She undid the ribbons and bows of her floor-length, flannel gown, then lay on the bed. She prayed that if God were merciful, she would die right this minute.
But the God she knew had never been merciful.
“Whore,” her father whispered close to her ear.
When he was done, he stood beside the bed. “You’re worse than any whore. You push me and push me until I’m forced to punish you this way. Now get up and wash yourself.” He closed the door to her bedroom, and she heard the twist of the key in the lock.
She rose then, went into the bathroom, and used a washcloth. He was right. She always did something, made some mistake, didn’t properly anticipate what might set him off. Almost as if she asked for the things he did. Moonlight fell through the bathroom window across her face, illuminating her features. She didn’t even know what she’d done until warm, sticky blood seeped through her fingers and the new crack in the mirror cleaved her face in two.
Totally alone, Max woke deep in the night, and dry-heaved over the side of the bed. Nothing came up except her fear. She dragged her legs to the edge and sat up, gripping the mattress. Body still trembling, she rocked. The rain had stopped. The birds were silent.
It was a holy time for promises.
Eyes closed, Max whispered into the dark. “I’ll kill him, Wendy. One day, I swear, I’ll kill him for you.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The dream lived in her, gave her purpose and a reason to drag herself out of bed before the sun rose. Bud was worse than an animal; he was an intelligent, charming predator. Max realized she’d merely played at the investigation game, gotten her toes wet, maybe even stuck her whole foot in. But her attempts had been lame, futile.
Not anymore.
Last night’s dream had given her focus, brought her clarity. Cameron would have called it psychic intuition. Whatever it was, she knew without a doubt that Bud Traynor had been instrumental in his daughter’s death. The knowledge crawled inside her like maggots on dead flesh. It made her squirm, turned her stomach, twisted her thoughts.
Bud Traynor wouldn’t sully his hands with dirty work. He was a manipulator and would have used his skills to manipulate Wendy’s murderer. All Max had to do was find the most malleable suspect.
There was cuckolded Hal Gregory who hated his wife for rejecting all that he wanted to give her. There was Remy Hackett who thought he owned the people who worked for him. There was Carla Drake who hated Wendy for stealing her husband.
And there was Nick. She ruthlessly added his name to the list despite Wendy’s silent scream of denial.
Among the four, it was quite simple to choose.
Max stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, cracked just like Wendy’s childhood mirror. Her hair stood on end from falling asleep with it wet the night before. Squished flat on one side, knotted and tangled on the other, no amount of combing could bring order. It seemed indicative of her life. She resorted to hairspray. She found a run in her pantyhose, but who the hell cared when she wore slacks.
Buzzard whined plaintively. She left him a can of tuna, water, and an open window so he could come and go as he pleased.
Just like Cameron.
She winced at the memory of her dead husband’s cruel words, and knew they were final.
She didn’t know how to make love. She’d never known, probably never would.
But she would make Bud Traynor pay for what he’d done. That, she could do.
An exercise in control, Max closed the door quietly behind her. It was just after eight, an ungodly hour for a Saturday morning. Murderers never took a day off; neither could she. Hackett’s would be open, of course, but Wendy had never worked weekends. Max promised herself, promised Wendy, that come Monday, neither of them would have to go back there.
The sky was a cloudy blue, the grass glistened, and the air smelled like fresh earth and wet concrete. The late summer rain heralded a change in the weather. More storms were on their way. She felt it in the air.
She was at the end of the driveway, three car lengths from her Miata parked at the curb, when she saw him. Witt was seated in a nondescript four-door sedan, probably the same one he’d driven yesterday. The color might have been beige, the car definitely department issue.
He stared at her, his window rolled down. She couldn’t tell for sure, but if she had to place her hand on a stack of bibles, she’d swear he didn’t even blink. His usually blue eyes were dark, but that could have been a trick of shadows inside his car.
“Hey.” Her stomach did a slow tumble to her knees when he didn’t answer, didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow in greeting.
A car rushed by between them, spitting wet macadam beneath its tires. After it passed, Witt opened his door and stood in the vee, one big hand wrapped around the frame.