Power to the Max (27 page)

She held her breath, let it out. “What was yours, Baxter?”

They stared each other down.

“I can’t tell you any more than you can tell me.”

True. That answer begged another question. Would killing Lance have saved him?

Max had no choice. As she sat in her car outside Baxter Newton’s modest Atherton home, she called Bud Traynor for the second time that day. At this rate, she might as well program his damn number into the phone’s memory.

Oh yeah, couldn’t. It was Witt’s phone. Someday she had to return it.

“Lunch time,” Bud mused in that mocking tone after she told him she had an important question. “I wasn’t planning on going out for lunch, Max—”

She cut him off. “I wasn’t inviting you out. I need to know—”

He did the same. “Lunch. I insist, Max.”

“I don’t think I’d be able to keep my food down.”

He laughed, enjoying the banter as always, even if it was nasty. “You only get answers if you meet me, Max.”

Damn and double damn. “Fine. How about McDonalds?”

“Oh, please, Max, I can’t entertain a lady over fast food.”

She thought briefly of that first lunch with Witt. Kentucky Fried Chicken on a busy main street near his station. What she wouldn’t give to do that again instead. “All right, fine,” she gave in, playing Traynor’s game, knowing it was the only way he’d tell her anything. “Where?”

“Belladonna.”

A poisonous name, no less than she expected from him, but who would really name their restaurant that? “How do I get there?”

“It’s near my office.” She’d been there, looking for clues on his daughter’s murder. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience.

He gave her directions to the restaurant.

“I can get there in half an hour.” If she drove like a maniac, which was certainly proved by even the contemplation of another meeting with the bastard.

Lunch hour traffic on the
Peninsula
, though nowhere near the level of rush hour, forced her to be fifteen minutes late. She did, however, enjoy making him wait.

“Late on purpose, Max?” Bud asked as the hostess seated her in the booth.

Damn, the man always found a way to be one up on her. “I wouldn’t even bother.”

“Always a good comeback, Max. I ordered you a Shrimp Louis.”

“I hate shrimp.” She loved a good Louis, loved the sauce and the boiled eggs and ... her stomach growled.

“But you’ll eat it to please me, won’t you, Max?”

“I’m not staying long enough to try it, and the thought of pleasing you turns me off food completely.”

He looked at her, as if expecting more needling. He’d taken a booth in the corner at the back of the restaurant. Long white tablecloth, candles, a single rose, and a high seat back that effectively muted the conversation around them. She’d entered a cocoon with him. At night, the lights would be turned low and the romance turned up. Now, tables were full, men and women in business suits and casual wear, waiters in black slacks and white aprons moving fluidly between them. A cell phone rang, and a man sitting by himself answered, speaking earnestly. There was something familiar about the face and dark hair that she couldn’t quite place, as if she was seeing him out of his usual setting.

“Max,” Bud said softly, his hand on her arm as if vying for her attention, “I’m surprised you haven’t admonished me for ordering for you.”

She’d never taken her attention off him, had felt his hand snaking across the table towards her, and steeled herself against reaction. He’d sat in the middle of the curved seat, forcing her to remain within his reach if she didn’t want to fall out of the damn booth. Purposeful. Everything he did was. Turning, she glanced first at his hand, then moved to his eyes, black eyes seemingly even darker in the dimness created by the tall seat backs.

“
Don’t
touch me.” Her curled lip gave the first word emphasis.

He smiled, removed his hand. “To what do I owe this pleasure? It couldn’t be that you enjoy my company, could it, Max?” Her drew the name out, as if tasting it on his tongue. It struck her again how much she hated that her name was always the beginning, middle or end of everything he said.

She got right to the point, knowing he’d hold the answer until her lunch arrived, until she’d eaten it, while he made her endure his presence. And maybe Witt was wrong. Bud was trying to set everyone else up for Lance’s murder, everyone but her. Bud had merely invited her along for the ride.

“What are you holding over Baxter Newton’s head?”

The snake smile never left his lips. “What do you think it is, Max? If you guess right, I’ll nod my head.”

No point in telling him to cut the games. They were ingrained. He didn’t know how do it any other way.

“Baxter was having an affair with a prostitute young enough to be his granddaughter.” Though surely not the reason, even according to Baxter, it was the only place Max had to start.

“Tell me, Max, can it be called an affair when the man’s paying for sex?”

She waved a hand. “Whatever you want to call it.”

He didn’t move, simply stared, those eyes unnerving her, damn him.

“Well?”

“I didn’t nod, Max.”

Her lips tensed, and she felt her nostrils flare. Involuntary telltale signs. At least she kept her fists from clenching. “I’m not going to keep guessing.”

“Yes, Max, you are.” Which was his way of telling her he could make her do anything he wanted her to.

She grabbed her purse off the seat between them and slid partially out of the booth.

“All right, Max.” His hand came out, but this time he didn’t touch her. “You win. Let’s just talk about it. Maybe we can work this puzzle together.”

The waiter arrived at that moment with her over-sized shrimp salad. Her mouth watered. She’d skipped breakfast and dined on wine the night before, except for the few saltines she’d wolfed down on the way to the Embassy.

The white apron left after making sure she had everything she needed and an ingratiating smile to Bud. Traynor’s place setting remained empty. She wouldn’t ask because he wanted her to. She’d ask because she needed to gather every clue against him and add it to her arsenal. “Where’s your lunch?”

Propping his chin on his hand, his eyes on her lips, he murmured, “I wanted the uninterrupted pleasure of watching you eat, Max.”

“Oh please, don’t make me puke.” Damn, she’d stepped right into that one. She should refuse, but she started in on her salad, first because she was hungry, second because not doing so might indicate she feared him. At least in his mind.

He watched her with half-closed lids and a slight smile, as if anticipating orgasm. She used her napkin instead of licking the sauce from her lips, turning away from his disturbing gaze to scan the room. The cell phone guy was gone, two suits replacing him at the table.

It hit her then where she’d seen the man. At the Embassy. Angela’s Greek God. She should have known him immediately, but he’d looked different without the backdrop of the dance floor. Christ. Was the guy actually following her?

“What’s wrong, Max?”

She flipped back to the task at hand. Coincidence. Had to be. Even if Witt didn’t believe in them. She took a bite, chewed and swallowed, then, as if there’d been no interruption, asked, “If you’re not holding Baxter’s relationship with Angela against him, then what have you got on him?”

“Now, Max, what’s most important to our dear friend Baxter?”

A no-brainer. “Julia.” Baxter had said as much.

“Exactly.” The word oozed from his mouth like something sexual. His posture slid. She was only glad his two hands were still on the table.

“So what you have is about Julia?”

This time he nodded.

She stopped mid-bite, her forkful of shrimp suspended in the air. “Tell me what it is.”

“How are you going to pay me, Max?”

“Blackmail?”

His gaze roamed her face, then dropped to her breasts. “Whatever it takes to have you, Max.”

“I’m not for sale.” She ate the shrimp, enjoying it despite him. Why not, free food.

“Oh, some day, I think you will be, Max. Some day there’ll be something you want badly enough. I think I even know precisely what it will be.”

His tone trickled down her spine. She fought a premonitory shiver. She wouldn’t ask him what. He’d only tell her the time wasn’t right. She was sure she didn’t want to know. “Not in your lifetime. Now tell me what you have that threatens Julia.”

Instead, he said, “I have a dinner engagement with her tonight. She’s such a delightful lady and was so wasted on Lance, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I do,” Max answered and meant it completely. “But she’d be wasted on you, too. Is that how you’re intimidating Baxter, threatening to become Julia’s next dickhead husband?” It wasn’t likely, but the only thing she had to push him with.

“Oh, no, Max, nothing that easy.” He traced his unused fork in the cloth of the table. If he was writing something, she couldn’t tell. “You do remember my little penchant for videos?” One of Bud’s videos had been instrumental in revealing a murderer.

This time the shiver was unavoidable. He saw it and smiled. “I see you do. So think of all the lovely things that can be caught on camera, Max.” He waited, avid eyes on her.

“You have Julia on video with you?” The idea sickened her. Louis sauce boiled like acid in her stomach.

A barbarous smile filled his face and showcased his white teeth. “Something like that, Max.”

* * * * *

Max didn’t quite see how a video of Julia and Bud was a motive for Lance’s murder. But she was damn well going to find out, and right from the horse’s mouth. Julia.

Using the card Julia had given her, Max called the woman’s house, then she called her office, as hard as it was to believe that Julia could return to the scene of her husband’s murder.

Max had never once gone back inside the 7-11 where Cameron had died. She hadn’t gone into a convenience store at all, no matter what the name.

Julia, apparently, didn’t feel the same compunction. She was there, but distant. Still, she told Max to come right over since she would be so close. A little white lie, Max had said she was coming into the city on an errand for Bud.

She hated using his name as an excuse. He’d revel in it.

After returning home to get a change of clothes for the evening, Max shot up the freeway, negotiated the
San Francisco
streets with a tad more ease now that she’d driven up three nights in a row, then arrived at Julia’s office a little after three o’clock.

She took the elevator to the twenty-second floor. Marvelous, absolutely marvelous. Max had wanted to see, feel, and hear every psychic thing that office had to tell her.

consisted of two offices—she knew without being told that the other had been Lance’s—and a lobby area with receptionist’s desk. The suite was unlocked, and Julia’s door ajar. Max walked into the silence within, dropping the garment bag with her evening clothes by one of the cushioned chairs. She planned to change in one of the building’s ladies rooms.

A black leather handbag lay on its side outside Julia La Russa’s office. Julia, seated at her desk, faced away from the door, seemingly transfixed by the panoramic city view, buildings stacked upon buildings as far as the eye could see, the Bay being in the other direction. Max, from her vantage point, saw only the twin building directly across from which witnesses had observed Lance and Angela.

The place had been stripped almost bare, a section of carpeting precision-cut and missing, the credenza cleared of papers except for the printer, computer, and desktop copier. The desk itself lay empty. Gone were the pencil holder, blotter, in-box, pads of paper, and the letter opener Lance had been killed with. Black residue coated the polished mahogany where Angela had lain. The black powder, in fact, coated every surface in the room. Fingerprint powder. Traces of it were on Max’s fingers where she’d touched the doorknob.