Power to the Max (37 page)

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Max couldn’t think, couldn’t scream. She could only do what she’d sworn she wouldn’t: run. She didn’t remember making it to her car, starting it, and peeling out. She only remembered fishtailing on the road, narrowly missing an oncoming car as she struggled to correct.

Gut-wrenching fear assailed her. Hammerhead had outfitted the hotel room and the car with a video camera. They’d anticipated that she’d balk at a room and led her into making the choice they wanted.

Please God, let him have only watched. Please don’t let him have recorded Witt.

She tried to remember the last time God had answered her prayers.

A full three blocks later, she came to her senses. She wouldn’t think about Bud Traynor watching her with Witt. No, no, no, she wouldn’t. Not now, not ever. She’d pretend it never happened. She’d think about helping Julia. Yes, helping Julia to get help. Maybe her lawyer could claim temporary insanity as a defense. The first step, call Witt and tell him about the video, about Julia being the murderer. What was it he’d told her before? If a regular citizen reports something suspicious in a person’s house, that could sometimes be enough for the police to get a search warrant. Okay, so she hadn’t seen any smoking guns in Traynor’s place, but that video was evidence. It had to be. It proved Julia knew Angela, the woman her husband was having an affair with.

They’d both been having an affair with her. And Julia hadn’t known until that night. Had she known Angela was paid, a working girl, a prostitute? Probably not at first, but it would have come out when Julia confronted Lance. The knowledge that Angela had been paid to seduce her was surely what drove Julia over the edge.

Max pulled over and reached into the glove compartment where she kept the cell phone Witt had given her. She hesitated before turning the damn thing on. It wasn’t his case. He couldn’t do a thing. So what? He’d know how to tell the cops in charge of the case. She dialed, pushed send and got that horrible message, “The cellular customer you’re trying to reach—”

Double damn. She slammed the phone back into its hidey-hole. He always had his phone on. Like Scully and Mulder on the
X-Files
, it practically grew out of his ear. If he’d turned his phone off, he was doing something awfully important. Or he’d traveled out of the service area. Or he was ignoring her because she’d pissed him off. God, what were his parting words last night? He’d said he couldn’t protect her. Not wouldn’t. Can’t. Not won’t. What did it mean? Well, that sure as hell didn’t matter now.

Witt had left her. Cameron hadn’t returned, even though she’d left Bud’s house.

Max was on her own.

The rain picked up, obscuring the view through her windshield and pelting the vinyl roof of the convertible. Down the street, a crossing guard in a yellow rain slicker guided children through an intersection. She realized now that a steady row of cars flowed past her. She sat near a school in a pretty little neighborhood with a pretty little schoolyard where pretty little children played and a monster lived in their midst. The parents certainly didn’t know. No one knew. Except her.

The age-old question hit her in a way she’d never thought of before. If a person had known during Hitler’s rise to power what he would turn out to be, would it have been morally right to kill him?

Was it her moral obligation to blow Bud Traynor’s brains out, to stop the evil that he spread around him like a slow-growing, choking vine?

She didn’t know. She only knew she had three choices concerning Lance’s wife: call the cops, confront Julia—and possibly get herself killed—or call Angela to warn her. Yesterday in her office, Julia had gone on about betrayal, and in the end, it was Angela who had been the betrayer, not Lance.

Max chose Angela, the next most likely victim. Angela didn’t answer her cell phone. Max texted her, keying in the cell phone number, ending it with 911. It was, after all, an emergency.

She waited five minutes, ten, fifteen. The stream of cars ended. School had started. Angela was probably still asleep.

Max started the engine. She had no idea where Angela lived, but, after the day of their memorable shopping trip through
San Francisco
, she did know the garage in which Angela parked her car. Max would have to stake it out.

Halfway to the City, another thought stabbed through her consciousness. Julia had gone into the hotel last night. Angela was not answering her phone today. Oh my God, was Angela dead already? Max swore at the bunched-up, tail-end commute traffic, made worse by an accident ahead, and pounded on the steering wheel.

An hour later, she pulled into Angela’s garage. The first two levels were public, a couple of cars circling in front of her. The upper levels were long term. She couldn’t get her car up there without a special card. Parking on the second level by a set of stairs, in what seemed to be the only remaining open spot, Max moved to the ledge closest to the street so she could try the cell phone again.

The cacophony of hard rain and street traffic rose to surround her. Even if Angela did call, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hear her. Below her, umbrellas ran through the downpour, yellow raincoats with hoods dashed down the avenue. What didn’t rise was the scent of exhaust, garbage and filthy roads, the rain cleansing the air, washing away the sins of the city for a short time.

Her cell never rang. Max climbed the stairs to the third level. Stupid, the security card was required for cars only, but anyone could get into the stairwells. She walked the aisles and found nothing. From below came the squeal of tires cruising the rows. But here, she was above it all, alone, an almost comforting feeling. Finally, on the fifth floor, she got lucky. Angela’s silver Jaguar sat in a space at the end, next to the wall, parked nose out. Max wondered now, as she had before, if Lance had bought her the car.

Once again retreating to the ledge overlooking the street, she used the phone, trying Witt again. Again nothing. Damn, damn, damn, the man really was ignoring her, making her pay for last night’s transgression. Well, she could do it without him. In fact, why didn’t she call the San Francisco cops? Angela might be lying near death somewhere.

“You’re psychic. Close your eyes and figure it out.” Cameron. “Use your God-given gifts.”

She almost threw herself down on the concrete and cried for joy. She wasn’t alone, not totally, completely alone. Rather than let him see that—duh, he could read her mind—she argued.

“I’ve never done something like that before.” She’d always had revealing dreams or touched something. Except when she was possessed and simply
knew
things about the victim. This time she didn’t even have that advantage. Not that she’d ever thought of possession as an advantage before.

“What about the trance?”

Oh that. The thing Cameron had coaxed her into doing the other night, leading Max to discover that Julia had witnessed the scene with Angela and Lance in her own office. She certainly couldn’t lie down in the middle of the parking garage and self-hypnotize.

Cameron pushed at her. “You’ve got Angela’s business card. Touch it. Use it.”

She’d memorized the number and forgotten about the card itself, still safely stowed in an inside pocket of her purse. She supposed she could use Angela’s car as a touching conduit, but the card, with its slogan, “Let Fantasy Become Reality,” seemed so much more ... Angela.

Max fished it out. With a deep breath and her palms together, she pressed the card between them. Breathing deeply three times, in, out, in, out, in, out, she saw Angela’s laughing face, drops of rain dotting cheeks free of makeup, hair slightly wet and curling around her face. She looked younger, more innocent, and very much alive.

“Is it a now picture?” Cameron asked.

Yes, the rain. It was now.

“She’s close.” A sigh of relief. She could almost smell the perfume Angela wore, fresh, nothing flowery. “She’s very near.”

Angela burst through the door from the stairway and stopped when she saw Max, though her smile didn’t fade.

“Are you by yourself?” Max wanted to know. Angela had been laughing. With someone?

Angela raised her arms. “Totally alone.”

God, the girl laughed even when on her own. Max’s insides tensed with envy. Oh, to be able to laugh all by herself. She couldn’t remember a time she’d ever done that. The back of her throat ached with want for it, and the words
teach me how
almost bubbled from her lips.

“What’s up?”

Max realized she’d been staring, writing her very thoughts on her own face. She wiped them away. “Julia La Russa.”

“Hmmm?” Angela reached into her purse and pulled out her keys. Her face revealed nothing. The car alarm bleeped. She moved to the driver’s side, but didn’t step between the Jag and the wall.

“Your friend, Bud Traynor, showed me a video of you with Julia.” Max paused long enough for the first statement to sink in, then added, “I also know that Lance La Russa was murdered one week ago, and you were probably the last person to see him alive.” One more beat of silence. “Except for his killer.”

The vestiges of laughter slipped from Angela’s eyes and lips. She didn’t ask how or why Bud had shown Max the video, how Max knew about the Lance connection, or even acknowledge the veiled question in Max’s words. All she said was, “Remember when I told you I liked helping people?”

“Yes.”

“Julia needed help finding herself.”

“You mean discovering that she’s a lesbian?”

“It’s not a crime, Max.”

“I didn’t say that it was.”

“But it’s not the sexual orientation alone. It’s admitting that she hated her life, hated the compromises she had to make. She’s healthier admitting the truth.” Angela couldn’t seem to help explaining.

“But you didn’t admit the truth to her, did you? That Bud Traynor paid you to get her on camera.” Max’s eyes dropped to Angela’s fingers, white as they clutched the keys. “Why are you so nervous, Angela?”

The other woman’s gaze dropped to the floor of the garage. “I love her a bit.”

Max swallowed. “I do, too. A bit.” In many ways, she’d felt she’d lied to Julia, too.

Julia had been used and lied to her entire married life. She didn’t deserve the same from Max, even if she had finally struck out and killed her tormentor. Had Lance known about her deepest desires and used them to structure his life the way he wanted it?

After a deep breath and a sigh, Max admitted her feelings. “I don’t want her to be her husband’s murderer.”

“She’s not,” Angela shot back.

“That was a little too quick.” Max crossed her arms, hooking the strap of her purse between her thumb and forefinger. “Bud also told me that Julia went to her office the night her husband was killed. She discovered her husband there. With you.” Max didn’t add that she’d watched the scene herself in psychic replay.

Angela’s gaze suddenly clouded. Tears misted her eyes. “Yes, that’s true.”

Max took a step closer to Angela. “Tell me what happened.”

Angela looked up to the corner of the ceiling. “She found us. I felt like shit. I didn’t want her to find out that way.”

“What happened?” Max repeated, the horrible urge to fold her arms around Angela almost overwhelming.

“I thought it was their business, not mine. She needed to deal with him first. Then me. So I left.”

“You left Julia alone with her husband?”

“Yes,” voice small, quiet, but not weak.

“So you know what she must have done.”

Angela sniffed but said nothing.

“She might try to kill you, too, you know.”

Angela finally met Max’s stare, her brown eyes soft and hurt like an abused animal. “She didn’t kill Lance. She couldn’t have. Someone else came in after her. I know it.”

“No, Angela.”

“Lots of people hated Lance. They could have—”

Max cut her off. “No, Angela.”

Angela shook her head, then answered as if Max had asked another question. “I’m not turning her in. I’m not telling the police.”

“I’ll do it for you.” Yes, she would. Moral obligation, civic duty and all. Forget friendship and caring. God, she could really hate herself sometimes.