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 o
ut 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.
Dead to the Max (Max Starr Series, Book 1, a paranormal romance/mystery) Page 22