Dead to the Max (23 page)

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.

“You were about to spell it out,” Max prompted when he just stood there a few moments longer than necessary.

He shook his head as if to clear it. “Nicholas Drake.”

“The owner of
a
green 4Runner.”

“And Wendy Gregory’s lover. But you knew that, didn’t you, Max? Theresa must have told you within five minutes of your arrival.”

“Actually, I think it took five days.”

“He arrived on a flight from Boise the night Wendy died, his flight number was written on a piece of paper found at the crime scene, and his fingerprints were all over the car.”

God, she was right about that damn piece of paper. When they got Nick’s DNA sample, they’d match it to the semen found inside Wendy. They hadn’t bothered with the condom. Max shuddered. Witt was so close, she was sure he must have felt her reaction. He’d probably think it was because of him, too. “He’s been your prime suspect all along.”

“Not prime. Simply the only one not around to answer any questions.”

“Which makes you suspicious.”

“He’s hiding. Innocent men don’t hide.” Witt glared down at her, his mouth grim.

Max’s neck ached from tipping her head back. Traffic had picked up on the road. Her head swam with the diesel scent of a delivery truck. “He’d have to be pretty stupid not to wipe his fingerprints off if he was guilty.”

“Killers are stupid all the time. How do you think most of them get caught so quickly? They leave a trail a mile wide.”

“Someone else could have followed Wendy there.”

“We’ve got a surveillance shot of every single car going in and out of that lot. They all checked out.”

“They could have gotten in the same way Wendy and Nick did. On the terminal buses.”

“The simplest explanation is usually the right one. Conspiracies are for television dramas.” He swept a hand out in disgust, his jacket billowing. The material brushed her breast as he moved.

Her mouth went dry. She should have pushed him away, forced him to back off. She was afraid to touch him. “He still wasn’t necessarily driving that Toyota just now.” She tapped her lips, her arm between them creating just enough breathing space. “Who reported it stolen?”

“His wife did.”

“Hah. Just think of
her
motive. Dead lover. Jealous wife.”

Witt cocked his head to one side, but said nothing.

“Don’t forget Hal. He told me Wendy left him for another man.”

“Dead wife? Jealous husband?”

“Exactly.”

“Awfully interested in saving Nick Drake, aren’t you, Max?”

Her insides froze up, and she knew how she sounded. Desperate. Like Wendy. “I just want to make sure you don’t miss anything by going for the simple solution, Detective.”

“There’s more here than meets the eye. Tell me what you know.”

Wedged between Witt’s persistence and the car door, she reviewed her options. She could tell him Wendy had thrown away the note with Nick’s flight number on it. That someone else had picked it out of the trash and put it in her car. That same person had been following Wendy long before Nick got off that plane. But Witt would want to know how she knew. She didn’t think he’d like her answer. He’d already scoffed the first time she’d called herself psychic. He’d also suspected her of murder over the Lilah dream.