He jumped, uttered a curse as his knee connected with his desk, then looked at her as if he’d seen a ghost.
“Cat got your tongue?” She sauntered into the room, boldly moving around the desk to see what he’d concentrated on so furiously. The angle of the screen distorted the letters.
“Max.” He cleared his throat and pressed the exit key. The document disappeared. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Is that your confession you’re writing there?”
He chortled, the sound unnatural, nervous. “Of course not.”
“But you do know exactly what confession I’m talking about, don’t you?”
His expression changed. No longer uneasy, he allowed the full extent of his ire to glow in his eyes. “You haven’t heard. The sonofabitch already beat me to it.”
“Nicholas Drake.”
One pencil-thin eyebrow rose. “Thank you for helping, Max.”
“I didn’t.”
He cocked his head. “They tell me you convinced him to turn himself in.”
All she’d done was convince Nick his wife was in big trouble. He’d made the rest of the mistakes himself. “So, if it wasn’t your confession you were writing...”
He rose, his backside against the credenza. Max blocked his only other opening. He had no way out without pushing her aside. Crossing his arms over his chest, Hal leaned back, one foot over the other, and pretended nonchalance. “Actually, it was my testimony.”
“Testimony? As in a trial?”
“I want to make sure I get the facts right. The memory can often fade with time.”
“Nick Drake confessed. There won’t be a trial.”
He breathed deeply, eyes feral. He had a target for his fury. All pretense disappeared. “There’s always a trial before they execute, just to make everything legal.”
The words sent a riptide of chills down the muscles of her back. “And you want to get your testimony perfect.”
“I want to make sure he dies.”
“For killing Wendy or for stealing your wife from you?”
He straightened, towered over her. “For both.”
“You don’t want justice for Wendy. You want it for yourself.”
His lip lifted in a snarl. “Don’t even begin to think you know me. I just used you to find her killer.”
“You mean Bud told you to use me.”
He ignored the insult, shook his head, looked at her down his long nose. Maybe he didn’t even see how he was Traynor’s stooge. “You remind me of her. In fact, when you first walked in, you sounded like her. She always used to say that. ‘What ya doing, Hal?’” The imitation was not pleasant. “She wandered around like a lost waif. She always needed attention. Constantly.”
“Is that why you hated her?”
There was such a thin line between love and hate. In Hal Gregory’s eyes, she saw how carefully he’d walked it. “At first, I would have done anything for her.”
“You mean for her father.”
He stabbed a finger at her. “For her. I didn’t love her because she was my boss’s daughter.”
“You don’t even know what love is, Hal.” Watching him now, Max was sure his rage would never die, not even if Nick Drake was executed. She stared at him, feeling the wonder on her face, in her voice. Wendy’s emotion. “She actually hurt you, didn’t she?”
His lips bared his teeth. “She told Bud first that she was leaving me, as if she had to test it out on him before she brought it to me. Do you know what that feels like?”
She flipped a hand in the air, mocked him with a widening of her eyes, pushing him, trying to discover how much he’d reveal. “Well, gee, Hal, that certainly was an indication of the state of your marriage.” She narrowed her eyes. “Is that when you decided to kill her?”
The muscles of his face twitched. He lips went white with tension. His hands fisted at his sides.
She whispered her next question. “Did Bud tell you his daughter deserved to die for what she did to you?”
His fisted hands spasmed. Open. Close. Open. Close.
She stepped around the credenza, reducing the distance between them. “Will you enjoy watching Nick Drake die for something you did? Is that what you’re waiting for?
He straightened, back ramrod stiff, his words neither confession nor denial. “Wendy died because of him. No matter how you slice it, Drake is guilty. And I will make sure he fries.”
He’d do his damnedest. It wouldn’t be that difficult. Hell, even Nick believed he was responsible for Wendy’s death.
Max just had to figure out how to save him before Hal Gregory got his day in court.
*
The sky was dark with premonition outside the two-story structure. At least that’s how it felt as Max started down the stairs from Hal’s suite. As though a curtain of clouds had been drawn across the early afternoon sun. Ominous.