Dead to the Max (Max Starr Series, Book 1, a paranormal romance/mystery)

by Jasmine Haynes

  Pissed, she glared at Nick. “So they released you. I thought they’d have to wait till Monday when a judge could sign the papers.” She hadn’t wanted to ask Witt. Too conspicuous.

  “They never arrested me.”

  “What?” Damn that Witt.

  “The big guy didn’t believe my story, kept pointing out inconsistencies.”

  Double-damn Witt. He’d led her on, used her to flush out the real killer.

  “We need to talk.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Not out here.”

  “You can’t come into my apartment.” She didn’t trust Wendy alone with him. Her skin felt flushed, her pulse skipped beats, and her nipples were taut against her T-shirt. It wasn’t because the damn thing was damp. Oh, no, she was the one who was damp. Inside and out.

  “All right. We’ll skip your place and go for a drive.”

  A drive. At least the truck had no back seat. She glanced at it, only to find that it had one helluva a big bench seat that would allow more than enough room for... “I don’t think so.”

  He came at her, put his hands at her waist, and lifted her bodily to the driver’s side door.

  When he let go, she almost crumpled to the ground at his feet.

  She jumped away from his touch. “A drive? Fine. I’ll get in the other side.”

  He opened the door with one hand while barring her from going anywhere with the other. With a sweeping gesture, “Ladies first.”

  When she hesitated, he laughed harshly. “Don’t trust yourself to be alone with me?”

  She didn’t trust Wendy. Max felt the woman inside her head like the buzz of a high-tension wire. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  She climbed up and would have scooted to the far side, but he clamped a powerful arm around her shoulders and held her close. He put the truck in gear and backed out with one hand.

  He frowned. “You love to fight, don’t you?”

  “It’s a defense mechanism,” she admitted freely.

  “I’m sick to death of fighting. Let’s try a little honesty.”

  “You’re a man. I’m a woman. Honesty’s not possible.”

  He shook his head and went on. “I ran out on you Friday night when I realized my wife needed me more than you did.”

  “That’s not honesty. It’s brutality.”

  “I’m sorry I left.”

  “I’m not the one you should apologize to. Wendy is. As I recall, you did the same thing to her.”

  He winced at the truth of her statement, then shook his head. “Jesus, you’re different. I’ve never met anyone so tough. So in control. You know what you want, and you go for it.”

  She gave a half snort. “Who are you kidding?”

  “It’s the impression you give.”

  “I should get an Academy Award.” She pulled away, scrunched up against the passenger door and faced him. “You asked for honesty. Here it is. You ran out because you knew that Wendy’s death was your fault. Guilt. Plain and simple.”

  “You’re right. I shouldn’t have left her alone that night.”

  She pointed a finger at him. “You shouldn’t have had an affair with her. When I told you about the 4Runner trying to run me down, you thought it was your wife. That, too, you figured was your fault.” She tapped her temple. “You’re like an open book.”

  He stared straight ahead, his jaw worked, then he jerked the steering wheel to the right. The high school parking lot was empty except for a few cars over by the track. Nick pulled in beneath a tree and turned off the engine.

  The silence didn’t bother her, but she knew it drove him nuts as he raked his hands through his razor-short hair. Finally, he grunted through clenched teeth. “I was to blame.”

  “Big Nick’s responsible for everything. Whatcha gonna do now that you know your wife didn’t have anything to do with it?”

  He didn’t answer directly. “I’m staying at my buddy Rick’s. Carla came by this morning. She’s lost weight. She’s not meant to be a thin woman. She’s got broad hips from having kids, and she just doesn’t...look right to me. Doesn’t feel right.”

  “You want her the way she was when she thought you were a god.”

  “I was just the only one who stayed with her after the first fuck.” He swallowed, then turned to look at Max. “I don’t know her anymore. I don’t want to know her. I want you.”

  Yesyesyes. Wendy almost jumped out of Max’s skin.

  “And I don’t mean only the sex.”

  Max closed her eyes and felt the power course through her veins. God, Remy had been so right. Wendy wanted this, wanted to be wanted, to be needed, to be loved. She’d wanted it the night she died. But even more, she’d given Nick that special gift, she’d let her body explode with his. And she’d never come willingly in her life, not unless she was the one giving herself the orgasm. That climax had been more than a sexual release, it had been an epiphany.

  She had found the man who wanted her more than anything, the one who wanted her beyond the physical.

  Then he’d left her.

  Max’s eyes snapped open. “You told Wendy you wouldn’t marry her.”

  “Yes.”

  “When Remy showed up, she did everything he said, even let him kill her with a minimum of resistance.”

  “Is that what he told you?” An edge crept into his voice.

  “He didn’t have to. He was jealous of you, but you quit, and that satisfied him for a while. But when he knew she’d left him for you, he went crazy.”

  “Since when did quitting a job become a reason for murder?”

  “Quitting her job? Come on, Nick, get a clue. She quit having sex with him.” She wondered where her brutality came from. Wendy. Payback for Nick’s failure.

  “That’s total bullshit.” His lips tensed, the edges of his nostrils turned white. “Wendy hated him. She’d never have—”

  “Wouldn’t she?”

  He stared straight ahead, said nothing. She watched the slide of his Adam’s apple. His fingers tightened around the steering wheel.

  “You really didn’t know, did you?”

  His nostrils flared. The cords of his neck stretched with tension. “She wouldn’t have gone near him. I know it.”

  “He watched the two of you. She knew it.” God, yes, Wendy had known. She’d despised herself for liking it, but it hadn’t stopped her.

  “She hated Remy.” He slammed the flat of his hand against the wheel.

  “She needed Remy as much as she needed you. He wanted her, but when she realized he was just another trap like her father, like Hal, she wanted you to get her out.”

  His lips curled in a snarl. “Jesus Christ. It’s obscene.”

  “And what do you call the things you did?”

  He breathed deeply, lips thin, white. She’d punched a button.

  “Shall I name them for you, Nick?” She held up a hand, ready to tick off a list of his failures. His continued silence drove her to it as much as Wendy’s insistent anger. “You had an affair. You left your family. You fucked Wendy, then you dumped her. And you let her die in the back seat of her goddamn car.”

  “Shut up,” he snarled through gritted teeth. The man could crush rocks to dust with that bite.

  “Can’t stand it, Nickie? Can’t stand knowing another way you failed?”

  He turned away from her, looked out the side window.

  Blaming Nick was fruitless. Wendy was the only one who could have rescued herself.

  “All she really wanted was to be loved.” By her husband, her boss, her lover. But mostly by her father. “He won in the end,” Max whispered.

  “Remy?” he asked.

  “Bud Traynor. Wendy’s father.”

  “She’s dead. How did he win?”

  She couldn’t put it into words without betraying Wendy. The things Wendy’s father had done to her were her last secret, and Max would keep it. He’d won, because in the end, Wendy had still turned to a man to save her. Men had always fai
led her. She was doomed from the moment she left her husband to run to another man. And Bud Traynor had twisted the knife, brought her down.

  One day Max would make him pay for that. The day would come.

  Nick regarded her, hand supporting his chin, index finger resting on his lip. “How did you know her?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Try me.” Such a beautiful double entendre. Wendy came to life inside her once again. Like a light switch, the anger winked out, and desire blazed like a thousand-watt bulb.

  In life, being wanted was what had made Wendy feel alive. She’d lost everything in the end, except for a little while, when she’d had complete control over her body’s responses, when two men had wanted her. Then, Wendy had power. Big-time power.

  Max dug her fingers into her palms. Her body’s heatwave receded with the pain. She leaned forward. “I’m a psychic.”

  She wondered fleetingly if Cameron would have approved the admission. He would certainly have approved her in-your-face attitude.

  She expected shock, even anger. Nick merely nodded. “I knew there was something.”

  “You mean you believe me?” She clamped her jaw shut when she realized her mouth hung open.

  “I knew you were special. You scared the shit out of me when I first saw you. You scare the shit out of me now. You’re not going to be an easy woman to live with.” The assumption in the statement turned Wendy giddy.

  “I won’t live in your wife’s shadow.”

  “I don’t want you to. No fuckups this time. I want to start over.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “You don’t understand. I mean it’s over. I’m not like your wife. I’m not like Wendy.”

  “I know. That’s why I think I love you.”

  She almost laughed, caught herself only at the last moment. Inside her, Wendy cried. To finally hear those words, the ones she’d wanted so badly, the ones she’d died without hearing.

  He’d said them to the wrong woman.

  For Wendy, Max wanted to see him hurting. “You don’t love me. You want to take care of me. You remember seeing me at the Round Up going from man to man.” A shiver ran like a spider across her shoulders, but she went on. “And you want to save me.”

  “What’s wrong with wanting to help you?”

  “I don’t want a man who acts only on his passions, his pain, and his guilt. I will not depend on you. I will not have my wounds healed by you. I will not have my one-night stands fixed by you.” She stabbed her chest. “I will do it on my own.”

  The words were as much for herself as for Nick. A surge of power straightened her spine. She liked the feeling.

  She just wasn’t sure she could live up to it on dark, lonely nights.

  Her nose tingled with the elusive scent of peppermint. She sucked in her breath. “Are you eating candy?”

  “What?”

  She yanked open the glove box, found nothing but papers. “No peppermints,” she murmured.

  He cocked his head, his mouth lifting at one edge in a smile. “Did anyone ever say you were a little crazy?”

  She laughed. “Yes, my husband. All the time. Good-bye, Nickie.”

  She reached behind her, opened the truck door, stepped down onto the pavement.

  “Hey, wait a minute. Where are you going?”

  “Home. I meant it, Nick. I don’t want to be with you.”

  He looked at her, a play of unreadable emotions racing across his face. “I’ll drive you.”

  “It’s only three blocks back to my place. I can do it on my own. I don’t need a man to take care of me.”

  “Wait.” He held out his hand, his eyes intense, willing her to take what he offered.

  She almost slammed the door on him, then changed her mind. “Tell me, Nick, when you were feeling so guilty because you believed you’d driven your wife to kill your lover, did you ever even think about the fact that by confessing, you would be leaving your kids to be raised by a murderer?”

  Chapter Thirty

  Nicholas Drake hadn’t followed her home.

  As she moved from shade to warmth to shade along the sidewalk, she felt oddly empty. No Cameron inside her head, whispering, cajoling, or taunting. And now no Wendy. The woman was gone. Max wasn’t quite sure what had sent her away. Was it something she said, something Nick said? Did it even matter? Something had liberated the poor woman’s tormented spirit.

  It was almost anti-climatic.

  Wendy was free.

  Max couldn’t say the same for herself.

  Running to Nick had been the easy way out for Wendy, just as returning to her nameless, aimless one-night stands had been Max’s flight from Cameron’s death and the things his killers had done to her.

  Sexual power.

  It was key to Max’s psychic connection with Wendy. They were sisters in the crimes committed against them by men, sisters in their quest for regaining their own power through the very same method. With sex.

  Why had Wendy deserted her now?

  “I don’t get it,” Max whispered. Just as quickly, she understood.

  Wendy had bared her soul to Nick, then her throat to Remy. Max had finally set her free by telling them all to go to hell. One simple phrase that Wendy had found impossible to say.

  She’d freed Wendy and in return, Wendy had left her with certain knowledge. Sex was about power and control.

  Making love was something else entirely—that’s what Cameron had tried to tell her.

  Witt sat on her porch steps.

  “Invite me up for a beer?” He wore faded blue jeans and a black T-shirt with the word Dodge emblazoned in bold red. The sight gave her a head rush, as if she’d stood up too fast. Perhaps there were pieces of Wendy she might retain forever, her love of color being one of them. But the love of a Dodge Ram was all Max’s.

  The shirt wouldn’t get him off the hook. She put her hands on her hips and glared. “You never arrested Nick. You lied. And you used me to get Remy.”

  He sighed. “Guess that means no beer.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You put my life in danger.”

  “Didn’t expect you to make yourself a sitting duck. Figured it had to be the wife, or Drake would never have confessed.”

  “Well, you were wrong.” She yanked the screen door open. “I’ve got Dr. Pepper, no beer.” She’d run out yesterday.

  “Dr. Pepper will do.” He followed her up the stairs to her room. “I made a mistake, Max. It won’t happen again.”

  “Damn right, it won’t.” His admission threatened to turn her to mush. Again. She’d certainly had enough of that particular feeling.

  Dwarfing her one chair with his big body, he popped the tab on the can she handed him. She sat on the edge of the mattress. At least she’d made the bed, and the studio smelled springtime fresh.

  “What’s with you and Drake?”

  She didn’t ask if Witt had witnessed the episode by the garage. If he had, he’d drawn his own conclusions. If he hadn’t, she wouldn’t admit how badly Wendy had wanted her to say yes. Until Max had said no.

  “Nothing,” she answered breezily. “In fact, I think he’s probably gone back to his wife now that he’s figured out she isn’t a murderer.”

  That seemed to satisfy him. The cat jumped on Witt’s lap, circled, then settled and started to purr. He stroked the soft fur and guzzled the soda, all the while keeping his gaze on Max.

  She tingled. If she closed her eyes, she’d feel his touch. God, she wanted to jump the man, but she wouldn’t. She was afraid he’d demand they make love, and she still wasn’t beyond merely having sex. With a real man, she wasn’t ready for anything other than sex. Certainly not a relationship.

  “What’s its name?”

  “It’s a he, and his name is Buzzard.”

  “Buzzard. An odd name. Just like you, Max.” He didn’t give her a chance to say anything. “Thought you’d want to know Remy confessed to everything. He stole Wendy’s datebook out
of her purse, wrote Drake’s flight in there in an attempt to frame Drake. Stole her keys to the store to cover his tracks.”

  “He must have left the note there, too,” she said almost to herself.

  “What note?”

  “The green note on the floor of the car. She threw it away in the airport, he retrieved it, and left it to frame Nick, too.”

  “Very odd, indeed,” Witt murmured, his eyes narrowed on her throat. “Wendy told Lilah about Remy’s activities at work—”

  “Harassment.”

  “So Lilah blackmailed him, and he killed her. He also admitted to stealing Drake’s 4Runner and trying to run you down.”

  “Extremely cooperative, wasn’t he?”

  “He’ll probably go for the insanity defense. He says Wendy’s ghost has been haunting him.”

  “Remy never lies, you know.” That didn’t stop her from asking the next question. “Did he say anything about Bud Traynor?”

  “Traynor?” Witt’s blue eyes sparked. “No. Why? What’re you thinking?”

  Hoping. Praying. “Forget it.”

  “You’ve piqued my curiosity. Can’t pull out now.”

  Oh God. Her prurient thoughts, just as Cameron claimed, worked overtime on that double entendre, whether or not it was intentional on Witt’s part. He didn’t move a muscle. She wondered if he even got it.

  “I just don’t like the guy,” she said, and the words felt far too mild.

  He snorted. “Traynor asked me when he and his son-in-law could have Wendy’s car back. Company car, you know, owned by the law firm. I told him he’d never get the smell out of the upholstery. Didn’t even phase him. Man’s pure slime.”

  Slime was not the word Max would’ve used. Slime indicated something organic. Lacking a heart, Bud Traynor couldn’t even be considered living tissue.

  She suddenly realized her fingernails had dug into her palms. She looked at her nails. Damn, the Cajun Spice hadn’t worn off with all that frenzied cleaning. “It was uncharacteristic of him to let you see what he’s really like.” Traynor’s facade could be dropping. “You must make him feel awfully safe.”

  She prayed Bud would underestimate Witt until the moment the detective slipped the cuffs on him for...something.