Dead to the Max (15 page)

“Evidence.”

“Cajun Spice?” Weirder and weirder.

“The fact that you scoped out Lilah Bloom.” He let her fingers slip through his. Her hands suddenly felt cold. She hoped the polish hadn’t smeared.

“You did ask me to help you, Detective.”

“At Hackett’s. Not sitting in Lilah Bloom’s window like a flashing red light.”

Max almost laughed, then sobered. She wasn’t sure he was joking. She wasn’t sure Detective Witt
knew
how to joke.

“You followed me here.” It didn’t take a psychic to figure that out.

He nodded.

“Well, I’ll help you anyway.”

“Help by doing what I ask you to do, not what you decide you wanna do.”

Humph. She’d ignore that. “Don’t you have some important detective type stuff to do?”

He folded his arms over his chest and smiled. Lazily. As if he had her right where he wanted her. When he’d let go of her hands, he hadn’t stepped back. Her fingers still prickled, and his musky aftershave tickled her nose.

“Figure I won’t have to do any work at all if I just keep on your tail.”

Now why did that make her think of sex? With him? Would he fill up all the lonely places as sweetly as Cameron did?

Bad thought, very bad thought. Scary even.

“You’re very cagey, Detective. First you want me to think Lilah purposely sent me off in the wrong direction, then you hint there’s something strange about Hal and Wendy’s car, now you’re implying I’m a suspect.”

“You are.”

* * * * *

Two hours later, Max was still pissed at the detective’s attitude. “The nerve. He actually thinks I might have killed Wendy.”

Though the sun was almost down, the September evening remained hot and the mosquitoes were out. She’d ventured down the stairs to her small deck and taken up her usual seat in the shadow of the big elm that stood outside her window, a cool glass of beer sweating in her hands. She nursed it, savored the foam and the yeasty smell. The air was filled with the soft rhythm of cars whooshing by on the nearby freeway, children’s laughter as they played a game of tag, and the occasional bark of the neighbor’s dog. But in the near dark, Max felt isolated on her back porch. Her landlord wasn’t home—he lived on the main level—and the rest of the house was silent, devoid of college students for the moment. Except for Cameron, Max was alone. She liked it that way.

“He doesn’t think you killed her.” Cameron’s voice came from behind her. “And you’re just pissed because he’s the first man you haven’t been able to wrap around your little finger.”

“I never wrapped
you
around my little finger,” she mumbled.

He ignored her statement. “You’ve got the hots for him, don’t you?”

“First it’s Nick I’m interested in, now it’s the detective. Make up your mind.”

“With you, it’s probably both.”

Max snorted. “If you weren’t a ghost, I’d say you had your head some place where the sun don’t shine.”

“Anatomically impossible.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. Cameron had that sanctimonious, holier-than-thou tone he’d used when he knew he had a defendant by the balls. She’d called it his strutting voice.

Just as quickly, the laughter disappeared. God, she missed Cameron in action. He’d been gorgeous in his three-piece courtroom suits. To die for. Her mood spiraled. She pulled herself out with a dig at Cameron. “
I’d
think you’d be pissed as hell he suspects me.”

His voice shifted, coming from somewhere to her left. “You wouldn’t be a suspect if you’d listened to me and told him the truth in the first place.”

“If I’d
never
listened to you, I wouldn’t be a suspect, because I wouldn’t have looked for Wendy’s murderer.”

“You’re looking for Wendy’s murderer because
she
compels you. Now admit you want the burly detective, and I’ll shut up.”

“I
don’t
want him.”

“Liar. You were thinking about doing him. You really perked up at that ‘tail’ comment.”

Cretin. She chose to ignore the double entendre. “You’re my husband. You’re not supposed to push me at other men.”

“I’m your
dead
husband, and I’m just pointing out facts. You liked what we did last night, and you’d like to do it with him.”

God, there he went using that bad word again. Dead, dead, dead. She hated that word. Even if sometimes she used it herself.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered. “Let me go down on you and you can pretend I’m whoever you want me to be.”

“You’re sick.” But she turned hot and moist between her legs.

“You know you want a man’s tongue on you.”

Or a cock inside her. Yes, she wanted it. Badly. “What would the neighbors think?”

“All they’ll see is you basking in the late afternoon sun with a beatific smile on your face. Just don’t scream when you come.”

Upstairs, the phone rang before she could beg him to stop talking and just do it.

She set the beer on the decking and dashed up the stairs to her room. Her answering machine would come on after six rings. Most people never made it past four. Most of the time she was just as happy missing their call.

Except this time, when she’d almost spread her legs in broad daylight. In her own goddamn backyard. Jesus.
Saved by the bell
had never been more apt.

“Hello.” Her voice was husky, out of breath.

“Max Starr?”

“Yes.”

“Hal Gregory.”

“Hal?” She almost choked on her own excitement.

“The coroner released Wendy’s body. The service is Wednesday.”

“Oh Hal, I’m so glad. You can put her to rest. Things will get easier after this.” Yeah, right. Things never got easier, and the dead didn’t rest. Wendy certainly hadn’t. Max could feel her thrumming inside, anger, pain, despair, shame, all the bad emotions.

A peppermint-scented breeze blew across her body. Cameron. There, but blessedly silent, as she lied to the man on the phone.

“I’d like you to be there, Max. You’ve been a great help to me.”

Damn. It had been so easy. Too easy. “Of course, I will. Sitting at her desk, seeing her workpapers, I feel like I know Wendy.”

He gave her the details of the funeral service in a few brief words and hung up.

“Why the hell did he invite me?” The room was fully dark now, and she stared at the lighted windows of the house next door.

“It’s what you wanted him to do.”

“Of course, I wanted it. But why does
he
want it? And don’t tell me it’s sex.”

“Whatever it is, I’d bet my next corporeal life that Wendy’s killer will be there.”

Max would, too. “So, who is it?”

“How the hell should I know? You’re the psychic.”

“You’re hopeless.” She went to the closet and pulled out her jacket.

“Where are you going?”

“I have to get some nail polish remover.” She’d suddenly decided she didn’t like Detective Witt appreciating her nails. And she
didn’t
want to think about why, all of a sudden, right on the heels of Hal’s funeral invite, Witt’s admiration felt incredibly threatening.

Or maybe it was the fear that Cameron was too damn close to the truth. If she’d let him go down on her out on the deck, she just might have started imagining it was the detective.

Chapter Twelve

“Pull the shade down. This is a private transaction, and I don’t want any witnesses.” The voice, low, indistinct, genderless, leaked from the shadows behind her.

She did as she was told, a slight tremble in the hand adjusting the blind across the front window of the shop. Max stared at that hand
—
short, pudgy fingers, sparkly pink polish. Lilah’s hand.

Turn around and look. Show me the face, let me see who it is. In her head, Max shouted, but Lilah never turned.

Max knew it was a dream she was powerless to control. Lilah sucked her in, pulled her down, and mired her in another woman’s body, another woman’s life.

For Lilah Bloom, this was all too real.

Wearing Lilah’s skin, Max sat down again at the small manicurist table, then picked up an orangewood stick to push back her cuticles. She stared at her nails instead of her visitor as she spoke. “We were supposed to meet at the restaurant, tomorrow.”

“I wanted our business handled as quickly as possible. How much do you want?” The speaker was just a tad closer now.

Oh God, please, let me see who it is, Max cried.

Neither God nor Lilah heard her.

Fear tasted metallic in Lilah’s mouth, but she kept doing her nails. Appearance was everything. “I’m not asking for much, but I have a small son and he
—
”

“Spare me the sob story. How much?”

“Twenty-five thousand.” She put the stick back in the Quats solution, the pungent disinfectant stinging her nostrils. Next, she chose a thick coarse file to shape the nails.

A low chuckle slithered across the hairs at her nape. “Will you take a check?”

“It’s a cash transaction,” Lilah answered, just barely managing to keep the tremor out of her voice.

“And what guarantees do I have this will be the end of it?”

“None,” she agreed.

“Not even your word?” Again, that chuckle, closer still, neither male nor female. Evil had no gender.

Turn around. I have to know who it is. Max screamed, knowing what was about to come as clearly as Lilah did.

Lilah had a gun in the drawer, but blackmail was better tended to in a very public place. It was what she’d intended, but God, she’d been stupid. Underestimating her victim was the first rule she’d learned. And now broken. If she wasn’t goddamn careful, it might be her last. “A new car. That’s all I want. Then no one ever has to know the things Wendy told me.”

A strange snap. She suddenly recognized it as the sound of a latex glove, the kind hair stylists wore for perms and colors. Her heart pounded in earnest now. Hunching over, she slipped her hand down, quietly slid the drawer open, and put two fingers on the cold metal insurance.

“I thought it was your son you needed the money for?”

Lilah didn’t hear it coming. Until pain shrieked through her scalp. Her head jerked back. A hand mercilessly wrenched the roots of her hair. Her assailant grabbed her arm and twisted it up behind her back, her shoulder bursting with fiery agony. She never had a chance to grab the gun.

Her eyes teared. Her attacker’s hand rose in her line of vision, her orangewood stick gripped in the fist like a knife. She screamed. The stick plunged. Piercing. Tearing. Burning her skin. She grabbed for her throat with one hand, gasped, tried to suck air but couldn’t. Then she panicked. Kicking. Flailing. Bucking. The distant sound of shattering glass. The scent of disinfectant and seared flesh. The bright flash of light as her lamp crashed to the floor, the pop of electricity as it cracked against the brick. Her chair flipped out from beneath her, and she went down on her knees. She couldn’t even scream. Her limbs seemed weighted with concrete as the light around her started to fade.

Oh God. The tinny taste of blood. The numbness of her fingers. The blinds in front of her blurred. She should have left them open. She should have gone for the gun sooner.

Instead, she was going to die.

* * * * *

The detective’s mouth was a thin, white line. “Lilah Bloom was a real fighter. She died hard.”

Max shuddered. She could have closed her eyes and seen the dream all over again. The ghosts of Lilah’s fear, pain, and helplessness jabbed at her. The worst was what she
hadn’t
seen: the face of Lilah’s murderer.

The morning sun had only just come up, the porch light was still on, and the detective’s blond hair looked almost white. Like he’d seen a ghost. Or one too many dead bodies.

“In the end, she suffocated on her own blood.” Witt used full sentences. He was as bothered by Lilah Bloom’s murder as Max.

“And you show up at my door at six o’clock in the morning to tell me this?” she snapped, mostly because of the dream, but also because she wouldn’t have been upset if he showed up at six for something else entirely.

“You were the last person connected with Wendy’s case to see Lilah alive.”

Max gripped the handle of the screen door and literally quaked in her slippers. Which was one of the reasons she hadn’t opened the door for the detective. Letting him in was tantamount to making her nightmares a reality.

Lilah Bloom is dead. Your nightmare is reality.
Cameron whispered close to her ear.

“I damn well know that,” she said to both of them.

“Repeat for me every word Lilah Bloom said to you.”

A sudden spurt of guilt stiffened her spinal cord. “You don’t think this was my fault?” Just as quickly, without waiting for his answer, she shook her head. “Of course not. I only talked to her.”

“What did she say?” His tone was no-nonsense. This was the man a suspect would meet in an interrogation room, the one who would barrel through any roadblocks in his quest for justice. The authority in his voice actually made her hot. Damn, she hated these inappropriate thought bursts when Lilah Bloom was dead.

“I told you yesterday. She went on and on about Hal Gregory. Have you talked to him?”

“He has an alibi.”

“Don’t tell me. The father-in-law again.”

Witt was silent a moment, narrowed his eyes. “You know too much, Miss Starr. Way too much.”

“It’s a logical deduction, Detective.”

“Yes, but you’re in the right places at the right time. A good detective has to ask himself why.”

Her legs were bare beneath the long, cotton sleep shirt. She felt naked, exposed. But her body buzzed with awareness. Not good, especially considering why the man was at her front door.

“Seems to me I’m in the
wrong
places at the
wrong
time.”