Vengeance to the Max (29 page)

He went on with a dreamy quality to his voice. “Cordelia was the most perfect woman, Max.”

“Child,” Max corrected with venom.

“I would have done anything for her, Max.”

“You gave up everything. Was it worth it?”

He spread his arms. “Does it look like it was, Max?” He had it all. Money, power, influence.

“You couldn’t have known it would turn out well. For you, at least,” she had to add.

“It wouldn’t have mattered.” He leaned closer, dropping his voice, and enveloped her with his intimate tone. “Haven’t you ever wanted something so badly you’d give anything to possess it, Max? Anything that was asked of you?”

She answered without a pause, without a blink, and meant the words with all her heart. “Your death.”

He let out a contented, elongated breath. “A passionate goal, Max. In the end you will lose everything for it, but you’ll never be satisfied.” He distanced himself from her. “I feel sorry for you, Max, that you couldn’t say it was Cameron you wanted. Or even that small-minded detective of yours.”

It bothered her, too. But the die was cast. “We were talking about Cordelia.”

Once again, that dreamy smile curved his lips. “Such a pity she had to die. Such a pity Wendy did, too.” His fingers stroked his wineglass. “Until you, Wendy had always been my favorite. I adored her, Max.”

His favorite what? God, his own daughter. He’d arranged her death when she defied him.

“You’re so like her, Max. It’s as if she lives on inside of you.”

He was neatly arranging her demise, too.

Max suddenly knew why she had come, why she had searched for Bud. She’d wanted a confession. She was hunting for the reason to do what she’d always wanted and needed to do, what she’d vowed to Wendy she would do. She wanted to kill him. He’d given her the reason, one beyond vengeance, beyond the personal. He could kill even the ones he loved, a man capable of devouring his own young. Like a fucking rodent. Max had been born to stop him. She was Bud Traynor’s destiny. And he was hers.

She knew the way to push his buttons, to throw him off balance, to extract that confession. Leaning her chin on her hand, she fixed him with a beguiling gaze. “So tell me, Bud, how does your aunt fit into all this?” His aunt, the woman who had played master to his victim, probably for the only time in his life.

“My godmother,” he corrected evenly. “She was my first victim, Max.” He licked his lips as if savoring victory. He’d been ready for her and betrayed nothing, not even with a flash of emotion in his eyes. If he’d had any lingering emotions about his own victimization, he’d quashed them between last night and today. Damn and double damn. She’d lost whatever advantage she’d had.

“I showed such potential, being only thirteen at the time.”

Thirteen. That irredeemable age, when evil vanquished good and murderers were made.

The subject no longer an advantage to her, she altered it. “Tell me why you killed them.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Cameron and Cordelia?” he asked, then went on as if she’d confirmed. “I loved them both.” Bud covered her hand with his. She flicked him off as she would a disgusting bug. He smiled at the action and went on without losing his train of thought. “But they weren’t infallible, Max. And I quickly learned they weren’t perfect.”

What the hell did he know? She’d decided to kill him, now all she had to do was figure out when, where, and how. His words flowed over her. Half listening, her mind ran through all her options. Did she want to get caught? Did she want to do it in a blaze of glory and go down like Joan of Arc, a martyr? Or did she want to sneak in and out, hide in the shadows, keep her life, not blameless but guiltless?

“Did you know that, Max?”

“What?” Shit, idiot, she’d lost the thread. “No. How do you know?” There, good, she didn’t let on that she hadn’t paid attention.

“I had him followed. Do you want to know her name, Max?” Bud’s eyes glowed with anticipation.

Damn, she really did miss something. What the hell was he going on about? She said the only thing she could say. “Her name isn’t important.”

“The name of your husband’s lover isn’t important, Max?”

She laughed. Again, eyes focused on them. She imagined them greedy and her voice overloud. She turned the laugh into a sneer. “That’s your best attempt yet. Sorry it didn’t work.”

He raised a brow, solicitous, sympathetic. “The wife’s always the last to know, Max.”

Dickhead. Like a news flash across a TV screen came an image of Izzie Monroe’s letters juxtaposed with Cameron’s explanations about them. But those were letters across two thousand miles. They meant nothing.
Nothing
.

“Drink your wine, my dear Max,” he said softly, as if he could hear the wheels working overtime in her head and wanted to give them the chance to work his magic for him. Chin cupped in his hand, Bud indicated the glass with his finger.

She straightened her spine. She wouldn’t fall for his baiting. To drink or not to drink? What impression did abstinence give? Weakness? Max tipped the glass to her lips, tested. Yes, a little drier, but still sweet enough for her palate. “I see through your games. Divide and conquer. Turn me against him. Make me think he deserved what he got.”

That deeply sad facade fell over him again. “No one deserved what Cameron got, Max. There was simply no other choice.” He reached across the table and pulled off a chunk of fresh bread to dip in the balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and garlic. “But I don’t want you living with an idealized vision of him.” His lips parted, his teeth bared in preparation, he added, “You’re too young to waste your life pining for a dead man, Max.”

Biting down, oil dripped over his chin. He blotted his napkin. The pungent garlic odor made her nose twitch and her mouth water.

Anger welled in her like a water predator breaking the surface of a calm pool. “How I choose to live my life is none of your business. Don’t try to confuse me with any of this other shit.” The words were harsh and all the more softly spoken for the bubbling anger in her. “You’re picking off his killers to cover your own ass, and you’re framing me for it.” Her chin jutted. “Tell me, did you use
my
gun to do it?”

He tipped his head, not the least bit affected by her tone. “Are you by any chance wearing a wire tap, Max? I’m sure your little boyfriend would suggest that.”

She opened the lapels of her jacket, revealing the skintight turtleneck beneath. “Does it look like a wire is in there?”

His eyes roved over her breasts. He exhaled a breath. “No wire, Max.” He dragged his gaze to hers. “I love red. I dream about you in the tiny things I touched in your bureau.” He grabbed her hand. “Feel me, I’m hard as a rock.”

“Don’t fucking touch me.” Christ, he was insane. He was in some strange way confessing to murder and attempting seduction at the same time.

“Come into the back with me, Max.” To the restrooms where he could lock the door and have his way with her. They both thought of Tiffany, she knew by the glitter in his gaze. Tiffany, the exhibitionist, the one who thrived on the
fantasies in other peoples’ minds. “Come outside to my car.”

She wasn’t seduced, the furthest thing from it, but she saw the opportunity and took it with both hands. “First tell me why you did it. Why you married Evelyn instead of Madeline. What you did to Cordelia and Cameron.”

“How many times have I said I’d tell you everything you want to know, Max?” He gave her a smile, a breath, in one beat of her heart. “All you have to do is come”—his tongue lingered over the word, dipped and softened—“with me first, then I’ll tell you whatever you want.” He licked his lips. “I’ll even tell you how you can save yourself, Max.”

“I already know how to do that.” She thought of the gun she no longer had. She thought of Witt’s gun in its shoulder holster. She thought of the ways she could get to it, the things it would do to Bud’s skull. “And I don’t
need
to know why. All I need to know is that you did.” She lifted the white napkin from her lap and laid it across her silverware.

“And
do
you know?”

She stood, smoothed her long jacket over her turtleneck, her pants. “I think I always have, but I didn’t understand what I was hearing.” She pivoted on her heel, turned back at the last minute. “That’s Evelyn in the picture in your den, isn’t it?”

She’d broken into his house looking for proof of his guilt and seen that picture. Bud had caught her. She was still searching for hard evidence. She’d hound him until she found it.

“Of course, Max. One should never tell a lie one doesn’t have to.” He’d told her it was his wife, and it was. He’d told her Wendy’s mother died in childbirth, and she assumed he’d been speaking of the woman in the picture. He was a master at twisting even what a person inferred from his words.

She should have realized the moment she saw Evelyn. There had been a familiarity in that face, though the picture she spoke of was almost thirty years old.

“I have a present for you before you go.”

If he expected her to sit again, forget it. “I don’t want any presents from you, Bud.”

“Oh, you’ll want this.” He reached inside his lapel, pulled out a small cassette tape, and laid it on the table.

Her heart beat faster, but she didn’t reach out to take it. “What’s that?” She was afraid she already knew.

“I played it for you once over the phone, Max.” He lowered his voice. “And I’ve come to the sound of it several times since. Your voice, Max, the sound of you taking a man’s cock in your mouth, well, it does something to me.”

Oh God. It was her. With Witt. In the back seat of a car. She hadn’t meant to take it that far, hadn’t meant to get carried away. It was supposed to have been for show. But she’d undone Witt’s pants and taken him in her mouth and forced him to come for her.

And Bud Traynor had been taping the whole thing. When she’d learned that, she’s almost thrown up. Then she’d tried to forget. Bud brought her shame home again.

“It’s yours. I know you’ve worried how I’ll use it against you. But I never planned to. Now I’m giving it back.”

She looked down at the monstrous black thing. “How do I know that is the only copy?”

“Because I’m telling you. I promised I’d never lie to you.”

He had promised. She knew Bud well enough to know that he would pride himself on keeping that promise while sticking it to her in a million other ways.

She took it, popped it in her pocket, though the damn thing felt hot enough to burn a hole. “Why give it back now?”

He blinked his black reptilian eyes. “My final gift to you.”

She’d thought he’d try to use the tape against her. Instead, he was cleaning house. Cleaning up his mess. Sealing her fate.

She wouldn’t go down so easily.

Bud raised his glass to her. “Till we meet again, Max.”

When they met again, she’d kill him.

Max sat in rush hour traffic on Highway 101, the heater blasting her toes. Unassociated with the fact that it was late fall, two days before Thanksgiving, and already dark though only shortly after five o’clock, a chill invaded her feet. Despite the burst of hot air, the virus climbed her legs to settle around her internal organs.

The guy in the car to her right had his index finger buried deep in his nose. A rear-ender right now would do damage to his brain. The car to her left had illegal tinting on the side windows and a sound system pounding against her chest despite the two layers of tempered glass and freeway noise between them.

Max contemplated Bud’s death. “Does it count as murder if it’s a really bad guy like ... Hitler or Castro or ... Ted Bundy?”

“You know what you have to do, my love.” Cameron’s voice was a murmur in her ear, a breath on her nape, but Bud had tainted the endearment. “Why are you trying to justify it now?”

She lost focus on the bumper in front of her, almost hit the chrome, but slammed on her brakes—Sutter’s brakes—just in time. “Why aren’t you telling me that I
shouldn’t
kill him?”

“Changed your mind?”

“Hey.” She pointed as if he were standing right in front of her. “I know why
I
think it has to be done. It’s out of character for you”—being a former prosecutor and all—“to turn vigilante.”