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

by Jasmine Haynes

  “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.
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br />   “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.”