Max pushed the whiny, sycophantic, incompetent jackass far from her mind because she couldn’t deny the shimmer of excitement in her stomach, and she wasn’t going to let the loss of yet another assistant keep her from this case. Hoffman’s murder was exactly the type of case she liked to investigate. Almost five months cold. Not so long ago that there couldn’t still be evidence and information to unearth, but long enough that she could move around the investigation without initially irritating law enforcement.
She had one burning question that hadn’t been answered in any of the press reports: Why was Jason Hoffman at the construction site late on a Saturday night?
She glanced down at her hands and realized that while she’d been reading the articles about Jason Hoffman, she’d scraped the polish off her left thumb. Dammit, she’d just had a manicure in Miami. She pulled out her nail repair kit, but then David’s name popped up on her cell phone.
“Did you get the message from Ginger?” David asked when she answered.
“I might start to like her.”
David laughed.
“You talked to her? I thought you were supposed to be the nice one,” Max said.
“I was. She didn’t like an assignment that might require her working through the weekend.”
Max had found that to be a problem with many of her assistants. Intellectually, she understood that most people didn’t intend to give up their social life when they took an office management job, but Max didn’t work nine to five. She tried to do her part to give grieving families justice after the horrific loss of their loved ones. The cops sometimes can’t—or won’t—search for answers because they’re too overwhelmed or uninterested. Some cases fall through the cracks—like Jason Hoffman—and someone like her can dig it out and shine light on the evidence once again. Is it too much to ask that an assistant actually work when needed instead of traipsing off for a skinny latte every hour on the hour? Max had made it clear when she hired each of her assistants that the hours would be difficult, but she’d make up for it with generous paid vacations and flexibility.
She told David, “Call Ben and have him line up interviews for Friday. That’ll give him enough time to weed out the idiots, the criers, and the lazies.”
“You’ve already decided to stay and help the Hoffmans.”
He hadn’t asked a question, so she didn’t answer it. She put David on speaker and quickly started working on her nail. She had it down to a science. “Right before Kevin committed suicide, he sent Jodi a copy of Lindy’s death certificate. No explanation. I’m going to the clerk’s office on Monday to pick up a certified copy. There’s something strange about Kevin’s actions the week before he died.”
Max had been a crime reporter for nine years. She never assumed that any copy of an official document was real.
“If you need anything before Sunday, let me know.”
“I’m not going to stomp on your vacation.”
He laughed.
“Okay, much. How’s Emma?”
“It’s not even one, Max. She’s in school until three.”
She should have realized that.
“When she gets home, put all this aside. Get ready for your trip. I wish I could go.”
“You wouldn’t be able to relax on the beach, though you need it.”
“Like you can?”
“I’ll be snorkeling, hang gliding, and hiking. Best way to relax.”
Like her, David was a workaholic. But he also had a kid, and she wanted him to enjoy the rare time alone with his daughter. Max never had a dad, even a part-time dad like David. When she was younger, she would have given anything to spend time with her father. To know him. Of course, she’d have had to know his real name. Her mother never told her the truth before she walked out, leaving her with grandparents who barely acknowledged her existence before they were confronted with her care and maintenance. Max had to admit, for all their faults, her grandparents had never made her feel like the bastard child she was. To them, warts and all, blood always won out.
“Tell your beautiful daughter I said hi. Don’t say anything to Brittany, because what I want to say wouldn’t be polite.”
“When has that stopped you in the past?”
“You’d be surprised how often I bite my tongue.”
She hung up and finished reading her e-mail while the new polish on her thumb dried. One-handed, she dealt with anything that couldn’t wait until Monday.
Thirty minutes later, she stood and stretched, then unpacked and stowed her suitcase in the closet. She spent so much time in hotels that she had routines she religiously followed, and that included making the room her home whether she was staying for two days or two weeks.
A shower would refresh her and wash the travel grime from her body. She hung her favorite turquoise-colored sheath in the bathroom so the steam could refresh the cotton and remove faint wrinkles. She stripped and stepped under the hot spray. Through the glass partition she sighed at the oversized bathtub with massage jets. Pampering would have to wait until her familial duty was complete. By that time, she would certainly need a hot bath and glass of wine.
She could count on one hand the number of times she’d been home in the past twelve years, and all of them centered around a wedding or funeral. She wouldn’t have come home for any of them, except to honor her great-grandmother’s memory.
Genevieve Sterling would have expected Max for every important family event, while understanding Max’s need to escape. She’d been a hard but fair woman, loyal to family and friends, generous but not a pushover. Her husband had built his fortune from nothing, with Genie at his side, and when he died young of a heart attack, she ran his business with even greater success, seeing the future clearly and investing in technology before technology was considered a viable investment. Max laughed when people said, “I wish I’d invested in IBM.” Genie Sterling had been that kind of visionary.