Power to the Max (23 page)

Max had won the round. Thank God. “I’ll watch and learn.” She picked up her own wine, tapped the glass to Angela’s. “Can I choose him for you?”

“Sure.” Angela preened, stretching in her chair, the lapels of her jacket parting to reveal the swell of breast. Male eyes bugged. Even Witt’s widened. “Don’t make him a total dog, though. I feel like having at least a ‘doable’ tonight.”

Tearing her gaze from Witt, Max spoke without pre-thought. “That one.” She used her wineglass to point at the Greek God, whose head happened to be turned the other way.

“I said doable, not swallowable.” Angela groaned. “God, he’s looking at himself in the mirror. You’re asking a lot.”

“Think of him as a challenge.” The game suddenly became fun. Almost. Max hoped she’d assuage her curiosity about why the Greek God was there. Maybe even find out if he held another clue into the mystery surrounding Lance La Russa’s death.

“Okay, kiddo.” Angela’s use of the term was amusing since she was close to eight years Max’s junior. “Watch and learn.”

“Do you want me to leave so he’ll come over?”

Angela waved a careless hand. “That one won’t come. So to speak.” She fluttered her eyelashes.

Max inspected the various female heads aimed in the Greek God’s direction. Angela was right, he didn’t have to make a move. Prospects abounded. The two slinky dresses in the corner, giggling like teenagers though they must have been in their late twenties. A table of three businesswomen, smartly dressed, surreptitious in their glances.

Tipping her head from side to side, as if weighing her options, Angela licked her lips once more. Red lipstick muted, the wetness screamed sexy.

“I think the direct approach. A dance. I’ll get the feel of him that way.” Angela smiled at her pun. “He won’t think he should have to pay for it, either.” She turned her gaze to Max. “I’ll have to hook him like a fish first.”

“So show me. I’m in training, after all.”

“Watch my purse.” Angela was up and moving, no exaggerated sway, just a graceful straight line to her quarry.

Oh God, Max was alone. Panic. Sudden and overwhelming. What if Witt chose that moment to come over to her? It would ruin everything. She wouldn’t have a chance to brief him. She’d be caught with her pants down. So to speak.

She didn’t dare look his way. Instead, her grip tense on the stem of her glass, she studied Angela.

The direct approach was confident, as if to say Angela could have any man in the room, but she’d chosen him. That made him special. Max couldn’t read lips, not with the dimness and the distance, only body language. Angela spoke. He tipped his head back, smiled. More talk. This time he laughed. Greek God smitten in less than two minutes. Angela held out her hand, the ultimate contemporary woman going for what she wanted.

Max wondered if she’d told him yet she was a hooker, excuse us, a working girl.

A slow dance, the song was popular from the early part of the decade. Slow dancing, lots of couples, the music didn’t matter. Angela led him onto the floor and moved into his arms. Not too close, three inches between their bodies. The man was tall, not as tall as Witt, but over six feet. Angela had worn her four-inch heels, and her nose came to the level of his lips. She tilted her head back, talking as they swayed. She purposefully stayed on the outside of the floor, in full view of Max.

One minute into the song, the three inches between them became two. Angela’s breasts grazed his chest. Another minute, not a breath of air moved between them. He’d stopped smiling. Only Angela could read the look on his face. As they turned, she flashed Max a coquettish look. Max was sure Angela had him.

Beneath her rigid fingers, the table began to vibrate. Oh my God, an earthquake. She almost screamed and dove beneath the laminate before realizing the vibration came from Angela’s purse. The little black sequined bag jiggled across the tabletop until it reached the edge. Max pushed it back.

The song ended. Another began. Angela stayed on the floor with the Greek God, his hands now on her hips, her arms around his shoulders, lower bodies intimately pressed together. The purse agitated itself to the edge of the table once more.

Damn. It was Angela’s cell phone. She obviously had it on vibrate. Max couldn’t concentrate on the dance while the thing hopped around like a jackrabbit.

Putting her hand on top of it only set her whole body vibrating, an uncomfortably pleasurable buzz that had her throwing a glance Witt’s way. Only to meet his gaze head on. He didn’t glower, simply skewered her with an ice pick of a stare.

She had to stop it or vibrate herself over to his damn table.

Clicking the clasp open, telling herself she wasn’t violating Angela’s privacy, she reached inside. Fishing around for the offending object amidst an amazing array of cosmetics, condoms and doodads—how did Angela fit it all in the miniscule bag—Max pulled the phone out to search for the off switch.

A phone number flashed.

A number she knew belonged to the man she hated.

Bud Traynor’s cell phone number.

A blast of cold air hit Max as she exited the hotel a little after midnight. She handed her ticket to the attendant like she’d been born to valet parking.

Angela had failed with the mysterious Greek God. “He asked about you the whole time,” Angela groused. “And you can have him.” Her eyes had suddenly sparkled, ego obviously still intact. “Tomorrow night.”

Max didn’t like the sound of wheels turning in Angela’s head but used the coward’s motto, worry about it later. Angela had filled the time slot with a fortyish balding man from
Minneapolis
. It was no mercy fuck, she’d assured Max, and Max hadn’t felt sorry for the man in the least. He’d been delighted to be Angela’s choice.

So now, Max was on her own.

Witt had left an hour before. As if he didn’t care whether she made it out safely on her own. Jeez, what a turn-around from Mr. Lover Boy last night and this morning.

Which wasn’t a bad thing. She really didn’t have the energy for a goodnight fuck, ominous warnings, or the battle that would ensue when she asked him to play the leading man in her one-act play the following evening. She’d leave that for tomorrow. Over the phone. When he couldn’t throttle her. Certainly that wasn’t the coward’s way out, merely sensible.

Questions about why the Greek God had been so interested in her faded into the night. If it was sex, forget it. It certainly couldn’t be anything else. Could it? Who cared? Right now, she needed time to mull over the reasons Bud Traynor’s number had appeared on Angela’s phone.

Sure she’d gotten Angela’s answer; he was a sweet harmless old geezer who always wanted her to dress like a young girl.

. It struck Max right between the eyes. Angela had dressed Max that way tonight. Dirt and shame wove through the threads of her pleated skirt. Dammit, she was no Catholic schoolgirl, and Bud was no harmless old geezer.

He was the snake in the Garden of Eden.

Only Max hadn’t told Angela that. A vague sense of guilt settled on her shoulders as she drove home. Angela didn’t have a clue what kind of man Bud Traynor was. If someone else died, the blame would lie with Max. If Angela got killed...

The thought consumed her on the freeway as she drove home.

Angela was a big girl. Angela had Hammerhead to protect her. Angela was in control and knew exactly what she’d gotten herself into.

Nothing helped. Guilt sat heavy. Angela had excused herself to return Bud’s call. She hadn’t come back with a date, at least not one she mentioned. So why had Bud called?

Max pulled onto her street, parked, and turned off the engine, sitting for a minute in the quiet. She had to go back until she found the answers, until she knew Angela wasn’t in danger.

“Trying to save her, Max? Since when did you decide she wasn’t Lance’s killer? Remember. She’s wearing that bracelet.”

A couple of quick questions from Cameron, then poof, he was gone again, leaving Max to wrestle with answers she didn’t have.

Climbing from the car, she whispered, “I don’t want her to be the killer.” And she truly didn’t believe Angela was. She had no motive. She’d simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hadn’t she?

Unlocking her front door, she stepped in and screamed.

Witt sat on the third step of her inside stairs.

“Trying to wake the neighbors?”

“I hate it when you pick my locks.” She should have argued the point last night, but he’d mussed up her thinking when he climbed into bed with her. And that whole “living on the edge of orgasm” thing had left her feeling itchy and twitchy rather than clear and sharp. She was sure seeing Bud Traynor’s number on Angela’s phone had something to do with that.

Max closed the door behind her, the cool air from outside snaking into the small hallway. Darn, Witt looked good. He’d left his jacket in his car, and the dusky outline of his nipples against the white fabric of his shirt quickened her pulse. If she’d been wearing panties, they’d be soaked. As it was, her inner thighs were sticky with his effect on her.

“Checking up on me to make sure I came home?” She tried for nonchalant, but feared her tone gave her away.

Her surveyed her with an enigmatic gaze. With only the porch light through the window on his face, she couldn’t read him. “Followed you here,” he said.

She gasped. “No way.” That would mean it had taken less than five minutes to park and break into her house. She couldn’t have been sitting in her car longer than that. “I didn’t see you.” She bit her lip. “And you left the Embassy over an hour before I did.”

“Didn’t think I’d leave you all alone with the big bad she-wolf, did ya?”

Terrifying that she actually liked his protectiveness. Shades of Angela and Hammerhead. “Angela isn’t a she-wolf.”

“She’s carnivorous.” His eyes were certainly carnivorous as they climbed from her stilettos to her legs to the short skirt.

Max crossed her arms when his gaze rose to the level of her chest. “If you believe that, why haven’t you turned her into the San Francisco PD yet? After all, she’s wanted for questioning about Lance’s murder.”

“No one knows who that witness was. After all,” he mocked her, “she was wearing a mask.”

Max didn’t like the way he threw her own phrasing back at her. She couldn’t get a lock on him, couldn’t decide if it was anger, frustration, or lack of interest that flattened his tone. “You and I both know Angela was with Lance.”

“You know that. I need hard evidence.” He widened his legs, leaned forward on his elbows, and looked up at her, undaunted by the fact that sitting on the stairs, he’d physically put himself in the one-down position. Witt would never be metaphorically one-down with anyone. “What’s she told you about La Russa?”

Max moved her shoulders, half-nervous shrug. “We haven’t gotten to that yet.”

He looked pointedly at the lighted display of his watch. “Already been four days since the murder. What’s taking ya?”

Damn, she’d been asking herself the same question. It didn’t feel any better coming from Witt. “I haven’t found a lead-in.”

He snorted. “Never needed a lead-in before.”

This time she rolled her shoulders. His eyes tracked the subtle movement of her breasts beneath the white shirt.

“I don’t believe she has a motive,” she said. “Lance was going to set her up in an apartment.”

“Maybe there’s more going on. Haven’t asked her anything important yet, have you?” he said knowingly.

“I’ve been getting under her guard.” She sounded irritatingly defensive.

“I ask again, what have you learned from her?”

“Bud Traynor knew Lance. And he paged Angela tonight while I was there.”

For a moment Witt said nothing, his hands hanging loosely between his knees, then he blinked, shifted, and moved into the shadow of her body. “Traynor knew them both.” He let out a sigh. “Ergo, Traynor’s behind the killing.”

She knew what his next words would be, the same words Cameron always used. She attacked before he got them out. “I’m not obsessed with him.”