. She certainly couldn’t call it an apartment. “Maybe I do.” She supposed it would have to be somewhere that took pets. She couldn’t leave Buzzard alone to starve all over again. “And I do realize you didn’t answer my question.”

Witt rubbed a hand across his chin. “Never thought I’d be able to pull the wool over your eyes.”

“Then answer.”

He pulled at the neck of his T-shirt as if it suddenly felt too tight. “This is a little complicated.”

She crossed her legs, leaned back on one elbow. “I’ve finished cleaning so we have all day.”

He squirmed some more on the chair. Buzzard got so disturbed, he jumped down.

“Well...I sort of...heard a voice.” The words came out all in a rush at the end.

“A voice?” Her heart kick-started.

“Well, not really a voice. Just a feeling.”

“About me?”

“That you were in trouble.”

“But how’d you know where to go?”

He scratched his temple and avoided her eyes. “Just sorta seemed...to know.” He paused a moment. “There was this scent of peppermints, kind of led the way.”

Cameron. She knew it, every nerve-ending suddenly on alert. Floating tether-free in the nether regions, Cameron had breathed a message to Witt and left a trail of peppermints.

He’d broken their invisible umbilical cord, but he hadn’t left her alone.

So. She was psychic, not crazy after all. What did that make Witt?

“Gosh, Detective, I think you might be psychic, too.”

He flushed. His blond eyebrows looked painted on. He cleared his throat. “Normally, that kind of assessment would insult my male sensibilities. At this point, however, it’s preferable to insanity.”

“Was it a man’s voice?” She didn’t tell him it had been Cameron.

“Well, ah...”

“Come on. Admit it, it was a man’s voice.”

He dodged the bullet with a fluid change of subject. “Promise me one thing, Max. This will be the last time I gotta rescue you.”

She stood, crossed to his chair, her knees not quite touching his, then braced her hands on her hips. “I rescued myself before you even got there.”

She realized her mistake the second he put his hands on her flanks and pulled her closer, his fingers brushing the curve of her butt.

Oh goodness, this was way too nice. She promptly forgot what they’d been talking about.

He didn’t seem to be having the same trouble. “All right, I’ll rephrase. Tell me this is the last murder you’ll get involved with.”

She couldn’t think with him touching her this way. She wanted nothing more than to climb on his lap and straddle him. Instead, she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed away. He didn’t lose his grip on her.

What had she been about to say? Oh yeah. “Depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether I start having those psychic dreams again.” She hummed the “Twilight Zone” opener. “In fact, I feel one coming on now.”

If she didn’t get his hands off her right this minute, there’d be a lot more “coming” going on, too.

She didn’t think either of them was quite ready for that.

Epilogue

Sunday nights had always been her favorite at the Round Up. The roar of voices was lower, the music seemed softer, the age of the crowd slightly older, less punky. And the men were delicious.

But this Sunday night, Max climbed into her bed alone, her body and mind clamoring for attention, her heart begging for the strength of resistance. The resistance had nothing to do with Detective Witt Long, of course, but more to do with erasing the lingering sexual tension Wendy had left behind.

Yeah right.

Okay, maybe it was a bit of both.

He’d left without touching her in any other way, but the feel of his hands on her remained.

She tumbled into a restless sleep only to wake deep in the night, her skin covered with sweat, her legs wrapped tightly in her sheets, and her heart racing like a locomotive.

The nightmare still pounded at her. The afterglow of orgasm and the seduction of sexual power. The stench of blood and the taste of the cotton rag shoved in her mouth. The sound of vicious laughter. The warmth of the woman’s urine as she lost control of her bladder.

The terror when she knew she was going to die.

The nightmare had the malevolent stamp of Wendy’s father all over it. She felt the seeds of a new obsession growing: the eventual demise of Bud Traynor.

Max rolled over and hugged Buzzard to her belly.

Tell me about the dream, baby. Tell me all about it.

A soft, soothing voice caressed her ear, a whisper of breath stroked her nape, and the comforting scent of peppermint enveloped her.

“Bastard,” she murmured affectionately, the slightest of smiles curving her lips.

Oh thank you God, Cameron was back.

###

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Enjoy the following excerpts and meet the author!

Evil to the Max, Book 2

Somebody’s Lover

Twisted by Love

About the Author

Don’t miss the next exciting installment in the Max Starr series!

Evil to the Max, Book 2

When Max Starr tells Detective Witt Long she’s had a second vision of murder, Witt knows he’s in for another crazy adventure. The police aren’t going to solve Tiffany Lloyd’s murder without Max divulging what she saw in the vision, but that will only move her straight to the top of the suspect list. For the second time in less than a month. So Max goes on the hunt for the murderer herself, dragging a reluctant Witt along with her. But the deeper she ventures into the dead woman’s life, the more she sees that nothing is as it seems and everyone has something to hide. As she stirs up a hornet’s nest, Max soon begins to fear she might be the next victim.

Even scarier, Witt makes it clear he wants her. Badly. Just how long can she resist him? When it comes to Witt and her very sexy visions about him, she suspects that resistance is futile.

Copyright 2010 Jasmine Haynes

Cover design by Rae Monet Inc

Excerpt

The music vibrated in her chest and puckered her nipples against the tight tank sweater she wore. She couldn’t hear herself think, didn’t want to. A gaggle of girls on the hairy edge of the legal drinking age passed in front of her. They pointed, giggled, and whispered. Like teenyboppers.

For a moment, she envied their innocence.

When she looked again, her quarry made his move. She turned, fingering the heart-shaped locket around her neck, and watched his approach in the mirror behind the bar.

“Wanna dance?”

His voice thrummed through her. Deep. Heavy with sexual innuendo. He smelled of soap, fresh laundry, and aroused male. Dark hair a month past the need for a cut, a week’s growth of beard covering his chin, and eyes the color of hot fudge. Mmmm. She licked her lips. She adored hot fudge sundaes.

Garth Brooks faded into a Brad Paisley ballad. Slow. Just what she’d been waiting for. She slid off the stool and held her hand out to him. Weaving through the tables with him close behind her, his touch seared her wrist. Promising.

The floor was packed with dancers doing the Drifter. They joined in, her back to his front, not a breath of space between their bodies. He was already hard. She was already wet. Looking over her shoulder, she slid her hips across his erection. His nostrils flared.

Undulating dancers brushed against her. Laughter, voices, and pounding music insulated them in the center of the dance floor. She followed his moves, let the rhythm of her breath match the pulse of the music. Fast. Hot. He caressed her without touching. They dipped, surged, and rolled with the beat. Then his hand wandered beneath her short black skirt, across her thigh, then slipped along her center.

She’d left her panties at home. “Do it now,” she whispered, and placed a hand on his zipper.

“Jesus,” he murmured on an exhale. “Christ. This isn’t such a good idea.”

“You have to.” She seduced with a flexing of her butt muscles.

His finger trailed moisture along her thigh as he withdrew. His arm tightened beneath her breasts. “Not here.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her from the dance floor. Dragging her down a short hallway ripe with the scent of sweat, he pushed open a door. Men. Lots of them. Bright lights. Stained white urinals. Shocked stares.

He pulled her into the second stall, closed the door, and backed her up against the cool metal. So good against her hot flesh. He sat on the toilet, shoved his hands roughly beneath her skirt, then rubbed his thumb against her clitoris. Looking down at him, she bit her lip.

Outside the stall, speech returned. Murmurs. A quick burst of embarrassed laughter. She fed on every sound.

He raised her skirt and put his tongue to her. She hooked a leg over his shoulder to give him better access, braced herself against the locked door, then moaned out loud.

Someone cheered.

He went down on her in earnest.

She came in a blinding flash. Crying out, she shuddered against his mouth, locking him to her with her hands in his hair.

A chant rose outside the stall, “Fuck her, fuck her, fuck her.”

He stood, turned her against the door, spread her legs, and took her from behind. She came again on the second thrust and didn’t stop until he’d unloaded deep inside her.

The riot started when she opened the stall door.

* * * * *

Max Starr stopped in front of his desk and planted her hands on her hips. “I think I know where another dead body is.”

Detective DeWitt Quentin Long laid his head on his folded arms and cried like a baby.

The clatter of computer keys stopped abruptly. A phone no one bothered to answer rang shrilly. Four pairs of male eyes bored into her back. Noisy hall traffic faded out.

“If you have to do that, can we go somewhere private?” she whispered. Max started to sweat in her black slacks and blazer. The embarrassment almost made her forget the horror of her vision.

Not.

She’d never forget the image of the couple in that restroom stall, the sound of men ranting outside, and then...the woman’s pain, so thick Max could feel it tighten across her own chest and crush the bones of her face. She took a shuddery breath.

Witt didn’t look up. His broad shoulders shook.

The stuffy detective pen smelled like dirty socks, and the overhead lighting turned Witt’s blond hair a ghastly shade of yellow. Three of the suits had risen from their chairs, moving closer to eavesdrop. So close, she smelled their coffee breath blowing down her neck.

“Hey, this is getting ridiculous,” Max hissed.

Witt was a big guy, no pushover despite the blue eyes and Dudley Do-Right dimple in his chin. She’d expected more of him. Hell, she could have told him she’d had another psychic vision and that her husband’s ghost had sent her running to him. She spared him, figuring Witt was still getting over the time Cameron had given him a little ghostly nudge.

“Hey, Long, this the pain-in-the-a...neck you keep talking about?”

Max turned to glare at Coffee Breath. At five-foot-six and in three-inch spiked heels, she towered over the man by at least an inch. His glasses were smudged, his brown suit rumpled, and the sleeve of his sport coat spotty with...something. She’d bet her next paycheck the eau-de-dirty-socks came from his shoes.

Witt raised his head. Finally.

The creep was laughing. So damn hard he cried. Tears streamed down his face.

She narrowed her eyes. “I’m serious.”

She hadn’t known he could laugh. But then she’d only known him a little over two weeks. Still, when a man practically saves your life, you figure you know him. Though not in the biblical sense.

He wiped his eyes, chuckled once more, then got himself under control. “Scranton, you got reports to type or something?” He awarded Coffee Breath a bored flick of his hand and pulled out the chair next to his desk for Max.

Max continued to stand. “We have to go, Witt.” She lowered her voice. “There really is a body.”

He raised a blond brow. “Guess you weren’t joking the other day when you said you felt a...dream coming on?”

She noticed he couldn’t quite call it a vision. “I was, but...maybe I was having a premonition.”

His tears started afresh. “Certifiable,” he choked out.

“Me?” she muttered, affronted.

He shook his head. “Me.” Then he wiped the newest stream from his eyes with the sleeve of his charcoal shirt. “Where?”

“Where what?”

“Where’s the body?” he stage-whispered back.

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Dead to the Max, Book 1

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Desperate to the Max, Book 3

Power to the Max, Book 4

Vengeance to the Max, Book 5

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Jasmine’s heartbreaking series about family tragedy and family healing…

Somebody’s Lover

The Jackson Brothers, Book 1

Copyright 2012 Jasmine Haynes

Cover design by Rae Monet Inc

Previously published in 2006

Three years ago, Lou Jackson, eldest son, died in a work accident. And nothing has been the same since for the Jacksons. They lost their heart and soul the day Lou died, even as matriarch Evelyn tries to keep them together. But things are changing and the family will either find their way back to each other. Or they’ll be torn asunder.

Widowed three years and the mother of two, Taylor Jackson is starting to feel that life as a woman is passing her by. Always somebody’s daughter-in-law, somebody’s mother, or somebody’s sister-in-law, Taylor longs to be somebody’s secret lover.

Taylor was his brother’s wife, and now his brother’s widow, untouchable yet irresistible to Jace Jackson. When he discovers her secret fantasies, Jace swears he’ll be the one to make them reality.

But can his family ever accept another man in Taylor’s life, let alone the black sheep of the family? Or will their grief and pain destroy any chance Jace has of being more to Taylor than her secret lover?

Excerpt

The woman looked like Taylor, his brother Lou’s wife. But this woman’s lips were painted a deep shade of red, where Taylor always wore pink. The tight spandex top hugged her full breasts, and her leather skirt revealed endless, captivating legs encased in shimmering nylon. Taylor didn’t own a leather skirt, and to her, spandex was for jogging. Fuck-me high heels rested on the bottom rail of the bar stool. Taylor abhorred high heels.

The look-alike flipped her auburn hair over her shoulders, the locks sparkling with golden highlights in the flash of the strobe on the dance floor.

Jace Jackson cooled himself off with a slug of beer, his one and only bottle for the night.

Then she laughed. He shouldn’t have been able to hear it over the voices, the semi-drunken laughter, or the beat of another country western ballad, but he felt it in his gut, the way he always felt Taylor’s laugh, hard as he tried to ignore it.

Holy hell.

The woman didn’t just look Taylor. It was Taylor.

Jace slammed his beer down on the table, ignored his drinking buddies’ raised eyebrows, and rose to his feet when the guy Taylor was flirting with put his hand on her knee.

***

Taylor Jackson knew she’d made a huge mistake the minute the man put his hand on her knee. She couldn’t remember his name, Buddy or Bubba or Bucky or something, although Bubba seemed to suit him best

It didn’t seem right to be planning to seduce a man whose name she couldn’t remember. Not that Bubba needed much in the way of a come-on from her.

She hadn’t dated since Lou died. In fact, she hadn’t been out on a date since she met Lou back in college. Not that she’d call what she was doing now dating.

Planning a seduction had been the easy part. Dressing for it even easier. The hour between dropping off the kids at her mother-in-law’s house and finishing her final primp in her bathroom mirror had been like playing dress-up with her mom’s makeup when she was a little girl. Of course, when her mother caught her, she’d blistered her butt. Taylor had started feeling jumpy on the drive over, out of Willoughby to the outskirts of Bentonville, the next town over, and home of Saddle-n-Spurs, a rowdy country western joint.

She’d chosen the bar because she wouldn’t be recognized. No one she knew would come to a place like this. It wasn’t a PTA/soccer-mom kind of place.

Jumpy or not, Taylor had climbed out of her minivan and headed inside. Her head had begun to pound with the din before she’d even taken a seat at the bar. She’d ordered wine to calm her full-fledged nerves and probably would have bolted before the bartender poured it if Bubba hadn’t taken the stool beside her and paid for her drink.

She shouldn’t have let him do that. Not that she felt like she had to sleep with him because he bought her a glass of wine. This wasn’t how she’d planned it. In fact, the whole seduction plan seemed suddenly idiotic. If she hadn’t felt so desperate, so needy, so out of control, she never would have considered picking up a guy in a bar for a night of casual sex.

It had seemed like forever since she’d felt a man’s touch. For months after Lou died, maybe a year, she hadn’t given sex a thought. She’d been too busy getting out of bed in the mornings, accepting the monumental changes his death wrought, wondering if she could handle things on her own, and helping Brian and Jamey cope with the loss of their dad.

Somewhere along the way, in that second and third year alone, she’d started remembering she was a woman. With needs. She didn’t want a new father for the boys or a boyfriend or husband for herself. She only wanted the embrace of a man for a little while.

Bubba wasn’t her idea of a dream lover. Reality didn’t match the erotic fantasy she’d spun through-out sleepless nights. Now, she wasn’t quite sure how she’d get rid of him, or for that matter, get herself out of the bar.

“Get your damn hand off my wife’s knee.”

Oh Lord. It couldn’t be. She glanced up and almost choked on her sip of wine. It was her brother-in-law. And Jace didn’t look like a happy camper.

Look for The Jackson Brothers coming soon.

Somebody’s Lover, Book 1

Somebody’s Ex, Book 2

Somebody’s Wife, Book 3

Have you ever wondered about past lives, reincarnation, life after death? Did you love the film Dead Again? If you’re a fan of contemporary romances with a dash of paranormal, then try Jasmine’s new Reincarnation Tales, sexy stories about love that never dies.

Twisted by Love

Reincarnation Tales Book 1

Copyright 2012 Jasmine Haynes

Cover design by Rae Monet Inc

A love that spans lifetimes, an evil that has followed them through the ages...

Bern Daniels doesn’t believe in ghosts, UFOs, or reincarnation, but when he sees Livie Scott, it’s as if he’s known her forever. Now he can’t get her out of his mind. He wants her in his bed and in his life. For keeps. He’s even starting to believe they’ve lived past lives together.

Will jealousy out of the past come back to destroy their future?

Livie is unaccountably drawn to the tall, dark stranger. He literally sweeps her off her feet. And she’s oh so willing to let him. But her sister Toni is planted firmly in her path to happiness. Livie has been forced to choose between a man and Toni before; is she destined to play the same twisted game with her sister over and over?

Livie and Bern soon discover there are shadows lurking from their past, past lives that is, which threaten everything they believe in, everything they want. And even their lives.

Excerpt

Livie buried her arms elbow deep in hot, soapy water. She enjoyed doing the dishes by hand. The water warmed her down to her toes. She loved a clean kitchen. She loved order and neatness and everything in its proper place. She loved an established routine and—

Something hit her on the cheek with a splat, slid down her face, and landed with a plop in the water, sinking before she actually saw what it was. She brushed her cheek with a wet hand, soap suds settling close to her eye. She wiped them off on against shoulder, then skimmed her hands through the water searching for what had struck her.

Something slimy slithered across her fingers and skittered away. She jerked, suds splashing over the edges of the sink. In the kitchen doorway, her sister giggled, a girlish giggle laced with malice. Another watery splat, this time on the back of her head, and the thing, whatever it was, slid down her neck into her blouse.

Just then, the one in the sink poked its head above the water. A snake, a slimy, horrible, fat snake with huge fangs that sank into the soft flesh between her thumb and forefinger.

Livie started screaming when she felt the snake down her blouse wriggle and slither all over her...

* * * * *

Toni parked her car on the street and let herself into Livie’s condo on the fifth floor of the building. Toni preferred apartment living, where she could pick up and move whenever it suited her. But Livie liked roots and ownership, even if it was a tiny condo in a big complex in Belmont.

What a day. She felt like crap, and she looked like last month’s leftovers.

Where was Livie? It was after nine. Toni threw her overnight bag on the bed, hung up tomorrow’s skirt and sweater so they wouldn’t wrinkle, tossed the stuff she’d borrowed this morning in the hamper, then set her cosmetics out on the counter in Livie’s bathroom. Her sister used the cheap stuff, which couldn’t be good for her skin.

Livie was pretty, but, without a conceited bone in her body, Toni knew she was prettier. It wasn’t conceit to admit to better bone structure and curvier curves. She also knew how to best enhance what God gave her. Her hair, for instance, was a honey-gold which went much better with her coloring than plain old reddish-brown. Livie should live a little and dye a little. Not to mention that contact lenses changed muddy irises to a brilliant jungle green, or anything else a girl wanted. What the heck, Livie was Livie. She didn’t care much about her appearance as long she was considered neat and professional. She would never have purchased that short dress and hot pink blazer she’d worn this morning if Toni hadn’t goaded her into buying it months ago. It still had the tags, for God’s sake.

Now, what would Livie have in the refrigerator besides low-fat yogurt and fruit? Toni was starving. She hadn’t been able to eat all day over that terrible episode with Reese. She’d picked up the phone a thousand times to call him, but really, a man had to learn how to crawl a little when he’d made a mistake, especially since he hadn’t answered any of her messages from yesterday. She wasn’t done with him yet. She knew the man had huge potential in bed, and she would make sure she got him there. Oh yeah, she’d make him beg first, but she’d definitely take him back when she felt he’d shown the proper contrition.

A key jiggled in the front door.

Livie already had her jacket off and folded over her arm. She’d dropped her keys on the entry table and set her briefcase and purse on the floor before she saw Toni standing in the kitchen doorway.

“Hey.” After a moment’s pause and not a single expression on her face, Livie headed into the living room, a shopping bag dangling from her fingers. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah.” Toni shrugged and leaned against the wall. “I didn’t want to be alone. You don’t mind, do you?”

Livie draped her jacket over the back of the sofa without turning around. “Of course not.”

She probably did, but Livie wouldn’t say. Which was usually a good thing for Toni. She got away with murder if she acted first and asked later. “What’s in the bag?”

“A book. I ran out of things to read.” Livie pulled it out, set it on the coffee table, and wadded up the bag.

“What is it?”

“The Fountainhead.” She examined the receipt in her hand. “Someone at work mentioned it, and I’ve never read it. It’s some sort of classic written in the forties.”

Sounded boring. Weird that Livie was late because she’d stopped to buy a book. Ah, but Livie loved to read in the tub. It relaxed her. Tonight, though, she had Toni to entertain instead. What fun for them both.

“Did you eat?” Livie slipped past her into the kitchen and bent to peer into the refrigerator.

“I was hoping you’d feed me.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Livie answered without turning.

“Then what have you got?”

Shuffling a few things around, Livie surveyed the contents. “How about scrambled eggs on toast?”

Great comfort food. Their mom used to scramble eggs on cold winter nights when Dad was out of town. They got to eat in front of the TV and stay up an hour later than usual. Of course, there’d be a ton of carbs in the toast. Comfort, carbs, comfort, carbs? Comfort won. “Yeah. That sounds great.”

Livie put the eggs on the counter, then pulled out bread, margarine and milk. From the drawer beneath the oven, she retrieved a frying pan and set it on the stove. “I’ll change, then start dinner.”

“You want me to break the eggs or anything?”

“No, I’ll do it.”

“Thanks, Livie, you’re great.”

Livie smiled and patted Toni’s cheek as she passed, grabbed her discarded jacket, and headed into the bedroom.

Yeah, Livie was great. And guilt was a beautiful emotion. Hmm, was it actually an emotion? Whatever. Livie had it in spades, and Toni didn’t mind playing on that guilt when she really, really needed to. She deserved a little payback after the terrible things her sister had done to her.

If you enjoyed this excerpt, look for Twisted by Love, Reincarnation Tales, Book 1!

More Erotic Romance by Jasmine Haynes:

Invitation to Seduction, Open Invitation, Book 1

Invitation to Pleasure, Open Invitation, Book 2

Invitation to Passion, Open Invitation, Book 3

Revenge Sex, West Coast, Book 1

Submitting to the Boss, West Coast Series, Book 2

The Boss’s Daughter, West Coast Series, Book 3

Kinky Neighbors

Kinky Neighbors Two

Double the Pleasure, Prescott Twins, Book 1

Skin Deep, Prescott Twins, Book 2

Take Your Pleasure

Take Your Pick

Anthology: Beauty or the Bitch & Free Fall

Past Midnight

What Happens After Dark

The Principal’s Office

Yours for the Night

Hers for the Evening

Mine Until Morning

The Fortune Hunter

Show and Tell

Fair Game

More Than a Night

About the Author

Jasmine Haynes, Rita Finalist for Somebody’s Lover, plus two-time Holt Medallion and National Readers Choice Award winner, is the author of over 30 classy, erotic romance tales. Look for the final book in her popular DeKnight series, The Principal's Office. In 2013, she'll be starting a sexy new series for Berkley Heat, beginning with The Naughty Corner coming in October 2013. And there will be more in the sensual West Coast series! Of course, she’s also the author of the award-winning Max Starr psychic mystery series. And don’t miss her writing as Jennifer Skully, KOD Daphne award-winning author of contemporary romance, bringing you poignant tales peopled with hilarious characters that will make you laugh and make you cry. Visit her website at www.jasminehaynes.com and her blog at www.jasminehaynes.blogspot.com

Books by Jennifer Skully

She’s Gotta Be Mine, Cottonmouth Book 1

Fool’s Gold, Cottonmouth Book 2

Baby, I’ll Find You

Drop Dead Gorgeous

Sheer Dynamite

It Must Be Magic

Connect with Jasmine Haynes & Jennifer Skully online

Jasmine’s Website: www.jasminehaynes.com

Jennifer’s Website: www.jenniferskully.com

Max Starr Website: www.jbskully.com

Blog: www.jasminehaynes.blogspot.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/jasminehaynesauthor

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/jasminehaynes1