She couldn’t catch her breath. The sun through the windshield blinded her. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.
“Walter Spring went home that day after testimony and shot himself that night. It was later ruled a suicide.”
She concentrated on only one thing, the only thing that allowed her to keep her sanity. “Why did Cameron think it was murder?”
“Don’t know. Wasn’t in the file. He’d simply written murder with a question mark in the margin of his notes.”
“Leaving a question unanswered wasn’t like him.”
“One more thing, Max.” Witt paused for dramatic effect. “Walter Spring was a partner in Bud Traynor’s law firm.”
Chapter Nineteen
Max hit the End button on the phone, then turned it off. Slowly. With deliberation. Witt might think they’d lost the connection and call again.
Nah. The guy did not believe in coincidence. He’d know she’d done it on purpose. He’d call back anyway. Nobody would be home.
She started the engine, pulled away from the curb, watched Virginia’s house as she eased by, a momentary spark of terror in her heart. She squelched it.
“You did good, Maxi.”
She didn’t need to ask what she’d done well, nor did she need Cameron to tell her. She didn’t even need to point out he’d used that hated nickname. Nor did she ask him why he hadn’t told her about Walter Spring being Bud Traynor’s law partner. He’d only have said he hadn’t remembered. Instead she lashed out in general. “No thanks to you. Where were you when I was in there?”
“With you all the way.”
She turned right at the corner, letting the clutch out too fast. The car stuttered. “It would have been nice to hear you.”
“You didn’t need me.”
“Right. I was dying in there. I could have used a friend.”
“You had Ladybird Long.”
Max snorted.
“When you got out, you had Witt.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. “I only called him to find out about Bethany’s father.”
“Lie to yourself, if you want to, but he did make you feel better. Like I used to.”
She didn’t like the implications, but decided not to fight. It would only draw more attention to the fact that she had called Witt instead of calling out to Cameron. She’d done it without thinking, without a clear question in mind. Hearing his voice had driven the panic away, though she wouldn’t admit that aloud to Cameron.
Her silence dared him to nip it out of her thoughts.
He didn’t. That scared her more than if he had.
*
Max climbed the stairs to her apartment with her two grocery bags. She’d stopped for cat food, milk, tuna, and bread. Somehow a bag of potato chips and Mother’s Circus Animal Cookies had slipped in there as well. In the car, she’d broken open the bag of iced cookies. God, they were good. She’d forgotten how good.
Unfortunately, she felt sick to her stomach—the bag now being half empty—and she was coming down off an intense sugar high that had lasted less than fifteen minutes.
“I have to get close to Jada.” But how?
Her conversation with Cameron had been going round and round this issue for the last two hours. It had at least stopped her from dwelling on Bud Traynor.
The fading sun didn’t penetrate the room. The big elm stood outside her room, and her window faced the wrong direction for late afternoon sun. She got morning light, filtered. Morning light suited her better. Buzzard perched on the sill, looking out, his tail twitching. A squirrel chirruped in the tree.
Max set her groceries down on the bureau with a plop. How to get to Jada? “It’s not like I can crash the funeral.”
She’d done that before, but this required more finesse. She needed Jada to trust her, to open up, to turn to her.
“Hey, something just occurred to me.”
Cameron was there before she completed the thought. “Why weren’t Jada and Virginia at Wendy’s funeral?” Bethany wasn’t a factor. She never left the house.
Max nodded. “Traynor’s godfather to Virginia’s daughter, yet she doesn’t even make an appearance, and now she’s hanging on him like he’s her life preserver.”
Something else niggled at the back of her mind. Something Wendy had told her in a dream. Something that had to do with Bethany. And Jada. Damn, she couldn’t remember exactly what.
“It’ll come to you.”
Just like that, Cameron’s voice made it disappear. She scolded. “Damn it, I’m thinking here.”
“You’re thinking too hard. It’ll come when your little neurons aren’t so fired up.”
“Bethany will let me know.”
“Oh, Maxi,” he breathed in her ear, “you’re getting so good at this.”
She felt the tingle down to her toes but tried to ignore it.
Cameron went on with another question. “Why were Virginia, Bethany and Jada still living in the same house with Walter if Jada, his daughter, was suing him, and Virginia, his wife, was testifying against him?”