Evil to the Max (13 page)

Except for Cameron.

“Sounds like a motive for murder to me,” Cameron broke the silence.

“Maybe,” she finally agreed. Jealousy and lack of control were two powerful motivators. “That’s why she slammed the door in his face,” she added, cocking her head to the side like an antennae to pick up stray emotions. “He called her a whore.”

“And?”

“And he had to crawl back on his hands and knees and beg her forgiveness.”

“I wonder if
he
ever forgave
her
for that humiliation.”

“It’s a metaphorical image.”

“It’s still begging. Does he look like a man who could forget the way a woman humiliated him?”

Could any man forget? She suddenly thought of Witt and the crap she’d heaped on his head. At least she hadn’t made him beg yet.

Voices drifted into the parking lot. A man and a woman. The sound of a door shutting softly.

“He’s coming.” Her body tingled with Cameron’s words. “What are you going to do, Max?”

“Confront.”

“Are you sure?”

“Confront,” she hissed once more.

He swirled around her in a cloud of peppermint. “That’s my girl, Max, taking the bull by the horns.”

Then Jake Lloyd appeared out of the darkness. Up close, the guy was potent. In other circumstances, she would have ... but no, she wouldn’t think about what she might have done.

The man’s tie was gone, his shirt open to the third button, his chest tanned and dark against the white material.

She stood a foot or two from his driver’s side door, but she didn’t give him the chance to call her on it. “I saw you with her the night she died.”

His eyes widened, the only change in his expression. Then his gaze slid to the apartment he’d just left. He didn’t ask who nor where she meant. He didn’t need to. “What do you want?”

Mmmm. Such a voice. She felt as well as heard it. It was the kind of voice you wanted next to you in the dark—on a bed, a kitchen table, against the bathroom counter, or the driver’s side of his work truck.

Tiffany thrummed inside her, inserting her thoughts, her feelings, and her sensations.

Max licked her dry lips. “You know exactly what I want.”

“Money? I don’t have any.”

Her palms were sweaty, and her heart pulsed a staccato rhythm at her throat, but there wasn’t so much as a quaver in her voice. “Information.”

Again, his glance skimmed Nadine Johnson’s front door and returned. “I don’t know who killed her.”

“That’s a quick denial for a question I didn’t even ask. Guilty conscience, Jake?” Max smiled. The more she let him say, the sooner he’d hang himself. If he was guilty. “You were with her at the Round Up. You left the bar with her. Later, she was found dead in the dumpster outside.”

His jaw worked, and his fists clenched. “I didn’t leave with her. She left alone, before me.”

Max widened her eyes. “You screwed her in the men’s room in front of thirty horny guys, and then you let her leave alone? Tsk, tsk, and they say chivalry is dead. Guess they’re right.”

His flesh went pale beneath the tan. “That’s the way we planned it, and she wasn’t—” He cut himself off.

“Wasn’t what, Jake? Wasn’t alone? Someone else was with her?”

He remained silent, but the answer lay in his furtive glance. It touched everywhere but on her.

“Who watched you two on the dance floor, Jake? Is that who was supposed to make sure she got home safely?”

He took a literal step back, opened his mouth, then shut it. Finally, “If you were there, you already know who it was.”

“I want
you
to tell me.” Too late. He’d called her bluff, and she’d lost him.

He shook his held slightly, narrowed his gaze. “You really don’t know a damn thing. Who are you?”

“A friend of Tiffany’s.” A psychic prisoner of his ex-wife was more like it.

“She didn’t have any friends.”

Tiffany conquered. Gender didn’t matter; they were all conquests. She hadn’t had a clue how to make or hold a friend.

Max pushed, hoping to glean additional information by pretending she knew more than she did. “Why do you think she told me you’d be there then? Why did she ask me to watch, too?”

“Because she was kinky as hell.” Jake crossed his arms over his chest. “Were you one of her lovers?”

For a moment, Max couldn’t say a thing. Tiffany didn’t want her in the physical sense, no, theirs was a battle of minds. But it was a battle Tiffany wanted to win even in death and a fight Max refused to lose. “Not,” she answered.

His nostrils flared, and his lips flattened. She wondered how many skirmishes he’d fought with Tiffany. Of course, he had never won. Now he never would.

“You know whoever was watching killed her, don’t you?” she prodded.

“I thought you said
I
did it?” he countered.

She sliced him with her smile. “You didn’t have the guts. Just like you didn’t have the guts to stop her from going to the Round Up that night. Didn’t have the guts to tell her no.”

He dropped his hands to his sides and clenched his fists, but didn’t answer.

“You didn’t want to be there, did you? You didn’t want to be watched while you screwed her. You hated that. Hated sharing her. But you could never tell her no.” The sneering tone came from deep inside, from Tiffany. She’d called him the Gutless Wonder even as he did everything she told him.

Still Jake wouldn’t answer. Everything she said was true and too painful for him to admit.

She stepped closer, bringing her face to his. “
Did
you want to kill her, Jake?” she whispered. “Were you secretly glad when they found her body in that dumpster? Or
did
you do it yourself?”

So close, Max smelled his sweat, a tangled odor of fear, guilt, and rage. “I told you I didn’t kill her.”

“Maybe not. But do you have the guts to bring her killer to justice? Do you even want to? You’re finally free of her.”

Max stared at him for a full ten seconds, then walked away. His gaze bored a hole into her back as Tiffany’s laughter pounded in her ears.

Chapter Thirteen

Max didn’t return to her car. Instead, she circled through the neighboring complex and came back to watch Jake’s truck. She waited. And waited. At ten-thirty, she gave up, started her car, and roared off into the darkness to her own small studio apartment.

Jake Lloyd had not gone in search of Tiffany’s killer. He’d gone back inside Nadine Johnson’s apartment, and he hadn’t left again.

“Wimp,” Max murmured.

“Do you believe him?” Cameron’s question blew through her hair.

She parked, climbed from the car, then banged the door closed with her hip. “You knew all along he didn’t kill Tiffany,” she said.

“I don’t even know that now.”

“Yes, you do. That’s why you let me challenge him.”

“I told you I would trust your judgment. You should, too. Everything you said to him was true, wasn’t it?”

“Of course. Guilt rolled off him in waves. He left her, then she died. He feels responsible.” Max sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and bit down lightly. “But he hasn’t run to the police with the information. Why not?”

“Why did he run to Nadine Johnson?” Cameron turned the question back on her, then whisked away in its wake as a vehicle door slammed behind her.

“Where ya been, Max?”

Oh shit. Just the detective she’d wanted to avoid. Dammit. His black Ram sat beneath a streetlight. She should have seen it. She would have, too, if Cameron hadn’t preoccupied her by discussing Jake Lloyd. “Have you been waiting awhile, Long?”

He smiled, his teeth bright in the moonlight. “Checked to see if you were in when I got off work, then I had business. Thought I’d look one more time before going home.”

“How considerate of you to worry about me, Detective. It’s really not necessary.” She rounded the end of her car and stepped onto the sidewalk.

Witt followed. Wearing jeans and a T-shirt, he smelled of soap and shampoo. “You didn’t leave your cell phone on,” he admonished.

“It’s
your
cell phone so I didn’t want to wear the batteries down.”

“Admit it. You’re afraid I’ll actually call you.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not afraid of anything, certainly not you.”

Witt laughed out loud, the sound faintly reminiscent of Cameron. “You’re terrified of me. I like that. Means there’s a whole helluva lot of possibilities.” He took another step, crowding her close to a lamp post with a burned-out light. “Now, don’t you want to know what I learned today?”

The level of his voice was seductive, enticing, as if he was talking sex instead of Tiffany business. But then everything concerning Tiffany was about sex. “What?” she croaked.

“Come closer.”

Said the spider to the fly.

Her body moved forward of its own volition. God, his closeness made her tingle all over.

“I want a bounty.” He reached for her hands. Darkness blanketed the two of them. An owl hooted in a nearby tree.

His touch sent blood rushing from her weakened knees to her clitoris, then to her brain, leaving her lightheaded, breathless, hot, and wet.

“Kiss me, Max. That’s not asking too much.”

This close, his blue eyes were intoxicating.

“You’re crazy, Detective. No way am I kissing you.” Her tone lacked conviction.

He put his fingers on her throat, his touch warm, then tipped her chin with his thumb. “Just one.” His breath was cinnamon-stick sweet.

She had the insane urge to close her eyes, lean into him, and part her lips.

No! And hell no! Max didn’t want this, Tiffany did. Only Tiffany would let Witt get this close.

All it took was one step back, even if she was pulled up short by the damn light post. Still, it put enough space between them so Max could breathe again. Witt’s hand dropped slowly, and Tiffany drifted away. Thank God. Max knew Cameron was laughing out there, somewhere.

Witt smiled. He’d been doing that a lot recently. Scary. “Almost got you on that one.”

Dammit, she almost wished she’d done it. Just gone ahead, opened her mouth, stroked his lips, sucked his tongue, climbed his body, and wrapped her legs around his waist ... jeez, she needed to get a grip here. “I was debating whether or not to hurt your feelings.”

“Always have an answer, don’t you?”

“Damn right.” Even if it wasn’t always the truth. “So what was it you wanted to tell me?”

“Not sure I’m going to now. Didn’t get my bounty.”

He stood close, but the distance was manageable. She shrugged. “I guess it’s not something I really need to know—unless you’re dying to tell me.”

“Lots of things I’m dying to
do
to you.”

A fire leapt inside her. Tiffany again.
Yeah, right
. She pursed her lips primly. “Be serious. What did you find out?”

“I
was
being serious.” He lifted a hand, drew a finger in a straight line from her throat down between her breasts to her abdomen.

She almost went up in flames.

He shoved his hand in his pocket. “You win. For now.”

This was winning? This combustible, uncontrollable need to jump his body right here, right now? Her nipples hardened like finely cut gemstones. And he looked at them.

She swallowed, a feat all on its own. Getting the next words out became an arduous task.

But Max wasn’t one to give up without a major fight. “You were going to tell me what you learned?”

Witt tore his gaze from her breasts. “Jake Lloyd has an alibi for Saturday night. His sister-in-law. He was allegedly crying on her shoulder until three in the morning.”

“Nadine Johnson?”

The Tiffany effect died a natural death with Max’s investigative excitement. Of course, she should have foreseen this development, known it as the reason Jake went back inside to Nadine instead of to the police. Duh, Max.

“How did you know her name?” Witt cocked his head. “What have you been up to?”

“Just hanging around.” And going through Lamont’s drawers, so to speak.

“Snooping again?”

Damn, was he reading her mind like Cameron? Or was Cameron feeding the detective his lines?

“Snooping for Wendy Gregory’s murderer almost got you killed.” He pierced her with that razor-sharp, annoying look of his. “And, as I recall, I had to rescue you.”

“Hah! No way. I took care of that little problem myself, thank you very much.”

“Will you always take care of your own problems?”

“Damn straight, buster.”

He stared, said nothing. She must have missed some message there and was glad she had. “I’ve got a pretty little tidbit for you to pass on to your cop buddies.”

His mouth quirked. It wasn’t quite a smile. “What?”

“They’ve managed to reschedule all Tiffany’s appointments.”

He scratched his chin. “Logical. It is a business, and we know how women are about getting their hair and nails done.”

“That’s an extremely sexist comment.” She snorted. “Nothing more than I’d expect from a macho cop type.”

He sighed, a long suffering sound similar to Cameron’s. “You got a point in there somewhere?”

“You’re pushing my buttons, Detective. But I’ll tell you anyway. They started changing her schedule right after they found out she was dead. In fact, they’re almost done. That’s one helluva lot of planning and juggling to do.” She crossed her arms and beamed at him, set to deliver her killing blow. “Unless of course, they started working it out on Sunday. Which means—”

“They might have known she was dead before her body was found.” He pondered that a moment, his dimples disappearing inside a slight frown. “My, my, you do have a point. Not enough to make an arrest, but enough to get our boys to check. I’ll pass it on, let them do a little of their own digging.”

Max smiled, enormously pleased with herself. “So, did you tell them Nadine Johnson had to be lying about her alibi for Jake Lloyd?”

Silence. She figured he was absorbing her question or getting ready to fly off the handle. Then, in a mild tone, he said, “Can’t tell them something I don’t have a shred of evidence to back up.”