Vengeance (10 page)

She snickered. “Fine, I'll wait here.” She nudged his thigh with her foot. “When are you coming back?”

Without seeming to notice what he was doing, Max took her bare foot in his hand and slid his thumb along her instep, sending shivers up her spine. “I'll try to sneak out in the early afternoon. I need to meet with a couple of people, but it shouldn't take long.”

He looked at her foot like he just noticed her flesh cupped in his hand, cleared his throat, and let it go. She almost grabbed his hand and begged him to stay, to touch her again like he'd just done while he told her everything there was to know about himself, that they'd worry about the accounting slip later, and—and what the hell was she thinking? Barrister and his cronies were killing innocent people for God knows what reason, and she was the only person standing between him and a powerful public office. Her goddamn libido could wait.

Max slipped on his suit jacket, followed by a black wool overcoat. On the back of a grocery receipt he scribbled something and handed it to her. “Here's my cell phone number. Call me if you need anything.” He grabbed his briefcase as he walked out the door, its contents collected back inside sometime before she'd awoke.

Val heard him drive away in the high-rev engine of a rich-boy car, the kind she would've assumed he used to compensate for some deficiency if she didn't know better. She pushed herself up and resolved to explore the main house, as she'd originally desired on her first night there. After she attended to her basic hygiene with the help of a spare toothbrush she found in the bathroom, she made herself a piece of toast and ate it over the sink. Through the glass of his cabinet doors she spotted the bottle of pills he'd desperately consumed the night before. She recognized the label as a medication for chronic anxiety, the kind her sister had been prescribed after the attack. Behind that bottle were more bottles, different drugs to treat anxiety, insomnia, depression, migraines. God, poor Max. Robby was right—the Carressa heir had some serious skeletons in his closet that he struggled to control. She felt a pang of sadness for him, then anger.

At least he didn't get run down in the prime of his life.

Robby's murder—that was the only reason she squatted in Max's house, slept in his bed, put up with his erratic behavior. Max was undoubtedly an
interesting
guy, and they had something in common that maybe a handful of people in the entire world possessed, but in the end he was irrelevant to her ultimate goal—extracting justice for Robby. Even if she had to rip out her own heart and sacrifice it in the name of vengeance, she'd make those bastards pay. She'd failed to avenge her sister. She refused to fail Robby.

Val threw the rest of her toast away and marched back to the main house, ready to get to work. She spent more than three hours opening every drawer, ransacking every closet, opening every container, poking into every nook for other hidden stashes. As each room failed to yield any further clues and her frustration grew, she held out hope that the freezer, a popular hiding spot for crooks and alcoholics, would give her something, anything. Its innards hid nothing but a freezer-burned pint of ice cream.

“Shit!” Val screamed and smashed a tray of ice on the floor. Great, now what? She could wait for Max to return, like she said she would, but she wasn't confident that he'd come back with useful information, given his relative disinterest with the whole conspiracy. She could call Dean and ask him about the account, but a phone conversation was no substitute for a face-to-face conversation, where she could read his body language and he couldn't hang up on her.

Val bit her lip. She needed to meet with Dean, the sooner the better. Just like she and Robby had tried to do with Chet, her best bet was to track Dean down where no one expected him to be, ambush him before he had time to develop a plausible lie, if he knew something worth lying about. God, she hoped he didn't, for Robby's sake.

Val returned to the guest house—promising herself she'd pay Max's housekeepers to clean the massive mess she'd left behind—and took her clothes off. She paused at the edge of his bed, remembering his offer to “help” her have visions, that they were more powerful when experienced between two people who had the ability. She considered his offer again and dismissed it. She couldn't. No matter how much she liked looking at him, the thought of
tasting
him scared her. Dirty John had been convenient and anonymous; Stacey, safe and familiar. Max was something more. If she'd met him under different circumstances, and she hadn't been engaged to Robby…It was too soon.

She lay down on the bed, had a thought, and pulled open his nightstand drawer. Next to more books and a black zip-up bag sat a little bottle of personal lubrication.

“Thought so,” she said. No self-respecting person with prophetic orgasms would be caught without lube close by.

Val squeezed a glob on her hand—the self-warming kind. Nice. Manual stimulation wasn't as efficient as her vibrator, but she'd perfected the technique through the years. She rubbed the lube between her legs, making slow circles across her clitoris as the wetness and artificial heat helped hone the sensation, like tuning a string that began at her privates and threaded through her belly and into her spine. She played that string and visualized her last moments with Robby, what he'd felt like inside her, his hands caressing her backside, her breasts.

“Robby,” she muttered as the string grew taut and resonated through her body, “where is your father? Show me Dean.” She exhaled, long and ragged, her insides liquid as every muscle in her body tensed at the cusp of climax. She writhed on Max's bed and gripped his sheets, down feather duvet crinkling against her naked skin, the twin smells of his bath soap and aftershave still in the air—

Val gasped and sat straight up after her vision cleared. Holy shit—she'd seen Max die.

She'd seen him die
today
.

She had to call him
now
. Val cast about his house for a landline phone; he didn't have one. She threw her clothes on, sprinted to the main house, and grabbed the first telephone she saw—a cordless one perched atop the kitchen counter. She dialed Max's cell number, and swore when she got his voice mail.

“Max, it's me. You're in danger. When you leave your building through the deliveries entrance—which I'm guessing is in the back—a police officer will catch you there and beat you to death. So you need to either stay in the building or use a different exit or…I don't know, just don't go out that way. Actually, I'm coming to you now, so
don't leave the building
.”

She hung up and ran to where she'd left her powered-down cell phone, atop the dresser in the room she'd slept in her first night at the house. After she turned it on, Val ran back to the guest house, snatched the keys to Max's borrowed car from the kitchen table, along with the wastebasket that held Lester's secret stash, then jumped in the vehicle. She estimated with traffic and stoplights, it would take her about twenty-five minutes to reach Carressa Industries Headquarters. She dialed his phone again; still no answer.

“Goddammit, Max,” she said as she peeled out of the driveway, “if you die today, I will fucking kill you. And then myself.”

T
he early afternoon sun peeked through dark clouds gathering in the sky outside Max's corner office window, glinting off the crystal Better Buying Power awards lining an oak shelf against the far wall. He counted the angles that their refracted light projected across the ceiling like mirror shards, before the sun disappeared with the shifting of the wind. The counting helped him concentrate, refocus away from the grueling board meeting he'd squeaked through, withstanding a barrage of criticism through a delicate tap dance of vision statements and iron-clad confidence to barely keep his job. Michael Beauford, Carressa Industries' chief financial officer, leaned back in a leather chair across from him.

“Charlene's itching to divest of Quality Foods,” Michael said, resting his leathery hands on a once-toned stomach now sagging with age. “They posted a twelve percent loss this quarter. She's concerned they won't rebound from their organic spinach E. coli scare in July. Thinks their earthy-crunchy base demographic is too fickle to forgive. I told her if that were true, my wife would've divorced me forty years ago.” Through a gray beard he gave Max a warm smile that faded when Max failed to reciprocate. “When are you moving into your father's office?”

Michael never ceased to amaze Max with his ability to cut to the heart of the matter with uncanny precision. Ever since Michael rose to CFO nine years ago, Max had trusted and respected him, in no small part because Michael's keen observation skills quickly deduced where the real power behind the company lay.

Max shrugged. “I don't know. Whenever I get around to it.”

Michael scoffed. “That means never.”

“I'm considering turning it into a janitor's closet.”

The CFO folded his arms, another disapproving father figure Max didn't need. “Ignoring the situation won't make it go away.”

“That's an interesting hypothesis. I'll let you know how my trial run goes.”

“Yuk it up, buddy boy, but the board isn't going to tolerate your antics for much longer. You put on a nice show in there, and they like you better than they did your father, but the leeway you've been given to grieve is over. If you don't get your head out of your ass and start leading this company, it won't be yours much longer.”

Max frowned at the far wall, avoiding Michael's stern gaze. Since his father died and the pressure to pulse the future for business advice had lifted, he'd disengaged from the majority of his responsibilities, probably to an extreme degree, he now realized. He'd stopped attending meetings, canceled appointments, holed up in his office, came to work high—when he bothered to come to work at all. At least most of the board mistook grief as the cause of his maladjustment.

“And for God's sake, get rid of the Red Raven in Moonlight.” Michael said the name of Max's club like the words left a film of oil on his tongue. “It's bad enough that the police are
still
investigating you over Lester's death. If the press finds out about the place, it'll be a PR disaster. The board will turn on you for sure.”

How the hell did Michael know about the Red Raven? The club was his sanctuary, one of the very few places he felt safe. He couldn't give it up, but Michael was right; only luck had kept the Red Raven out of the public eye for this long. He had to choose: the Red Raven or control of Carressa Industries.

“Do you recognize this account number?” Max handed Michael the accounting slip Val had found with Dean Price's name on it.

Michael rolled his eyes at Max's abrupt change of subject, but took the paper. “No.” He read the slip, raised an eyebrow. “Dean Price is your defense lawyer, right?”

Max nodded.

“Huh. Odd.” He turned the paper in his hand, looking for signs of fakery. “Where'd you get this?”

“From a stack of old papers in my father's study.”

“I'll run it down in accounting,” Michael said.

“Don't bother.” Max took back the paper. “I'll do it. I'm overdue for a walkabout anyway.”

Michael shrugged. “You're the boss.” He drummed his fingers on the seat's armrests and ballooned his craggy cheeks out in a puff of air. “Listen, it's natural to have trouble reconciling conflicted feelings about the death of a family member when the relationship was…contentious. If you need someone to talk to, I can recommend a therapist who's discreet.”

Max laughed at that. “Contentious” was putting it mildly. A therapist could write an entire book about his issues, right before she threw him into the insane asylum.

“I already have someone to talk to.” He had Val—sort of. He could tell her more than most people, though not everything. Maybe one day. Or never.

Her sense of right and wrong seemed…not absolute, though well developed. Better than his. She knew one of his most closely kept secrets—but only one of them. To expect her to understand, and then forgive him, was unrealistic. She'd eventually find her fiancé's killer—of that he had no doubt—then leave him to go back to her normal life, find another normal man like Robby to love. Or she'd stay, and he'd have to tell her the truth someday, then she'd leave him. Either way, she'd never be his. He wouldn't beg her to stay. He'd already tried that with Ethan; he wouldn't embarrass himself again.

Max pushed away the black hole that threatened to swallow his thoughts, stood, and forced out a smile. “Thanks for the talk, Michael. I'll tag up with Charlene about Quality Foods later.”

Michael nodded, an extended exhale betraying his skepticism. He paused on his way out the door. “Just promise me you're not off to throw on tights and start fighting crime.”

Max stepped off the elevator onto the fourteenth floor. He walked through the cubicle farm that made up the accounting department, past number crunchers hunched over their computers who did double takes when he walked by. On his path to Dewey Dryer's office, the head of Accounting, he greeted employees. “Hi, Linda, how're you doing?” “John, how are the kids?” “Ben, finally housetrained that puppy of yours?” He liked talking to people about their normal lives, vicariously experiencing what it might be like to be a regular person. One man's banal story about taking his elderly mother to the dentist was Max's impossible dream.

Eventually he found Dewey Dryer's office with the door propped open. He poked his head in and saw the middle-aged man at his desk, deep into an earnings report packed with spreadsheets. Max cleared his throat, and Dewey's head snapped up.

“Mr. Carressa!” Dewey stumbled out of his seat.

Max shook his hand.

“Nobody told me you were coming down here. Um…How are things? Oh geez, that's a stupid question. Dead dad and all. I mean—what can I do you for?”

Ignoring Dewey's awkwardness, Max showed him the accounting slip. “I need to know more about this account. Do you recognize it?”

Dewey scrutinized the paper for a moment. “Hmm”—he rubbed his chin—“looks like an old one. Before my time, even.” He poked his finger in the air. “I bet Georgie would know about this. He's been here since the company's beginning, I think. Have you met him?”

“No,” Max said as he followed Dewey to Georgie's cube, tucked away in the corner. “I'm surprised we've never been introduced, if he's been here all this time.”

“His name's George McOwen, but everybody calls him Georgie. Not sure if it's by choice, but he doesn't complain. He's a quiet guy, prefers to stay out of the spotlight. Real hard worker, though.” Dewey stopped beside Georgie's cube wall and whispered to Max, “I mean, I assume he's not secretly a gun-toting psycho, but it's always the quiet ones, right?” He winked and chuckled.

Max tried to smile politely; it came out as more of a cringe.

Dewey rapped on the thin partition wall. “Hi, Georgie!” he said to the pudgy man in a wrinkled white dress shirt and too-short tie, plinking away at his keyboard.

Georgie jerked so hard at Dewey's voice that he knocked over a travel mug, spilling coffee onto the papers scattered across his desk top. “Dang it!” He struggled to his feet and grabbed fistfuls of other papers off his desk to mop up the mess.

“This is Mr. Carressa—Maxwell Carressa, I mean. The one that's alive.”

Max righted the travel mug, stanching the flow of coffee, and smiled at Georgie. Georgie adjusted his Coke bottle glasses and swallowed hard.

“Oh, um, hi, Mr. Carressa,” he said in a voice barely audible.

“I'd appreciate your help on something, Georgie,” Max said. “Is it all right if I call you Georgie?”

Georgie shrugged. “Your father did.”

Lester was on a first-name basis with this guy? Max made an effort to be friendly and cordial with his employees; his father had not. Lester would never bother getting to know someone he considered a grunt unless that person had something he wanted. Why had Max never met Georgie before?

Max held out the paper. “What is this account?”

Georgie eyed the document. His face grew pale. “I don't know.”

“Are you sure?” Max asked, ignoring his cell phone vibrating against his chest. “I found this in a stack of my father's records. Dewey says it looks like an old account. Will you take another look, please?”

“I…I don't know the account,” he mumbled.

Max's cell phone vibrated again. As he reached into his pocket to check it, he froze when a plaque on Georgie's cluttered desk caught his eye. Worn oak the size of a half-sheet of paper surrounded a copper plate that read: “George McOwen, Employee of the Month, August 1995.” Etched in the wood above the plate: “Bombay and Price Law Offices, LLC.”

“You used to work for Dean Price,” Max said. He looked at Georgie as the man's face scrunched with the effort of holding in secrets he didn't have the intestinal fortitude to keep. “You're
sure
you don't know this account?”

“I've never seen it. Never seen it before.” Beads of sweat popped onto Georgie's brow. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Why don't you check your archives?” Dewey said, oblivious to Georgie's growing anguish. “You've got all sorts of gems in there that've helped us out of a pickle. Like when we got court-ordered to hand over every record we had on Red Bell Ice Cream, and you dug up nuggets going back to its acquisition in like nineteen ninety-eight—”

A mother of a fart ripped from Georgie. His face turned red and he grimaced. “Oh, God!” he sputtered, “I have to go!” He barreled past Max and Dewey, leaving the rancid smell of his digested breakfast in his wake. His coworkers gawked and slapped hands over their mouths as he shuffled for the exit as quickly as his legs would go, a brown stain blooming on the rear of his pants.

“Sweet Jesus,” Dewey said, holding his nose. “That stomach bug is really making the rounds.” He pulled a tube of sanitizer from his pocket and rubbed a glob of it on his hands. “Sorry about that, Mr. Carressa. I guess we'll have to wait until he comes back from his emergency sick day. Maybe tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” Max stared at the spot where Georgie had disappeared. “I'll come back tomorrow. Thanks for your help.”

The fact that Georgie literally crapped his pants when Max asked about the account was a good sign he was on to something. And Georgie's previous employment at Bombay and Price couldn't be a coincidence, either. What in the world it had to do with Barrister, Max still had no idea. But Georgie might.

He could go straight to the source and ask Dean why his name was on this old account, but he should touch base with Val first—assuming she hadn't already contacted Dean despite his objections. Actually, that seemed like something she would definitely do. Might as well head home and compare notes. His phone vibrated yet again; he finally checked it, and saw four missed calls from Val, though it was Kitty on the line this time.

“Have you talked to your lawyers yet?” Kitty's silky voice had an edge of panic to it that immediately put Max on alert.

“Not today. Why?”

“Because a judge just issued a warrant for your arrest. The police are coming for you now.”

“What?
Fuck.
” Max rubbed his forehead and tried to shield his crestfallen face from onlookers. For a second he considered asking Kitty how the hell she'd come by this information so quickly, but Kitty worked in mysterious and very effective ways that he preferred not to question.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I don't know yet.” He walked back toward the elevator, trying to appear calm as his thoughts raced. “Call my lawyers. Make sure they know what's going on. And keep them away from the Red Raven, if you can. I'll…be in touch.”

He hung up and dialed his secretary. “Nadine, please have the valet bring my car around front.” He pushed the “up” button for the elevator. “I'm going to swing by the office to grab my things, then I'm going home for the day.”

“I'll do that now, Mr. Carressa,” Nadine said.

After he hung up, he cut right, away from the elevator and into the building's stairwell. Hopefully the appearance that he was leaving out the front with no clue he was about to be arrested would throw off the police for a few precious minutes while he made his escape through the back, an area that'd been closed off due to construction in the parking lot. He didn't have a plan other than getting the hell out of there. He couldn't trust the cops, not after they'd tried to kill Val—

Shit, Val.

If they had a warrant for his arrest, they'd soon have a warrant to search his house, where they'd find her. The crooked cops who'd tried to end her life once might finish the job. He needed to escape, at least temporarily, to warn Val. Maybe ask her to meet him somewhere, if he could evade capture for that long.