“If she had, I’d have told the police. Mostly, I did the talking. That’s what she paid for, you know, my insight.”
“Then tell me what your insights were.” Getting information out of this woman was like pulling teeth. Max figured she needed a bigger pair of pliers.
Divinity didn’t answer immediately, staring off somewhere behind Max’s shoulder. “What did your husband look like, Max?”
Something prickled along the nape of Max’s neck. Divinity had used the past tense. “If you’re so all-knowing, why don’t you tell me?”
“He was older than you, perhaps ten years.”
“Older and wiser,” Max whispered, and wondered where he was right now.
“He’s here, behind you. He wants me to tell you that he won’t leave you until you’re truly ready, until you let him go.”
Her breath stopped on the inhale, choked her. “You can see him?”
“He’s opening a candy.” Divinity glanced at Max. “You can smell it, can’t you?”
God oh God, she smelled peppermints. “I only notice the incense.”
“Max,” Divinity chided softly. “What do you smell?”
“Sandalwood.”
Divinity crossed her arms over her chest. “Peppermint, Max. You smell peppermint.”
The chair was no longer able to hold her down. Max stood, legs shaky, heart hammering, chest tight. She turned, looked into the far corners of the kitchen. The fragrant vapors of simmering beef stew rose from the crockpot, three scented pots still burned on Divinity’s round tables, but layered beneath it all was the subtle aroma of peppermints.
Max grabbed her purse from the floor and backed toward the stairwell. Her rear end came up against the doorjamb.
“Max.” At the sound of Divinity’s voice, Max turned and clambered down the stairs. She missed a step, stumbled, grabbing the handrail to save herself from falling. Her knee twisted. At the bottom, she plunged into the relative darkness of the plumbing supply shop and banged her knee against a jutting toilet rim.
There was only room for one thought in her head: Divinity had seen Cameron.
Which meant Max wasn’t crazy or grieving or delusional.
She wasn’t psychotic; she was psychic. That was infinitely worse.
Throwing the front door open with a crash, she fell out into the light. Vehicles whooshed by on the divided road. She clutched her purse to her chest. Her car was miles away on the other side of the median. Keys, she needed keys. Yanking open the snap of the purse, she fumbled around inside, finally finding the cool metal with her fingers.
She realized then that she’d run out without paying the woman. Well, to hell with that.
Max stepped off the curb, pulling her keys out at the same time. Her brain seemed anesthetized, her fingers felt numb. The keys slipped through them and tumbled to the pavement just before she’d reached the center divide.
She bent just as a shout of alarm came from behind her.
Then the impact threw her to the ground.
Chapter Twenty
Dirt ground into Max’s cheek, the palms of her hands, and her stomach where her shirt had ridden up.
Besides a few scrapes and bruises that would show later, she’d landed safe and sound in the median. With a very big man on top of her. She’d know that body anywhere. One of his big hands had somehow managed to insinuate itself between the packed dirt she lay on and her right breast. Something blunt scraped her nipple.
My God, the man was copping a feel. It did indeed feel very good. Her nipples hardened. She very much wanted to wriggle and squirm until a rigid bulge nestled between her butt cheeks and she’d twisted the cup of her bra aside to allow full access to those fingers.
“Get off me, you oaf.”
“Some thanks for saving your life,” Witt growled in her ear.
Which had the effect of releasing a torrent of moisture all over her panties. “Saving my life? You practically broke my back flopping down on top of me like that.”
Witt climbed off her and stood, holding his hand out to help her to her feet. “Maybe I shoulda let the guy in that green 4Runner hit you while I wrote down his license plate number.”
Max ignored the extended hand. No way was she touching him. Once on her feet, she dusted the dirt from her hands and clothes and tucked her shirt back in. She gabbed her keys from the pavement before another car came, then, back on the median, she looked down at her suit, the scuffed knees, the streaks of dirt. “Oh man, I just had this one cleaned, too.”
“How can you tell it was that one you cleaned?”
She still felt Witt’s heated imprint against her back, his hand against her breast. He didn’t look like a hot and bothered man who’d just copped a feel or flattened himself to her body. No, he looked...unaffected, unruffled, the hint of a grin on his mouth. Where the hell was the rigid bulge he should have had?
Narrowing her gaze on him, she ignored his sarcasm. “As for your blowing a detail, I don’t believe you, Detective. You wouldn’t miss a license plate if it killed you.”