Dead to the Max (7 page)

Her hand went reflexively to her throat, her bare throat. She had only the one turtleneck she’d worn yesterday and that needed to be washed. Today, she’d had to don her usual dress shirt, complete with red and black tie. It didn’t hide the scratches. The way the detective tracked her movement affected her like a physical touch, giving her a dry mouth which had nothing to do with fear.

Ooh, bad reaction to the man investigating Wendy’s murder.

“Bug bites,” was the first explanation to burst out of her mouth.

“Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” he quipped softly.

“I don’t have bugs in my bed.”

He raised one eyebrow, as if to inquire what
might
be in her bed. Or what she might
want
there.

Beds, detectives, and being possessed by a murdered woman didn’t mix. She squashed the image. Like a bug.

He stared at her throat a moment longer. God, he wasn’t wondering if
Wendy
had put the scratches there? No. Of course not. Like Columbo, he was simply taking note of everything.

“Call me if you find anything else interesting,” he said finally, with a glance at the loosely packed box she’d put against the wall.

Max followed the look. “A few of Wendy’s personal things. Remy called her husband to pick them up at his convenience. Did you want to look through them?”

If she’d harbored the slightest hope he might let slip the whereabouts of Hal Gregory the night his wife went missing, it was dashed the moment Long opened his mouth. To yawn. “Excuse me, been a long two days. Recorded the contents in my notes while we talked. Nothing I didn’t see yesterday.”

So that’s what he’d been writing down furiously. “You must have laser vision to see right through that cardboard.”

“I do, ma’am.” He didn’t crack a smile, and she could have sworn for just an instant his eyes flickered to the front of her blazer. To the maddeningly raised nipples beneath the fabric.

How had
that
happened?

God, what a team Wendy had working for her. Max Starr, faux-psychic investigator, her ghostly husband, and Dudley Do-Right with the big hands. Though she’d actually begun to like the man, even suspected he had a dry sense of humor.

And, as indicated by the fact that he’d come right over for the appointment book, he also seemed to care about solving Wendy’s case, which was the biggest point in his favor so far.

Detective Long stood and straightened his already straight tie. “Miss Starr—”

“Mrs.”

“I’d like you to take a trip down to the department.”

With that serious face, she could be sure it wasn’t some sort of detective come-on.

“We’ll need a set of elimination prints.”

“Elimination prints?”

“Friends, contacts, anyone whose prints might reasonably be on or in the victim’s car, her purse.” He paused, his mouth curved with just a hint of smirk. “Her appointment book. We did the other Hackett employees yesterday.”

“Oh.” Her fingerprints were all over the damn book, every page of it. It would look odd. Suspicious. Or just plain nosy.

Nosy she could handle. She gave him her best sheepish look, one perfected during years of attempted husband manipulation. “I looked through it. I hope I didn’t contaminate any evidence.”

“That’s why we’ll need your prints, ma’am. To eliminate them.” He blinked, Max almost thought it was a challenge. “Trust we won’t find them on her car, right?”

He bore a calculated lack of facial expression. The man was no naive Dudley Do-Right, despite the cleft chin.

She waved her hand to encompass the cluttered desk and ledger-filled bookcase. “Does this look like a job worth killing for?”

He almost smiled. “Tomorrow. Okay with you? Noon?”

“I only have half an hour for lunch.”

“Hackett will accommodate the investigation.” With a hand—a
big
hand—on the doorjamb of her office, DeWitt Quentin Long turned to her for the last time. “You know, you really shouldn’t smoke in here. No ventilation. Bad for your health. And it’s against the law.”

* * * * *

Cameron blasted her the moment she hit the freeway after leaving Hackett’s for the day. “Why didn’t you tell the detective that 452 was a flight number?”

“He already knows that from the notepaper found by Wendy’s body.” The one she’d seen in her vision.

“You should have told him it was a United Airlines flight.”

Max had verified that there was indeed a flight 452 arriving from Boise at 7:59 the night Wendy died. Not that she’d truly needed the confirmation. At this point, she no longer doubted the “vision.”

She just doubted Cameron’s conclusions. “We don’t know Nicholas Drake had anything to do with Wendy’s death. It would be wrong to incriminate him unless we
know.
”

“Remember all your logical deductions? Nickie’s name at 7:59 in her date book, same time as that Boise flight—”

“It didn’t say a.m. or p.m. And there’s no
proof.
”

“—and Paperboy got off the shuttle at the United terminal.”

“Coincidental.” Not. And well she knew it. But that didn’t make Drake a murderer. “Stop badgering me, I’m trying to drive.”

“Why didn’t you tell the detective about the personnel file?”

“If he’s worth anything, he’s already checked the files.”

“You’ve got to tell him everything you know, Max.”

“You’re crazy, Cameron.
I’ll
be his prime suspect. He already asked why I’m so interested in Wendy and how I got the job. He even wants my fingerprints.”

“He’s not going to arrest you. He’s hot for you.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “He is not hot for me.”

“And you’re hot for him.”

“I am not.” Yet her cheeks heated. Thank God she was sitting on them so no one could see.

“I can smell your creamed panties, Max, all the way up here in heaven.”

“You aren’t
in
heaven.”

“Maybe he’s the one, Max,” he whispered like a mesmerist. “Maybe he’s worthy of you.”

Oh God, Cameron was searching for his replacement.
Not
the detective, please. Whatever slight attraction she’d felt to his big hands had been an aberration. “He’s a cop. He’s investigating Wendy’s murder. That’s all he is.”

“You liked him.”

Dammit. She should have told Cameron he couldn’t hang in the office while Detective Long interviewed her. “I don’t even know him. And I’m not
going
to know him. He’s dangerous.”

“But he makes you hot.”

She gave up trying to hide it. Cameron wasn’t buying denial. “Sex isn’t everything.”

“Didn’t you beg for it last night?”

Yes, in the dark of the night, she’d needed, she’d wanted. “Will you please be quiet?” She wanted to jam her hands over her ears, but that wouldn’t keep him out of her head.

“
He’s
not your enemy. Whoever killed Wendy is.”

“Why are you picking a fight with me?”

“Why are you protecting the woman’s lover?”

“So that’s what this is all about. You think
I’m
hot for Wendy’s lover. I told you, it’s all her, not me.”

She pulled into the drive, shut the engine off, slammed the car door, and stomped across the wood deck. Narrowly missing the gap between the rungs with her spiked heels, she lunged up the stairs to her studio apartment. She’d left the window open. The cat had already started its pathetic cry on the window sill.

Cameron might be pissed at Wendy’s effect on her libido, but she was pissed that he was trying to shove another man into her life. Beneath the anger lay fear. Cameron
wanted
to leave her.

“I don’t have any tuna,” she shouted at the little buzzard.

“We’ve got some milk,” Cameron whispered close to her ear, his breath warm, almost comforting. She clung to her anger like a safety net.

“I told you I won’t feed that cat again.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight with you, Maxi—”

She whirled on the shimmering nothingness in her small room. “Next time you call me that, I’ll look for an exorcist.”

“Come on, sweetheart, I said I was sorry.” She felt his warmth wrap around her, as if he had arms to hold her, lips to kiss her, and a body to love her with. “Mmm. You smell sweet, baby. Like gardenias. I love you in gardenias.”

“Cut the crap. It won’t work. Besides, you just told me I smelled like something else entirely, and I don’t think you meant it as a compliment.”

“Your sweet scent of arousal makes me hot.”

“Stop it.” Max steeled herself against him, against the heat creeping through her loins. She crossed her arms over her chest, tapped her foot on the hardwood floor, and glared at him. Or at least at the corner of the room she thought he’d backed into. “You wanted me to use my intuition. So, I’m using it. Nicholas Drake didn’t kill her.”

“Screw intuition. You wear your attraction like a badge.”

“Remember Wendy? She
feels
it inside here.” She fisted her hand against her chest. “He had nothing to do with the murder. And
she
was the fricking murder victim. Maybe you should listen to her.”

“Why so willing to use your psychic gift now, sweetheart? You’ve fought me every step of the way so far.”

“Why is it so important that I accept this bizarre psychic gift anyway? Is it your pathway to heaven? Is it your good deed that’ll get you through the pearly gates?” A headache sliced through her temples.

“Is that what you’re afraid of? That I’ll leave you once you find your own power?”

Yes, yes, yes! Of course, he had to already know that, but she still didn’t want her fears out in the bright light of his scrutiny. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I won’t leave you the day you admit the truth to yourself.” He was at her back, surrounding her, as if he covered her with his hard, protective body. “I won’t leave you just because you accept the gifts God gave you.”

She stepped away from his warmth, away from the weakness stealing into her bones. “You already left me, two years ago. For a goddamn pack of cigarettes.”

His breath caressed her nape. “You want me to quit smoking?”

She should have pointed out that he’d just done the typical male shuffle to get out of answering the real question. She could have pointed out that ghosts can’t smoke. She could have pointed out that he was already dead. Instead, she whispered, “Yes.”

The ever-present aroma of fresh cigarette smoke disappeared as if she’d snapped her fingers. The air pulsed with peppermint, a sharp, sweet, clean smell. Cameron had always chewed peppermints when he was somewhere he couldn’t smoke.

“I think I’m going crazy.”

“I love you, Max.”

God, how she ached for him.

The cat screeched, a hideous sound closer to that of a dying chicken than a hungry stray. Max puffed out a breath, then sucked it back in. Finally she pulled a saucer off the single shelf where she kept her one-place setting and put it on the sill. The cat didn’t wait for Max to fill the saucer before jumping to the ledge. It lapped at the stream straight from the milk carton.

“Poor buzzard,” Max murmured, the resemblance so close to her lost Louis, she itched to stroke him. She reached out a tentative hand.

“You’re going to fall in love with that animal.”

“This is the last time I’m feeding it.”

“No, it’s not.”

She rolled her lips between her teeth and held her breath, fingers only inches from the dull, matted fur.

“I trust him, Max.”

She jerked. “The cat?”

“The detective.”

“DeWitt Quentin Long?” Her voice rose to a squeak. Why bring
him
up again? She couldn’t follow Cameron’s thought patterns. “Why do you trust that guy, of all people?”

“It’s just a very strong feeling I have. He’s good for you.”

So, it was okay to be attracted to the detective, but not okay to have an attraction for Nicholas Drake. They weren’t even her own feelings anyway. Rising, she put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes in his general direction. “Please don’t tell me you’re match-making with Detective Long.”

“Merely using my intuition about him, darling.”

“Well, why don’t you just use that ghostly intuition to find Wendy’s killer? Maybe do a little eavesdropping, a little poking around in somebody else’s head.”

“You know I can’t do that, sweetheart.”

“Yeah, I know. You get so many feet away from me and lose your ethereal presence. You can only read my mind, invade my life, my house, my office, my car—”

“You sound bitter.”

She was. He’d been stolen from her with the twitch of a nervous finger on a trigger. She wasn’t bitter, however, that he’d stayed with her for two years. How much longer could she keep him? It didn’t bear questioning. “We were talking about Detective Long, and why you find him so utterly trustworthy.”

“He’s not stupid, Max. He checked that drawer. He knew the book wasn’t there yesterday.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not stupid, either, Cameron. I know someone planted it.” She tapped her fingers against her cheek. “Remy. He’s the only one who could have done it.”

“Or an ex-employee who still has a key?” Meaning Nick.

“You’re so transparent. No pun intended. Her killer could have stolen her keys from her purse. Remy let on she had a set.”

“We won’t know for sure
who
until we figure out
why
the book was tampered with.”

She shook her head lightly. “You know, something about that book bothers me. Maybe it was the fact that she used blue ballpoint for Nickie’s name. His name should have been written with something wild like cherry or fuchsia.”

“Maybe she was in a hurry, and blue was all she could find. One thing’s for sure. Wendy knew the person who killed her.”

“I never thought otherwise.” The hands around her throat had not been a stranger’s hands.

“Ask the detective if her keys were missing from her purse.”

“He’ll wonder why I’m so interested.”

“He knows you’re up to something anyway.”

Max snapped the milk carton closed and put it back in the fridge without answering.