“What about Pippa Louise Lamont?”
Max twisted her mouth. “Grade-A bitch. She’s capable of murder. But if she has a motive, it’s hard to see.” She didn’t believe for a minute that Pippa cared if Miles was schtupping his stylists. “What did your cop buddies say about her?”
“Lead thinks she’s a cool number, but no apparent motive. They’re still trying to break Nadine Johnson. My bet’s on the husband. Beaten to death. Not a female MO.”
Beaten to death. No, that wasn’t what women did to each other. It was what men did. And men could do so much more. She closed her eyes, gripped the door frame above the window, and for just a minute she could feel a boot in her ribs, her bones cracking, the breath, the very life kicked from her.
Workboots, like the ones Jake had worn last night when he found her beside his truck.
Like the ones Witt wore now. She rubbed her arms, shivering
“Max?” She came out of it to find Witt hovering close. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I was just thinking about Snake.” The lie came easily, as easily as shoving memories of Cameron’s last night back into the hollowed-out hole where her heart used to be. “Whatever he’s got in that locker will lead us right to Tiffany’s killer. I feel it in my marrow.”
He traced a finger down the side of her throat. She shuddered involuntarily. “How do you know these things?”
They seemed to ooze out of that same black hole that swallowed her bad memories. She didn’t tell him that. “Dreams. Visions. Sometimes I touch things—and I just know. I already told you all about it, remember?”
“Yeah. But then why don’t you know what Snake’s hiding?”
Because sometimes she didn’t understand what she saw. Or didn’t want to. “I don’t have all the answers, you know.”
Darkness had fallen. Streetlights sprang to life. In late September, once the sun was down, the nights could turn cold quickly. Max shivered in the cool air. Witt rubbed his hands up and down her arms. He stood close. Kiss me, Witt. The words hovered on her lips. “Well, so that chore’s done. You know, I’m tired. Why don’t we look for Snake tomorrow?”
Witt smiled knowingly, dropped his hands to his sides, and stepped back. “Afraid to spend too much time alone with me, Max?”
“It’s Friday. I’m sure you’ve got a hot date.”
“Jealous?”
She rolled her eyes and ignored the little internal voice that quickly answered yes. “Hopeful, aren’t you? I need my beauty rest, and I can’t get it with you keeping me up all hours of the night.”
“I’ll take you home after we look for Snake. Scout’s honor, no later than nine.”
She thought about it a moment. Traynor wouldn’t be home before midnight. At the earliest. “It’s a deal.”
She put the flat of her hand against his chest and shoved. He stumbled back two paces, far enough for her to climb unencumbered into the truck and shut the door. Whew, that was a close call.
Once in the driver’s seat, Witt grinned wryly. “I get the feeling I got the short end of the stick on this one.”
Max didn’t bother to answer, because he had gotten the short end, and that was a very good thing right now. She belted herself in, glad for the armrest between them.
Witt started the engine and backed out of the parking spot. In no time, he had them on the street in front of the Round Up. He made a fast right turn, drove down a block. “That’s the mission.”
He pointed to a squat, yellowed building that ran the length of the block. The discolored walls were covered with graffiti and various other art forms. Someone had started a mural at one end, an ethnic multitude holding hands on a mountain. The parking meters lining the sidewalk had been chopped off at the knees and hauled away, only their bare metal stumps left behind.
The smell of human waste and marijuana seeped into the cab as she rolled the window down. A couple—she couldn’t make out the sex of either partner—hunkered down against the wall, sharing a joint.
Genderless, burned-out people exited from two smudged glass doors at the other end of the building. Tanned skin, leathery after years of living on the street. Faces layered with a coat of grime that would never completely come clean. Clothes that would fall apart with the next washing.
“Why on earth do they provide lockers? I mean, couldn’t the money be better spent on clothes or something?” Maybe on drug rehab. At the very least, portable toilets.
“Even a homeless person wants to think he has stuff worth safe-keeping. Gives a guy a little dignity.”
“Sort of like the God-given right to stand up while taking a leak?”
He smiled and leaned over to pat her knee. “Fast learner.”
She was inordinately pleased and pissed with herself at the same time. Witt was definitely getting to her, and she was scared that had nothing to do with Tiffany.
She mumbled something unintelligible and quit talking.