Boots sounded on the deck outside. Max’s heart leaped to her throat. Someone banged on her front door.
Cameron.
She ran down the stairs without even asking why the hell he’d knock or how she could have heard the slap of his boots. He’d never worn boots.
And he was dead.
When she flung the door open, she asked God to let it be Cameron. The hole in her heart when she saw it wasn’t almost made her slump to the floor.
Nicholas Drake stood on her front porch, wet hair plastered to his head, blue shirt molded to his chest. She wondered how he’d gotten to her front door. Where had he been hiding? With whom? A friend? Or his wife?
She didn’t really care. Wendy was the one who cared. Too much.
“Can I come in?”
She didn’t open the door any wider. “You shouldn’t be here. Detective Long’s looking for you.”
“I waited to make sure he didn’t come back.” A drop of water ran down his nose. He swiped his hand across his face.
“How did you know where I lived?”
A smile. “You know I’ve been following you.”
Hell, she was leading a hide-n-seek parade. Any day, Nick and Witt were gonna trip over each other.
“Did you follow me after work?”
“I trailed you for awhile, but the cop showed up. I figured it wasn’t safe to hang around, so I waited here.”
“Good answer, Nickie.”
It so conveniently got him off the hook. He could’ve anticipated the question and come up with that smooth lie. Or he could be innocent. She opened the door and let him into the small alcove. Without Cameron, finding Wendy’s killer was all she had left.
Nick was close, drenched with the heady scent of rain and potent male animal. Body heat rose off him in the relatively warm foyer after she closed the door.
“You’re crying.” He traced her tears with his gaze.
She swiped at her cheeks with the back of a fist. “I just washed my face.”
Denial came too late. She’d felt the change in him. A subtle softening of his features, a hint of tenderness in his eyes, and almost a reverence in his fingertips as he brought them within inches of her skin without touching. Faint changes, so meaningful if she only knew how to interpret them.
Yet the bottom of the stairs was as far as he’d get. She didn’t trust the shift in him anymore than she understood it.
Max moved backwards, up six steps, and sat down, pulling her robe closed over her thighs. It reached her knees. Her calves and feet were bare. She actually wondered if she’d remembered to shave her legs. They were smooth beneath her fingers as she tugged the robe down another inch. Her arms were covered with goose bumps, and her nipples peaked against the terrycloth.
Oh, but she understood that shift in herself perfectly. Wendy wanted him. Badly.
She put her palms together and wedged her hands between her thighs. “Why are you here?”
“You know why. I couldn’t stay away.”
“I suppose I remind you of Wendy.”
His nostrils flared, and she could have sworn he’d looked inward for a moment and didn’t like what he saw.
“Do you think I’m capable of murdering her?” Soft. Low. She wasn’t sure what he was really asking for.
She took a chance on baiting him. “You came in that night on a flight from Boise. Wendy met you after you gave your wife the kids. You were on the bus she took to the long term parking lot, and you got off when she did. No pun intended. Your fingerprints were in her car, all over the back seat where you fucked her. Where she died.”
He neither confirmed nor denied nor even asked how she knew so many details. Nick simply stared at her perched on the step above him. His eyes and face were shadowed by the overhead light slightly behind and to the left of where he stood.
“Shall I go on?”
“I know the rest.” He was silent. She didn’t press. And then he started talking. “We had a fight after making love.”
Oh yeah. That was the part she hadn’t wanted to hear. The part Wendy hadn’t wanted to remember. “Making love?”
Her stomach lurched when he laughed softly, mirthlessly, at her question. “I know you wouldn’t call what we did making love. It was adultery. It was fucking. I fucked her. She fucked me.” He stopped. Took a deep breath. “Anyway. We fought.”
“About what?”
Silence again. It lasted only a moment. “She’d left her husband. I hadn’t asked her to do that. I couldn’t handle that. My wife...it was a mess. What Wendy wanted would have made everything messier. I wasn’t ready.”
Max stared at him, hated him. As Wendy had hated him that night. “You were only ready to let her unzip your pants and suck you off—”
“Hey,” he snapped, raising his fist. “Don’t talk about her like that.”
“I was talking about you, Nickie.”
“I can see what you think of me. It isn’t any worse than what I’ve thought of myself.”