Vengeance to the Max (42 page)

She
was
a little slow on the uptake. “Witt?”

“Hmmm?”

“Will you get on top of me?”

He laughed, a choked, almost involuntary sound. “Here?”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you to make love to me on Cameron’s grave. This is about something else.”

His eyes roamed her face, saw the seriousness, and understood what she needed. Witt’s weight on her in this place, his solidness, was part of saying good-bye to Cameron. Witt rose over her on his elbows, settled first on her stomach, then her chest. Finally his legs tangled with hers.

“Can you breathe?”

He was heavy. “Yes.”

“Are you scared?”

“Yes.” She looped her arms around his neck. “But not of this. And not of you.” Then, despite the cold seeping through her jeans and sweatshirt, she pulled him down to kiss her.

Riley Morgan’s hair was long. He ought to cut it, a buzz-cut like Witt’s. He was too dark, dark eyebrows, dark brown hair, chocolate eyes. Max preferred blue eyes, blond hair, and white eyebrows that disappeared in stark sunlight. She liked big hands.

Riley’s hand knocking on her door was merely average.

She’d parked behind his blue Camero. It wasn’t a Dodge Ram. Riley didn’t look like the Ram kind of guy; he looked like a Sutter kind of guy. And why the hell was he knocking on her door anyway when he assuredly knew she wasn’t there?

Witt would be here in a few minutes. He’d stopped to gas up the truck. She was supposed to change clothes and pick up more stuff to take to his place. After that, she figured they could rent
Lost Horizon
and go back to Witt’s place to watch it. Maybe she’d bring him
Bullitt
, too, for the car chase.

But Riley Morgan was on her doorstep, and she decided to stop running from him. “I hear you’ve been looking for me.”

He stopped mid-knock. “And I hear you’re psychic.”

With a deep breath, she tilted her head to the side, taking in the disbelief, almost disgust, on his face. His eyes fell to the plastic grocery bag of last night’s clothes clutched in her fingers.

“Yeah. I was possessed by those women. That’s how I knew who killed them.” Sort of, but that was leaving out a helluva big part of the story, the story he wouldn’t get from her.

He drew a notebook from his pocket and flipped it open, his pen poised. Two fat raindrops fell on the open page like a warning. He brushed them aside.

Max stayed on the gravel by the side of her small wooden deck, letting him have that advantage. The clothing she wore smelled of grass and the spice of Witt’s skin.

“So are you going to tell me or do I write this story my way?” He was too young to act the tough guy, his skin too unlined, his brown eyes nowhere near hardened.

“Tell it your way.”

His mouth tightened. “They found Bud Traynor dead last night.” He watched her for a heartbeat. “Shot in the heart.”

If he expected a reaction, he got none. Max willed each muscle rigid. “I heard.”

“Did you know they found a ring identified as belonging to Julius Hartman in his desk drawer along with a newspaper article on your husband’s murder?”

Julius Hartman? A ring. Scarface. Julius Hartman. Dennis Martin. They shouldn’t have had names like everyone else. It didn’t fit. Just like Bud’s death didn’t fit. Cameron’s leaving was the only thing she understood.

“He’d written the names of your assailants under each composite printed in the paper. Dennis Martin. Julius Hartman.”

The world around her shrunk to this man, to his voice. Max closed her eyes as if that would stop her from hearing a name attached to Tattoo.

“Leonard Small.”

She tipped her neck, the blood draining from her head. Spots danced before her eyes.

“Your friend Bud had their addresses written down, too. It’s almost a foregone conclusion that ballistics will match Traynor’s unregistered gun to the first two deaths.”

Cameron’s unregistered gun. “What about Dennis?”

Keen eyes narrowed. “Dennis. The way you say it—” He tapped his pen on his chin. “How do you know he’s the one Bud Traynor didn’t get to?”

She knew what he was thinking, that she’d hired Bud to do her killing. The little man didn’t have a clue into Bud’s psyche if he thought that. Okay, so he was over six feet, but he was little to her. “It was in the phrasing of your question.”

She had him there. He couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said. Big mistake. As a reporter, he still had a lot to learn. He went on. “Armed with his name and the address of his dwelling found in
your
friend’s desk, the police attempted to apprehend Mr. Martin, both for questioning about your husband’s murder and for his own protection.”

“Bud Traynor was never my friend.” It was important for even Riley Morgan to know that. Her heart sank slowly to her stomach. She could have finished the story for him, described it as if she’d been there, with all the gory details. She let him tell her instead.

“Unfortunately for him, he fled by way of the roof.”

Unfortunately for Dennis, he hadn’t believed her.

“The police say he’d intended to jump to the next building when they caught up with him, but he didn’t make it.” Riley had an uncannily steady gaze. Maybe he wasn’t such a pup despite his mistakes. “Do you know what his last words were, Mrs. Starr?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

His voice lowered, and somewhere in it, she almost heard Dennis Martin. “Fuck the bitch, I can make it.”

She stood in the stone silence of morning. “How do you know all this?”

“I’ve got good sources.” He searched her face. “They also tell me your boyfriend’s suspension has been lifted.”

Witt hadn’t told her, but her anger didn’t rise the way it could have. They’d had other things that needed to be said.

“So you’re both clean,” he went on. “Bud Traynor will go down as the vigilante slayer of your husband’s killers. There’s nothing to connect you. Your boyfriend is exonerated in the shooting death of another of your ... adversaries, shall we say.”

Witt had also planted the ring, the article, and Dennis Martin’s whereabouts in Bud Traynor’s house. He’d planted evidence. To protect her. Witt had compromised his principals. For her. Was that stupidity or love? Or more of Bud’s Karma?

Or her dear departed husband had given her his final gift of freedom.

“So it looks like you’re off the hook for everything, Mrs. Starr.” Riley walked to the edge of the wooden porch and stepped down to the gravel. He was still taller. She needed her high heels instead of Sutter’s tennies.

His voice came low, from the depths of his gut. “But I know you put Mr. Traynor up to those killings. I’ll be watching you, waiting for you to slip up.” He gave her a rapacious smile. “You’re going to be my biggest story.”

* * * * *

“You shouldn’t have faked all that stuff in Bud’s house.”

“I didn’t fake anything.” Witt had been telling her that for that last day and a half.

Max knew he was lying. He’d covered her ass in more ways than one. They were tit for tat at this point. Because she hadn’t told him she’d gotten the information about Bud and Bootman from Riley Morgan. A girl couldn’t reveal everything and change at the snap of a guy’s fingers, could she? She’d tell him about Morgan’s little threats eventually. Maybe she could make him beg her to tell him everything while she was doing something extremely kinky and delicious. Or vice versa. Oh yeah, there were all sorts of possibilities just around the corner. “And you should have told me that they lifted your suspension.”

“I was going to.”

“When?”

Witt squeezed her hand. “You sound like a wife.”

She gasped. “I do not.”

He bent and pecked a kiss to her nose. “Yes, you do. Haven’t been ragged on in years, and I kinda like it.”

“No man likes being ragged on. And I wasn’t ragging, I was just saying that you—”

This time he shut her up with his lips on hers.

Mmm
. That was nice. He probably liked her to rag on him so he could cut her short just like this. And there was a high likelihood that she liked giving him a bad time for the same reason.

Ladybird’s front door burst open, and Witt’s tiny mom twittered unintelligibly.

“What’s that smell?” Witt’s brow furrowed, his lips twisted, and his nose twitched.

It was pretty bad. Like rotting vegetables, worse than a compost heap on a hot, humid day.

“It’s the brussels sprouts,” Ladybird finally managed, skipping down the hallway to her kitchen, Witt and Max close on her heels.”

This time they both raised their eyebrows. “Brussels sprouts?”

“I put them in the microwave with plastic wrap over them. And when I took the plastic wrap off...” Ladybird wrinkled her nose, and her blue-gray hair bobbed. “Well, they didn’t smell the way they were supposed to.”

Brussels sprouts were not the most deliciously fragrant of vegetables at any time, but now ... the stench hung like a cloud. They all stared at the glass plate of offensive green stuff.

“I tasted them, and they’re fine. In fact, despite the aroma, they’ve got a unique nutty flavor I’ve never noticed before.”

“I’m not eating something that smells that bad,” Witt announced. “Don’t you know that smell is 99 percent of taste?”

Max jabbed him in the ribs. “Don’t be silly. Of course he’s going to eat them. We’ll all eat them.” And throw up later.

Ladybird beamed, like a little gnome or one of Santa’s female elves. Was that silver glitter in her hair?

Then she bounced on her rubber-soled shoes. “Oh my, our first Thanksgiving together. I’m so excited.”

Max, horribly, incredibly, wonderfully, agreed with Ladybird. “Do you want me to help with anything?”

Ladybird scooped a shiny pile of utensils from the counter and plopped them in Max’s hand. “You can set the table. Witt can make the eggnog. I like the way he does it because he always puts an extra shot of vodka in mine.”

Max waggled one eyebrow. “Well, then I think he can put an extra shot in mine, too.”

“The two of you are lushes.” But Witt bent to the refrigerator and pulled out a quart of the delicious concoction. Max hadn’t had eggnog since ... since before Cameron died.

She sorted through the utensils Ladybird had given her. Place settings for four. Max simply stared.

Ladybird patted her arm. “Horace told me that Cameron wouldn’t be with us this time.”

Max glanced over the top of Ladybird’s head and met Witt’s suddenly intent gaze.

“Horace is right,” Max said. “Cameron won’t be attending.” Not ever again. The thought didn’t cut as deeply as it had just yesterday. She held onto Witt’s gaze as if she’d trailed her fingers along his jaw. “I’d venture to say we can retire his place setting.”

“Oh my,” Ladybird chirped. “I’m so happy for him.”

Witt merely poured the eggnog, then the vodka, and saluted Max with the empty shot glass. He sampled from her cut-glass mug, then handed it to her. She sipped, savoring the rich nog, the vodka’s bite. Then he bent and licked the residue from her lips.

His eyes blazed with promise. More than alcohol warmed Max’s belly.

“Hmm,” Ladybird murmured after slugging back a whopping gulp of her own spiked drink. “Christmas weddings are nice.”

“Mom,” Witt warned.

“I’m not getting any younger.” She moved her hand, and eggnog sloshed precariously close to the rim of her mug. “And what if your father decides to go into
the light
? No, no, we can’t risk him missing the nuptials. Max dear, we have to talk about whether you’ll wear white or not ...” She twittered about the kitchen like a bird flitting from flower to flower, asking questions, making plans, and not in the least concerned that nobody answered her.