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

by Jasmine Haynes

  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.