Power to the Max (28 page)

Julia turned slowly in the chair. Tear tracks marred her once perfect makeup. What had done this to her, beaten her down to a mere shadow of the self she’d been at her home? Max looked around and thought she knew the answer. It was this office, the place where Lance had died. It had a way of changing people.

Setting her fingertips against her wet cheeks without wiping away her tears, Julia drew a breath. “There are cleaning services that specialize in sanitizing crime scenes.”

Max moved forward so as not to miss one softly spoken word.

Julia had chewed the lipstick from her lips, leaving only a dark silhouette of liner. “A policeman gave me the name of an outfit.” Julia reached up to swipe a hand across her cheek. “Would you call them and set it up for me?”

“Of course.”

Julia handed a piece of paper across the desk, gathering streaks of powder along the sleeve of her blouse, invisible against the black silk. A deep breath, in, out, not a sigh but a fortification. “They came to my house, for fiber evidence, they said. They went through my car. They wanted my fingerprints.”

Julia hadn’t mentioned it before, though the police must have done it on Sunday or Monday. “For elimination purposes,” Max explained. Witt had once taken Max’s prints for that very reason. “And they want to eliminate the fibers you would have tracked here yourself, to isolate anything that might be tied to Lance’s killer.” It paid to know a cop. As far as his wife was concerned, Lance couldn’t have picked a better place to get murdered. All trace evidence and fingerprints that pointed to Julia could be explained away by the fact that it was her office.

With a solid alibi and lack of motive by claiming she knew about her husband’s philandering, Julia was almost invincible.

She was so believable.

Max couldn’t help but ask. “How can you stand to be in the room where your husband died?”

Julia didn’t even seem to hear, as if her mind had numbed. She hadn’t been like this in her home. She’d shown control, a little mistiness, a bone-deep sadness, but not this almost vacant child-like misery.

Was it knowing Lance had been murdered right here?

Or was it remembering how she’d repeatedly jammed the letter opener into his heart herself?

No, Max didn’t believe that. Julia was genuine. She was regal. She had a smile like Mary Tyler Moore, an icon, for God’s sake. It wasn’t the smile of a murderer.

“Julia?” Max queried as she stepped to the edge of the massive desk, resting only the tips of her fingers on the surface, the missing section of carpet six inches from her shoes.

Julia visibly started. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

Her demeanor had already answered Max’s question. She
couldn’t
be a murderer. “Why don’t you go home, Julia? I can drive you if you’d like.”

Another deep breath, this one faster through slightly flared nostrils. “No. I have some phone calls to make.”

Max could now see the speakerphone on the carpet at Julia’s feet.

“You can make them from home.”

“I could.” Julia bit her lip. “But I want to be reminded.”

Max felt a familiar lump jump into her throat. “Of what?”

“Of what happened here, I suppose.” The tone indicated she hadn’t heard the incrimination in the word.

Julia La Russa was not quite present in her body today. Max pushed that advantage despite not wanting to hear, not if it meant getting Julia’s confession.

“What happened here, Julia?”

She turned the chair slightly, looked once more out the window. “Betrayal,” she said loud enough for Max to pick up.

Oh God, this was it. The Confession. Max didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to have to tell. She didn’t want to think of Julia in prison or worse.

Julia swung around, suddenly all there, putting her silk sleeves in the black grime without caring, eyes bright once again with tears. “Have you ever loved anyone so much that you’d do anything for them?”

“Yes.” Only sometimes there was absolutely nothing you could do but watch them die.

“How far would you go?” Earnest tears brimmed at Julia’s lids. She couldn’t be talking about Lance, could she? Max never got the impression Julia had cared that much about him.

“How far did you go?” Max whispered.

“I’d lie, I’d cheat, I’d steal,” Julia countered with absolute certainty.

“And would you murder your own husband?”

Julia had whispered the word
no
, then put her head on her arms and cried.

Max believed her. Believed the tears, believed the anguish, believed Julia La Russa wasn’t capable of killing anyone, not even her husband.

Cameron would have called Max a sucker.

When Max finally got her to sit up, the black fingerprint powder was smeared across Julia’s forehead. Julia hadn’t been capable of more than blubbering, and Max hadn’t learned anything about the video Bud Traynor alluded to. She shepherded the beleaguered woman to the ladies room and helped her wash off the sooty stuff as best she could. Fetching Julia’s purse from where it lay on the floor of the reception area, Max guided her down to the garage for her car and watched her drive through the security gate.

“I need to go back and lock up for you. Besides, I left my things in the suite,” Max had said when Julia offered her a lift to her parked car.

She’d left behind her purse and her garment bag at the scene of Lance La Russa’s murder.

Cameron’s voice had been hammering at her since she’d stepped inside the crime scene.
Touch, Max, touch. See, feel, hear.
It was a recently discovered gift of hers, touch. There was probably some technical parapsychological name for it that Max neither knew nor cared about. Sometimes a vision would burst upon her, but only if it had to do with the murder she was investigating. She’d ignored Cameron then, needing instead to concentrate on Julia’s emotions.

But now... “Let’s do it.” His voice echoed through the garage as if it were real.

She’d propped the garage’s security door open so it wouldn’t lock behind her. She rode the elevator with Cameron’s excitement bubbling around her, fueling her. Entering
Suite
452
, she closed the door gently. Quiet screamed from the interior. The office door, to the room where Lance had died, gaped like a monster’s open mouth, the desk sitting like a tongue inside it, the back drop of the building opposite like the hole of its throat ready to swallow her whole.

She stayed put a moment, lifting her nose like a dog to scent. Sex permeated the air. Even after the police had descended with powders, gadgets, and technology, after Lance had died, after his blood had soaked into the carpet and coated the killer’s hands, the aroma of sex still hung heavy. Desire, like a palpable thing, sweet perfume, the saltiness of semen, the harshness of panting breath. And need. It, too, had a fragrance, the tang of sweat, the desperation of tears.

“It’s the key,” Cameron whispered.

“The key to what?” she asked with equal caution, as if someone or something might overhear in the room beyond.

“Need is the key. Lance needed Angela. Angela needed power. What did the killer need? Find the answer, and you’ll solve the murder.”

Max took a step forward. “Murder’s always about needs.”

So what did all her suspects need and who had the strongest need? There wasn’t time to ponder. She needed to
feel
. Her feet carried her forward as if Cameron stood at her back pushing.

The office itself lay in late afternoon shadow. Earlier, she’d rested her fingertips on the mahogany surface where Lance had taken Angela. Max had felt nothing. She hadn’t let herself then. Now, she leaned down to place her palm flat on the surface, the powder slightly greasy as if it had soaked oil from the wood.

She’d experienced visions in different ways before. A snapshot, a full-blown moving picture with colors and sound, or sometimes an irrefutable
knowing
.

Max closed her eyes, and colors swirled across her lids.

Red for anger, pain, and despair.

Green for desire, need, and jealousy.

Black for death.

Lance’s hand on his penis to remove the used condom, Angela on the desk facing the door, her legs still spread. He’d shouted, she’d laughed, both voices recognizable, masks concealing nothing.

A murky shadow stood in the doorway, poignant tears on the alabaster skin.

Max’s eyes popped open. “Julia saw them together that night.”

* * * * *

Max slung her garment bag over the hook on the stall door. The clean chemical smell of the restroom stung her nostrils, but was certainly better than the alternative.

Too much in a hurry to change for the evening, she’d thrown the clothes in the bag and tossed it in her car to change later. She hoped no one entering the ladies’ room across from Julia’s office could hear her huffing and puffing the clothing on. Dressing in bathroom stalls was embarrassing. It smacked of illicit behavior, affairs, and sexual trysts. It was also a palpable reminder of how Tiffany Lloyd, another murder victim crowding Max’s life for a little while, had died.

“Why didn’t she kill Angela, too?” Cameron pressed.

“I’m not convinced she even killed Lance.” She spoke aloud to Cameron, finding it easier to think that way. To hell with someone coming in.

“She caught them. You felt her shock, her anger, and her despair. It’s a damn good motive, Max.”

“She didn’t love him.” Max felt certain of that despite what Julia had said earlier in her office, not to mention the whole conversation with Baxter. “Lance wasn’t worth killing. At least not for that.” She smoothed the thigh-high stocking over her leg.

“You never wore those for me.” The words were combative, but the tone was hot fudge over ice cream and made her melt.

“Will you concentrate?”

“I am.”

“Stop it.” If she closed her eyes, she could almost believe that was his hot breath in her ear. Not here. Not now. “We need to figure out what this means.”

“The older you get, the less fun you are,” he grumbled.

His essence surrounded her. She closed her eyes almost without meaning to and felt him between her legs, his tongue rasping her clitoris.

“Stop it,” she whispered. Urgently. He made her wet, and she couldn’t allow that now.

“I’m getting you ready for your date with Witt.”

Oh God, she was ready. More than ready. Her legs parted as if she had to make room for him. “Witt and I aren’t going to do anything. The entire scenario will be for show. So you don’t need to get me ready for a damn thing.” She gasped as Cameron hit the sweetest spot.

“I’ll make you so hot you won’t be able to push him away.”

Telepathy had numerous advantages, one of them being that Cameron could talk to her and lick her at the same time. But damn it, not now. “Stop. Please. I have to go to the hotel.”

She had to get away from the confusing emotions, about Cameron, about Witt, about letting her husband make her hot and needy for another man.

He sucked at her clitoris. She was close, so close, panting, ready to climb the stall walls. Then he stopped.

Max wanted to howl her anger and frustration. “You bastard.”

“You won’t be able to resist Witt now when you get him up to that hotel room.”

Max thought about finishing the job herself, but hell, masturbating in a bathroom stall was demoralizing. It also brought to mind Tiffany again. Tiffany, who’d screwed a guy in a public restroom while a bunch of horny guys cheered her on. After which she was murdered.

Really not a good comparison.

“I’ll pay you back for this, Cameron. Just you wait.” She finally got her breathing under control.