“But you don’t trust me.”
She hadn’t trusted a man since she was eight years old, except Cameron, of course. “I’ve known you for less than three weeks, Witt.”
“That’s long enough to know a person.”
“Right, and you trust me,” she scoffed.
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
He shouldn’t. She snorted softly. “You don’t even know me.”
“Tell me the things I don’t know.”
Hesitating, her lips twitched, but no words came out. In the end, she had to turn it around on him. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself, instead?”
He flipped a hand negligently. She was almost afraid the action was done with a hint of disgust. No, resignation sounded better. “Fine,” he murmured. “What do you want to know?”
She didn’t want to know a damn thing about him. “Ever been married?”
“Yeah.” Strange that a man could answer personal questions and yet remain so utterly still. Women weren’t like that.
“Divorced?”
“Yeah.”
“The old cop-wife I-can’t-stand-it-when-you-go-to-your-job thing?”
“No. The old I-can’t-stand-it-when-you-piss-on-the-toilet-rim thing.”
She stifled a laugh. Witt didn’t crack a smile. “Come on. Seriously, Witt.”
He shrugged. “She wanted things her way. I went along. Easier to compromise than fight.”
“But I thought cops loved to fight.”
“We aren’t called peace officers for nothing. We prefer compromise and diplomacy to knocking heads.” He pointed the index finger of the hand laying across his knee. “Still watching too much Cops on TV.”
“All right, so you went along. Then what happened?”
“She told me to sit down when I took a leak.”
Max laughed out loud this time. “You’re kidding, right?”
“There’s one God-given right a man has and that’s to take a leak standing up. I packed my bag and left that night.”
Hmm. Lots of pronouns and full sentences. A little tension showed around Witt’s edges. “She wasn’t going to change?” Max prompted, her head tipped, trying to see into his eyes. She wondered why his silly story made her heart contract.
He smiled then. Tired, weary, he shook his head. “No.”
“Tough break.” It was a guy kind of answer. Max didn’t know what else to say.
“I’ve never told another living soul why I left her.”
Max swallowed, her throat suddenly parched. “I really don’t think I can match that, Witt.”
“Tell me about the night your husband died.”
“I don’t even talk with him about that.” The words were out before she could think.
Witt either didn’t hear them or chose not to comment. “I’m sorry we never caught the perps.”
Suddenly Max’s body felt light, as if adrenaline had leached out of her veins, leaving only that oddly disconnected, other-worldly sensation. “It’s not like you had anything to do with the case.”
“Talking about it might be a good thing.”
The idea paralyzed every extremity except her tongue. “What’s there to talk about? You read the report when you investigated my non-existent involvement in Wendy Gregory’s death.” Oh yeah, he’d read it all, the 7-11, the three punks, Cameron on the floor amid bags of Cheetos, Ruffles, and Fritos.
“Yeah, Max, I read the report. Several times.”
She knew what he was thinking. The report didn’t cover what it felt like to watch her husband get shot. Beyond the cold facts, it didn’t cover what it felt like when those men had dragged her into their car, when they’d pulled her down onto the ground and tried to make her scream, then fallen on her like demon vampires because she didn’t beg for them to stop ... wouldn’t beg ...
It was suddenly hard to breathe. She stared out the windshield of the Dodge. A light flickered on and off in the second floor window of her rooming house. Cameron. Watching out for her. He was never far away. Well, almost never. She blinked, swallowed past the hard dry lump in her throat.
No, the report hadn’t covered everything.
And neither would she. Not now. Not with Witt. Maybe not ever.
“Don’t push me, Witt. I don’t want to have to hurt your feelings.”
“Around you, Max, a guy can’t allow himself to have feelings.”
*
“You should have given the guy a chance, Max.”
Cameron’s late night words echoed in Max’s ear. She’d fallen asleep with them, woken up with them, and had carried them with her to her new job at A Cut Above.
She banished them almost the minute she entered the doors of the salon. She did, after all, have only one current mission—to find Tiffany Lloyd’s killer. She certainly couldn’t do it while wondering whether she should dredge up her past for Witt’s perusal.