Evil to the Max (3 page)

The woman lay on her side, rotting meat clinging to her cheek. Maggots crawled on the chunk of half-chewed burger; soon they’d be crawling on her. Slippery fruit peelings stuck like goo to her matted and bloody blonde hair. Her white tank top, splattered with red-brown stains, was ripped open across her breasts, the flesh beneath black and blue. Her short, pleated skirt hiked up to her waist, bruises mottling her hips and thighs.

He let the lid down slowly, softly, as if he couldn’t bear to disturb her rest. All he could think before he ran down the alley was to thank God her eyes hadn’t been open.

He couldn’t stand the eyes of the dead.

The vision shattered as a strong arm slid around Max’s waist, hauled her off her feet, and pulled her against a hard wall of chest. She dropped the pepper spray. It rolled under the dumpster. She screamed. A hand covered her mouth. She bit the palm, rammed her flashlight into her assailant’s ribs, and kicked her heel against his shins.

“Shit.” Witt swore in her ear, let her drop back to her feet, but kept an arm secured around her waist.

“I should have kicked you in the family jewels,” she hissed over her shoulder. “You scared the crap out of me.”

“I’m sorry.” There was something in his voice, real regret, as if he’d only just realized what he’d done. As evidenced by his uncharacteristic use of full sentences. “I was just trying to make you aware of your vulnerability.”

The man didn’t breathe hard with exertion, nor did he have the grace to hold his side in agony where she’d given him one helluva jab with the Mag-Lite.

“All you did was make me lose my pepper spray.” Creep.

“Good. The thought of pepper spray in your hands is terrifying.”

She made a disgusted sound in response. “Well, I’m aware of my vulnerable position now, so you can let go.”

With her back pressed against his front—and her butt pressed against other things—the scene was uncomfortably like Tiffany dancing the Drifter with her dark-haired fantasy man.

Witt did not, however, allow even an inch to come between them. “Hey, where’s the usual black suit and heels?”

His skin was warm, his chin against her nape scratchy with stubble, his breath kind of sweet with—goodness, not peppermints?

Yeah, peppermints.

Damn Cameron. She was sure he had something to do with that. He’d started with the peppermints when he quit smoking for her. Of course, he’d already passed on by that time, but she hadn’t argued the point. Peppermints were now his signature scent. But she suspected he’d nudged Witt to start sucking the candies, too. Bastard. And she couldn’t even call him on it. Instead, she’d have to ignore it. For now.

“For your information, this is my detecting outfit. High heels are too cumbersome when I’m on stake-out.”

Witt’s low chuckle rumbled against her back, vibrating straight through to her chest. “I ever tell you about
my
visions, Max?”

She went totally still. “No way. You don’t have visions.”

“Yup. Visions of you in black high heels and nothing else.”

“Get outta here.” She twisted in his arms, broke his loose hold, then turned to face him. “Behave yourself, Detective.” He still wore his suit, charcoal shirt, and red tie.

He smiled then, a smile that was sexy as all get out. “Sometimes, Max, you just ask for it.”

She didn’t ask what “it” was.

His beeper went off, scaring the crap out of her yet again. She’d have thought pagers were passé, but Witt’s department still used them for short code bursts to multiple users.

He pushed aside his jacket and tipped the gadget away from his belt to read it.

Max backed up three steps. “I suppose that page means you’ve gotta be going. Thanks a bunch for stopping by.”

Letting his suit coat fall back in place, he wagged his finger. “Not off the hook yet, Max. What the hell are you doing disturbing a crime scene? They’d take you to jail for that.”

Ah, that was better. She could handle getting yelled at. “I was looking for the wino.”

“What wino?”

“The one in my dream. Did you tell the cops about him? They ought to put an APB out or something.”

Hands on hips, he shook his head. “Warned you about watching too much TV. The hype is shining through your golden lingo.”

She narrowed her eyes in response. “So, did you tell them?”

“It was a dream. Cops don’t make arrests based on dreams.”

She huffed. “You didn’t tell them.”

“Not a damn thing. Point was to get information
from
them, not the other way around.” He circled her wrist with his large hand. “Gotta get out of here before we’re spotted.”

He pulled her along, stuck his head out the end of the alley to look both ways before lifting the tape and shooing her under.

“How’d you know I was here?” They turned the corner. Her Miata was no longer alone. His tan department vehicle—she couldn’t figure out what the nondescript model was—sat alongside it in the parking lot. Without moving her head, she glared at him from the corner of her eye. “A little out of your jurisdiction?”

“Thought that’s right where you wanted me.”

“Touché, Detective.”

“Should have known you wouldn’t be too far away. Is it too much to ask that you let the cops do their job?”

“They don’t know as much as I do.”

“That’ll get you twenty-five to life if you’re not careful.”

She breathed deeply, glad for the fresh air, though the stink of the alley clung to her clothes. She pulled her car keys out of her back pocket. Only two feet from her car, her wrist was still shackled in his grip. “I’m going home, Detective Long.”

“Don’t you want to know what I found out, Max?”

She narrowed her eyes. “How much will it cost me?”

God, that slow, sexy smile again. She quivered like a jelly fish. “Gratis this time, Max. Her name
was
Tiffany.”

Witt paused, the name lay between them without his verbal acknowledgment of her accuracy. He wasn’t ready. Max didn’t think she was herself. She let it pass.

“Tiffany Lloyd. She worked as a hairdresser in a salon five blocks from here. Coroner put the time of death between one and five a.m. Saturday night.”

“He couldn’t get it closer than that?”

“The longer the interval between death and discovery of the body, the harder to pinpoint the exact time.”

Max spoke in a hushed tone. “Cause of death?”

“Love it when you talk dirty, Max.” Witt used an equally quiet tone, his an octave deeper. She felt it vibrate inside, down low, insistent.

She shivered. Cameron had loved dirty talk, too. “Cop humor, Detective?”

He shrugged. “Helps keep us from going crazy. Cause of death, massive internal hemorrhaging due to blunt trauma.”

Max knew that, still a chill ran through her body, rooting her to the ground. “Her chest was black and blue.”

“Pretty much everything was.”

He tugged on her arm, drawing her closer, and she had the oddest feeling he might put his arms around her. For comfort.

It was the last thing she needed. From him, at least.

There was a whoop and a holler from a drunken cowboy staggering across the Round Up’s front walk. Max took back possession of her wrist. Witt’s grip fell away easily. So did the smile that had been in his eyes, his voice, and on his lips. A smile despite the fact that they’d been talking about murder.

“I have to find the drunk in my vision. He knows something.”

“And just how are
we,
” he asked with special emphasis, “going to find him?”

“He had an unusual tattoo of a snake.”

“So we’ll canvas the neighborhood looking for a snake?”

“No, we’ll start at the bus station. He had a locker key.”

Witt regarded her with one blond eyebrow raised.

“It had a number stenciled in white.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and said nothing.

“Number 452.”

“Jesus H. Christ.” The lazy stance turned rigid. With his hands on his hips, he shoved his face down to hers.

Max smiled, quite pleased with herself. Accountants never forget a number. “Recognize it?”

“The flight Wendy Gregory waited for the night she died.”

“Which means their murders are connected.”

He shook his head. “They can’t be. Coincidence.”

“You don’t look like a man who believes in coincidence.” In fact, he’d said something like that to her a few days ago.

“Ever since I met you, Max, I don’t know what I believe.”

“Do you believe I’m psychic?” His answer was important.

He stared at her a long moment, his gaze unreadable. When he spoke, his words were careful and rife with meaning. “I’d rather believe you’re psychic than think you’re a killer.”

Thank God. “This from a man who wanted to arrest me last week for a woman’s murder?”

“What I had in mind had nothing to do with jail.”

Chapter Three

The night was the deepest blue, so dark it was almost black, and felt like velvet against her skin. Stars sparked like fireflies in the sky. The scent of masculine aftershave and damp foliage drifted on the air currents. She licked her lips, tasting the margarita she’d had with dinner.

His breath warmed the skin where her shirt had ridden up. His hands spanned her waist as he held her on the truck, the metal hot against her backside as if it still retained the heat of the day. She buried her fingers in his thick hair, held him close as his tongue delved into her belly button.

With the flat of his hand against her chest, he pushed her back onto the hood of his black and red Ram Sport truck. She held her breath as he unzipped her slacks, then traced down to the panty line, first with his finger, then his tongue. Cupping her butt cheeks, he lifted her with one large hand as he tugged her slacks and panties down. He ran his big hands along the outside of her thighs, then pulled her legs over his shoulders.

With barely a pause, he took her with his mouth. His tongue played her like a master flutist. Then he entered her with two fingers, stroking her inside to match the rhythm of his tongue on her clitoris. Her hips rocked against his mouth. She raised them, begging for more pressure. He gave it to her, sucking her clit hard into his mouth and pushing his fingers deep inside. Oh God. Oh God. Fireworks exploded behind her closed eyelids. She arched her back and moaned as she came.

She couldn’t remember grabbing the buttons of his jeans, nor popping the snaps of his black and red flannel shirt. All she remembered was him sliding inside her, his hot flesh under her palms and the truck’s unforgiving grill against her lower back.

He drove into her. His blue gaze never left hers. He watched the play of emotion on her face, her lips, as he put a finger on her clitoris. She came a second time, then a third. He filled her up, almost to her womb. She wrapped her legs more tightly around his hips, opened herself completely, and welcomed each powerful thrust. She spasmed the fourth time as he rammed home. Before her orgasm had subsided, he came, too. His hot sperm filled her. His cock pulsed inside, then he took her mouth as if he owned her.

Max woke up. Though the orgasms hadn’t been real, she still felt weak with the power of them. Burrowing deeper into the blankets, she imagined his big, rough hands on her skin ...

She uttered a low, throaty sound of satisfaction, stretched, and opened her eyes. The first rays of morning light filtered through the branches of the elm outside her window. Curled against the back of her knees, Buzzard the cat—so named because he was a stray who had hung around like a buzzard looking for carrion—fussed as she moved. She felt marvelous, always did when Cameron came to her in her dreams. She closed her eyes, felt him inside her again. Felt the silk of his blond hair through her fingers—

Her eyes snapped open. Cameron hadn’t been blond. And he hadn’t had much hair.

Nor had his eyes been blue.

Ohmygod, she’d just had a wet dream about Witt!

She bolted up in bed. “Cameron, you bastard.”

“That wasn’t me.”

“I
know
it wasn’t you.”

“I mean I didn’t give you that dream.”

“Then who did?”

“You had it all on your own, sweetheart.”

“Yeah, right, and that’s why he drove a black and red Ram and wore that damn flannel shirt. That was
your
dream.” He’d given a variation of it to her several weeks ago.

“And you liked it so much, you switched partners.”

“If that’s true, then why aren’t you steamed with jealousy?”

“We ethereal beings don’t feel jealousy.”

“You’ve been jealous of every
other
man I’ve been with.”

“Not jealous, my sweet. Simply pissed as hell that you throw yourself away on one-night stands.” His voice rose a decibel with each word until the boom of it hurt her eardrums.

She jumped out of bed and held her hands to her ears. Thank God no one else could hear her ghostly husband. Only Max ever heard him. Some people would say she was crazy, but Cameron’s voice in her head was the only thing that kept her sane. Except at times like this when he drove her nuts.

Witt. Ohmygod.
Witt
.

It was ridiculous. It was downright terrifying. She didn’t even like the man. Not exactly. He was dictatorial. He looked like Dudley Do-Right of the Royal Canadian Mounties, for God’s sake, and was just as damn noble in his pursuit of justice.

She
never
would have had that dream on her own.

She paced her small room once.

It was absolutely
not
her dream. The positive assertion gave her some semblance of control.

“It’s not as if this is the first time you’ve imagined him—”

“Do not say it.”
That
time had been brought on by Cameron. Definitely. But tonight, Cameron hadn’t been there to play any role at all.

“That’s right, sweetheart. Tonight was all about you and Witt.”

“Shut up.” She didn’t want to think he might be right. The detective was off limits.