She ignored the comment, not caring what force had solved her problem, and pushed the button again.
Julia La Russa. Max recognized the soft tones immediately. “This message is for Max Starr. I’d like very much to avail myself of your offer to help. For a short time. I...” The voice faltered. Was that a sniffle? Julia came back stronger. “Please call me when you get this message.” She recited a number, slowly, clearly, like someone used to getting voice mails with numbers rattled off so fast you couldn’t write them down. Max’s regard for Julia expanded an ounce, especially since she was one of the few people in the universe who didn’t have Caller ID.
She hated making Julia her prime suspect. Almost as much as she hated giving the title to Angela Rocket. Lance had screwed them both royally, though in very different ways.
Max glanced at the clock. Almost midnight. How had it gotten so late? She’d have to call in the morning. Early. To fit Julia in before her shopping expedition with Angela.
“Why does she want to see you?” Trust Cameron never to take something at face value. After all, he’d been a prosecutor.
“Maybe she doesn’t want to answer the cards herself.” Max had a flicker of disturbing memory. She hadn’t answered any.
“Maybe she and Baxter killed Lance,” Cameron suggested, “and they want to know how much Traynor has figured out.”
“Why come to me? Only he knows the answer.”
Cameron tut-tutted. “You’re stuck in the middle, Max, in more ways than one. Between the wife and the lover, between the father and the daughter, between Traynor and his suspects. Make sure you watch your back.”
His words were eerily like Witt’s. Had Cameron spoon-fed them to him psychically? She wouldn’t put it past him but decided an argument wasn’t worth finding out. “I’m going to bed.”
“Don’t forget about Baxter.”
Max stilled. “I’m getting tired of all these weird little warnings,” she said, referring to Witt’s as well.
“Don’t forget him merely because of his bow tie, soft voice and round spectacles. He’s important.”
“Did he kill Lance?”
Nothing more came from the dark side of the room. She wondered what the hell she’d gotten herself into. Again.
Chapter Twelve
The covers billowed, cool air sliding across her naked skin, then a warm arm snaked around her middle.
“Please,” she murmured, keeping her eyes closed, “I don’t want to fight anymore tonight.”
“Neither do I.” Cameron used his seductive Witt voice again, surrounding her with Witt’s scent, musky aftershave mixed with butterscotch candies and salty male flesh.
She was too tired not to give in, relishing the all-too-real feel of him.
“You’re naked.” He stroked the underside of her breasts, back and forth, back and forth.
Her nipples tightened, her body readied itself. She couldn’t go through another of Cameron’s lessons and opened her eyes to scatter the sensations.
The warm hand slid down her belly to the nest of curls at the top of her thighs, and the rough material of slacks shifted against her bare backside.
Cameron hadn’t disappeared, he’d never been there. Witt filled up her twin-size bed with his big body.
Max felt too cozy, too warm, too delicious, too needy. “What are you doing here?”
“Breaking through your locks again,” Witt muttered against her ear as he stroked through the curls at the apex of her legs.
“Don’t you ever sleep?”
“Got halfway home and turned around. I’m addicted. Doesn’t matter how bad you are for me. I keep coming back.”
“You shouldn’t.”
He licked the shell of her ear. “Give me a little shot to carry me through.”
Witt at her back, his erection prodding her, was too close a replay of what Cameron had done last night.
Don’t make him beg, Max.
“How much of a shot do you want?”
“How much do I want or how much am I willing to settle for?”
“Whatever.”
“Big difference between the two.” His breath puffed across her hair.
She knew there was. “Well, you can’t be asking for too much since you’ve still got your clothes on.”
He nuzzled her neck, teasing her with that ongoing caress too far above where she wanted him to be. “I can take them off. Always been a quick dresser. Or undresser, as the case may be.”
Just say yes, sweetheart. Give the poor sucker a break.
Go away. It was a bit like voyeurism with Cameron in the room, but damn if that didn’t turn her on. Go away. She almost shouted the words aloud this time.
Treat him right and I’ll leave you to it, sweetheart.
“Your pants are rough on my butt,” she muttered to Witt, as if it hadn’t taken her too many seconds to answer. “So I guess you should take them off.”