Notorious (21 page)

Max hopped on to the freeway toward Olivia’s house in Palo Alto and mentally catalogued her day. After Olivia, Kimberly. After Kimberly, Jasper. Last night she’d printed a list of the local storage units and ranked them in order closest to Kevin’s apartment. She hoped she had time after Jasper to hit at least two units before closing.

A car she’d seen outside of Gerald Ames’s building followed her on the freeway. She hadn’t seen the vehicle follow her from Mr. Ames’s office, but now she couldn’t be sure. She’d been on the phone with Ben giving him the details of the drug bust and the possibility that Jason Hoffman was killed by Dru’s ex-boyfriend or Rebecca Cross, and then David had called to check in. She should have been paying more attention, especially since she’d been followed yesterday.

Except, she’d thought that was related to Dru Parker, not Lindy. That car had been white, not black.

This car was a dark, nondescript late-model sedan. Max didn shook his head. “ed. f’t do well with models, but this looked like an American make. Feds? Was the FBI following her? There were no government plates on the vehicle, but that didn’t mean anything.

Any other time, she’d have called Marco and asked him to look into it. But after the way she’d left things with him in Miami, she wasn’t going to ask him for a favor. She had other friends in the FBI, but no one she was close enough with to ask if they could call the local office and find out if she was under surveillance.

And why? Why would the feds be following her? Because she found the pot farm? That didn’t make sense. But truly, sometimes law enforcement did things that made no sense to her.

Or had Gerald Ames sent someone to track her? Why? He’d been polite, although sad; why would he have her followed?

The person who’d threatened her Saturday might not have wanted her to talk to Mr. Ames.

Max wanted to confront whoever was following her, but she wasn’t stupid. She didn’t know who or why, or if they had a weapon. She didn’t know if the person tailing her was the same as two days ago. Different car, but how could she have fallen under the watch of two different people? Chances are, the two incidents were connected. It was clear she was going to have to rent another car.

She decided to lose him, then go straight to Olivia’s. She didn’t want anyone following her there, or while she searched for Kevin’s storage locker. Though she originally thought her pursuer was related to Dru Parker, now she wondered if she’d been mistaken.

Did this have something to do with the threat that ostensibly came from someone close to Gerald Ames? Had Gerald Ames manipulated and deceived her? She had pegged him for being honest in their conversation—he hadn’t promised her his cooperation or blessing, but he definitely hadn’t asked her to stop what she was doing.

The car was keeping pace with her. Max sped up; the sedan sped up. She pulled out her phone and did a quick search for the closest police station. David would have slapped her hand—but this was an emergency.

She exited on El Monte and headed toward the Los Altos Hills police station. The sedan followed, but when she drove into the parking lot, he passed by. She tried to catch a glimpse of the driver, but saw little. Her impression was of a male driver, but other than gender, she couldn’t give a description.

She mapped out an alternate route to Olivia’s house before pulling back onto the road. She didn’t see the sedan and no other car appeared to be following her. She made a few loops just to make sure, and ended up at Olivia’s house thirty minutes later.

Olivia’s husband, Professor Ward, should be at campus, based on his class schedule that Max downloaded off the Internet. She knocked on the door. No answer. She walked around the porch and peered in the windows. The house was immaculate. In the back, a sporty but practical gold BMW was housed in the detached garage.

Max wasn’t in the mood to be ignored. She rang the bell and knocked—loudly—on the door. “Olivia, it’s Maxine.”

The door opened. Olivia stood there dressed like a Stepford wife, but with glassy eyes and a distinct odor of alcohol. Champagne. Max glanced at her watch. Not even ten in the morning.

Olivia tilted her chin up, looking both haughty and regal. “You know, you’re really a bitch, Maxine.”

Max laughed. “Well, aren’t you a surprise. Your husband is shook his head. “TI fd p at work, you crack open the champagne.”

She didn’t wait for an invitation, but walked in. The house was elegant and far too picture-perfect for Max. While she liked tidy, this was beyond neat—it was obsessively clean.

“Christopher left this morning to guest lecture in Boston.”

“And you didn’t want to join him?”

Olivia laughed, but there was no humor. In fact, she sounded almost crazy. “And come between him and his mistress?”

Max had picked the wrong time to visit. Or … maybe not.

Max closed the front door because Olivia didn’t seem to care whether it was open. She followed her “host” through the house to the back. As she watched, Olivia touched each perfectly aligned picture, moving it just a fraction so it was out of balance.

Hilarious. Christopher Ward, older husband with a mistress three thousand miles away, was a neat freak, and Olivia rebelled by misaligning his artwork and drinking before noon. Max wondered what other rebellions Olivia had. Was that why she’d really met with Kevin at the lake the night Lindy was killed? Maybe growing up she hadn’t been as perfect as everyone thought.

Olivia sat down in a chair on the sun porch, in the back of the house overlooking a pristine pool and rose garden. The champagne bottle, which was chilling in a silver bucket, was half-empty. She pulled it out, refilled her glass, and offered one to Max.

Max was tempted—Olivia was drinking a bottle of Perrier-Jouët Belle Epoque, one of Max’s favorite champagnes. She couldn’t see the exact year, but it was 199-something. Worth more than $1,000.

But it was ten in the morning, and Max had a lot to do. She declined, and Olivia shrugged, a physical mannerism that seemed ill suited for the trim, perfect, wealthy housewife.

“We had these at our wedding. Ordered a couple extra cases and every year on our anniversary, we open a bottle. It’s gotten better with time.” Olivia sipped. “Sit. Ask your questions.”

“You’ve changed.”

“We all have,” Olivia said.

“In three days.”

She laughed. It sounded bitter. “That’s what good champagne will do for you.”

“I don’t buy it. We don’t change that much. We do, however, wear masks. Is that what you were doing on Saturday? Putting on a mask for your husband?”

“Think whatever you want. I don’t care.”

Max switched tactics. She wasn’t here to save Olivia from her husband or her own bad choices; she was here for answers.

“You told me on Saturday that Kevin talked you out of running away. Why did you want to leave?”

“Lindy always thought my father was molesting me.” Olivia reddened and didn’t look Max in the eye. No wonder Lindy thought that—Olivia acted like an abused woman. “He didn’t, but he was cruel in other ways.”

“How?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She stared at Max, her eyes icy marbles. “It’s irrelevant.”

“I don’t think it is.” Max leaned forward and said, “You could have cleared Kevin and stopped the farce of a trial. You remained silent and lifelong#s ou> friendships were destroyed. An innocent man sat on trial. Lindy’s killer is still free. Kevin lost everything to protect you. Why?”

“I don’t know why,” she said. “I kept waiting for the police to come and ask me if Kevin was with me that night, but they never did. Not until after the trial, and by that time it wasn’t important. I asked him not to tell anyone, but when things got serious—he said that he didn’t kill Lindy, so he wasn’t going to break my confidence. Maxine, I was scared and angry and worried.”

Now the alcohol had Olivia making no sense. Max decided she might never know why Kevin and Olivia had#x2014;we have

Chapter Nineteen

Nick Santini showed up at Atherton Prep nearly an hour after Max called him. Alone.

Max was standing at his door before he even turned off the ignition. “You took long enough—where’s everyone else?”

He didn’t say anything but got out of the Bronco. He looked at her from head to feet. She glanced down at her torn panty hose, dirt-stained knees, and formerly white sneakers, then caught his eye. “I told you we found a grave.”

“Yes, you did.”

Jasper limped over. “Detective.”

“Pierce. Explain what you two were doing here.”

Why was Nick addressing Jasper? Max didn’t give Jasper a chance to respond. She said, “As I told you the other day, Dru said that Jason was concerned about holes in those trees.” She pointed to the redwoods. “I asked Jasper to come out with me and inspect the area. I thought he might have an idea of what was off about the trees that had Jason so concerned. Brian Robeaux said there were a couple of small holes in the ground, not in the trees specifically but around the trees. Brian didn’t think it was important, but Jason thought it was strange. Because Jason was killed here, next to the trailer, Brian didn’t think to mention anything about Jason’s interest in the holes. He said he didn’t make the connection at all.

“While Jasper and I walked through the area looking for evidence of the holes, Jasper stepped into an area of loose dirt and twisted his ankle. I took a picture.” She handed Nick her phone with the pictures of the concave area. “That looks like a grave. And considering I found this”—she handed him the finger bone—“I think I’m right.”

Nick stared at the bone, pulled an evidence bag from his pocket, and put the bone in. “You think you found a grave and yet you removed evidence.”

“I was crawling around the area and knelt on it. I didn’t know it was a finger bone until I picked it up. There could be more, I didn’t look. Once I knew what was there, I stopped searching. So now, why don’t you have a forensics team with you? It’s going to be dark in a couple of hours.”

“I want to look at it first,” Nick said. “You can leave.”

“Leave? Hell, no. I found this grave. This is why Jason Hoffman was killed. You know it, I know it. I’m not going anywhere.”

Nick took out his handcuffs and cuffed her to his door handle. He did it so fast that by the time she saw it coming, she was too shocked to stop him.

Without a word, he motioned for Jasper to follow him to the trees. Jasper gave her a surprised look, then shrugged and followed Nick. Damn them both.

Max was more than a little furious. She jerked her wrist, watching Jasper and Nick talk as they headed over to the grave that Max had marked with a construction cone. shook his head. “th3, includ

Damn cop.

She reached into her hair and took out a bobby pin. David had taught her how to pick locks, but she’d never had to do it with her left hand before. And handcuffs were different. She dropped the pin and had to pull another from her hair. It took a minute, but she got the cuffs off.

That was a trick she was going to have to practice a few times. It was a useful skill.

She rubbed her wrist and glanced in Nick’s Bronco. She sat in the driver’s seat and went through a stack of files on the passenger seat. The top file was the Jason Hoffman case. Most of the stuff she already knew. Except for one tidbit.

Nick had taken notes, apparently from a conversation he had with one of the federal agents. Since Amy was talking in the hopes of getting a lighter sentence, she’d admitted that she’d called Potrero when Nick was outside the house talking to Dru. Potrero’s cell phone history confirmed he’d called Cross immediately after Amy called him, not long before Dru was attacked. It was obvious to Max that Potrero and Cross thought Dru was going to expose their pot farm and money laundering scheme, which is why they went after her. While both of them had lawyered up, they each emphatically denied killing Jason Hoffman, and each had an alibi for the night Jason died, which Nick had verified.

Nick had several sticky notes on the inside of his file. One caught her eye: Follow up on Max’s theory about the holes/trees at the construction site.

He’d planned on coming out here anyway—why was he giving her such a hard time?

She was so engrossed in the files that she didn’t hear the men approach until she felt Nick’s stare.

She turned to him and smiled. “You locked me up, what was I supposed to do?” She closed the file she was looking at and put it back on the passenger seat.

Nick held up his cuffs, which she’d draped over the door. “I see you have many talents.”

“And? Do you agree that there was a grave under those trees?”

“It appears to be, but it could have been a pet dug up by scavengers. It might not be human.”

“Who digs a five-foot-long grave for a family pet?”

“You measured.”

“Of course I measured.”

He jerked his head toward Jasper. “Your boyfriend is going to make sure you get back to your hotel safely.”

She hated being kept in the dark.

“He’s not my boyfriend.” Max got out of the Bronco and punched a finger in Nick’s chest. “And the next time you put cuffs on me, it had better be part of a sex game, otherwise I’ll skewer you on the front page of The New York Times.”

Max started to walk away.

Nick said, “I’ll take it under advisement.”

He looked at her a moment too long, long enough for Max to realize she was going to get herself in a heap of trouble if she got involved with yet another cop. Look what happened with her and Marco. And it was more than obvious, even with his initial flirting, even after that kiss in the restaurant, that Nick didn’t like her. The men she got involved with, at a minimum, had to respect her.

Though there was an added benefit that a nine-thousand-square-foot with PMNick Santini lived three thousand miles away, she would never sleep with a man who didn’t like her or respect her career.

*   *   *

Jasper followed Max to the Stanford Park Hotel, but didn’t get out of his car. “You okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine. You’re the one with a sprained ankle.”

“No racquetball for me this week.”