Witt leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, laced his fingers, and watched Max as she read.
“Traynor, a long-time supporter of the organization, a big brother himself for several years back in the eighties”—the very idea made Max tremble—“is pleased to sponsor the hundred-dollar-a-plate festivities which will take place Friday at the San Jose Fairmont. Dinner, dancing, a game room, and all proceeds will go to the charity. Tickets are still available.”
Max chewed on the inside of her cheek, lifting her eyes to meet Witt’s. “Why did you bring me this?”
“Thought you might want to attend.” His blue eyes penetrated. It didn’t take a psychic to know he was getting ready for the body blow.
“Don’t play games with me. Why did you want me to see it?”
He nodded, an almost imperceptible movement. “All right. No games. You must have asked me ten times if Traynor had been implicated in any way in the death of his daughter.”
“Yeah. What’s your point?”
“My point is your insistence. What gives, Max? What’s your interest in Traynor?”
Her interest? Justice. Fair play. Comeuppance. Bud Traynor had driven his daughter into a situation which eventually led to her murder. That made Bud morally responsible for Wendy’s death. Max wanted Traynor to pay.
Max wanted him to die and die badly.
These were things she could neither reveal to Witt nor hope to make him understand. She didn’t even try, going for a vague reasoning that sounded too emotional and lacking in evidence even to her own ears. “I don’t like him. He makes my hackles rise. I don’t believe he loved Wendy or that he cared when she died. That’s my interest. A man like that should never have children.”
Witt absorbed her take on it. After a few moments, his brow troubled and his voice deep, he said, “He had exactly the right words when we told him his daughter had been murdered. Showed just the right amount of emotion. Shut the door in our faces at precisely the right moment and called us back to apologize after just the right length of time.”
“And you never liked him either.” Because everything Wendy became was beaten into her by her father. Witt would have sensed something evil just as Max had.
He shook his head slowly. “No, never liked him. In the end, after the dust settled, all he wanted to know was when he’d get her car out of impound. But there wasn’t a damn thing tying him to his daughter’s murder.”
“Because he didn’t do it. He just set her up for it.”
He sat back, crossed his arms. His gaze narrowed. “You scare me, Max.”
She snorted softly. “Why?”
“You’ve got plans for Traynor. I know it. And they’re going to get you into trouble.”
“I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
He snorted this time, much more loudly than she had. “Right. That’s the other reason I’m here.”
She tipped her head and glared at him. “Why?”
“I’m going with you tonight.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“You were planning on looking for that wino.”
How the hell did he know that? “Are you going psychic on me, Detective?”
“I’m starting to know you inside and out.” His gaze swept her, ignited Tiffany’s slow-burning fire inside her with the intensity in his eyes.
Max shook her head slightly to clear it. “I was thinking he might come out only at night, like a vampire or something.”
“We’ll go together.”
Max didn’t bother to fight about it. She looked down at her wrinkled white shirt and bare feet. “I have to take a shower and change.”
His eyes smoked. “I’ll wait.”
“Outside in your car.”
He smiled, that sweet, sexy, hot smile. He was starting to use that one on her way too much. And damn if she wasn’t starting to fall for it, too.
“Don’t trust yourself, Max?”
She didn’t trust Tiffany, not that she could tell him that. “It’s you I don’t trust.” Max folded the newspaper across Traynor’s face, rose, pulled fresh clothes from her child-size bureau, and crossed to her bathroom in three long strides. “Detective?”
He half-rose off the chair. “Sure, I’ll join you.”
“That wasn’t what I was going to say.”
“Too bad.”
“Did they find a necklace in the dumpster?”
“Why?”
“Why do you always ask why?”
“I’m a cop. What is it you think you know?”
“Tiffany Lloyd was wearing a necklace the night she died. A gold locket. But it wasn’t around her neck in my vision of her in the dumpster.”
“Not my case, Max. I don’t know.”
“But you can find out.”
His eyes sparked. “What’s it worth?”
“It’s worth a long, cold shower for you, Detective Long,” and with that, Max closed the bathroom door on him.
Chapter Seven
“I can’t think with him sitting out there like a vulture waiting to pick my bones.” Max had barricaded herself in the bathroom for over five minutes. It wasn’t long enough. Her heart still pounded. She hadn’t even started the shower yet.