Dead to the Max (Max Starr Series, Book 1, a paranormal romance/mystery)

by Jasmine Haynes

  “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 a
lso 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 screa
m 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.”