Power to the Max (8 page)

“What ya doing, Max?”

She almost shrieked and barely managed not to throw the coffee in Witt’s face.

“What the hell are you doing following me like that?” Why, for holy hell in a hand basket, had Max not even considered it could be Witt following her? Self-preservation. A blood-thirsty murdering serial stalker was preferable to Witt if he knew where Max had taken his mother tonight.

He settled into the seat beside her before answering. He reached for her coffee, pried it from her fingers and took a long slug as if the stuff was merely lukewarm. Then he gave it back.

The waitress was there, appearing almost out of thin air. Batting her baby blues at Witt, she asked, “Can I get you coffee?”

He wore his navy suit. He looked sharp in navy. The girl thought so, too, glancing from his dimples—the bastard was smiling—to his big hands. “Thanks,” he said.

She poured, pushed the cream and sugar his way, handed him the menu already opened. “I’d recommend the stack. Of pancakes, that is.”

Funny girl. A regular comedian. Max felt her lip curl.

Witt put his hand on Max’s arm. “Coffee’s fine, thanks.”

“Well, my name’s Cindy,” she said, ignoring Witt’s proprietary grip on Max. “You call if you decide you want anything else.” She walked away, her backside swaying, giving Witt another long glance over her shoulder.

“Cute as bug’s ear, isn’t she?” He grinned, offering a final flutter of his fingers for the girl.

“More like a sow’s tail.”

He turned, looked at Max, and a slow sexy smile spread across his features. She hated it when he looked at her like that; it made her want to crawl onto his lap. “Never known you to be catty, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me sweetheart.” That made her want to crawl onto his lap, too. “Why were you following me?”

He shrugged. “Midnight. Dark. Car mighta broken down.”

“And you’d swoop in on your white charger, is that the idea?”
Please, God, do not let him have followed me from Ladybird’s
. She hadn’t seen his department vehicle there.

“It’s a Taurus, not a Charger.”

So that’s what the damn tan department vehicle was. And she didn’t care. “Why didn’t you pull up along side me so I could see you?”

“Scared?”

Terrified. “Like hell. I thought you were a cop going to write me a ticket.”

He nodded sagely. “Eighty-eight’s a little over the speed limit.”

“You were clocking me, too?”

He poured cream into his coffee, added two packets of sugar, then stirred. She’d figured him for the coffee-black-enough-to-put-hair-on-your-chest type of guy. Nice to know he liked things sweet, too. Not that she’d ever call herself sweet. When he looked at her again, his blue eyes had darkened and the bantering was over. “Take my mother to the store tonight?”

Shit. She knew enough to lie while scrambling for a better answer. “Yes.”

“And what kind of store was it that she had to dress up for?”

“You know your mother.” She couldn’t look at him for fear of discovery and terror of the outcome. “She dresses up for everything.”

He sipped his coffee, looked at her over the rim. “Kinda funny, Max. When she called me on my cell phone to let me know you two were sitting in front of the fire with a cup of tea, I was sitting right outside her house, and neither of you were there.”

Double shit. Liars always get caught one way or another. She thought about telling him another lie, decided against it. At some point, you have to realize you’re going to get buried in that hole you’re digging yourself. “We went up to the City.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to look for the woman I saw in the dream.”

Another drink of coffee, eyes still hard on her. “The police are looking for her. They don’t need your help.”

“I had another vision.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “And I saw her at a hotel.”

“And you thought you might see her there again.”

“Yeah.”

His eyes were like ice chips. “And you took my mother there?”

Very clear enunciation, each word sharp as a blade. “Maybe that part wasn’t such a good idea.” She’d only done it to piss off Cameron.

“Don’t you ever ask what if, Max, and think of the worst?”

She swallowed. The worst had happened the night Cameron died. “It was a nice hotel, a band playing, lots of people. I wouldn’t take her anywhere that wasn’t safe. And she had fun. You ought to take her out more often.”

Witt didn’t even acknowledge the low blow. He grabbed her hand where she’d been running a nervous finger through the sugar crystals she’d spilled on the counter. His grip was just short of punishing. “Don’t do it again.”

She really did hate dictatorial men. She hated it more when they were right. “I guess it was a bad idea.”

He took a deep breath. “Thanks for seeing it my way without the knock-down, drag-out.” Then he smiled. Real, not sexy in the usual way, just plain real. Which was enticing all by itself.

God, he had lightning-fast reflexes and lightning-quick mood swings. If he thought his point was taken, he got over his ire. Well, most of the time.

“So, what’d you find out?” he asked.

Max breathed in a waft of sweet coffee scent, looked around to make sure no one was listening, then told him. “She’s a hooker.”

He groaned and covered his eyes with a big hand. “You let my mother watch a hooker in action?”

“Well, it wasn’t
action
action, if that’s what you mean. All the woman did was pick up a guy and leave the bar.” She tapped a nail against the side of the ceramic mug. “And your mother thought it was kind of fun.”

He lowered his hand. “That’s what I’m afraid of. She’ll probably start pointing out possible hookers next time I take her to dinner. Worse, she’ll probably want me to take her to the same place you two went. You don’t know my mother very well, Max.”

“Oh yes, I do. And she wants to enjoy herself. No harm in that.”

“You’ll be sorry, Max. You’ve created a monster.”

More than one monster, that was for sure. She kept the thought to herself; it would only mean more argument. Or more explanation. And she certainly wasn’t going to tell him he was disturbing her peace of mind, especially not when Miss Pink Poodle was heading their way again, batting her stiletto-long lashes and puckering her cream-puff mouth.

“Decided who—I mean what you want.” The girl tittered like a teenager.

Max refused to do battle with a bimbo over any man. “He’ll take the stack.”

“And bring two forks.” Witt turned the most adoring gaze on Max, twining his fingers through the hair at her nape. “We share everything, don’t we, sweetheart?”

“We sure do, my little sweetie-boy.”

He grinned, eyes a deep sparkling blue like a mountain lake. “God, I get hot when you call me that.”

Little Miss Pink Poodle backed off, stumbling against the stainless counter and knocking the eight-slice toaster askew with her butt. That, in turn, banged into a tray of mugs stacked precariously. Max’s ears rang with the crash. Glass on metal made for a terrific smashup.

“Don’t hurt yourself, dear,” Max cooed, then nudged Witt. “Go help her clean up.”

“Haven’t forgotten the original subject, Max. My mother and a hooker. Don’t try to dodge it.”

She eyed Witt, making sure he wasn’t eyeing the girl’s butt as she bent over behind the counter. “I thought you were a gentleman.”

“She’s already in danger of losing her job, Max. Having a customer down on his knees with her will only make it worse. Her boss would be terrified I was thinking of suing.”

“Who are you kidding? She’d love to get you down on your knees.”

He sighed. “What about the hooker, Max?”

Two busboys and the manager arrived on scene. The manager, a small man, wrung his hands and clucked like a chicken. The busboys swept, mopped, and flirted with the Pink Poodle. The girl even managed a trembling chin and watery eyes. With a face like that, she’d never get fired. She did, in fact, have the manager checking her fingers for cuts. They disappeared into the back trailed by the duo carrying the ceramic disaster.

“Max.”

“The hooker.” Max huffed, then leaned her chin on her hand. “No motive. Why kill your meal ticket? Especially when he was about to give her a furnished apartment.”

“He had plans for an apartment?”

Max rolled her shoulders, then shrugged. “I saw it in the dream. That’s why Ladybird called to ask you about a key in his pocket.”

He shook his head. “Forget to tell me that today?”

“Actually I did.” She held up her hands when he scowled. “Honest.” Not one to miss an opportunity, she added, “Did you find out if the key and that bracelet were still on him?”

“No such items on the deceased’s person.”

Having no idea what that meant to the case, Max rolled her lip between her teeth. “All right”—back to the original issue—“he was getting her an apartment, fully intending to support her. Isn’t that what every hooker dreams of? Like Pretty Woman or something?”

“Lance La Russa was no Richard Gere.”

Max shuddered. The thought of Lance La Russa’s hands on her was sort of like jumping into a pit of snakes. “He had money. He would have given her anything.”

“Wouldn’t have married her.”

Max rolled her eyes. “Believe me, the big M she was looking for was money.”

Witt stretched his fingers. A sign of agitation perhaps? “Fine. Then she’s a dead-end.” She had no idea if he really believed that. “What’s next?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call her a dead-end. She was there the night he was killed. She was probably even the last one to see him alive. I’m not abandoning her yet. She might know something.”

“The cops’ll handle questioning her once I tell them what her name is and what hotel she trolls.”

“Trolls?”

“Cruises for her customers. Where’d you see her?”

He waited, eyes flinty blue again.

“Let’s not be hasty. She’s not going to tell them anything.”

“She will eventually.”

“After they torture her?”

He laughed, a hearty sound that turned heads. “They’ll only smack her a few times, no big deal.”

“Liar. Cops don’t do that, especially not the ones you know.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. What’s her name?”

“I know you’re going to think this sounds a little strange, but I was thinking—”

“No.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t even hear my plan.”

“You are not going to be a hooker.”

His pancakes chose that moment to plop down on the counter in front of him. The Pink Poodle’s face shone brighter than her uniform. Her gaze jumped from Witt to Max and back to Witt, then she skipped away like a frantic puppy that hadn’t gotten the hang of paper-training.

Max smiled at Witt, taking a forkful of syrup, whipped cream, and pancakes at the same time he did. Nothing quite like the intimacy of sharing food from the same plate. “Be a hooker?” she mused, staring at her newly-laden fork. “Why, the thought never entered my mind.”

“Right. Known you two months, Max, trailed you through three murder investigations.” Only the first had been Witt’s case, the others were different jurisdictions, just like Lance La Russa, but Max, with her visions, had pushed Witt into all the cases. “And your MO is stepping into a victim’s shoes. Literally. First the accountant.”

Wendy Gregory. A woman with too many secrets. One of them had gotten her killed. “I am an accountant. Seemed like the logical thing to do.”