36 Hours (12 page)

“They need to go,” Henry told Penny. “It was very nice to meet you, Ms. Revere. Very nice. You’re even prettier in person.”

“Thank you,” Max said. “If you’d like to write me a letter about your grandson’s case, here’s my office address and email.” She pulled a card from her pocket.

She received hundreds of letters and emails a week from families wanting her to do any number of things from proving a loved one innocent to a killer guilty. Most dealt with cold cases and contained few leads. She didn’t have time to investigate all the unsolved murders she heard about, and she couldn’t always solve the ones she investigated.

But she always gave the families whatever truth she found. For better or worse.

She took a pen out of her pocket and wrote on the back. “Here’s my personal email.”

Henry took the card but Penny looked upset. “I have written. Twice.”

By the sound of her voice, she hadn’t received a response. A sliver of anger ran up Max’s spine. Her newest assistant was going to have some explaining to do if she wanted to keep her job. All emails and letters must be responded to within a week. Max had drafted four form letters that fit most situations, and what didn’t fit she was supposed to review.

Henry said, “We thought you might be interested in the case since Jason was killed at Atherton Prep.”

Max was speechless—a rarity. She’d graduated from Atherton College Prep thirteen years ago, but no one told her about this murder. The second in the history of the campus.

“When?” she managed to ask.

“The Saturday after Thanksgiving.”

Nearly five months ago.

“I’ll be in town all weekend,” Max said. “I’d like to hear your story. I can’t promise I’ll investigate, but I will listen.”

They both smiled and tears moistened Penny’s eyes. Max didn’t want to see tears. Especially genuine tears, like Penny’s. “Thank you. We’ll be here for two weeks. You don’t know what this means to us.”

Max had Kevin’s funeral tomorrow, she was meeting with Jodi in an hour—she was going to be late—and then there was her own family she had to deal with. That she could put off.

“Where are you staying?”

“The Embassy Suites in Redwood Shores,” Henry said. “Our son said we could stay with them, but they have so many last minute things to do for the wedding, we didn’t want to be a bother.”

Max smiled. “I’m sure you wouldn’t have been any trouble. I can meet you at your hotel tomorrow morning. Is eight too early?”

Penny said, “We always rise at dawn.”

David was giving Max his version of the evil eye. For him, it was a sterner frown than he normally wore.

Max attached her laptop case to the top of her suitcase and said good-bye to the Hoffmans. She and David stepped out of the terminal and into the spring morning, a cold wind rolling off the Bay that made her shiver. It had been seventy degrees and clear when she left the Miami Airport at 6:00 a.m.

They walked down the wide sidewalk toward the rental car shuttle stop.

“Why?” David said.

She didn’t answer his question. “Call Ginger. Tell her to find the letters the Hoffmans mentioned and get them to me, verbatim, before she leaves the office today. I want to know why I didn’t see them in the first place.”

“Maybe she thought you had enough on your plate. Or maybe she didn’t see them at all. They could have come in when Ashley was still in the office. Or Josh.”

Max didn’t want to think about Ashley. What a train wreck. And Josh? Every time she thought about him, she wished she could fire him all over again.

Max didn’t have a great track record with office managers. David had been with her for eighteen months—in that time, she’d gone through six office managers. So far, Ginger had been with her for three months. Two more weeks and she’d win the prize for longest assistant.

They stopped under the shuttle sign. David handed Max his cell phone. “It’s Marco.”

“He’s calling you, not me.”

“Because you haven’t been answering your phone. This is the third time he’s called me.”

Max didn’t take the phone, so David answered. Max tried to ignore the conversation as she looked for any sign that the shuttle was near. It was nowhere in sight.

“She’s right here,” David said. “No, she didn’t lose her phone.”

Max swore under her breath and took David’s phone from his hand. “I didn’t answer my phone because I didn’t want to talk to you.”

“You have to talk to me sometime, sweetheart.” FBI Special Agent Marco Lopez spoke low and clear, working double time to control his Cuban temper.

“Not today.”

“You intentionally left before I saw the news.”

“I told you yesterday I had a funeral in California.”

“You didn’t tell me that you filed your article, and you had plenty of time to record a three-minute spot for the local news. You exposed my informant and jeopardized my case!” His voice rose in volume as he spoke.

Max had a lot of experience remaining calm while talking to Marco. “Your informant put one of his hookers in the hospital for a week and thwarted the investigation into Candace Arunda’s murder.”

“He was my only link to the Garbena Cartel!” Though Marco was born and raised in Miami, his parents had both come from Cuba, and when he got angry and spoke fast, he adopted a hybrid Americanized Cuban accent.

“I’m not rehashing this with you,” she said. “I told you why I was in Miami when you asked last week.”

“You should have warned me.”

“Last time I gave you an early copy of an article, your boss attempted to have it scuttled.”

“That was nine years ago!”

“Fool me once,” she said.

“Dammit, Max! You avoided me because you
know
you overstepped this time.” She pictured Marco pacing his office, his free hand opening and closing.

“
Overstepped
?” Max took a deep breath. Marco, more than anyone, could raise her blood pressure. “Is that what you call exposing the truth about the brutal murder of an underage prostitute? Is an ‘in’ with the cartel more important than justice for a seventeen-year-old girl?”

“Don’t twist what I said! You know I care. You should have given me twenty-four hours to clean up this mess. Ramirez would have been in prison either way.”

“Your team screwed up, another girl was in jeopardy, and I’m supposed to give you time to fix it because we’re having sex? Garbena is costing you your soul, Marco.”

David cleared his throat. Maxine didn’t care about attracting an audience as much as her assistant, but she stepped further away from the other travelers waiting for the shuttle.

“You’re the most frustrating woman I’ve ever known!”

“I’ve never lied to you, Marco. I wish you could say the same to me.” She hung up and returned David’s phone.

Her stomach was twisted in knots. She wished she could have left things differently with Marco.

“You should have told him before you left,” David said.

“He knew why I was in Miami, and he lied to me.”

“He couldn’t tell you—“

Max rarely interrupted, but she didn’t let David finish. “He
lied
. He didn’t say, ‘Max, I can’t talk to you about this case,’ which he’s done in the past and I accept. This time, he deliberately gave me false information to protect his criminal informant, and then he expected me to put it in print. You know as well as I do that Marco and his team want the big fish, and if innocent guppies get eaten in the process, it’s collateral damage.”

“You still should have told him. He shouldn’t have read it in the morning paper.” He glanced at her, understanding narrowing his eyes. “You intentionally sabotaged your relationship. Why?”

She didn’t answer right away because the shuttle pulled up. There were five of them, and Max sat in the back row of the 12-passenger van. David sat next to her. Maybe because of David’s appearance, or her previous phone conversation, the other passengers crammed into the front.

David was perceptive. She may not have consciously wanted to end her mostly-off relationship with Special Agent Marco Lopez, but it was primarily physical. They had a long history. But she couldn’t allow her libido to control her career-sense. She never had in the past, and just because she had feelings for Marco didn’t mean she’d allow it to happen now.

“In the nine years I’ve known Marco I’ve never lied to him,” Max said after the van started moving. “I’ve never told him I was someone I’m not. He thinks he can change me, and every time I see him we screw like rabbits and he tries to get me to bury my story. When I don’t, he accuses me of not caring who I hurt. I’m tired of explaining myself to him, and I’m not going to change just to please him.”

“I give you six months.”

“For what?”

“To find a story to cover in Miami so you have an excuse to go back.”

Max laughed, a deep throaty genuine laugh. “That’s why I love you, David. You remind me that I am flawed.”

He smiled, which made the two-inch jagged scar across his left temple almost charming. “It’s the least I can do.”

The shuttle van pulled up in front of the rental car kiosks. David had previously taken care of the arrangements and handed her the paperwork. While the other passengers disembarked, Max said, “Marco needs to find a sweet Cuban girl who likes his macho bullshit and does what he says when he says it. I’m done.”

She thought saying it out loud would make her feel better, but all it did was remind her how rigid she could be. No matter how much she cared about someone, she couldn’t—she
wouldn’t
—compromise her core values for them. She had no doubt Marco felt the same way, which left them at an impasse.

A dark sense of melancholy overcame her. It was, truly, over.

Chapter Two

Not much had changed in the small, wealthy town of Atherton since Max’s mother left her to live with her grandmother twenty-one years ago. The same beautiful landscape hid the same dark secrets. Lies streamed from subdued mansions set back from the meandering, tree-lined streets. There were few nouveau riche monstrosities because the town council wouldn’t stand for it, but the few that existed were beacons to long-time residents, signaling the crassness of money in the wrong hands.

The truly wealthy, those with old money and old secrets, didn’t flaunt their riches. They often lived frugally, within strict though ample budgets, spending primarily to grow their wealth. They kept their ostentatious afflictions hidden behind closed doors.

Max quickly drove through Atherton, surprised at conflicting feelings of nostalgia and regret. Even though she’d been nine when she moved here, Atherton was the only place she truly considered home. Yet she’d never live here again.

She’d deal with her past later. The travel delays put Max behind schedule, so she hurried through Atherton to the adjoining city of Menlo Park. Kevin’s sister Jodi worked part-time at an independent bookstore. Max had spent many hours in Kepler’s as a teenager, a reprieve from her family. As a young adult, Max never considered that one day she would write a book that graced the shelves of her favorite bookstore. She’d planned on being a travel writer, photographing hidden treasures around the globe, writing stories about interesting cultures and people and events. Interviewing locals and tourists to find out what made each destination so special. Searching, perhaps, for a place she wanted to adopt because her current home never fit the meaning behind the label.

But life has plans, her mother told her three months before she walked out on Max. As if life itself
was capable of independent thought.

Life has plans, Maxine. Sometimes they’re not what we want, but we don’t always have control.

Max never believed her mother until her best friend disappeared during their last spring break of college and Max spent a year of her life searching for answers. Though she consciously made the decision to change her career path, she wondered if her vivacious, irresponsible mother was wiser than she’d given her credit for.

Max entered the bookstore and breathed in the wonderful aroma of new books. Though she had an e-reader, she used it primarily when traveling. Her Manhattan apartment was filled with books she’d be hard-pressed to part with.

She passed a display of books written by local authors, amused to find her own four true crime titles displayed in the middle row. But even more bemusing were the stacks of an investment book that filled the top row—written by Andrew S. Talbot, IV.

Andy certainly didn’t need to write a book to supplement his wealth, but he knew more about money and investing than anyone she knew. Considering her grandfather had owned a bank and her uncle had founded one of the top dotcom companies and sold it at the height of the dotcom boom, she knew many smart money people.

She picked up the book and read the inside cover.

“Max?”

She looked up and saw Jodi O’Neal, Kevin’s sister. She only recognized her from a photo on the Internet; the last time she’d seen Jodi, the girl had been six. Now she was nineteen—the same age Max had been when she left Atherton. What Max hadn’t seen in the photo was that Jodi had Kevin’s big brown eyes, the kind of eyes that shout honesty.

“Hello, Jodi. I’m sorry I’m late. My flight was delayed.”

Tears brimmed Jodi’s eyes. The girl took Max’s hand and squeezed. “Thank you so much. I wasn’t positive you would come, I know you and Kevin had problems.”

“I haven’t spoken to Kevin in twelve years. I came because you asked.”

Jodi bit her lip. “I waited to take my break until you got here. Do you have time for the café? Coffee?”

“I have as much time as you need.”

They walked next door and took a table outside. Atherton was thirty minutes south of San Francisco, and it was always warmer here than in the city. Max took off her blazer and hung it over the back of her chair. A well-established oak tree in the middle of the courtyard provided filtered light on their table. It looked exactly the same the last time Max had been here, when her cousin Thea married Duncan Talbot the Second, Andy’s cousin, two years ago. She’d flown in the day before the wedding, and was on a plane back to New York the morning after.