Power to the Max (15 page)

“Business card?”

Reaching into her slim cream purse, Angela pulled out a gold holder and handed her card to Max.

“Angela Rocket.” Plus a number. And on the back, “Let Fantasy Become Reality.” Simple. Nebulous. Tantalizing.

“The card is for repeats. A cell number. Never give them a home number.” Another profound statement. “My recorded message promises a call within half an hour.”

“What if you’re in ... the middle of something?”

She laughed, the first time. “I can do a lot in half an hour.”

Max thought about the previous night. Angela had been gone for over two. What else had she been doing? Or had the blond simply begged her to stay?

Angela took the card, set it down. “That’s where you start.”

“Is that how you got started, by putting your card out?”

The woman looked over her shoulder. Hammerhead watched, an odd smile on his face. “Like I said, you can go a long way with a good manager.” She tipped her head to one side. “Is how I got started what you really want to know?”

Max took a sip of wine, licked her lips, then stepped into the hole Angela had obviously dug for her. “I’d like to know why.”

Angela toyed with her drink, turning the glass on the table, the napkin twisting beneath it. “I like sex. A lot. And I like the good life. Seemed like the perfect way to kill two birds with one stone. I also like helping people. Some of these guys need a little confidence boost.”

Max caught herself before she laughed outright. The sound ended up a snort.

Angela raised a perfectly plucked brow. “What? You think a working girl can’t care about her clients? I think it’s a bit like being a psychiatrist.”

“Is that a justification?”

Instead of anger, Max’s comment aroused only mirth. With a half smile, Angela went back to the gentle twisting of her glass. “Some guys are so downtrodden. Their wives pick on them. Their bosses don’t even know they’re alive, except when they fuck up. They’re never good enough for anybody. I imbue them with self-confidence. Pick them up when they’re beaten down.” She shrugged. “Maybe it justifies my love of sex for sex’s sake.”

Who was Max to criticize? She’d seen the Blondies’ beaming faces, seen the way Angela’s rapt attention focused on them had made them straighten their shoulders, walk tall. She felt it herself in a curious way. Angela’s glance never strayed to another table. When she talked, her eyes didn’t wander to what was going on behind your back. She didn’t make you compete for her concentration. Yeah, Max could see how that would make a guy puff out his chest. Maybe Angela got off on that, too.

Angela stopped her perusal of the pale wine and looked straight at Max. “You like sex?”

Tit for tat. You get something, you have to give something back. “I like a good orgasm. I like a lot of them.” Truth. “I find nothing wrong with a little recreational sex.” Lie. Her feelings on sex bounced from desire to need to shame. The word recreational had never applied. Nor had the term making love. Not even with Cameron. In his life, she’d hidden it well from him, or so she thought. With his death, she couldn’t conceal a damn thing.

Angela leaned closer, her fingertips centimeters away from Max’s. “What about power?”

“Power?” Nodding and staring into her glass as the other woman had done, Max answered, “I like power and control.” Truth. That wasn’t so hard to admit. “I like to be on top.” More truth. It was, in fact, the way she felt most comfortable.

“Most men want the woman on top. When she’s not on her knees. Either way, you’ve got power. It’s in the perception.”

Max was suddenly aware of a gaze on her. Close, hostile. Witt. He’d moved inside, taken a table at the edge of the dance floor, seated himself facing her. His hand gripped a beer bottle, fingers white, the only sign of tension. His hair turned dark in the murky lighting, his navy suit transformed to black.

He wasn’t close enough to overhear.

Max didn’t have a logical reason for telling Angela anything, not even the excuse that if she wanted answers, she’d have to feed the other woman’s curiosity, too. Though true, there was more. It was something about Angela herself. As if she waited on the edge of her seat, hands fisted below the table or clutching her chair. As if she absorbed the reasons from others to justify, to commiserate, to understand, to share. Something in Max needed to answer.

Eyeing Witt, Max leaned in to Angela. “It’s not only the money,” she whispered. “And it’s not the sex. It’s wanting them down on their knees, wanting them to beg.” Truth. Terrifying truth.

Angela matched her whisper for whisper. “It’s all about money.” She wet her lips, lipstick shining. “It’s them being willing to pay. For you. It’s us winning at their sex game.”

Max flicked a glance at Witt, his expression unchanged. She took a breath. It shuddered on the way out. “It’s about making sure you’re never on the bottom again. Ever.”

Angela smiled, a slight conspiratorial lifting of her lips. “You’re a sister, Max Starr.” Her gaze flicked down to the wedding ring Max had never even thought to remove. “Your husband doesn’t give you that kind of power, does he?”

“Not anymore.” Half truth. That kind of power died with Cameron.

“I don’t think husbands ever can, do you?”

“It’s not in their job description.” Truth. But power plays should never have been part of her marriage in the first place.

Angela leaned back, drew in a breath, her breasts rising beneath the short jacket. Every male eye in the room—except Witt’s—was on her. The woman knew the meaning of sexual power. How Lance ever thought he’d bring her to heel was beyond Max. Angela already had him wearing a dog collar, and he hadn’t even known it.

“You want power, Max.” She crossed her legs and her arms. “I don’t believe anything else you’ve said, but I believe that. Now why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?”

“I’m a writer.”

It seemed as good an answer as any after the slam Angela had given her. The woman was right. Max had meant every word she’d said, and thinking about it now, the hackles on her neck rose like an animal sensing danger.

“A reporter?” Something ugly blazed in Angela’s eyes.

“No. Novels. My character is a ... working girl.”

“Is she the heroine?” Eyes bright, lips captured in a smile. Once upon a time, Angela had read romance novels.

“No, she’s the murder victim.” Max left it at that. Too much truth might give her away. Angela could very well put her together with Lance’s death if she used the word
suspect
.

“Why come here? Why not the Tenderloin? Lots of potential murder victims down there.”

Max grimaced. “I wanted to observe, not get myself killed.”

Angela leaned forward, tapped her lacquered index finger on the table next to Max’s hand. “Why here, Max?” Insistent. The day of reckoning.

“The woman I’m writing about is high-priced and worth every penny. She’s not a weakling. Maybe she even likes what she’s doing. I wasn’t going to find that girl on the street. And a friend told me about a woman who approached him in a hotel bar when he was on a business trip. He said she was articulate, funny, and smart. That’s the kind of character I was looking for so...” Max paused, raising a palm. “A hotel’s where I started.”

A small lift at the corner of her mouth was all the smile Angela gave. “Did your husband travel a lot?”

Max’s jaw tightened. “No.” She bit her tongue to avoid saying the story had not come from her own husband nor even been inspired by him. She’d made it up.

The smile stayed. “If you want to know about my life, you’re going to have to tell me about yours. That’s the price.”

“You mean you want me to humiliate myself for you.”

Angela turned her head, her gaze flashing across the males in the room. For a moment, she stopped on Witt. Max’s stomach rolled over. Angela came back. “You want to research my way of life, I want to research yours.”

“Looking for a new line of work?”

“Checking out all the options. What’s it like to be homey and married?”

It was time for another truth. At least one big part of it. “My husband’s dead.”

Unlike most people, Angela didn’t issue a platitude, for which Max was grateful. “How long’s it been?”

“Two years.”

A flick to the ring on Max’s finger. “You still miss him.”

Max’s eyes burned. Her nose tingled. She wanted to sneeze, but rubbed her nose instead.

“Guess you weren’t lying when you said he didn’t give you power anymore.”

“No, I wasn’t lying.”

Angela raised her glass to her lips, drained the last of her wine, all the while staring at Max. “All right. We’ll do it.” Max didn’t dare ask what. Angela’s gaze flashed to Max’s feet. “Love the shoes, but your fashion sense bites. You’re not hanging with me unless we get you a new wardrobe.”

Max dispensed with the self-conscious touch to her hair this time. No complaints on either point. In fact, she agreed. She’d worn black far too long. “Fine.”

“You got money for a makeover?” Angela obviously remembered she’d said she was low on cash.

“Enough.” She’d dip into savings.

“So that was another lie, huh?”

Max put her hands up and tipped her head. “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”

“Tomorrow. One o’clock.
City
Center
, the shopping mall where Nordstrom’s is. You know the place?” Angela didn’t wait for Max’s assent. “Main entrance off
Market Street
. Any problems”—she tapped the business card laying on the table between them—“call my cell.”

Damn. How the hell was she going to manage that with her latest temp job? She hated the idea of flaking on Sunny. But then again, she’d been willing to do it to get to Julia. This was an equally important reason.

“I’ll be there,” she agreed.

Angela smiled like a shark. “And tomorrow night you might have to turn a trick or two.”

* * * * *

Max would worry about that later.

Right now, she worried about the fact that Witt had followed her out to the front of the hotel after Angela dismissed her. And dismissal it had been. Angela had work to do. Ten o’clock was early. After agreeing to meet Angela the next day, Max exited the bar, Hammerhead tipping his non-existent hat to her as she passed.

She didn’t know if Angela believed the writer story. She couldn’t guess why Hammerhead had called her over. She understood even less why Angela had approached her. What did they want? She wasn’t sure of anything, least of all what Witt was going to do while she waited for the attendant to get her car.

The answer: nothing. He stood five feet away, keys in hand, the buzz of voices, laughter, and street traffic separating them like a wall. The damp, cold night air froze her nose. A chill reached beneath the material of her blazer and wrapped around her middle. She began to shiver.

Her car arrived. She gave the kid a small tip. His lips pressed together, but his hand snapped closed around the coins.

Witt allowed her to climb into her car unmolested. She drove off, and he disappeared behind her in the fog that had rapidly descended over the city.

She made it to the freeway before she saw his lights in the rearview mirror. Still the department car, she knew it now. Was he pretending to be on the job? God forbid, was she the job?

Exercising minimum speeds, it took longer than normal to reach home. Witt stayed the requisite six car lengths behind her, changing lanes when she did, exiting when she did, turning the streets as she did.

She took a deep calming breath as she shut off the engine in front of her house. Blowout time. She could handle anything he dished out. Climbing out, purse slung over her shoulder, she stood with her legs slightly apart for balance.