Power to the Max (19 page)

Damn. Witt was right. The slight sexual high thrumming through her veins did make everything clearer, sharper. Weird.

“Thank you for coming, Max.” Julia took Max’s arm, pulled her inside. Her benign smile didn’t befit the recently widowed. The turn of her lips might mean she hadn’t cared much for Lance and didn’t care that he was gone. Or it could be a smile Julia La Russa hid behind, her charity smile, her public facade. For all Max knew, she herself had hidden behind such a smile in those first weeks after Cameron’s death. Despite sensing the woman’s warmth beneath her subdued exterior, Max couldn’t quite be sure who the real Julia was.

The lobby—Max couldn’t think of another word for it, it was that big—held the warmth of the morning sun from the row of ceiling-high windows above the front door.

“This time, I made tea beforehand so you wouldn’t have to wait.” Ever the perfect hostess, the flow of words never ceased as Julia led the way up the stairs in graceful pumps with wide heels no more than two inches tall. “I do hope you like tea. I know most people prefer coffee, and I can make it if you want, but tea is somehow more civilized. Unless it’s after dinner. Coffee is perfect after dinner.”

They turned up the right-hand staircase. And still the monologue went on. Max failed to take it all in, sure she didn’t need to. No clues there, except again, that suggestion of a facade Julia hid behind, and perhaps nervousness.

A bank of windows at the back, above the stairs, faced those at the front. Through them, yards and yards of green grass led up to a grove of eucalyptus, acting as a windbreak. Below the window, Max caught a glimpse of patio, a water fountain, and stone benches as she followed Julia around the next curve in the staircase.

Julia’s black dress swished against the banister. The house was deceptively small, especially considering the cavernous lobby. Downstairs, Max had noted the music room on the left, a large dining room on the right, with the kitchen presumably at the back of the house. On the second level, two doors on the right of the staircase and two on the left. Granted, the doors were far apart, leading one to believe the rooms were of good size, but there could still be no more than four bedrooms.

Did two people need any more? There’d been no mention of surviving children in the article Max had found in the paper. The house lacked the requisite patter of small feet and other noise. Fatherhood for Lance La Russa didn’t feel right.

Following Julia, Max discovered one of the bedrooms employed as an office. Julia’s soliloquy ended when she directed Max to a comfortable chintz-covered sofa. A tea service graced the coffee table, two cups, bone china, and a teapot covered by a royal blue velvet tea cozy. Almost ceremonially, Julia lifted the cozy, smoothing it over her knee, and from that angle, Max could see the inside lined with gold quilted satin.

“This was given to me by my aunt. It’s from Queen
Victoria
’s Diamond Jubilee.”

Something the First Lady, Mrs. Johnson, would have used. Ladybird Long would adore it. Julia stroked the velvet as if she found comfort in it, finally putting aside the cozy to pour tea into the fine cups.

With the house facing southeast on the slight rise, the sun shone through the latticed windows, catching the cozy’s threads of gold and making them sparkle. Julia studied the prisms of light rather than Max as she spoke. “I didn’t tell you the truth about why I invited you.”

So what was new? People never told the truth. They always had hidden motives, hidden agendas. She did, however, admire Julia’s honesty.

“I don’t want you to write cards or answer the phone, or any of the things Bud suggested. I wouldn’t even have asked you here, except...” Julia seemed to chew on her inside lip. “There’s no easy way to explain it. I wanted to talk about your husband.”

“My husband?” Max perched on the edge of the couch, and the pleasant sexual high Witt had left her with died a quick death.

“Cream and sugar?” At Max’s shell-shocked nod, Julia poured before she continued. Max took the proffered cup.

“Yes, your husband.” For the first time, Julia’s eyes met Max’s, and there was something there, some deep pain, more than grief, something that had been there far longer than the time her husband had been dead. Could it have been a sense of betrayal? “I need someone to understand. No one else can. Oh, Baxter tries.” She dipped her head, her cup remaining steady. “But he doesn’t really know what it’s like to lose someone to murder.”

“And I suppose you think I do?”
How do you feel, Max? Does her question reach inside and rip your guts out?
Actually, she felt nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a twinge. That momentary flutter of something around her heart had merely been surprise. “What do you want to know?”

“I’m sorry.” Julia’s lips flattened in a thin, tense line. “I should have asked if this bothers you.”

“It doesn’t, not anymore, not for a long time.” Max was very good at lying, especially to herself.

Cameron was right. But her mission wouldn’t allow it. Find Lance’s killer. Eventually something would lead to Bud Traynor and she’d bring him down with a vengeance. To accomplish that, she could endure anything.

Julia put a hand out, almost as if she planned to touch Max’s knee. “How long?”

“How long since he was killed?”

“No, since it stopped hurting.”

She almost said it, but knew it wasn’t what Julia wanted to hear. “I don’t know. The first holiday afterwards was the worst. I hated TV commercials showing happy families. The first anniversary of his ... death.” That word aloud was like blasphemy, worse because its use was becoming so effortless. “That day was bad, too.” All the anniversaries were bad, including their wedding.

Julia sipped her tea, licked her lower lip, something Max assumed a well-bred lady wasn’t supposed to do, something that could be construed as a sign of nervousness, like the excessive talking. The cup clattered as she set it back in its saucer. “When did you stop thinking constantly about him?”

Kind of hard to do that when he talked to her most of the time. Max took a steadying breath. “I don’t want to lie to you. My husband was killed two years ago.” Pause, for calm. “And it still isn’t easy.” She wondered if it would have been if Cameron had left her the day he died. Maybe in two years she’d ask Julia.

Julia chomped on the inside of her cheek again, then fluttered a hand. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. I ... I...” The sheen of real tears misted her eyes.

“What you’re trying to say is that not many friends of yours have had their husbands murdered. All you’ve got is me to talk to about it.” Burying her own feelings on the subject, Max spoke with brutal intention, not sure if what she said was true, but needing to push at Julia until she learned why the woman had brought her here.

Harsh words notwithstanding, Julia seemed unoffended. “Yes. Is that an awful thing to ask?”

If Julia was acting, she was damn good at it and had definitely missed her calling. Her hand trembled slightly as she put her cup and saucer on the table. She blinked back that subtle mistiness before tears fell, her brown eyes sad as a whipped mongrel.

Max believed her. She’d even admit she wanted to believe. Julia was a sympathetic person, certainly not a murderer. “Most people need to talk to someone who won’t mouth platitudes.”

“Yes,” Julia agreed, her voice soft and inner-directed.

“Have you thought of a support group? I’m sure you could find one with other people who’ve gone through the same thing.”

Julia didn’t jump at Max’s suggestion. Grief counseling sometimes didn’t happen for weeks or months afterward. If at all. “Did you join some sort of group?”

Cameron had only lost his body. He hadn’t gone away. Max didn’t think there were any support groups for that. “No,” she answer simply.

“Why?” Nothing idle about the question or the way Julia strained forward waiting for the answer.

Max felt the odd urge to touch her hand, to soothe, though she only showed minimal outward signs of stress. “I didn’t want them to think I was crazy.”

She didn’t want to give up Cameron for the sake of healing.

Julia, strangely, didn’t ask why Max had used that word. “You never want to reveal the worst things to a bunch of strangers, do you?” She said it almost thoughtfully, gaze on her nearly empty cup at the edge of the table, fingers playing with the wedding band on her left hand.

“The operative word being
bunch
?” Max prompted.

“Yes,” Julia finally murmured, eyes rising to meet Max’s. “Yes. I’ve always liked being the center of attention. This is the first time it seems like a...” Her voice trailed off.

“Like an intrusion?”

“Yes. Isn’t that odd?”

“It’s first time you’ve really needed someone to actually listen and understand.” You didn’t get that from a crowd at a cocktail party or a fundraiser.

“Maybe it’s anyone,” Julia whispered, a quiver to her lips. “I’ve never needed to talk in quite this way.”

Someone to talk to. Max had needed that, too. Cameron was the one who came to her rescue. She had a feeling old Lance wasn’t going to rush in on his celestial white charger to save his wife.

“Guess I’m the chosen one.”

Julia’s nostrils twitched, then she sniffed. “Is it too much to ask?”

Max wasn’t clear exactly what the other woman was asking for, but the question spread a strange sensation through her limbs, like bacteria multiplying, accompanied by echoes of Cameron’s voice.
Tell her.
It had been the litany of their afterlife together.
Tell someone. Free yourself.
She’d heard the words so often they almost seemed branded on the inside of her eyelids.

Max ignored Cameron as she had so many times before. She’d tell the truth, but never the whole of it. She’d stick with Julia simply to find out the truth about Lance, nothing more.

“The only way we’re alike is murder, Julia.” That’s how she started, not really knowing what Julia wanted. She felt vaguely guilty contemplating the woman as a confidante. It should have been Cameron. Or Witt. Even her former best friend, Sutter Cahill.

There was something to be said for personal distance.

“We’re alike in other ways, Max.” Julia picked up the tea cozy again and began toying with the gilt edges. Max said nothing, waiting for her to go on. “You said you couldn’t go to a support group because they’d think you were crazy.” Pause. Wait. Continue. “They would have thought there was something wrong with me, too.” Finger along the piping, Julia slipped a hand inside to caress the satin quilting. “You see, I knew about Lance and his other women.” Deep breath. “We didn’t talk about it. I simply knew he had to have the kind of wife who accepted. So that’s what I did.”

Betrayal as motive? After so many years? Perhaps. Perhaps that had caused the deep pain she’d glimpsed in Julia’s eyes. So many different ways to betray, so many levels. Julia accepted her husband’s peccadilloes, but how much rope had he wanted? Would renting an apartment for one of his other women have pushed Julia past her bearable limit?

Julia smoothed her hand around the inside of the cozy. “I know what you think. Desperate older woman.”

“There’s not that much of an age difference between us, Julia.”

She snorted, a definite un-Julia-like sound. “Enough. Especially when a man turns forty. That’s when they start looking to the younger women anyway.”

“Maybe you’re right. My husband was thirteen years older than I was.” The chemistry, though, had been immediate and permanent, still potent after death.

“No other women?”

“I would have killed him if he had.” But what about the days he disappeared after the bitter fights? Where had he gone? The thought of an affair had never entered Max’s head. It wasn’t trust. It was simply inconceivable that Cameron could take in another woman’s breath or feel someone else’s heartbeat against his chest.

Inconceivable. Wasn’t it?

No reassuring voice sounded in her head.

She thought of the comfort of strangers and started telling Julia about the night Cameron died. Only to fill the silence in her head. Only to get back at Cameron for letting that last question dangle unanswered. Bastard. She certainly wasn’t doing it because he’d told her to tell.