“He can retract your alibi any time he wants,” she pressed. “Motive and no alibi. Then what are you going to do?”
A trickle of sweat began at his hairline, slipped down his temple, but he asked his own question instead of answering hers. “What do you want?”
“Nothing. It’s Bud Traynor that wants something. That’s why he’s giving the two of you an alibi.” She let that sit for a moment as emotions flickered across Baxter Newton’s face. His eyes went wide, his nostrils flared, his lips worked, but he neither confirmed nor denied. Max went on. “What I can’t figure out is why he’s doing it, what he hopes to get from you.”
He shook his head, his eyes huge behind the lenses. “What’s your stake in all this? Why do you care about him? Or us, for that matter?” Us. Julia and him. They were in this together.
Max went for honesty despite an internal warning, perhaps of Cameron origin. “I’ve been trailing him a long time. I think he killed his daughter, his best friend, and his godchild. And I want to prove it.”
Baxter laughed, a choked bitter sound. “He’d never do the dirty work himself.”
“Precisely.” She cocked her head. “You’re one of the few who seems to see him for what he is.”
“And you.” The man stepped back, opening the door wide. “Won’t you come in?”
Ah, she’d passed his little test, whatever that might be, perhaps simply hating Bud Traynor. She’d turned from potential enemy to possible ally.
The slate entry hall opened onto a large living room with a stone fireplace as centerpiece fronted by two leather recliners and a matching sofa. She stepped down into the area, her feet sinking into plush carpet. A reading lamp had been lit by the side of one chair, a book open upside down on its arm. She read the title. Epictetus. A man sitting alone in his darkened home reading Greek philosophy. It surely said a lot. What, she hadn’t a flipping idea.
“Would you like tea?”
“No.” She dropped the thank you, as hard as that was.
“Coffee then?”
“No.” Again, no thank you. Politeness would put him too at ease.
“Have a seat.”
“I’ll stand.”
He drew a deep breath. She wondered if it calmed him. It certainly opened him up. “You’re right. He doesn’t want my daughter. He wants me.”
“Why?”
He picked the book up and sat on the arm of the chair. “For the same reason he’s interested in you.”
“And what is that?” she asked softly, almost reverently, the tone fitting the question’s importance.
“You see him for the monster he is.”
“And we can’t get anyone to believe us,” she finished for him. Of course, Witt and Cameron believed her. But his best friend’s wife, his clients, even his now-dead partner didn’t see the evil in Bud Traynor. Until it was too late.
“Why did he let you see his real face?” Baxter said in the same quiet voice, as if the man they spoke of were God’s fallen angel.
“He didn’t let me. I just see things sometimes,” she offered.
“You mean psychic things?”
Max nodded with a tilt of her chin. “I knew he was evil before I met him at his daughter’s funeral.”
His head came up. “You went to her funeral?”
She smiled without feeling. “One of the few to attend.”
“I liked the girl. So did Julia. We would have gone. He simply didn’t tell anyone when it was.”
Made sense. Bud had washed his hands of his daughter the moment she turned against him. Wendy was nothing more than a tool, useless to him once broken.
Baxter crossed his arms. “So why is he using you, Max Starr?”
“He knows I want to find Lance’s killer.” She raised a brow. “And I think he’s serving you up.”
His eyebrows came together, his head tipped. “Why do you care who killed Lance?”
She didn’t know. Except that some force would keep pushing her until she completed her assignment. “I have dreams.” Baxter didn’t balk, hadn’t the first time she mentioned seeing things. She suddenly decided to go the whole psychic route with him. “I’ve had visions of three murders, Lance’s is the fourth. The dreams don’t stop until I find the killer.” Not to mention the fact that the spirit didn’t de-possess her until that happened, either. “And every single murder victim has had a connection to him.” No need to say his name again. They both knew.
Baxter pondered. “Wendy, his daughter. Bethany Spring, his goddaughter.”
“Tiffany Lloyd cut his hair. Your son-in-law managed his investments.”
“Haven’t the police begun to wonder why so many people around him are dying?”
“Their murderers have all been brought to justice. Except Lance’s, of course.”
“Then what if...?” He let the question hang in the air between them.
She put her hands behind her back, strolled across to the fireplace, then turned to face him. “What if he manipulates other people into doing his killing for him? You, yourself, said he’d never do his own dirty work.”