Max pushed her advantage. “If you want to help her, you’ll tell me where she is.”
“Get offa my porch,” and this time Mrs. Abrams slammed the door in Max’s face.
Too late. Max already knew in her gut that Carla Drake hadn’t come home until the early morning hours the night Wendy died.
Her alibi was shot to hell.
*
Knowing Carla had motive and opportunity wasn’t enough to free Nick.
Max needed more. She needed someone to break. Carla was her best bet, but Max had no resources to find her.
Witt, however, did.
For the first time, Max bemoaned the fact that she’d refused to get a cell phone. Cell phones meant talking to people, and Max didn’t have a single person she wanted to waste time talking to. Unless she counted Cameron.
They said the dead sometimes called collect. If so, she’d missed the call.
It was tough to find a pay phone these days, but she pulled over at a gas station just before the freeway entrance, and by some miracle, the phone was still intact. She fished in her purse for change and Witt’s card. She got his voicemail. “I broke Carla Drake’s alibi with her mom. And Carla’s skipped. You better put an APB out on her.” She was pleased with her jargon and didn’t bother leaving her name. He’d figure it out. Of course, he’d also be pissed she’d gone there on her own. He’d be pissed she’d issued orders, too. The thought lifted her spirits; in fact, it delighted her. It somehow put her back in the driver’s seat.
Her mood nose-dived the minute she climbed into the car and realized she hadn’t a clue where to turn. Arms crossed over the steering wheel, she leaned her forehead against them. “Cameron, Cameron,” she whispered, “what do I do now?”
No answer.
She’d prayed for one, but she didn’t expect it. Hell, she’d never had a prayer answered.
With the windows rolled up and the sun off to her right, the car heated up. She hadn’t slept well; the warmth lulled her. The cars on the road, the voices from the mini-mart, the whir of the car wash, even her own inner dialogue that never quite seemed to shut up, all of it faded.
She thought of Cameron. She’d always think of Cameron. She heard his voice, couldn’t make out the words, as if he called to her from a great distance.
She jerked, her arm fell off the wheel, cracked against the side window.
And she knew where she had to go.
Hal Gregory’s office. He’d handed over his business card that night at the Round Up.
It’s Saturday, a doubting Thomas voice whispered, he won’t be there.
But he would be.
Something momentous was about to happen.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The parking lot of Traynor, Spring, and Gregory, Attorneys at Law, was empty except for Hal’s Lexus. Heat rose in waves from the hood of his car. Black wasn’t a good color for summer sun.
Max thought of Wendy. Sixteen hours inside a closed car during the heat of the day. It hadn’t mattered then whether the car was black, silver, or red. Color hadn’t helped poor Wendy’s body a damn bit. Max’s stomach twisted.
She parked near the edge of the lot beneath a shady tree, stowed her map in the glove compartment, and got out, leaving the top down. This wasn’t a neighborhood that worried much about theft.
The building was two stories with an open staircase to the second floor. Hal was in Suite C. She wondered idly who Mr. Spring was. Probably a skeleton buried in Bud Traynor’s closet. She couldn’t picture anyone holding their own between Bud and Hal.
The element of surprise. She didn’t knock, simply opened the door and walked in. The lobby was decorated in pastel shades, a little blue, a little aqua, a little mauve. Nothing overwhelming. Plants dotted the side tables between chairs, potted palms in each corner. The wood-paneled receptionist’s station was empty, but from the depths of Suite C came the clatter of a keyboard.
Max turned down a hall, passed a closed office, a conference room, then a cubed area with walls short enough for her to look over. The scent of fresh coffee made her stomach growl. Pine air freshener wafted from beneath the door of the ladies’ room.
Hal’s office was at the end and to the right. His windows overlooked the parking lot. The carpet was gray, the three armchairs were steel blue, and the coffee table was a chrome-and-glass rectangle. Someone had set an artfully arranged basket of silk flowers in the center. She was sure that someone hadn’t been Hal.
His desk sat by the window. The leather seat of his chair squeaked as he adjusted his position. His fingers curled like talons over the keyboard, and he’d jutted his head forward on his scrawny neck as he read what he’d just written. His nose, in profile, was long and hooked.
Hal Gregory looked like a vulture.
If he hadn’t been so intent on his typing, he would’ve known she was coming long before she stood in the doorway.
“What ya doing?”