Traynor said it so matter-of-factly, and yet she felt far more derogatory words hovered on his lips. She remembered the dream, knew exactly what it meant now. Wendy’s father had known she’d been with another man, had punished her for it and beaten her to extract the mans’ name.
It hadn’t worked. For perhaps the only time in her life, Wendy’s will had been stronger than her father’s. Nickie’s name never crossed her lips.
Neither would it cross Max’s. Not that it mattered. Max was pretty damn sure Bud knew everything Wendy did and with whom.
“His name. Now there’s a motive for murder, Max. Her lover killed them both to keep his secret.” Hal’s nostrils flared. “To think I encouraged her to go in at five in the morning so she wouldn’t feel so overworked.”
She wondered if Hal had figured that out before or after Wendy’s murder. Had someone at Hackett’s told him? The ever-willing-to-blab Theresa? Remy himself?
God, she felt sorry for Wendy. Hal surely had more than enough money to allow his wife to stay home. Instead he’d sent her to work at the crack of dawn so she wouldn’t feel overworked? How ass backwards was that? “I’m sure she still made it home in time to have your dinner ready.”
“There were some duties Wendy never forgot,” Hal said with an air of righteousness.
Yeah. Was blowing the beanpole one of them? Gross.
“I taught her well.” Bud Traynor smiled.
Bile rose in Max’s throat. Jesus, oh Jesus. He was a man of double meanings, and the thought of all the things he’d taught his daughter turned her stomach.
Worse yet, he was proud of it.
The man leaned forward, touched Max’s knee, and squeezed, his fingers cold through the material of her pants. Her leg shriveled. She wanted to run screaming from the room.
Buck up, Max. Don’t let him get the better of you.
Cameron was right. She looked from Bud’s fingers to his face, recognized the challenge, and met him head on. “I don’t know you well enough to allow you to put your hand on my knee, Mr. Traynor.”
He mimicked her actions, looked from his hand on her knee to her face. The pressure on her knee eased. He sat back, but his eyes gleamed. She could have sworn it was with admiration.
“Forgive me,” he said. “Forgive us both. This is such an emotional subject for Hal and I. Wendy told him she was leaving him. That was very hard on him.”
Harder than Wendy’s death? Of course. Death would have appeased Hal’s ego.
Hal sat like a rock, watched, probably even missed Max’s victory in that subtle skirmish.
“When did she do that, Bud?” With his name on her lips, she almost gave in to her gag reflex. Better to have stayed with Mr. Traynor.
Neither man asked why she directed the question to Wendy’s father instead of her husband. Nor did Hal try to usurp his father-in-law’s position.
Bud answered. “I believe, Max, that would have been sometime on Sunday.”
“The day before Wendy died?” Sunday, not Monday.
That was the reason why Hal had never reported his wife missing, the reason for the fury she’d witnessed that first day in Wendy’s office. Maybe even the reason Wendy was dead. Hal would have had plenty of time to plan a murder.
“We all knew my daughter was having an affair, that she was probably leaving Hal for this other man.”
“That would also be a motive for murder, wouldn’t it?” She looked at Bud as she said it. He ran the show, she was positive on that.
Hal opened his mouth to speak, to rage, to God knows what, but Bud held up his hand. Hal subsided against the cushions of the loveseat and let Bud speak for him. Again.
“We only want to know who killed her, Max. We want justice. Hal can’t move on without it. Do you understand that?”
She understood the inability to move on. She also understood the origin of Hal’s words the other night at the bar. The anger was his, but the phrasing had been all Bud Traynor’s.
Bud smiled, folded his arms. It was the same smile he used when he beat Wendy. “Of course, we know it could be a motive. For Hal. But he was with me when Wendy died.”
She raised an eyebrow. “So I’ve heard.”
He shot her an assessing look. “Are you suggesting a conspiracy in my daughter’s death?”
Noting Hal’s immobile features as his father-in-law defended him, Max went on, “I suppose it could be coincidence. And the night Lilah Bloom died?”
“Alas, we were again drowning our sorrows.”
She looked from one to the other. “How convenient for you both.”
Hal cleared his throat then. Bud Traynor ran a hand across the not-unattractive day’s growth of stubble on his chin. “She was my daughter, Max. I might not have agreed with everything she did, but I couldn’t possibly lie for a man if I thought he’d murdered her.”
Couldn’t possibly. The chill never left his eyes, and she knew there was nothing Bud Traynor wouldn’t do if it suited his purpose, even manipulate Hal Gregory into murdering his wife. Even if she was Bud’s own daughter.
“We need your help to find the man who killed Wendy,” Bud went on, his voice low, mesmerizing. “You know the people down at Hackett’s.”