Gone Too Far (29 page)

“Would you mind checking?” Alvarado asked. He had one of those ridiculous soul patches under his lower lip, and since he’d come in, he’d spent more time looking at Gina than looking around the room.

She went into the bathroom, and the detective turned to Max. Alvarado hadn’t missed that look Gina had shot in Max’s direction, and knew what it meant. It was possible he was a decent detective after all.

“Would you mind waiting outside, sir?” he said in a low voice. “Your being in the room might make it hard for your daughter to be forthcoming about whatever prescriptions she might have had stolen—birth control pills or antidepressants or whatever.”

His
daughter
.

“We’ve had a rash of break-ins in this area,” Alvarado continued, apparently not noticing that Max was now grinding whatever was left of his teeth into stubs, “and it’s usually always CDs and whatever’s in the medicine cabinet. We’re pretty sure it’s the same group of kids.”

Gina was already coming out of the bathroom.

“She’s not my daughter,” Max told Alvarado, making sure that she heard him say it. “Although I can understand why you might have thought that she was.”

Alvarado was embarrassed. “Sorry, I—”

“Max is actually my own private stalker,” Gina told him. “And yes, I’m missing some sleeping pills.” She gave Max a challenging look that said “So now you know I have a prescription for sleeping pills.”

As if he hadn’t already known that.

Alvarado, boy detective, really didn’t like that stalker comment. So Max sighed and pulled out his ID and handed it to the young man, while he shook his head at Gina in a silent reprimand.

The detective recognized his name and nearly crapped his pants as he tried to remember if he’d said anything else that might’ve offended the Great Max Bhagat, Law Enforcement Legend.

Max let the little bastard squirm. “You need her for anything else?” he asked as he repocketed his ID wallet. “Or can I get her moved to a more secure location now?”

“We’re done here, sir,” Alvarado said. “And I’m sorry I didn’t realize who you were—”

Gina was looking at Max like he’d grown a second head. “Excuse me? I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You are. Pack your stuff. I’m moving you to my hotel.”

“To your room?” she asked.

Their eyes locked, and Max knew with temperature-raising certainty that she wanted to share a room, a bed, bodily fluids. With him. She wanted
him
. Right now. Tonight. All he had to do was say yes. “No.”

She turned away. “Then I’m not going.”

He reached down deep for whatever patience he had left. There wasn’t much there. “Gina.”

“Max,” she said with the exact same inflection.

“What do you need to happen?” he asked. “Your room was broken into.”

“By kids. Right, Ric?”

Alvarado was pretending not to pay attention, but now he turned back to them. “Uh, yeah. And these doors are easy to jimmy when you’re out of the room, but with the night lock on they’re—” He saw from Max’s face that he wasn’t helping. “—safe. I’ll go, um . . . Go.” He looked at Gina. “I’ll let you know if we find your CDs or your, uh . . .” He cleared his throat.

“Underwear,” she supplied.

“Yeah, but to be honest, it’s not likely you’ll get it back. And if you do, you might want to burn it.”

“Interesting.” Gina gave him a smile. “A man actually suggesting that a woman burn her bras.”

Ric laughed aloud, but his broad grin quickly faded when he glanced at Max. “Sorry, sir. I’m going now.”

He closed the door behind him.

“Don’t you get tired of that?” Gina asked. “People treating you like you’re God?” She sat down on one of the beds. “Of course it doesn’t help when you give them your death glare.”

“Please,” Max said. “Let me get you a room where I know you’ll be safe.”

“I’ve already paid for
this
room. I don’t want to spend more money.”

“I’ll pay for it,” he told her.

“But I like it here. And Ric seemed to think I’ll be safe.”

“Ric’s a fucking child who’s been a detective for about two weeks,” Max countered. He closed his eyes. Shit, shit, shit. “I’m sorry. I’m—”

“Tired?” she supplied. “I am, too, Max.” She stood up, moved toward him. “Maybe if you stay here with me, we’ll both finally be able to sleep.”

Jesus Christ, she didn’t let up. It took every ounce of self-control he had in him not to rip off his raincoat and throw her back down on that bed and—

How could he even
think
of having that kind of rough sex with someone who’d—

Someone he’d
let
get—

They’d had to stitch her back up. He’d seen the hospital reports.
Brutal
didn’t begin to describe it.

“I can’t stay, and you goddamn know it!” Ah, Christ, he was losing it, transforming totally into Max the raving lunatic. The wall puncher. The asshole. “Don’t you goddamn make me sit out in my car, in that parking lot, all night long! If you don’t come with me, that’s what I’m going to have to do, and I’m too goddamn old for that
shit
!”

He was shouting now—although not about what he really wanted to shout about—and she stopped moving closer. Yeah, that’s right, honey. Meet the real Max Bhagat.

“You want to know why I don’t get tired of people treating me like God?” he told her, practically foaming at the mouth. “Because when they treat me like God, they
do what I say
! Three hundred million people in this country and everyone treats me like God—except
you
!”

“That’s because I’m in love with Max the man,” she told him, her voice shaking—because, Jesus Christ, was she actually afraid of him?

When he got like this,
he
was afraid of him.

He had to get out of here, especially when he paid attention to the words she’d said and not just the tone of her voice.
Love.
No.
No.
Love wasn’t this crazy, emotional tornado. Love was what he had with Alyssa Locke. Love was a comfortable blend of attraction and friendship and passion.
Controlled
passion.

Not this blinding mix of anger and frustration and howling, gut-wrenching, consuming desire for someone he couldn’t have. Someone he would only hurt if he gave in to his desperate, obsessive need to possess her.

“It’s not love, it’s transference,” he told her harshly as he headed for the door.

She didn’t say another word, but the expression on her face nearly brought him to his knees.

“Lock this door,” he ordered, damn near snarling. “I’ll be in the car.”

It was the same feeling she used to get when she left her curling iron on before going to work. It was a sense of unease. Something had been forgotten or overlooked. She’d slipped up somewhere, and he was going to find her. At three o’clock in the morning, she was more often convinced than not that he
was
going to find her.

He didn’t seem to realize that if she came forward, if she called, say, Alyssa Locke, Sam’s FBI girlfriend—Lord, she’d probably already moved into the house with Sam. If Mary Lou called the bitch on the phone and said, “I think you’re probably looking for me,”
she
was the one who would go to jail.

And then, while she was in prison, she’d get a knife stuck in her heart, because that’s what always happened, at least in the movies. Bad guys always had connections inside the prison, and she’d end up bleeding to death, staring up at the gray ceiling of the prison cafeteria.

But at least Haley would be safe. Mary Lou’s biggest nightmare was that he would find her, and he would pump a bullet into Haley’s head first, while Mary Lou was forced to watch.

She reached over and turned on the light on her bedside table. Although what good that did, she didn’t really know. All it meant was that she’d see death coming. Unless he shot her the way he’d shot Janine. In the back of the head.

Mary Lou got up and checked on Haley, who was fast asleep, holding tightly to her Pooh Bear—as if she’d fight to the death before letting anyone take it from her. Sam had given her that bear—or at least he’d given her its predecessor. But Haley couldn’t tell the difference between New Pooh and Pooh-who-had-been-left-behind, thank the Lord, or there’d be hell to pay. It was funny—and surely just a coincidence—that Sam should be able to guess so precisely the type of stuffed toy Haley would adore.

She felt a pang of guilt. He’d made plans to come and visit Haley a number of times, but she’d always canceled on him. She’d been terrified even back then that he would be followed by . . . Bob Schwegel.

It was such a friendly-sounding name for a cold-blooded killer. A sister killer. A presidential assassination conspirator. An insurance salesman impersonator—was that a crime? Surely Bob Schwegel was an alias.

Mary Lou lightly touched her sleeping daughter’s cheek before moving to the other bed to check on Amanda. Both girls were fast asleep.

She turned on the baby monitor that she didn’t normally use at night because her own room was nearby, and went back into her own bedroom. Slipping on her robe and slippers, she found the huge ring of keys Mrs. Downs had given her that afternoon before she’d left for her niece’s wedding.

She took the monitor and headed down the hall, stopping briefly to listen for the sound of Whitney’s steady breathing from her bedroom.

Once she was down the stairs, she turned on the lights, leaving them blazing as she went. Past the dining room. Past the kitchen. Past the laundry room.

She turned and went back and into the laundry room, taking an empty laundry basket from the stack by the door. Then she went on. Past the library. Down the corridor.

King Frank’s office was locked, but she and Whitney and the two little girls were the only people here in this great big house, and she had the keys. It took her a solid ten minutes of trial and error before Mary Lou found the key that opened the door.

She didn’t turn on the overhead lamp, she just let the light shine in from the hallway as she crossed the plush carpeting and set down the basket and opened the wall of cabinets behind King Frank’s desk.

And there they were. Frank Turlington’s vast collection of guns. Firearms, Sam would’ve called them. Whitney’s father had everything from hunting rifles to pre-Revolutionary War flintlocks to teeny little handguns a gangster’s moll would hide in her garter to Wild West six-shooters. Not to mention the three racks of assault weapons. He had everything you could possibly need to keep an invading horde from storming the King’s castle.

They were locked behind glass that she’d heard King Frank boast about. It was unbreakable. You could hit it with a tire iron and you still wouldn’t get through it. But Mary Lou didn’t need a tire iron. Because tonight she had the keys.

Max laughed, looking at the light still burning behind Gina’s window curtain. “You actually thought I was sleeping?”

“I know how to get Sam to surrender,” she steamrolled over him. “If you give him forty-eight hours before he needs to come in for questioning, I’ll deliver him—and probably Mary Lou, too, because he’s extremely motivated to find her—to the Sarasota office.”

“I thought we were working on a plan to apprehend him tomorrow morning.”

“We are,” she said. “We’re ready with that, of course. But there’s no guarantee it’ll work. This way, you’ll have them both in forty-eight hours.”

It was entirely possible Gina slept with the light on.

“He wants to find his daughter,” Alyssa said, “and get her safely set up with a relative before he and Mary Lou both turn themselves in.”

“He told you that.”

Max hadn’t asked it as a question, but she answered it. “Yes.”

And you believed him.
Crap. He’d called her to talk about Gina. He’d called because he was going crazy and he needed her as a friend. But she was so wrapped up in what was going on with Sam Starrett, that she didn’t even notice the desperation in his voice.

Gina’s curtain moved, and he saw the pale flash of her face as she looked out at him. No, no, no. Don’t come outside.

“Marry me,” he said to Alyssa, “and I’ll give him twenty-four hours.”

It was so obviously the wrong thing to say or do—to bring their relationship into this negotiation. Alyssa made an exasperated sound, and Max’s heart sank even farther. She was so personally invested in this negotiation, she didn’t even realize that he was messing with her head.

“For someone who tries so hard not to be guilty of sexual harassment, you can be an incredible asshole. Sir.”

“I was kidding.”

“Not completely.”

Yeah. The bitch of it was, she was right.

“Help me,” Max said, “I’m in over my head.” But he said it without opening his mouth, without making a sound. Please God, let her hear him anyway.

“Sam’s not going to agree to this if it’s less than forty-eight hours,” Alyssa said.

Sam. Always Sam. “He’s not going to agree to it, period,” Max told her. “Let’s stick with the plan.”

“Max, please,” Alyssa said, and he knew.

She hadn’t even realized it herself yet, but Max
knew
. Sam Starrett had won. She was toast, and Starrett was going to gobble her up.

As he watched, Gina pulled aside the curtain, undid the night lock, and slid the door open. She stepped outside.

“You have forty-eight hours,” Max said into his phone, watching Gina move gingerly across the pebbled parking lot in her bare feet. Her feet weren’t the only things that were bare. She was wearing a baggy pair of boxer shorts and a tank top that barely covered her—her version of PJs, no doubt. God
damn
, she had an incredible body. A twenty-three-year-old’s body, with the kind of curves most twenty-three-year-olds starved themselves to avoid having. “No, you know what, Alyssa? I’ll give you fifty-three. But if you don’t deliver Sam Starrett to my office on Friday by eight-thirty A.M., I’ll expect your resignation on my desk.”

“Agreed.” God damn it, she didn’t even hesitate. “Thank you, Max.”

“Watch out for his teeth,” he said, but she’d already cut the connection.

He put his phone into the car’s cup holder as Gina opened the passenger’s side door and slipped her incredible body and her equally incredible, indomitable spirit into the seat next to him.

“I don’t sleep too much anymore,” she told him, “but it doesn’t seem fair to make you lose sleep, too.”

“Do the pills help?” he asked. “Because tomorrow I can help you replace what was stolen.”

Gina looked searchingly into his eyes, and he forced himself to hold her gaze, praying she didn’t see his desperation.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I hate taking them, so I hardly ever do. It makes it too hard to wake up in the morning.”

Max nodded. He knew. He’d tried something similar himself, just a few months ago.

“We’re really going to be looked at askance if I bring you to my hotel with me in this and you in that,” he said.

“I’m not going to your hotel. But
you
should go.”

Max sighed. “That’s what I was afraid you were going to say. Thanks, but no. I’m fine right here.”

“You’re such a liar.”

“I’m not lying. But maybe I should rephrase—I’m just as miserable here as I would be anywhere else,” he told her.

“That’s a terrible way to live.”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

They sat in silence for a moment, and then he said, “I’m sorry about before. I, uh, shouldn’t have, uh—”

“You’re allowed to be angry,” she interrupted him. “You don’t need to apologize for expressing the way you feel.”

He laughed. “God, Gina . . .”

More silence.

“What?” she said. “God, Gina, what?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know anything.”

“I do,” she told him in a voice that was very, very soft. “I know that when I’m with you, I don’t feel so lost.”

Don’t look at her. Don’t do it. Don't turn your head, Max, you goddamn idiot— He looked. He did more than look. He reached for her, and she went into his arms. Fortunately sanity prevailed before he kissed her. He kept her head tightly tucked under his chin as he held her. And Gina seemed to know not to ask for more than he could give. She just clung to him, soft and warm and vulnerable as all hell.

She was trying to hide it, but she was crying. Max stroked her hair and her back and the soft smoothness of her bare arm. Touching her like that screamed of impropriety, but he was too tired to make himself stop. Jesus Christ, it was just her arm.

Max closed his eyes, knowing that he had to push her away, that she had to go back into her room. But it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes, fifteen tops, before he realized that she’d stopped crying. She was breathing slowly and steadily. Gina, who didn’t sleep much either anymore, had fallen asleep in his arms.