“You won’t be able to resist Witt now when you get him up to that hotel room.”
Max thought about finishing the job herself, but hell, masturbating in a bathroom stall was demoralizing. It also brought to mind Tiffany again. Tiffany, who’d screwed a guy in a public restroom while a bunch of horny guys cheered her on. After which she was murdered.
Really not a good comparison.
“I’ll pay you back for this, Cameron. Just you wait.” She finally got her breathing under control.
“Yes, my love, you will pay me back, I know. Now, about Julia.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Temper, temper,” he chided. “Julia was in this very building the night Lance was killed. That gives her opportunity. Let’s think about motive.”
How the hell could he switch on and off like that? Because he was a damn ghost. If she argued with him, it would only give what he’d done more credence, more power. Her body hot, aching, and wet, she chose to ignore the need raging through her. She’d show Cameron. She’d never beg Witt, no matter how her ghostly husband tried to play her.
Max answered him as if the effect of his ministrations had completely faded. “Julia asked me if I’d do anything, anything”—her tone italicized the word—“for someone I loved. I know Lance’s murder made her ask that. So who could her someone be?”
“Baxter Newton.”
“Exactly.” There were different kinds of love, many of them far from sexual but equally as powerful. Squirming in the tiny stall, Max managed to get the blousy bodysuit over her head and snapped at the crotch. God, she hated bodysuits, but Angela had picked out the ensemble, and once on, Max admitted the effect made her feel sexy.
It also made her hot thinking of Witt tugging open those little snaps. She had foregone panties, just as he’d demanded.
God, she was a wimp, doing everything a man told her.
“Don’t make me laugh. You’re doing it because you want to. Quit thinking with your hormones, and let’s talk about Julia.”
“You’re the one who just got me ready.” Men. Dead or alive, she didn’t understand how they switched moods so easily.
“What if,” Cameron mused, ignoring her, “Julia meant something someone would do for love of her?”
“You mean like Baxter killing Lance because he humiliated her?” Yeah. Max liked the idea better and better. It felt right, from a logical perspective. Although she still didn’t want Baxter or his daughter to be responsible for Lance’s death.
“What if Julia ran back to the party and told Baxter what she’d seen?”
“Then she’d have to know Baxter did it.” Max stopped with her hand on the back zip of the skirt.
“Her question works both ways. She could have meant would you lie to protect someone you love, someone you were pretty sure was a murderer.”
Max left out a sigh, punctuating it with the zip of her skirt. “But neither of them feel like murderers, even if the motive has a punch to it.”
“Maybe we’re looking for the obvious answer instead of the complicated.”
She stepped into the high-heeled pumps, then began to stow her other clothes in the bag. “You mean like Bud Traynor manipulating one of them to do it.”
“That’s too easy, Max. I mean like reviewing the other murder victims you’ve followed.”
She snorted. “You mean the ones who possessed me and gave me no choice but to solve their murders?”
“What did they all have in common?”
She zipped the bag. Easy answer. “Sex.”
“It wasn’t just sex. It was why they had sex. Tell me the why, Max. If you even know.”
His question peeved her. Her answering tone showed it. “They lived inside me. I knew exactly why.”
Exiting the stall, she hung the garment bag on the edge of the towel holder, pulled out her small bag to freshen her makeup, then began to tell him. “Wendy was weak. She gave men sex because she didn’t have enough power to say no. Not to herself and not to them.”
“Power,” Cameron breathed at her nape. But that was all he said.
“Tiffany tried to sexually conquer as many men as she could.”
“Why?”
She brushed blusher across her cheeks, blended the color with her fingers. Thank God there was only a slight residual tremble left over from Cameron’s exhibition. “Tiffany was a conqueror, a sexual Amazon.”
“Power.” Again, it was all he said.
“Bethany turned to fantasy”—and phone sex—“where she was the most beautiful woman a man had ever had, a woman wanted by thousands.”
“Power.”
“And Lance wanted to control his women, wanted his wife on his arm and Angela on her knees, wanted to feel like a virtual Tyrannosaurus Rex.”
“They were all weak, Max, all sought to gain power through sex. So you need to look for the one who would never be willing to give up that control. That’s your killer.”
“Bud Traynor.” This time it was all she said.