*
Max really wanted to soak in a hot bath with bubbles and an oversized glass of wine. But she was pretty certain Nick wasn’t going to leave, and drinking alcohol with a possible concussion wasn’t smart. So she showered, carefully washing her hair in case bits of safety glass remained. Her face was too pale, and with all her makeup gone she looked beat-up. A nasty scrape on the side of her face and big fat bruises on her nose and above her eye—just great. She hoped they would fade enough that she could conceal the damage with makeup before Ben or David saw her.
She dressed in the wonderful plush bathrobe the hotel provided and in the privacy of the suite’s adjoining bedroom called David and told him what happened. She didn’t want to, but she’d promised, and she wasn’t going to lose her one trusted friend.
She downplayed the accident, but didn’t lie to David. He listened, asked a few questions, and then said, “Be careful, Max.”
“I promise.”
She felt a hundred times better telling David the truth, and knowing he wasn’t going to abandon his vacation. She stepped out into the living room and the comforting aroma of chicken noodle soup greeted her. Nick had put a tray on her desk. He was sitting at the table, talking quietly on his cell phone, a half-eaten sandwich in front of him.
She took the lid off the soup and ate happily, half listening to Nick’s conversation. As soon as he mentioned “bones,” her ears perked up, but she only got bits and pieces. Then she heard “thirteen bones.”
Nick was off the phone a few minutes later. She waited for him to say something. He had to have known she’d heard part of his conversation. She said, “The soup was perfect.”
“My mom used to make me chicken noodle soup when I was sick.”
Martha had never cooked, Max realized. For the first ten years of her life, they’d lived a nomadic lifestyle, moving from house to hotel, all over the world, depending on Martha’s whims. She had a monthly allowance from her trust fund that kept them living well, but Martha had always spent down to the last dime. She’d be staking out her bank for her next allowance on the first of every month, so she could clean out her account and move somewhere else.
Max once asked her mother, “What are you running from?”
“Nothing, Maxie. I just like moving.”
That answer had never satisfied Max. When she got her first apartment in New York, when she and Karen were juniors, a year before she disappeared, Max took cooking classes at a top culinary school. She’d learned the basics from Regina, her grandmother’s longtime housekeeper, but Max wanted to know more. She now rarely ate out when she was home, finding cooking both relaxing and fulfilling. She understood it was her need to create something she hadn’t had as a child. She wasn’t so blind to her own psychology that she didn’t know that she longed for what she’d never had.
Nick didn’t ask her why she was silent, and Max was relieved. She was an open book—except about her mother. She didn’t want to talk about Martha Revere with anyone.
“So, any news?” she asked after several bites.
“You were eavesdropping, you tell me.”
She frowned. “You’re in my hotel room. I wasn’t going to leave the room.”
He looked around. “I don’t see a bed.”
“It’s a suite.”
“Nice.”
“They found thirteen bones?”
“Very good.” He sat across from her. “Forensics sifted through the dirt and found what appear to be thirteen human bones. They’ve pulled soil samples from the grave site and the surrounding area for comparison. They also found a small diamond earring. Everything is going to the county lab.”
“When are they going to have results?”
“It won’t be tomorrow. This isn’t television.”
“No need to be sarcastic,” she said. “I’ve worked enough of these cases to know how it’s done and law enforcement limitations. I have a private forensics lab I’ve used on some of my investigations. They’re in Sacramento, two hours away. They have all the necessary state and federal certifications.”
“Conflict of interest.”
“There is none. It’s not my personal lab. I’ll hire them.”
“You can’t pay for it.”
“I have a nonprofit foundation that—”
“No,” he interrupted. “We’re going through the county lab. They know this is a priority. I told them it ties in with an active murder investigation.” He hesitated. “I know the head of our CSI unit well. He didn’t want to, but he told me—off the record—that the bones are human. He can’t say that until it’s verified in the lab, but it gives me something to work with. The earring—it most likely came from the victim—there was an intact back on it. Gold. I’m making an assumption that the victim was a female, though these days the earring could have come from a guy. And my forensics guy says, as long as I don’t put it in my report, that he thinks the bones are ten to fifteen years old.”
Nick looked at her. “I found the copy of the parking ticket,” he said.
Her stomach twisted. “Nick—maybe I should have said something, but it’s not like this was your case. And Beck wouldn’t listen to me about anything, and no way was I—”
He put up his hand. “William Revere is your cousin, right?”
“Yes, but I’m not covering for him.”
“Just tell me.”
So she told him exactly what she knew—that the ticket had been in Kevin’s apartment, she had questioned William, and he said he’d left before twelve thirty the night Lindy was killed. And he left her in the main house, alive.
“You know he could be lying.”
“I know.” The thought pained her.
“You can be logical about this? About your family?”
“What do you want me to say? I know William. I don’t think he’s a killer, but I could be wrong. Kevin lied to me, maybe William’s lying.”