“I don’t know them at all.”
“You have the chance to know them better. You have a chance to help us catch the man who did this to my daughter.”
His taunting tone numbed her bones. She was, she realized, looking at the man responsible for Wendy’s death. He might not have strangled her with his own hands, but everything Wendy had done was because of this man. She had welcomed death in the back seat of her car, her legs spread, her thighs covered with a man’s come, because of what her father had driven her to.
Max had seen the Devil the night Cameron died. She knew what he looked like. She recognized him in Bud Traynor’s bottomless black eyes.
Chapter Nineteen
The late evening sun beat down on her head. It went a long way to warming her insides, but it wasn’t enough. “I can’t do this anymore,” she whispered.
“You can’t stop,” Cameron murmured in answer, his words whipped away by the wind as she headed out to the freeway.
“I didn’t know myself in there.” She hadn’t been strong, hadn’t been in control. She’d been putty in the hands of evil. In the end, she’d damn near run out of there.
“You weren’t that bad. You’re living in Wendy’s skin. It’s understandable that you reacted the way you did.”
“I should have accused him, ripped him a new asshole.”
“That wouldn’t get justice for Wendy.”
“Who the hell cares about justice? She needs vengeance.”
“Vengeance against whom?”
“Against the guy with one hand squeezing my knee and the other reaching for my soul.” Against Bud Traynor.
Exhaust fumes wafted across the open vehicle. She merged into the sluggish freeway traffic between a Mercedes and a black Ram, though she couldn’t seem to drum up an ounce of enthusiasm for the fantasy truck. Behind her, Mr. Mercedes wore sunglasses and a scowl, and leaned on his horn. Max raised her hand in the air, middle finger up, then curled her fingers into a fist, and shook it at him.
Now that made her feel a world better. For a split second.
“Maybe there was more than one man who drove Wendy to her death,” Cameron urged.
She laughed mirthlessly. “Wendy was a magnet for scumbags.”
Bud and Hal and Remy. Nick, too. He’d wanted to help her, but he’d ended up getting her killed.
“Or killing her himself.”
Weary, she shook her head. “Please stop eavesdropping on my thoughts.” She slammed on the brakes as a white Honda zipped out of the commute lane and cut across two lanes of nearly stalled traffic. “Goddamn it.”
“Talk to me, Max.”
“I’m trying to drive.” Trying to block out his voice.
“Did you ever ask him why they didn’t go to her hotel room? She must have had one if she’d left Hal.”
She couldn’t wait. Max didn’t say it aloud, but Cameron picked it up out of the air.
“Afterward,” he whispered. “After Nick made love to her.”
She felt his words inside her, between her thighs, and she squeezed her eyes shut a moment, remembered the feel of Cameron, his hands on her, his lips, his tongue. Jesus, she even remembered the fullness of Detective Witt’s balls in her hand.
“They didn’t make love,” she whispered. They didn’t even have sex. “They fucked.”
The shriek of a horn jerked her attention back to the road. She’d kill herself arguing with Cameron.
“I’m tired.” Her voice cracked. God, she’d become weak. Snap out of it, girl.
“Tell me why Nick didn’t go with her?” he insisted. “Why they didn’t leave that parking lot together?”
Max ground her back teeth. “He didn’t kill her.”
“But why didn’t he leave with her?” The tension in his voice rose a notch.
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me.”
She gunned the engine, slipped into the commute lane and flashed past the line of cars. Screw the ticket she might get, even if it broke the bank. Hey, maybe the cop would be able to see Cameron sitting there. She could always say she saw him. Then they’d haul her away, lock her up, throw away the key, and she wouldn’t have to answer any more of Cameron’s questions.
“Why, Max?”
Push, push, push. Cameron’s MO stretched her nerves to the breaking point. Even violating the law, she couldn’t drive away from his insistent voice.
“Because they had a fight, okay?”
“About what?”
“I don’t know.” She’d only felt Wendy’s anger, then her loneliness, and finally her despair.
“Ask him.”
“I’ll probably never see him again.”
“You’ll see him, Max. He’ll find you. A dog can always find a bitch in heat.”
“That’s a nasty thing to say.”
“I’m only speaking the truth.”
It was true. About her, God knew. And about Wendy.
*
Max felt better the next morning. Bud Traynor may have zapped her energy, but a good night’s sleep without a dream to mar her rest was like an upper.
Then again, she might be bipolar.
Or Wendy’s emotions had taken over her life—again.