Evil to the Max (16 page)

“
You
didn’t open
your
mind, Max. That implies control.” Cameron’s voice oozed delight.

“If I had control, I would make sure you didn’t pop up at your usual inopportune moments.”

“You didn’t say that the other night when I made love to you in your dreams.”

“Oh, stuff it.”

“I wish I could. You know you loved it. You want more. You’ll beg me tonight.”

“No, I won’t. And I did not like what you did to me in the bathroom while Witt was outside.”

“You’re right. You didn’t like it, you loved it. You even imagined it was him.”

She scrambled out of the car, slamming the door on his voice. And the semi-truth in his words. She wasn’t kinky. Was she? Oh, God, what about the car thing when she’d let Cameron make her come in broad daylight with the top down? Yes, she just might be a little kinky.

Was Witt kinky?

Stop that, dammit. She shut her brain down on the weird thoughts.

The spot she chose for the car was around the corner, on a side street with minimal traffic and out of sight of the salon. The labels were presumably in the trunk—they hadn’t been in the back seat.

And the trunk was where Tiffany’s body would have been if the black Lincoln had been used as transportation.

She stared at the black paint until her vision swam. The glossy surface seemed to swirl. Her fingers caressed the key in her hand. She breathed in the scent of hot metal, rubber, and the faint odor of garbage drifting over from the alley. The same smells would have been present in the Round Up’s alley that night. She closed her eyes, and for a moment she could see herself as Snake the Wino hunkered down between the dumpsters.

But memory didn’t have as much punch as an actual vision.

She touched the trunk lid.

Nothing.

Max waited. A minute. Two minutes. Eyes closed, she took deep, from-the-gut breaths until her fingers and toes tingled.

Still nothing.

She opened her eyes, then unlocked the trunk and stared down into the neat, carpeted interior. A flashlight, a frost scraper, an umbrella, first aid kit, and a box of computer labels. She leaned forward and rested the palms of her hands against the floor of the compartment.

Another minute.

“I don’t see a thing. And don’t tell me I’m not trying, Cameron.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Maybe this isn’t the car.”

“Well, duh. But why can’t I sense anything at all?”

“Why indeed?”

She straightened and shoved the keys into the pocket of her blazer. “Because Tiffany wasn’t here. And everything I’ve felt involves Tiffany.”

“Well, duh, sweetheart.”

She swung an arm through the air, heard his sputtered oomph, and smiled haughtily. Even if it was just a game. “Dammit, why did you let me waste my time?”

“I wanted you to try to do it.”

“Bastard,” she muttered without much conviction, pulling the box of labels out and slamming the lid.

“Was it a waste, Max?” His voice followed her as she mounted the curb and turned the corner back to the salon.

No, it wasn’t. But she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of admitting it.

“It wasn’t a waste because you learned that you
can
do it.”

“Blah, blah, blah.” But again, as usual, Cameron was irritatingly right. She
knew
Tiffany hadn’t been stuffed in that car.

“And you liked playing with your gift.”

She rolled her eyes in answer. Best to say nothing at all, then flat out agree with him. It always went to his head. But yeah, it had been kind cool and less frightening this time.

“You were disappointed you didn’t feel her, weren’t you?”

She’d known almost immediately that Tiffany hadn’t been in the trunk of Miles Lamont’s car. She had faith in her own psychic abilities.

Scary.

“And you know what that means?”

“Will you quit with the twenty-irritating-questions act.”

“Come on, baby, what does it mean? Pretend we’re in bed, and we’re talking dirty.”

She puffed out an exaggerated sigh. “Your mind is in the gutter, but all right.” She closed her eyes and said the words as if reciting a line from a parapsychology text. “It means I can only pick up things through Tiffany, places she’d been. Or Wendy Gregory. Depends on which murder happened this week.” Her lids snapped open. “Oh jeez, Cameron, you don’t think this vision stuff is going to go on indefinitely, do you?”

“Wherever there’s injustice, my love,” he quipped.

Disgusted, she shook her head. “There’s a connection. I know it.”

“The connection is you.”

“Dammit, something else, something they both have in common. But what?” she murmured as she headed up the front walk.

Balancing the box on her hip, she twisted the door knob and sidled in with her burden, plunking the labels down on the counter next to the printer.

She had one more errand. Taking Tiffany’s boxes of personal items out to her car. After her little revelation, Ariel had shrugged and told Max to do whatever she wanted. The woman had even drawn a little map to Nadine’s. How helpful. Max stacked the three boxes one on top of the other and carried them out.

When she got back, the phone rang several times, but she managed to check the number of records in the database. Over eight hundred. But they couldn’t
all
be current clients. How many mailers did they do, anyway?

She entered a few keystrokes. Ariel had already run the address file on Saturday and all Max had to do was start the label feed, for which she did
not
need Pippa’s help. Presto, bingo, the printer ran. There was another box on the floor filled with stacks of blue flyers. Max would have to fold them, address them, staple them, and run them through the postage meter. Between phone calls, charge slips, snide comments, and temperamental stylists.

If Pippa Louise Lamont expected everything to be done before day’s end, she was crazy.

Max folded blue pages, smacked them with the stapler, then slapped on the labels as they rolled off the printer. The Three Stooges ignored Max, foregoing even their usual snipes in case she got it into her head to ask them to help. Hell, she was making great headway without them.

She yawned. Then, the printer screeched, hiccupped twice, spat out a couple of crumbled labels, and died.

“Damn,” she muttered, stuck her tongue between her teeth, and popped open the top.

Her heart skipped a beat. Maybe two. And then it pounded, drumming in her ears, like a head rush when she stood too fast.

She believed in ghosts.

She believed in divine intervention.

She didn’t believe in coincidence.

The printer had stopped on the name of her nemesis, the man that haunted her nightmares.

Bud Traynor.

Chapter Sixteen

Holy shit.

Max punched the name into the computer, and a screen error popped up.
No Existing File
.

But the damn label print program had him in there, and it was run off the client database. So what the hell—

Ariel had run it on Saturday.
Before
Tiffany died. Before Miles had gone into the database and changed all the client-stylist designations.

Before someone had deleted Bud Traynor’s file.

It was a prophecy. It was a divine revelation. It was her vindication.

Bud Traynor was evil incarnate, and he’d been here in this very shop. Max knew it. The fine hairs stood up on the back of her neck. She knew in her gut he’d been one of Tiffany’s clients, more than a client. And he’d had a hand in her death.

She wanted to jump up and down, high-five someone, explode. She had him right in her scope. All she had to do was pull the trigger.

But damn. What if she failed? Like the last time, with Wendy. What if she had him right
there
, then made a stupid move, like underestimating him? She’d lose him. Again.

Or worse. He’d turn on her. She’d gone up against him once. That time he’d let her get away unscathed. They’d both come out intact. But the stakes were higher now. Two deaths. Oh God, oh God, what to do?

She grabbed the portable phone and punched in a number. Witt’s cell phone. She hadn’t even known she’d memorized it. It rang. He answered on the third ring with a clipped, “Long here.”

Max hung up. She was crazy for calling him. He didn’t entirely understand about Bud Traynor. Yeah, he thought the guy was suspicious and said all the right things way too easily, but Witt hadn’t seen the vicious predator beneath the neat polo shirts, golf shoes, and respectable lawyerly facade.

All she had was a name on a chewed-up computer label. It wouldn’t be enough.

Witt couldn’t help her. No one could help her. She was on her own.

Except for me.
Cameron’s sweet peppermints scented the air around her.
Finish the labels and put them on the mailers. Act like nothing has happened. There’s work to be done tonight, and you need a clear head.

God, he was right. Heart still pounding, she glanced around the shop. Small bits of tin foil covered the head of Larry’s client like an umbrella against alien rays. Moe spiked the shocking pink hair of a teenage girl. Curly was stuck with a no-nonsense elderly gentleman who wanted little more than a neat bowl-cut. Ariel washed her new client’s frizzy mass behind the lattice divider separating the rear of the salon from the front.

Everything had gone on around her. Max was the only one who realized something momentous had just occurred.

Something psychic.

The phone rang. An appointment changed. She finished printing the labels and affixed them to the flyers between more calls. The hum of a hairdryer filled the shop. Voices. Water running. The sounds isolated her, and yet their very normalcy eased the tension along the back of her neck.

But six o’clock couldn’t roll around fast enough.

Cameron was right. They had work to do. Tonight was Bud Traynor’s big gala at the San Jose Fairmont. That’s what the newspaper article said, the one Witt had shown her. Traynor was guaranteed to be out of his house. A perfect opportunity for Max to do a little B&E and search.

She’d have to make sure she avoided Witt.

At a quarter to six, Max went back to knock on Pippa’s office door. Walking down the hall sent shivers racing along her skin. Passing the laundry room gave her the heebie-jeebies.

Pippa opened the door a crack to look out, her hand securely on the knob as if Max might try storming the door. “We’re busy.”

Max wondered exactly who was busy with exactly what. Jules had also disappeared. Hmm. She had the desire to fluff her short, dark hair before bouncing into her blond routine. “I really need to talk to Miles. Is he in there? I looked everywhere else.”

“He’s busy.”

Max’s forced smile seemed as brittle as glass. “Well, I’ve got to take off a couple of minutes early and Dolores,” the evening receptionist, “isn’t here yet. I want to make sure it’s okay with Miles.”

She should have just left. It was Cameron who’d urged her to get permission. For the sake of the keeping her position near Tiffany’s coworkers.

The woman’s lips thinned, her eyes narrowed. Max thought perhaps there was a bit of spite there, too. “Your day ends at six, not a minute earlier.”

Miles suddenly appeared. Pippa faded quickly back into the office interior. He, at least, opened the door more than a sliver. “Of course, it’s okay, Max.” Pippa now merely an unfocused blur behind Miles, her gaze still scorched like hot coals down the front of Max’s black blazer. Miles seemed unperturbed as he went on, “How good of you to ask. Most employees would have just taken off.”

I told you so.

Her lips felt ready to crack with her fixed smile. There was nothing worse than an I-told-you-so from a ghost. Especially when he was right. “Oh, that’s terrible, Miles. I’d never do anything like that. Thank you so much. I’ll see you on Monday then, if there’s nothing else you need,” she simpered.

He pulled on an almost non-existent earlobe. “Well, now that you mention it, there is something. Would you be willing to work this weekend if we need you?”

“Why, of course.” She could search for more clues involving Traynor.

“I’ll call you.” Something about the way he said it sent a shudder straight down her spine. It was as if he’d made a sexual suggestion. What the hell had she just agreed to?

“Ta-ta for now, then.” He waggled his fingers, then closed the door. The inside lock clicked.

She felt the shiver again.

“Someone walk over your grave, Maxi?”

“Sure did, Cammie.”

“Touché, my dear. You’ve really become a pro at verbal dueling.”

“Thank you. That man is creepy. What the hell are they doing in there with the door locked?”

“Haven’t a clue, sweetheart. Porking perhaps?”

Max suppressed a little
ewwe
noise.

“I wonder what he thinks of your little on-again-off-again bimbo act?”

“Ooh, shit, you’re right. I forgot that was for Pippa’s benefit. Well, hell, he’ll probably just chalk it up to multiple-personality disorder.”

“It’ll certainly help explain why you’re standing in the hallway talking to yourself.”

“Bastard.”

“You really need to find a new word, sweetheart. That one’s getting old. Now why was it we’re leaving early?”

“I want to get a jump start on ... getting ready to break into Bud’s house.”

“You’re avoiding Witt.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Damn. Around him, a woman couldn’t even have secrets any more. “I don’t think you’re taking this Bud business as seriously as you should.”

“First, we both know you’re running away from Witt. Second, I know exactly how important this is. Maybe more than you do.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” But he was gone in a swirl of peppermint essence.

Back up front, she reached beneath the counter for her purse, waved at Ariel, who was now rinsing off whatever gunk she’d put on her client, and left without a thought for the Three Stooges.

She should, however, have anticipated Detective DeWitt Quentin Long. He was waiting out front beside his Dodge Ram Sport. Lounging against it actually, ankles crossed, wearing jeans, T-shirt, and the most annoying know-it-all grin. Damn, that grin was sexy.