Max had given a thought to the fact that until two weeks ago, she hadn’t spoken to Sutter Cahill in two years, virtually dropped off the face of the earth, and ignored message after message. But she didn’t have a choice. Witt would be looking for her car. The cops might be looking for her, too. She had to do something to throw them all off her scent.
A stiff wind hit Max’s backside and whirled around her, drawing the scent of something sweet and spicy from inside the house. Max’s stomach pinched. She’d forgotten to eat. Holding the door open, Sutter pushed back a swath of unruly dark curls and smiled. Sutter was good at smiling. She did it a lot, along with a lot of laughing that had already etched tiny lines at her eyes and mouth. She had a round face with healthy cheekbones, and an enviable hourglass figure. They were the same age, they’d gone to college together. If she’d had a wedding instead of an elopement, Max would have had Sutter as Best Woman or Maid of Honor or whatever the hell it was they called those types.
Sutter had forgiven her for not calling in two years.
“Why do you want my car?”
“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
Sutter held out a slender hand, manicured nails beckoning. “You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”
Just like that. So easy, Sutter so accepting, a trait Max had always envied. So trusting and so worthy of trust. Max pulled back the hinge, separating the Miata keys from the rest on her ring and dropped them into Sutter’s cupped palm. “Thanks.”
Sutter smiled. “You’re the one who’s going to regret it. I’ve always wanted a sports car.”
Max worried her lip. “Someone might come looking for me.”
The smile never faded. “Hello?” Sutter tapped the side of her head and jutted her chin. “Do I look like an idiot?” A second’s pause in which she tipped her head. “Anyone dangerous?”
“Ahhh,” Max drew out the sound. “Could be a cop.”
Sutter rolled her eyes. “I won’t ask what you’ve done.”
Sutter never interrogated her friends. She never even asked why Max had ignored her messages. She accepted unconditionally. Of course, Sutter was picky about who she chose as a friend. You had to pass a litmus test. It had taken Max months that first year of college, though God knows she hadn’t really tried. Still, she’d passed with flying colors. And Sutter didn’t question anymore.
Perhaps that also had to do with the fact that Sutter herself was psychic. She saw ghosts. They told her things. Someone—something—must have given Max a thumbs up.
Max had the almost irresistible urge to hug her. “Thanks.”
“Maybe he’ll be to-die-for. I love men in uniform.”
“If he’s got a buzz-cut and a dimple in his chin, he’s mine.”
Sutter raised an arched brow, but didn’t ask. “Done,” then she held out the keys to her white Toyota 4Runner. Like Max, she had a detachable ring. A single girl couldn’t be too careful about who she gave her house keys to. Not that it mattered when she had locks like Max’s. “You have to come inside for a nice cup of herbal tea and a chat. That’s part of the deal.”
Max kept her end of the bargain. Though the clock was ticking on her search for Bud Traynor, Sutter’s calm voice, her cluttered living room and bright flower-print sofa soothed Max’s sensitive nerve endings and, for that short space of time, made it seem possible that life would be normal again.
Leaving Sutter, armed with Witt’s cell phone—she’d never owned one herself—Max didn’t call ahead. Alerting Traynor of her search would give him a chance to disappear before she got to him, wherever it might be she found him.
She went to his office halfway up the Peninsula in Belmont, pulling the SUV into a lot one building over, in case Witt anticipated her move. She saw nothing untoward. The bright sun blinded her. Stepping from the car, a devilish wind ripped through her blazer. Though Bud’s Cadillac wasn’t in his parking area, she headed to the second-floor offices of Traynor, Spring, and Gregory.
Bud Traynor, Walter Spring, and Hal Gregory, a man rivaling Bud in his self-absorption. Three partners in a law firm. Father, godfather, and husband of Wendy, respectively. Traynor had palmed his daughter off on Hal and manipulated Walter’s suicide.
Dormant flowering bushes lined the walk, and the pebbled concrete steps seemed to shift beneath her heels as she climbed.
Their secretary, a pert young thing with long blond hair and large breasts, said she’d seen neither Hal—thank God, Max didn’t need a run in with him—nor Bud all day.
“Did Mr. Traynor have meeting?”
“No. He phoned to say he wouldn’t be in today,” the girl replied with an endearing toothy smile, flipping her pencil between her thumb and forefinger.
“Did he leave a number where he could be reached?”
“No.”
Did the girl know anything? She was young, a Tiffany look-alike. She didn’t ask questions and, like poor dead Tiffany, did what she was told. Ripe pickings for a man like Bud. Max bit down hard on her tongue, wanting badly to tell the twenty-something kid to run for her life before her employer got a crack at her.
Max intended to finish him off before he ever got the chance.
“I can take your name and number and have him call you.”