Ladybird touched a hand to Max’s cheek, her skin warm and smelling of flowers and talc. “I believe in destiny. And I think you are my sweetie-boy’s destiny.”
“Poor Witt.” If Max was his destiny, bad things had only just begun to happen to him.
“Horace told me you’ll find him.”
“Did Horace tell you anything else?” Like whether Witt could ever forgive her?
Ladybird’s blue Witt-like eyes sparkled. “Horace says some messages shouldn’t be passed on.”
That Horace was no dummy. If Max knew the outcome going in, then she wouldn’t say everything that had to be said. And a lot had to be said.
She kissed Ladybird’s soft motherly cheek, then drove off into the night, not to Witt’s place, but to her own studio apartment. Ladybird’s husband said she would find Witt, but somehow Max knew he’d be waiting for her. His truck sat on the gravel drive close to the old one-car garage. Her front door was open slightly. He’d broken in again. She didn’t care.
He’d turned the porch light off, and the vestibule lay in darkness, but she could make out his dark shadow on the inside stairs, waiting for her as he had the other night. Only this time he was seated a couple of telling steps higher.
“I’m sorry,” she said without hesitation.
“You’ve already said that.” Not an ounce of emotion leaked through his voice.
She took a deep breath and jumped in. “I ran out there thinking I was the big heroine come to save Angela. I was stupid.” She didn’t stop because she expected a response. She stopped to remember Angela’s face before she’d had a reason to take the gun out of her purse. “If I had gone to you first, Angela wouldn’t have pointed that gun at you. Or me. You wouldn’t have needed to shoot her.” She swallowed, flaring her nostrils to keep her eyes dry. “She wouldn’t be dead.”
Witt sat immobile in the darkness. She heard him breathe, saw his lips move, tense, then relax again. She closed her eyes to draw in the scent of him. Clean, stable, an absence of sweat, a profusion of male warmth, perhaps male doubt.
She thought he wasn’t going to say anything, then, low, some might have said tortured, he asked, “Do you know how it feels to have killed her?”
She blinked. “I know how it feels to have made the awful mistake that caused her to die.”
“You didn’t pull the trigger.”
“What I did was worse.”
“Shut the door and turn on the light. I want to look at you.”
Her chest tightened painfully. A knot like a fist lodged in her throat. Then she flipped the light switch, closed the door, and leaned against it. “I don’t want to look at myself.” She’d avoided the mirror in her bathroom for two days now.
Another deep sigh from him. “Don’t think I blame you for what happened. I always knew you were a catalyst.”
“I never meant to—”
He cut her off. “You never do.”
She moved to the bottom of the stairs. “You do blame me, Witt. And for more than a prophecy come true.”
Trust him to forgive you , Cameron had said. First she had to prove she was worth forgiving. She reached into the pocket of her jacket, pulled out the box her toy truck had come in. From the other pocket, she pulled the five hundred dollars. She’d been carrying it with her the last couple of days.
“I wanted to give back your money.” She hurried on when he opened his mouth, not allowing him to say he didn’t want it before she even got a chance to tell him what she needed to. “But I realized I can’t ever give it back.”
She stopped, waiting to see if he’d let her say the rest. He said nothing. She accepted that as tacit permission.
“I’m going to keep it to remind me that where you’re concerned, there shouldn’t be any price tags attached.”
He let out a deep breath, but remained silent. She was glad, not believing she could finish if he had interrupted.
“I do have ulterior motives sometimes. Things I need, things I want.” She swallowed. “Things I’m afraid of.” She wanted so badly to read the look in his eyes, but it was important to do this without gauging his reaction to every word. “Maybe that night was the catalyst for what happened to Angela.” The whole truth, nothing but the truth. “I saw Julia go into the hotel, but I didn’t follow her. Maybe I should have. Maybe I should have talked to Angela. I don’t know. But I did call you before I went up there the next day. You didn’t answer. I thought you were ignoring me. I was pissed, but I still knew it was dumb.”
He broke his silence then. “I was in an interview. I wasn’t answering.”
“I misjudged you again.” She chanced a step up one riser. “And you didn’t need to confirm that for me. I already knew it.”