Julia touched the tear on her cheek. “Only because she knew the truth.”
Max leaned forward, stretched, but missed reaching Julia’s knee. “No. She didn’t say couldn’t. She said wouldn’t.” Max wasn’t sure the distinction had been made, but Angela hadn’t believed Julia was a woman capable of bad things.
“I went to see her yesterday to tell her that I’d seen you at the Embassy,” Max went on, “that I thought you might want to finish what you’d started in your office. I was afraid for her.”
Julia closed her eyes, squeezed them tightly shut for a moment. “I was afraid for her, too. I went to see her, to...” She shrugged eloquently. “When I heard Lance had been killed, I didn’t want to believe Angela could have done it, but...” But Angela had. Julia took a deep steadying breath. “I went to see her to get her to turn herself in.”
Exactly what Angela said regarding Julia.
“What happened?”
“She was otherwise ... occupied. I realized that what Lance said was true. She was paid to do what she did.”
Max said nothing. What could she say? That Angela would have done it all for free because she liked helping people. It sounded pathetic in the light of all the things Angela had done. Sometimes the truth was pathetic.
“Do you want me to tell you about the night Lance died?” Julia didn’t refer to it as the night Angela killed him.
Max nodded.
Baxter put a hand out. “Please don’t, Julia—”
Julia cut him off. “No. Let’s tell the truth.” She looked Max squarely in the eye. “I found them together. Even with that hideously beautiful mask, I knew it was her.” She dragged in a breath, tea moving infinitesimally in the cup she cradled on her lap.
“What did you say to her?” What were the words that had cut Angela so badly she couldn’t repeat them?
“I said she was like him, that they deserved each other.”
Like him; Lance, a user, a tormentor. Lance, who was like Angela’s father. Julia couldn’t have found a worse thing to say, on the heels of Lance’s mistake with his fists full of so-called gifts. Had Angela started thinking of her father once more?
Max placed the jewel cases on the glass table next to the set of fine bone china.
Julia sniffled, touched her napkin to her nose, composed herself. “What’s that?”
Julia didn’t know about this final insult.
Max turned to Baxter, his eyes invisible in the glare of the sun on his glasses. “Are you going to tell her?”
“I was in the building across the street that night, Julia, the one across the street.” Baxter’s lips tensed as Julia turned limpid eyes on him. “That bastard took me there.”
“Bud Traynor,” Julia and Max said in unison.
“He played me that video of you and...” His fingers, instead of pointing, shredded his paper napkin.
Julia looked at the disks, but didn’t ask for specifics. Another of Angela’s betrayals she’d have to deal with. Max knew Julia would keep on loving Angela despite it.
“Then he gave me binoculars to watch your office window,” Baxter finished.
“You saw me.”
“I saw them.” He dipped his head, perhaps ashamed that he’d stayed to watch. “And then I saw you. But before it was all over, Lance closed the blinds.” Before he was killed was left unsaid.
He’d wanted to turn out the lights right from the beginning so that they couldn’t be seen, but Angela wouldn’t let him. Max had thought it was for exhibitionist pleasure. Instead it was so that Bud could force Baxter to watch.
Julia turned to her father. “You thought I killed him, didn’t you? That’s why you made sure I had an alibi, why you got Bud to lie with you.”
Baxter thought his daughter had done a very bad thing, but he’d loved her and protected her anyway. The way Julia had sought to love and protect Angela.
“I shouldn’t have let you, Father.” Love and compassion dripped like tears from the title she bestowed. “Now we’re both in a lot of trouble.”
“Are the police going to charge you with something?” There was nothing Max could do about it if they did.
“They threatened,” Julia said.
“Obstruction of justice or perjury or something,” Baxter added. “They threw out several options for us to think about.”
Max tapped a disk. “What did you tell them about Bud Traynor’s part in all this?”
They exchanged a look. “Nothing,” Baxter said.
Bud Traynor wouldn’t get his due this time. Again. Max tried to fight them. “But they know he lied when he said he was with the two of you all evening.”
“He said he succumbed to the pleas of a good friend.” Baxter splayed his hand across his chest. “He’s friends with the Mayor. They’ll do no more than slap his wrist.”
“But this wasn’t the only video he blackmailed someone with. You have to tell the police so he can be stopped.” Wanting to pound her fists on the table, Max kept her hands relaxed in her lap.
Unsurprised by that revelation, Baxter reached out and slid the tapes his way. “I won’t put Julia through that.”