He slashed a hand through the air. “Forget the damn DVD. You stole it. We can’t use it.”
“But what did your friend find on it?”
“Nothing we can use in court. Female voices. But we already knew that. Even when he cleaned it up, the audio wasn’t good enough for a positive ID on anyone. Now if you’d left it in Traynor’s place, and we’d found it in his possession ... ” He let the words trail off meaningfully.
You’re a fuck up, Max Starr. Face it. You fucked up. No Snake. No incriminating DVD. Just Jules dead in a dumpster. Oh God. She put a hand to her mouth to keep from screaming. Anger, fear, humiliation, and guilt robbed her of anything to say.
“And you want to know the kicker?” A rhetorical question, he didn’t stop to let her answer. “Know what kind of car Jules drove?”
Jules drove a car? She hadn’t even considered it. She shook her head, slowly, as if her brains would dribble out if she moved too fast.
“A dark gray 1984 Cadillac Biarritz.”
Her organs seemed to seize up in her body. “The Wolfman.” Just as she’d speculated. But God, she hadn’t wanted to be right.
Car lights swept over Witt’s face, turning it a ghastly white. “Wolfman,” he repeated. “They used the Caddy as the dump car.”
“But Jules wasn’t in the room when they killed her. I don’t think he even knew what they’d done.”
Witt watched her with skeptical eyes. She thought of the dead cat Ariel had told her about, of Lenny in Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Lenny who didn’t know his own strength. But thinking Jules had any knowing part in Tiffany’s death felt so very wrong.
“He didn’t know,” she said. “I’d bet my life on it.”
“Wrong again, Max. I think we bet his life on it.”
He’d hit her again, below the belt. She didn’t know how much more she could take without falling to her knees and bleeding to death. The killers had used Jules in the video they’d made, used him to dump the body, then murdered him because he was the weak link. She should have known, should have felt it, should have dragged the masks off their goddamn faces and seen what they planned.
But she’d failed, despite Cameron’s urgings.
So cocky, Max. So sure of yourself. You stupid bitch. You were wrong about everything, and now Jules is dead. Dead, dead, dead. You should have left it alone. But no, you went stumbling and bumbling around, poking into everything, and you got him killed. Go on, run off to the Round Up. You’re better at fucking a bunch of nimrod cowboys. It might even keep you out of trouble.
The voice pounded against the inside of her skull. Tiffany’s voice.
She couldn’t breathe, started to hyperventilate right there in front of Witt.
“Max?”
She put a hand out, waved him away. “I gotta go.” As if Jules’s ghost chased her.
“Where the hell are you going?”
Away. Anywhere. Somewhere that the music would drown out the sound of Tiffany’s voice and Jules’s plaintive accusations. Max caught her breath, hugged it to her, then let it out in a long, slow sigh. “None of your business.”
His hand snaked around her wrist. Like a shackle. “You’re headed out to the Round Up, aren’t you?”
“What of it?” She gave off as much venom as she could manage.
He narrowed his gaze. “You don’t have to go there.”
“I want to go there.” What she wanted was to run from him and Cameron and the voices in her head.
“I can give you whatever it is you’re looking for.”
She laughed. Almost choked. “I don’t think so.”
“You want sex, I can give it to you. Any way you want it. Any where you want it. All you have to do is ask.” A soft, low, seductive voice. The words begged, the tone consumed. He had the upper hand. If she didn’t fight him now, he’d win.
“Sorry, not interested,” she snapped
He jerked her to him, wrapped his arm around her back, and held her flush against his body. He was hard, hot, and demanding. She wanted to give in. More than anything. Almost.
“I think you’re lying. I think you’re real interested.” He rubbed a thumb across the pulse point at her wrist. “Your heart is racing. You want me as much as I want you.”
He’d never know how badly she wanted to take exactly what he offered.
But she couldn’t. She shot him a cocky smile, her pulse racing just the way he’d accused. “It’s a purely physical reaction. But I’m not stupid enough to take you up on it.”
“Stupid?” For the first time, there was a dangerous glitter in his eyes.
“Yeah, stupid. I’m not into relationships, okay? And I’m sure as hell not interested in meeting your mother.”
“I don’t think you know what you really want.”
“I know what I don’t want. I don’t want you hanging around. Sure you’d be good for a time or two, but I’ve got a feeling you’re the kind of guy that’ll outstay his welcome.”
The line of his jaw turned rigid. He stepped back, but he didn’t ease his grip on her wrist.
“Don’t make me spell it out any plainer, Detective.”