“Max,” she said, and he glanced at her again. She gazed at him with wide, wet eyes, her lips parted, breath shallow.
“Yeah?” His heart leapt into his throat. She’s going to tell me she loves me. She’s going to ask me to not marry Abby. And I’m going to…I’m going to…Jesus, I’m going to say okay—
A burst of cackling laughter broke the spell between them. Val sat up in her seat, her attention snapped back to the bar.
“Son of a bitch,” she said. Ginger had just emerged, alone and without the package. He waved at somebody still in the bar behind him, then got back in the cab. When it began to pull away, Val didn’t start her car.
“Aren’t you going to follow him?” Max asked, knowing he was about to get an answer he wouldn’t like.
“I wanna know what’s in that box.” She opened her car door and stepped out.
“Wait. It’s too dan—”
She slammed the door and stalked toward the bar.
“Shit,” he muttered. Pulling down the sleeves of his shirt so no one would see his tattoos, he jumped out and hurried to catch up.
They walked into a moderately busy bar, air thick with the smell of stale cigarette smoke that permanently infused every surface despite a decade of smoking bans. It was dark enough that Max guessed at least half the overhead lights didn’t work. County music twanged from a cracked jukebox in the corner. Most of the blue collar crowd turned to stare at them. Max lowered the bill of his baseball cap over his face as far as it would go and prayed no one recognized him, though the crowd seemed more interested in the beautiful redhead in front of him. Instinctively he moved closer to her, so his chest almost touched her back—a protective gesture he knew she didn’t need, but he couldn’t help himself.
Val, of course, didn’t bother trying to keep a low profile. She marched through the bar and studied every face, looking for the thin man in coveralls, ignoring the angry or lascivious stares she got in return. When it became obvious the thin man wasn’t in the main bar area, she headed for the men’s bathroom.
“Val, let me—”
She shoved the bathroom door open. Max rolled his eyes and followed her in. A guy peeing at a urinal jumped when he saw her, jerked his pants up, and shoved past them in his haste to get away from whatever was about to go down. Val peeked under each stall in turn, then settled in front of one for handicapped people. With a swift kick she busted the stall door open.
“What the fuck?” the stall’s occupant hollered.
Over Val’s shoulder, Max saw Ginger’s friend sitting backward on the toilet, fully clothed and hunched over the toilet tank lid. The man turned to face Val, white power and an angry snarl on his face. The name “Cal” was embroidered on the chest pocket of his coveralls. Ginger’s mystery box sat opened on the toilet tank’s lid, next to a palm-sized mirror with lines of the same white powder on it.
Val folded her arms and glared at Cal. “Why did Ginger bring you drugs?”
“Fuck off, bitch,” Cal said as he used the back of his hand to wipe his runny nose.
“I can fuck off down to the police station if you’d like, and tell them you’ve got a shit-ton of coke on you right now. Want that instead?”
Cal rushed to pack up his box with unsteady hands. “You can’t do shit.”
“I can, actually. And I will. Unless you want to tell me why Ginger brought you drugs he got from the Pana Sea, which just happens to be owned by Lucien Christophe, narcotics-maker extraordinaire.”
“Lucien who?” Cal narrowed his eyes at her for a moment as if he was trying to recall something, then recognition creeped onto his face. His mouth curled into a sneer. “Oh yeah, I remember you. Red delicious.”
Max had no idea what Cal referred to, but mention of the apple seemed to flip a kill switch inside Val. She descended on him with the viciousness of a wild animal, punching him in the face until he tumbled onto the ground, then kicking him in the chest as he lay prone at the foot of the toilet, all before Max could even register what was happening.
“Fuck you, you piece of shit!” Val shrieked.
Jesus, she might actually kill him. “Stop!” Max tried to grab her arm, but she violently shrugged him off. As Cal writhed on the ground, she grabbed his box of drugs and spiked it into the toilet.
Cal cried, “No!” as what Max guessed was several thousand dollars’ worth of coke sank into the toilet water. Energized with a new fury of his own, Cal jumped up and shoved Val against the side of the stall. As he brought his arm back to slug her, Max stepped between him and Val, grabbed Cal’s fist with one hand, and punched him in the stomach with the other. Cal crumpled to the ground.
With a roar, Val tried to lunge past Max to get at Cal again. Max grabbed her in a bear hug and dragged her out of the stall as she fought against him.
“I’ll show you what public humiliation feels like,” she yelled at Cal as she struggled to free herself from Max’s grasp. “You can tell your friends this bitch beat the shit out of you!”
“Let the lady go!” a gruff voice demanded behind Max.
Two meaty hands grabbed Max’s shoulders and yanked him from behind. Val fell out of his arms as he stumbled backward until he hit the bathroom wall. A big redneck dressed like a lumberjack reared back his fist. Luckily for Max, boxing happened to be his sport of choice, and he easily dodged the redneck’s punch; it slammed into the brick-and-mortar wall instead. Max followed up with his own punch to the man’s nose, if only to incapacitate the guy for a short time. Blood poured from the lumberjack’s nostrils. From the corner of his eye, Max saw Val reach behind her. She was going for her gun.
He wheeled around and seized her arm in an iron grip. “No.” A bar brawl was one thing; a shoot-out quite another. He knew what it was to fight a murder charge. Her life—and her conscience—didn’t need the grief.
Moaning, Cal crawled out of the stall on his hands and knees. She glared at him like she might kick him to death anyway. Then her eyes met Max’s, and he saw hatred in them, rimmed with tears of agony. The pain written on her face filled him with an almost physical torture to match, and he thought he might kill Cal himself for whatever the bastard had done to her.
An older man with a dishtowel thrown over his shoulder burst into the bathroom. “What the hell is going on in here?”
“He attacked me,” Cal wheezed, nodding his bloodied head toward Max.
The older man—probably the owner—scoffed. “Y’all get the fuck outta here,” he said to all four of them. “Now.”
Max released his grip on Val. After a tense couple of seconds, she let her hand fall away from her gun and stomped out of the bathroom. Max followed close behind. When they walked back outside, he breathed a deep sigh of relief that things didn’t go as badly as they’d come very, very close to going. Val leaned forward with her hands on her knees like she might throw up.
The redneck came out next, holding a wad of paper towels to his bloodied nose. He glanced at Max as if he might want to continue their fight, but after eyeing Val and apparently realizing they were together, he shrugged and sulked away instead. Finally, Cal came barreling out, spry again despite the beating he’d received, probably thanks to the drugs.
He pointed a grimy finger at Val. “You owe me—”
Max grabbed the lapels of his coveralls and shoved him hard to the ground. “Get out of here before I kill you.”
Cal scrambled to his feet and stumbled away from them, toward the parking lot next to the bar. “Yeah, right. You wouldn’t…”
“I would.” Max stalked after Cal, ensuring a good distance separated him from Val.
“I know you,” Cal said, shit-talking Max even as he retreated. “You’re that rich asshole that got away with killing his father. Carressa. That’s you, right? Well I’m gonna sue you for assault. And I’m gonna tell everyone that you threatened to kill me. Once a killer, always a killer.”
Max gritted his teeth and balled his hands into fists. He really did want to kill this guy; in a
consequence-free world, maybe he would have. After everything he’d done trying to become a functional member of society, this human stain would destroy it all, not to mention whatever he’d done to Val.
Cal fumbled for his keys and unlocked the door to some piece of crap sedan. He jumped into his car as Val appeared next to Max. Max glanced at her; she gave Cal a disgusted look but wasn’t holding her gun, thank God. Cal pushed down the manual lock on his car door and sneered at them.
“I’m gonna sue you for every penny you have!” Cal said behind the driver’s side window, “and your whore girlfriend, too!” He flipped them the bird.
Then he began to cough like he had something stuck in his throat. Within seconds his coughs became hacks, then desperate rasps as he struggled to breathe. He clawed at his throat, rasps turning to gurgles as blood leaked out his mouth and nose. His whole body convulsed, then his eyes rolled back in his head and he went still.
After a moment when neither of them moved, Max stepped forward and peered into the window, looking for any signs of life. He tapped his fingernail on the glass. Cal stayed motionless, his face covered in blood and mouth locked in a silent scream.
From behind Max, Val asked, “Is he dead?”
“I think so.”
“How?” She walked next to him and scanned the inside of the car through the windows. “I don’t see any gas. Maybe the drugs—”
“We gotta go.”
For once she didn’t argue, and they rushed back to her car and drove away before anyone could see them in the vicinity of Cal’s body. They drove in silence for a while, until the initial shock of Cal’s bizarre death wore off.
Finally, Max asked, “Are you going to tell me what that was about?”
Val let out a long sigh. “Margaret was raped when she was abducted. That asshole had something to do with it.”
“How do you know?”
“I found a video of it online.”
Max winced. Poor woman. “He was in the video?”
“No.”
“So how did his mention of apples tip you off?”
“What?”
“Red delicious.”
Her whole body tensed. “He…I…It’s nothing.”
“You almost killed him over it, so it obviously wasn’t nothing.”
Val shook her head and wouldn’t say any more. Max folded his arms and quietly seethed for the rest of the ride back to where he’d parked his car at Wicked Brew. She was shutting him out. Again. He should’ve expected as much. She’d cut him out of her life once before. It’d been stupid of him to think she’d let him back in. He should’ve listened to the rational part of his brain and kept his distance. If Val wanted to suffer in silence, then that was her choice.
She pulled up to the sidewalk at Wicked Brew and put her car in Park. “I’m sorry I got you into this,” she said without looking at him. “I shouldn’t have asked you for help. I was”—she shook her head—“desperate and not thinking straight. I won’t bother you again.”
“You do not get to unilaterally decide if I’m involved,” he said, gripped by a sudden fury. “It’s too late. You want to keep secrets from me? Fine. I don’t care. I’m not your boyfriend anymore. But I just saw a guy spontaneously choke to death on his own blood, right after we had a loud fight with him in a bar where at least one of those rednecks probably recognized me, and I’ll likely get questioned by the police about it tomorrow morning and I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to say. So no, I can’t pretend this never happened, even if I wanted to. But thanks for considering the consequences, now that it’s too late.”
Max got out and slammed the door behind him. He marched to his car, the only one still in the lot, and drove home imagining all the things he should’ve added to his tirade: You broke up with me, yet you expect me to do your bidding while you keep me in the dark? You know everything about me—things that could send me to jail for the rest of my life if you wanted—so why don’t you trust me? Am I just a resource to you? A rich plaything you think you can manipulate anytime you want? You’re willing to put your life on the line to find this woman you’ve never met before, but you wouldn’t fight for us? Our relationship wasn’t worth it? Did you ever feel anything more than lust for me? You were the only thing I cared about in my entire miserable life and you walked away. You just walked away…
Max pulled into his carport, turned the car off, and rested his head on the steering wheel. He took deep breaths and tried to calm himself. He was overreacting, letting the whole bizarre situation dig up grievances he’d buried—and he hadn’t taken his OxyContin pills in a while, further souring his mood. Max fished the bottle out of his pocket and tossed a couple in his mouth. He needed to get a grip on the present and let the past go. All he had was his future—with Abby. There was nothing else.
Suddenly exhausted, Max trudged up the back stairs and entered his dark condo from the door connecting to the kitchen hallway. Toby’s collar jingled at his feet. Max knelt and scratched Toby behind the ears.
“You’ve hit your affection quota for the day.” He winced when the dog licked his face.
Abby’s voice reached him from the living room. “Finally back, huh?”
Max rose and walked through the kitchen. He found her curled up on the couch, reading a magazine under the soft glow of an end table lamp.
“Yeah, uh…” He took off his baseball cap and ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t miss dinner, did I?”
“It’s ten o’clock, Max.”
“Shit, I’m sorry.”
He hoped this would be one of those times she’d laugh off his bad behavior, knowing he meant well, like she usually did. She didn’t.
Abby put her magazine down and stood up. “Where were you?”
He hated lying to her, even though he knew she wouldn’t like the truth. How was he any better than Val if he did? “I was helping Val with her case.”
Abby’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “I thought she needed money.”
“She needed someone with money, to give her access to an exclusive club. A woman’s missing, and…well, I can’t just do nothing.”
“Is that blood on your shirt?”
He looked down and saw crimson splotches from the redneck’s nose on his chest. “We were in a fight with someone who might have had information on the missing woman. It’s not as bad as it looks.” Except for the dead man in the car that’ll be discovered any minute.
“A fight? Why are you helping her if she’s putting you in danger? Just file a missing persons report with the police and be done with it!”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Then explain it to me. Explain to me why you have to be the one to help her.”
He didn’t want to lie, but he couldn’t tell her that her brother was likely involved in the rape and possible murder of a woman. Or that he’d just seen a man inexplicably drown in his own blood. Or that he and Val were connected like no other two people on earth. Or that he loved Abby, but…if Val died, he would die, too. Or that, in a moment of weakness, he’d been a heartbeat away from leaving her for Val. So instead of lying he said nothing, just gaped at her like an idiot and hoped she’d accept his silence—exactly what Val had done to him in the car.
Abby reacted as well as he had, though sadness overlaid her anger. With tears in her eyes, she walked away from him and up the stairs. He heard the door to their room shut, not with a slam but with a dull, definitive thud. Max walked to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water in the dark. He took his migraine medication bottle out of his pocket and swallowed another dose of OxyContin. He chased it down with the water, then went back to the living room, clicked off the light, lay down on the couch. Toby tried to lie on his chest; Max pushed him off. The dog settled between his legs instead. It was still warm where Abby had sat up waiting for him, the perfect woman he was going to marry in two months. He was surrounded by everything he’d ever wanted, before he met Val, and he’d never felt so empty.
Chapter Fifteen
Val sat in her car behind a shuttered gas station, out of view of the main road. She sipped from a bottle of lemon-flavored vodka she’d bought right after dropping Max off at the coffee shop, and waited. She had washed Cal’s blood off her hands in the liquor store bathroom, but her knuckles still throbbed.
God, she was losing her fucking mind.
She didn’t even know what Cal had to do with her rape. Maybe he’d only watched the video online before Rayvit took it down three days ago. He didn’t match Stacey’s description of her attackers; none were bald. But when he’d slurred “red delicious” at her with no remorse or shame whatsoever, she’d lost it. She would have killed him if Max hadn’t stopped her.
And now Max knew she wasn’t telling him the whole story. But how would she explain it to him? She didn’t want his pity; getting it from Stacey was bad enough. Nor did she want to mess up his nice life—any more than she already had anyway. He didn’t deserve to be burdened with her personal problems, too. She didn’t know how he’d react, but she did know he had killed someone in a fit of rage once before—assuming he still cared that much about her, which of course he didn’t. He had Abby. And she had no one.
She’d almost told him she loved him. He probably would’ve laughed in her face. There was no way he’d leave someone as perfect as Abigail Westford for messed-up, self-destructive Val, no matter their connection. Especially not after the shit she kept putting him through. Even though he had a dark side, at his core Max was a kind and decent man, often pushed to extremes by people who took advantage of him—people like Val. She deserved every biting word he threw at her.
Inside Val’s coat pocket, her phone pinged with a text message. Checking it, she saw it was from Stacey: Where r u? Need to give status to clients… Val turned her phone off and tossed it in the backseat. Her friend could handle the other clients on her own, and Margaret’s was the only life-or-death case they had. Val needed to give it her full attention. And she wasn’t in the mood for Stacey’s judgment or pity. She didn’t want to talk about her feelings; she wanted them to go the fuck away.
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