He raised one eyebrow, as if to inquire what might be in her bed. Or what she might want there.
Beds, detectives, and being possessed by a murdered woman didn’t mix. She squashed the image. Like a bug.
He stared at her throat a moment longer. God, he wasn’t wondering if Wendy had put the scratches there? No. Of course not. Like Columbo, he was simply taking note of everything.
“Call me if you find anything else interesting,” he said finally, with a glance at the loosely packed box she’d put against the wall.
Max followed the look. “A few of Wendy’s personal things. Remy called her husband to pick them up at his convenience. Did you want to look through them?”
If she’d harbored the slightest hope he might let slip the whereabouts of Hal Gregory the night his wife went missing, it was dashed the moment Long opened his mouth. To yawn. “Excuse me, been a long two days. Recorded the contents in my notes while we talked. Nothing I didn’t see yesterday.”
So that’s what he’d been writing down furiously. “You must have laser vision to see right through that cardboard.”
“I do, ma’am.” He didn’t crack a smile, and she could have sworn for just an instant his eyes flickered to the front of her blazer. To the maddeningly raised nipples beneath the fabric.
How had that happened?
God, what a team Wendy had working for her. Max Starr, faux-psychic investigator, her ghostly husband, and Dudley Do-Right with the big hands. Though she’d actually begun to like the man, even suspected he had a dry sense of humor.
And, as indicated by the fact that he’d come right over for the appointment book, he also seemed to care about solving Wendy’s case, which was the biggest point in his favor so far.
Detective Long stood and straightened his already straight tie. “Miss Starr—”
“Mrs.”
“I’d like you to take a trip down to the department.”
With that serious face, she could be sure it wasn’t some sort of detective come-on.
“We’ll need a set of elimination prints.”
“Elimination prints?”
“Friends, contacts, anyone whose prints might reasonably be on or in the victim’s car, her purse.” He paused, his mouth curved with just a hint of smirk. “Her appointment book. We did the other Hackett employees yesterday.”
“Oh.” Her fingerprints were all over the damn book, every page of it. It would look odd. Suspicious. Or just plain nosy.
Nosy she could handle. She gave him her best sheepish look, one perfected during years of attempted husband manipulation. “I looked through it. I hope I didn’t contaminate any evidence.”
“That’s why we’ll need your prints, ma’am. To eliminate them.” He blinked, Max almost thought it was a challenge. “Trust we won’t find them on her car, right?”
He bore a calculated lack of facial expression. The man was no naive Dudley Do-Right, despite the cleft chin.
She waved her hand to encompass the cluttered desk and ledger-filled bookcase. “Does this look like a job worth killing for?”
He almost smiled. “Tomorrow. Okay with you? Noon?”
“I only have half an hour for lunch.”
“Hackett will accommodate the investigation.” With a hand—a big hand—on the doorjamb of her office, DeWitt Quentin Long turned to her for the last time. “You know, you really shouldn’t smoke in here. No ventilation. Bad for your health. And it’s against the law.”
*
Cameron blasted her the moment she hit the freeway after leaving Hackett’s for the day. “Why didn’t you tell the detective that 452 was a flight number?”
“He already knows that from the notepaper found by Wendy’s body.” The one she’d seen in her vision.
“You should have told him it was a United Airlines flight.”
Max had verified that there was indeed a flight 452 arriving from Boise at 7:59 the night Wendy died. Not that she’d truly needed the confirmation. At this point, she no longer doubted the “vision.”
She just doubted Cameron’s conclusions. “We don’t know Nicholas Drake had anything to do with Wendy’s death. It would be wrong to incriminate him unless we know.”
“Remember all your logical deductions? Nickie’s name at 7:59 in her date book, same time as that Boise flight—”
“It didn’t say a.m. or p.m. And there’s no proof.”
“—and Paperboy got off the shuttle at the United terminal.”
“Coincidental.” Not. And well she knew it. But that didn’t make Drake a murderer. “Stop badgering me, I’m trying to drive.”
“Why didn’t you tell the detective about the personnel file?”
“If he’s worth anything, he’s already checked the files.”
“You’ve got to tell him everything you know, Max.”
“You’re crazy, Cameron. I’ll be his prime suspect. He already asked why I’m so interested in Wendy and how I got the job. He even wants my fingerprints.”
“He’s not going to arrest you. He’s hot for you.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “He is not hot for me.”