Dead to the Max (3 page)

“Why is it getting on the freeway? I’ll lose it.” She shot through the tail end of the yellow light, the chase giving her an adrenaline rush.

There were now five cars between her and the minibus.

“Hot damn.” It was the only vehicle to exit onto the airport flyover. She caught up with the bus before a rush of commuters merged in from the southbound access. The Departures route was heavily packed, and the shuttle stopped at every airline while she sat in the wake of its fumes and the racket of honking horns and traffic whistles.

“Will you recognize him?”

“I’ll know him.” She hadn’t seen the man well at all, and the back of his head had disappeared from the window as if he’d gone forward to gather a bag or wait near the door. It didn’t matter. In the dream, she’d memorized every line on his face.

She knew the moment had arrived before the bus even came to a complete stop and opened its doors. She gave the steering wheel a hard yank to the right and squeezed into a spot between a minivan and a shiny Lexus.

The shuttle’s doors opened with a vacuum-packed whoosh, disgorging its occupants onto the sidewalk teaming with travelers. Max jerked her car door open and jumped out. Hot air blew up from the second roadway beneath them.

Max saw him only five feet away as he used the rear exit. The noises, the scents, the flashing lights faded into the background. He was mid-thirties, a tall man, a good head above her five-feet-six. His sandy hair sported a short, neat cut; his dark, mirrored glasses were an early sixties style. A fine shadow covered his jaw, indicating he hadn’t shaved that day. His face was long and lean, and from the side, a slight bump marred his nose as if it had been broken. He’d dressed in worn jeans and chambray work shirt. Scuffed, tan work boots covered his feet. A small workout bag dangled negligently in one hand, and a newspaper was tucked beneath his arm. In the next moment, he pulled out the paper, gave it one last cursory glance, then threw it in a trash bin.

He turned, looked at her, a break in his long-legged stride the only indication that he might actually have noticed her from behind those mirrored lenses.

Her heart tripped over itself, then pounded. Her sunglasses slid down her nose. Her fingers trembled with the need to touch him, an alien need not her own. Where the hell did it come from?

A fresh wave of passengers carried him into the terminal.

“Don’t lose him,” Cameron pressed.

Max started to run.

A shrill whistle blew close to her head, punctuated by a sharp, “Hey lady, you can’t leave your car unattended.” A beefy hand on her arm jolted her to a stop.

The traffic cop had insinuated himself between Max and the terminal door. “You aren’t leaving your car unattended, lady, and no excuses. I’ve heard ’em all, so don’t even bother.” His white shirt was too bright for the early hour, his belly too large to push past, and her checkbook too lean for a ticket.

Behind him, the automatic doors slid shut, the interior of the building obscured by the dark glazing.

Her quarry was gone.

The only thing the man left behind was his folded newspaper.

She tried to smile simperingly at the guard. “Can I get my paper? I dropped it over there.”

She didn’t wait for the cop’s agreement, simply dashed the three steps to the trash and grabbed the newspaper off the top.

“You’re out of breath,” Cameron whispered in her ear.

She got back in the car. “I was running for the paper.”

“You’re breathless for the paperboy who left it behind.”

“I wanted to see what he’d been reading.”

"But you lost him, Max."

"I know that." She resisted the urge to smack her hand on the steering wheel.

"He went out there specifically to look at her car."

"We don’t know that."

"Come on, you saw the look on his face. He knew that car. He knew her."

Yes, Cameron was right. She knew without a doubt that Paperboy was the dead woman’s dream man.

"But how would he know she was dead, Max?"

Unless he killed her. The unspoken words hung in the air.

No, no, no. There had to be another explanation, she just knew it,
felt
it inside like the double-time beat of her heart. “Maybe...” She unfolded the paper still on her lap, found the brief title of the short article on the back page.

“Woman murdered at SFO. That’s how he knew,” she whispered.

When was she murdered? How long ago was she found? Long enough to make the morning edition deadline. But not so long they’d had time to take her car away.

"What’s it say?" Cameron urged.

The words of the article shouted at her. She ignored the sharp whistle of the airport cop, the slap of his hand on her car hood. Her vision blurred around the edges of the name printed in the article, the sight somehow as bad as if she’d seen her own name there in black and white. The woman wasn’t anonymous anymore. She wasn’t just a vision. She was real. And she
was
dead. It had taken someone twenty-four hours to notice her. She’d been murdered the night before last—the night
before
Max had a vision of her last few hours alive.

No, it couldn’t be, it wasn’t possible.

She gasped. “Cameron, what’s happening to me?”

“Don’t you know?”

“It’s like I’m feeling all her emotions, like she’s inside me. Taking over.”

“Max, darling, I think you might be possessed.”

Chapter Two

Several hours later, her job interview dispensed with, Max dropped by the Wright temp agency that employed her. One thought occupied her mind. Cameron was correct. Psychic or crazy didn’t make a difference; she was possessed by
something
. She had to get rid of whatever it was in any way she could. The thought of someone else’s emotions running rampant through her body was...scary.

“I’ll take those in for you,” Max offered solicitously as she breezed past Roger, Sunny Wright’s administrative assistant.

Without a pause, Max slipped her forged pink message note between the six she’d snatched off Roger’s desk.

On her fifth read-through of the newspaper article, Max, with a lot of help from Cameron, figured the only way to exorcise Wendy Gregory—that was the woman’s name—was to find her killer. Didn’t all those old horror movies depict that solving the murder was the way to exorcise a ghost? It sounded a little wacky, but then so did admitting she was possessed.

But where to start her investigation? That was easy, find out everything she could about Wendy Gregory, and to do that, she had to slip into the woman’s shoes. She’d begin by taking over Wendy’s job, which was where Sunny Wright and her temp employment agency came into play.

The reporter who’d written the story had done his job. The who, what, when, where, and how concerning Wendy Gregory’s murder had all been covered in detail. The only question he hadn’t answered was the why.

Discovering that answer fell to Max, with a little help from her pushy ghost of a husband.

Being too anxious about getting Wendy’s job would look suspicious, if not to Sunny, then to Remy Hackett, Wendy’s boss, the man who’d reported her missing yesterday. Wasn’t
that
strange? In one neat swing, Max had two suspects: the husband who
hadn’t
reported her missing, and the boss who
had
, far more quickly than any normal employer would. One work day missed doth not a murder mystery make.

She had to take over Wendy’s job to ferret out the answers. Making her move would be tricky. If this plan back-fired...she’d think of something else. Because Max knew the woman couldn’t “go into the light” until her killer was brought to justice.

Aside from that, Max felt an odd compunction, a need, to give Wendy justice. Perhaps because she’d experienced Wendy’s last living moments. Or maybe it was that Cameron had never gotten justice. His killers were never caught. They’d never paid for what they’d done to him. Sometimes she still prayed for vengeance.

“You never got justice either, Max,” Cameron’s voice floated through her mind, then he was quickly gone. She didn’t want to dwell on what he meant by that.

Max casually flipped through the notes as she shut the door of Sunny Wright’s office with a tap of her foot. Pulling out the one she’d written herself, with Remy Hackett’s name, number, and a vague job description, Max smiled. “This one’s interesting.”

“Snooping through my messages?” Sunny looked like her name. The floor-to-ceiling windows behind her were the perfect backdrop for her golden hair piled neatly on top of her head. For Max, she wore a wide, welcoming smile that displayed a mouthful of white teeth, worth every cent she’d shelled out for those gorgeous porcelain caps.

“If you’d use voicemail, Sunny, I wouldn’t be able to snoop.”

Sunny only let callers go to voicemail if it was after hours. “You’d be the first to complain if you never talked to a real person.”

“I would never presume to call Roger a real person,” Max said, her brow raised.

Sunny smiled. Sunny always smiled. Her perpetually “sunny” attitude was one of the things Max liked best about her. Her boss was a breath of fresh air. “Sit down, and tell me how the interview went.”

Max handed over the stack, her note on top, then sat in Sunny’s cushy yellow chair. “Shitty.”

She’d barely made it to the interview on time, but she’d no longer been interested in the job the moment she read about Wendy Gregory in the mystery man’s discarded newspaper. After a few minutes of planning in her car once the job interview was done, she’d rushed right over to Sunny’s office.

“They don’t need me for data entry, Sunny.”

“They want the data evaluated as it’s entered.”

“I don’t clean windows, and I don’t do data entry. It doesn’t pay to underutilize me. How about that full-charge bookkeeper?” She indicated the pink paper with Remy Hackett’s name on it.

Sunny picked it up and read. “Who took this?” Her smile never faded, but the tone suggested a hint of annoyance. “It isn’t Roger’s handwriting. I insist the assistants sign and date these for me.”

The thing about Sunny was that as nice as she sounded—as nice as she
was
—she had a will of iron. People tended to underestimate her soft manner and usually conciliatory tone.

All of which was why the best way into Wendy’s job—into her life—was through Sunny’s temp agency. It also meant any suspicion would first fall on Sunny. Max felt a twinge of guilt at using her boss, but her options were limited at this point.

“Give him a call,” Max urged with much the same tone Cameron used when trying to manipulate her.

“Hackett’s Appliance Parts. I’ve never heard of them. I wonder where they got my name?”

“Probably the phonebook. With a position like this, you can bill my full rate. Go ahead. Call him.”

Sunny tapped her fingernails on her desk, then picked up a pencil and used the eraser end to dial the phone. “Mr. Hackett, please.” Her nose wrinkled with distaste as if she’d just been insulted. “Sunny Wright with the Wright Solution Employment Agency,” she said through lightly pursed lips, then covered the receiver with her hand. “Not a particularly professional atmosphere.”

“Good, then I won’t have to worry about a new wardrobe.”

Sunny looked Max’s habitual attire up and down. Black blazer and black pants. Her only concession to femininity was her three-inch black heels, and usually, the only concession to color was a black-and-red striped tie. Today, however, she’d had to do without the tie and white shirt.

“I like the turtleneck,” Sunny said. “It’s a different look for you.”

Max didn’t mention what was hidden underneath, long scratches on her throat.

Sunny’s attention snapped back to her call. “Yes, Mr. Hackett. I got your message concerning your need for a full-charge bookkeeper.” A pause. Sunny’s blue eyes clouded. “You didn’t?...perhaps someone on your staff called...ambulance-chaser?” Her eyes widened with shock. She gasped. Max held her breath. “Well, I never. In all my career...I wouldn’t dream of...I demand an apology”—a longer pause this time—“I agree, you couldn’t have been more wrong...well, I should think you’re a bit embarrassed...I’m terribly sorry about what happened, but that gives you no right...no, that is not good enough...I wouldn’t let one of my people work for you if...” Sunny looked straight at Max across the expanse of her desk.

Please, please, accept the apology
. If this didn’t work, she’d have to apply for the position without Sunny’s intervention and think of a good excuse later for how she’d found out about the job.

Sunny let out an exasperated breath and went on. “Yes, I’m sure it’s been a strain...please, Mr. Hackett, there’s no need to feel so badly over this...well, perhaps you could be more specific about the position...I think I have a suitable person in mind...I can fax her resume, but under the circumstances, I’m not sure it would be right for—” Sunny tipped her head to one side, a questioning gaze set on Max.

Max sighed a breath of relief and nodded her head vigorously.

“Well, all right then...What time?...Tomorrow at seven? That’s rather early...I’m sure she could continue for the day if you’re agreeable...The address?” Sunny pulled a yellow pad in front of her, scribbled, then dotted an
i
with a decisive stab. “No further apology is necessary...Thank you, Mr. Hackett.”

Sunny held the receiver over the bed of the phone and let it drop the last three inches. “I’ll wager a three-course luncheon at Petrocelli’s, including their divine bread pudding for dessert, that you turn him down within the first five minutes of the interview.”

“If the job’s right, I can hack it.”

Sunny smiled, though it was slightly less brilliant than her usual. “Funny girl. But this is no laughing matter. If the man doesn’t turn you off, the reason the job’s available will.”

Max steeled herself. She’d never been much of an actress; Cameron could always see right through her attempts to lie. She went for the unconcerned approach. “I’m all ears.”

“The previous bookkeeper was murdered two days ago.” Sunny was clearly stunned over the information, her eyes wide and her perpetual smile absent for the moment.