She knew what he meant. What about their battle? It wasn’t Witt’s battle. It never had been, never could be. Only she could truly vanquish Bud. He was her destiny.
“You killed Cameron. And I will make you pay.” Somehow, some way, if she died doing it. She’d bring him down with her.
“How, Max, how will I pay? What will you do?”
She held her breath, knowing the words, once uttered, would be a promise she couldn’t break. “I’ll put you down like a rabid dog. With my own hands.”
“Like a dog, Max?” He waited a beat, and his voice when it came was a breath across the phone. “Don’t you mean like a child, Max, like an innocent babe in the womb?”
Oh God, he knew. Impossible, but he knew what she’d done. Bud Traynor was God’s retribution against her. Payback for her sin had not come with Cameron’s death. God had so much more planned for sins.
If she’d ever had any leverage over Bud at all, she lost it completely with the paralysis of her vocal chords.
“I wish you’d never tried to find Cameron’s past, Max, wish to God you hadn’t gone to Michigan.”
She wanted to laugh, almost cried instead. Bud had never believed in God.
“So much pain, my lovely Max.” If Bud could feel emotional pain, she believed he felt it now. Because he seemed to know he’d lost her, too. “I never wanted you to make payment for the sins of your husband. You should have left it alone.”
What was he talking about? She couldn’t ask, frozen in voice and body, a victim to his words.
“It shouldn’t have been this way, Max. We could have been together. You might have pulled me to the straight and narrow. How do you feel, knowing my life was in your hands, Max? But now ...” He paused for impact, let the unspoken meaning sink in.
Icicles clogged Max’s veins.
“Now, Max, it’s a choice between you and I. I choose myself.”
What had he done?
“I’m sorry, Max. It’s out of my hands.”
Oh God, what had the man done to her?
Chapter Twenty-One
Max didn’t sleep again. The numbers of the clock flashed three-twelve over and over as if time had stood still from the moment Bud called.
She phoned Witt at six. He wasn’t home. She tried his cell phone, the police station, couldn’t find him, and stopped short of calling his mother, Ladybird. The little woman would have worried herself into a tizzy or worse, asked to help.
“Tell me what to do,” she whispered urgently in the dark.
Cameron answered. “Save yourself, Max.”
“I don’t even know what he’s done to me.”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” A moment of silence to let that sink in, then, “Shall I ask about the vision?”
Dream, not vision. She didn’t correct his terminology. “No.”
He didn’t let her off the hook. “You had more in common with Wendy than possession.
Wendy’s spirit possessed her, her emotions and thoughts penetrating Max’s body. Feelings traveled her veins, sometimes stealing Max’s control. Why did that happen first with Wendy?
Because everything that happened had been about Cordelia’s child. Cordelia died because of her baby. A circle that encompassed Cameron, Cordelia, Wendy, and most importantly Bud.
“So do you still believe Cordelia possessed you and that’s how you knew she was dead?”
Max shook her head, almost thoughtfully. “No. I haven’t really felt her since I left the woods. It was something different. Residual memories. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Maybe it was more of Wendy’s essence still lingering out there. Her essence even more than Cordelia’s.”
“Maybe.” How the hell was she really supposed to know?
“The key is little Wendy. Why was she so important to you?”
Tired of lying, to herself, to Cameron, to Witt, the truth slipped from her lips. “We were kindred spirits.” Shame was their common emotion. They had both been victims of terrible men, but worse, they were victims of their own shame.
That’s why bringing down Bud had been so important, even before she’d learned what he’d done to Cameron. He was her symbol of the wrongs done to Wendy. Wrongs done to herself.
“Facing your past will set you free, Max.”
How trite. Especially since he’d said it more than once. Cameron’s pained voice and eau-de-peppermint faded out the window, as if he’d left her to face it alone.
She crawled from the bed. Witt hadn’t answered her calls. She’d done her best to tell him. She hadn’t gone to Bud, he’d come to her. He’d made her promise to Witt null and void. Hell, that was shifting the blame, if there was any. She should never have made that promise to Witt. This was and always had been her fight, not Witt’s. Bud was her responsibility alone. Today she’d wrest from him in person what she’d failed to get in the middle of the night. An admission of guilt, something she could take to Witt, something to nail Bud to the wall for his crimes.
Payment for yours, Max? The voice inside her head was neither hers nor Cameron’s.