Bud Traynor rolled down his window, pushed a button mounted at the side of a gray metal pole, stated his name, and the iron fence swung open.
The gate whooshed closed behind them.
The house perched on the hill like a huge sun-bleached snail shell. Colonial columns flanked the wide stone steps, latticed windows reached floor to ceiling on the ground level, and a balcony ran the length of the upper floors. Azaleas, camellias, and rhododendrons long past the flowering season surrounded the great beast of a home. A lush green lawn the size of a football field sloped leisurely down to the walls protecting the property. Jays squawked in the trees, but the sounds of cars on the street and children playing in the park across the road simply disappeared behind the twelve-foot stucco walls. It was a lovely place, peaceful, calm, and restorative.
At least it would have been if she hadn’t been seated next to Bud Traynor.
A white BMW Z4 Roadster sat near the front door, the top down for the sunny day to come. Black netting fit across the roll bars to cut the wind. Max coveted the netting for her own Miata even as she pictured Julia La Russa behind the wheel, a chartreuse scarf covering her hair like Tippi Hedren in a Hitchcock movie.
Perfect image. The wife who’d murdered her husband and gotten her friends to lie for her. Real Hitchcockian.
Bud pulled in behind the Beemer, turned off the engine, and got out before Max had a chance to ask what his intentions were. She’d idiotically let him bring her this far. What the hell had she been thinking? Witt would be spitting bullets if he knew she’d put herself in such a vulnerable position. Instinct told her to get out and run as far and fast as she could. She almost gave in to the feeling, would have, except the need to know loomed heavy over her. Vulnerability, idiocy, and fear aside, Max had to know what Bud wanted to tell her.
Problem was she had no idea what his game was.
Play your own game.
Cameron’s voice inside her head. Finally. His timing was impeccable. Calm spread through her limbs.
He has no hold over me. He cannot force anything on me. I am the one with the power because I do not need anything from him.
Max repeated the words like an incantation as she climbed the flagstones. Bud pressed the bell, its echoes sneaking out through the glass above the wide double doors.
They waited two heartbeats, three. A side curtain fluttered. Another heartbeat, and the door opened.
She’d expected a maid or a butler. Instead, the woman of the house, indicated by the expensive cut of her black mourning dress, the perfect pearl studs in her ears, and the size of the diamond on the ring finger of her left hand, stood in the doorway. Her hair, a lively brown, reached past her ears then curled under. Older than her husband—dead husband—by perhaps five years, Julia La Russa had kept her shape far better than most women in their late forties. Her wide mouth seemed capable of big smiles and lots of happiness, yet she lacked the requisite laugh lines.
She did not look like a Z4 kind of woman.
“Oh Bud, thank you for coming.” Her voice seemed mellowed with age and circumstance, excitement banked, enthusiasm dampened. It was not a voice that would reveal much emotion, at least not anymore. Why? Marriage to Lance or maturity? Or perhaps it was her husband’s murder.
She put her hand in Bud’s, palm down, as if she expected a bow over it and a token kiss of respect.
Bud, in turn, took her hand, then used it to pull her into his embrace. Over Bud’s shoulder, Max saw the woman’s slightly widened eyes of shock. Julia’s hands fluttered ineffectually against his back. Fear passed through her gaze, the briefest flicker banked before Max could be absolutely sure she saw it.
Hmm. Julia wasn’t used to demonstrative behavior either. Legacy of Lance as well? Or did that flash of alarm come strictly from Bud’s touch?
Bud held her away, far enough to look deeply into her eyes. “I am so sorry that it’s taken this long to come see you. Unforgivable. But I brought a present I hope will make it up to you.”
“A present?” Definite suspicion now. She obviously wasn’t used to accepting anything. Hell, maybe it was the idea of a gift to commemorate a husband’s death. Then again, perhaps it was the giver of the gift she distrusted. Other than to intimate he might have lied for Julia—which could be total horse shit considering the source—he’d given Max no indication of how close they might, or might not, be.
“Yes. I’ve brought you my assistant.” Bud held out a hand in Max’s direction.
Julia La Russa gave Max a quick glance, too quick for Max to discern any reaction.