She didn’t invite Max back.
But Max knew Baxter would seek her out again.
*
“So the sports car is his.” Max muttered aloud as she passed the white BMW Z4 Roadster now parked in Julia’s circular driveway. It hadn’t been there when she arrived.
The vehicle hadn’t seemed like Julia, and indeed it wasn’t. Baxter Newton seemed to be going through his second mid-life crisis a few years later than most men.
“What’s Baxter’s connection with Traynor? Besides the fact that they both knew Lance La Russa?”
Cameron. The words in her head hadn’t been echoes after all.
“Don’t you already know?” She started the engine and rolled past Baxter’s car. “You’re the one who told me he was important.”
“Their alibis suck, Max.”
“A father lying for a daughter, a daughter lying for a father?”
“Exactly. I guarantee the police are working on shooting holes through their stories as we speak.”
“Don’t you know what’s between him and Traynor?” she asked again.
Cameron ignored her. “And why did she bring you here, telling you all her secrets?”
In a flash, she knew exactly why, and it hadn’t taken supernatural powers to figure it out. “She wanted to get me on her side, in case it comes down to a fight between them and Bud.” She laughed without humor. “Without even meeting them, I would have been on their side.”
“So they’ve thrown you a good non-motive. They’ve tried to instill sympathy, empathy.”
“Which means they’re hiding something. They don’t even care what my connection is with Bud, whether I’m really his ‘personal’ assistant or some private investigator. Weird.”
Cameron made a humming sound in agreement.
“Did either Baxter or Lance come up on the radar screen when you were investigating Walter Spring’s death?” Walter Spring, Bud’s business partner, had been Cameron’s last case as an Assistant District Attorney.
“I don’t recall anything.” Not that it meant much as there were plenty of things Cameron seemed to have forgotten in his transition to the other side.
Max tapped her teeth, thinking. “But I still can’t see either of them killing him.”
“You’re stuck on Traynor.”
She turned at the end of the drive and headed back to the freeway. “No. It’s intuition about them.”
“Finally using your psychic abilities?”
She thought of those minutes alone with Julia. If she were totally honest, she’d have to admit she’d wanted to tell the woman everything about the night Cameron died, even without Cameron’s prodding. She’d trusted her. She felt Julia’s pain, her shame of having known all along that Lance was cheating on her and simply accepting it, the humiliation of having her strange marital relationship revealed to the hungry masses. “I like her, Cameron.”
“So do I,” he whispered.
“And I like that Baxter wanted to protect her.”
“You don’t want either of them to be a killer,” he added.
“They’re good people.”
“Good people can do bad things. You have to figure out why they had to go that far.”
*
The day spent shopping was so much fun, it was scary. Angela drove them all over the city in search of the perfect wardrobe. She was smart and funny, and for awhile, Max even forgot to hold the fact that she was a hooker against her.
They shopped as if they were buying for Max’s career as a CPA. Smart business suits with that extra touch of elegance, fitted skirts and delicate blouses, sexy for their very femininity. Bright colors. Mix and match. Angela had an eye for seeing the possibilities, matching a seemingly drab skirt with a short jacket and bringing them both to life.
Max came to life, too.
She couldn’t remember laughing as much in the last two years. She couldn’t remember telling anyone so much about herself. The words seemed to fall from her lips, about Cameron, about the job she’d left behind, even about Witt. They exchanged intimate sexual details like bosom buddies. They bought lacy underthings for Max, thigh-high stockings, push-up bras, thong underwear. They got their nails done, both dripping the same deep crimson. Angela said men liked to fantasize about a woman’s red nails holding their—Max had cut her off when the nail girl’s eyes started to bug. They drank mochas in a trendy cafe, surrounded by full bags that had lightened Max’s wallet considerably. The afternoon was exhilarating, exhausting, and frightening, like a roller coaster ride, the one perched miles above the street on top of that hotel in Las Vegas.
Alone at the end of the day, Max had suddenly realized she hadn’t learned a single pertinent fact about Angela.