God. Bud knew. Had she been so stupid as to have exposed Witt to Bud’s evil?
No. The videotape in the dream concerned Lance, perhaps Julia, but definitely not Witt. Bud could know what happened with Witt from another source. Logic dictated that Angela had told Bud about the night’s events since he was her client. Max had given Angela her real name, and with a brief description of Max’s john, Bud would have realized the man was Witt. A very rational explanation.
The danger was in her own mind.
“Tomorrow. Ten o’clock. Your house.” She acquiesced simply to get the show on the road. Bud wanted her at his house. It was the only way to see what was on that video.
“I can’t bear the wait, Max,” he purred.
Bud Traynor made her feel like her flesh crawled with maggots. She hung up before she threw up.
*
Max had slept only in fits and starts after that call, then she’d risen from her bed, taken a shower, and prepared herself for the coming confrontation. Finally she’d climbed into her car and entered the morning commute.
“Where are we going?” Cameron asked.
He said we. Them. Together. She could have given a few tears right then and there that he’d stayed with her. And that he didn’t bring up last night’s discussion again.
Instead, she told him what he wanted to know. “Traynor’s.”
Forecasters hadn’t predicted rain, but it started as she entered the freeway. A dismal beginning to what would most assuredly be a dismal day, considering the task that lay ahead of her. She headed north to yet another San Francisco suburb. She was suburban, preferring that to the confines of big city streets, one-way signs, and hordes of people. At least on the freeway, cocooned in her car, she felt safe, apart, even when the traffic was stopped.
“It’s only a little after six. He said ten.” Cameron picked up the time from her scattered brain waves. Sometimes it was very nice not having to say everything out loud.
She tuned the radio, listening for traffic reports. Commuters were hell on that first day of rain after a dry spell, when the oil rose out of the concrete and turned the roadway into an ice rink. The report, however, was in her favor. “I’m going to surprise Bud.”
“He might surprise you.”
“I can handle whatever he dishes out.”
“Gee, and here I thought last night’s trauma had gotten you past the cocky stage.”
Her stomach lurched. Dream trauma or the emotional roller coaster she’d ridden with Witt? “Six o’clock or ten o’clock doesn’t make a difference. He’ll spring whatever he’s going to spring either way.”
“He’ll use the fact that you’ve gotten him out of bed against you.”
Max shuddered. “He’ll try to use sex against me no matter what time it is or where we are. He’ll make his little innuendoes and try to get under my skin. I want to get it over with.”
“All right, baby. But I can’t do this with you.”
Just like Witt couldn’t take care of her. I won’t be there to protect you.
She hesitated, a car flashing its brights in her mirror as she involuntarily slowed. “Do you forgive me, Cameron?”
“For what?” He could read her mind just as easily as ask, but he wanted to hear her say the words.
“For playing emotional mind games with you when you were alive.” There, she’d admitted it. So many times, when she was angry or stressed or scared or freaked out, she’d jerked him around to make herself feel less out of control. Just as she had last night with Witt in Hammerhead’s car.
“I understand about powerlessness and power. I understand your need for it.” Pause. She gulped knowing worse was to come. “But I don’t know how much longer Witt will put up with it.”
Witt’s words came back to her loud and clear.
Never give an inch, do ya? I’m beginning to think there’ll never be a day that you’ll touch me without a price tag or an ulterior motive.
Wasn’t that a lovely epitaph to their association?
Chapter Twenty-Four
Max drove in silence after that. She didn’t think Cameron had gone, but they had nothing left to say to each other. Though the sun had risen over the horizon, the light was murky in the falling rain. She pulled into Traynor’s drive feeling the day’s chill in her bones.
The houses were big, his was a Colonial, with wide green lawns. It was garbage day, rows of green, blue, and gray cans perched at the end of every driveway. Leaves had fallen from the trees overhanging the road, carpeting the sidewalk and street with layers of wet vegetation. It reminded her a bit of the East, though the colors never got so brilliant nor abundant in California.