Power to the Max (36 page)

“Who’s the woman in the picture?” Cameron had told her the night he broke it; Max wanted confirmation.

“My wife, Max.” Bud sat back.

Perched as she was on the edge of the sofa, Max looked over her shoulder at him. “Where is she now, did you kill her?” She asked so fast it became one sentence.

“Wendy’s mother died in childbirth.” He raised a brow. “I suppose, Max, you might say Wendy was the one who killed her own mother. Such a burden for a child to bear.”

“I suppose you reminded her of that every day.”

He smiled. Of course he had, another sin to add to the list.

She picked up the photo, fingered the broken line flowing through the glass. “Why haven’t you bought a new frame?”

“When I know how it got cracked, Max, I will.”

A challenge? Bud would, of course, have figured out it was damaged the night she and Cameron had broken in. Not a big leap to say she had something to do with the breakage. She didn’t say
huh, what the hell are you talking about
, like any normal person would. The conclusion he’d drawn was obvious; she knew the cause. What she didn’t know was why. Cameron had toppled it, but he’d never explained himself.

She set down the photo, pointed the remote, and turned on first the TV, then the DVD player. She didn’t own one, hadn’t since the one she and Cameron had used went defunct, but working the remote was second nature.

“I’d almost think you’d done this here before, Max.”

Her turn to smile.

With all ready, she pushed play, and held her breath until the picture filled the forty-eight inch screen.

A hotel room, king-size bed, nondescript prints on the wall, all washed out beiges and browns through the jaded eye of the camera mounted high in a corner of the room. Off-screen laughter, female. Angela did a walk on, turning to face the hidden camera and pushed her hair back, the color of which paled through the lens. Throwing her purse on the edge of the bed, she slipped her red jacket off her shoulders and let it drop to the floor.

Angela. With another man. It would anger Lance since he wanted exclusivity. But Max still couldn’t see how it would lead to his murder.

A second actor entered. The back of a woman’s head filled the camera’s eye. Max sucked in a breath. Behind her, Bud sighed. With pleasure.

No, it couldn’t be, it just couldn’t be.

“Take off your coat,” Angela purred, though her voice lost some of its seductive quality through the mechanical device. She reached for her client, touching, pushing and pulling, until the material plopped against the carpet.

“Turn around,” Max whispered to the faceless woman.

“Oh, she will,” Bud whispered, trailing a finger down Max’s arm. She shook him off without looking, like an annoying bug.

A voice, distorted by its husky quality. “I’ve missed you.”

So it wasn’t the first time. Probably not the last either.

“I’ve missed you, too,” Angela murmured, leaning in to engage in a lengthy kiss. Max grimaced.

“Don’t you like it, Max?”

Still not taking her eyes off the screen, she elbowed him as he zeroed in on her. “Back off, creep.”

He laughed as Angela stepped back from the kiss, licking her lips, to pull the woman into the room. As if knowing the camera was there, Angela turned her lover fully into view of the lens.

Max did gasp then and put a hand to her mouth.

In that drab, cheesy hotel room, Angela Rocket undid the zipper, pushed aside dress and bra to the waist, then pinched pebbled nipples for the camera.

Julia La Russa moaned, then turned to receive her lover’s tongue in her mouth.

Max pushed the stop button and rose slowly. Setting the remote on the ottoman, she turned on Bud.

“How did you get that video?”

“Angela is a very helpful girl, isn’t she, Max?”

“You’re blackmailing people and using Angela to do it.”

“With Angela,
use
isn’t the operative word, Max. She’s paid handsomely. So is her little friend Hammerhead, who was in charge of setting up the equipment.” Only Traynor would call Hammerhead little.

He smiled, crossing his legs, the robe parting to show thigh. He looked like a hairy spider and turned her stomach just as easily.

“Would you like to see my video library?” he invited. “You’d be surprised who I’ve immortalized on disk, Max. And most of my treasures are still waiting for the right moment to be brought out and put to use.”

Her belly turned over. Why did the unthinkable keep coming back to taunt her? Bud could not have videoed her with Witt because Witt had chosen Hammerhead’s car. Not the other way around. She clung to the thought.

Pushing the ottoman out of the way with her calf, she gave herself plenty of room to move if she had to. She wasn’t afraid to admit Bud scared the crap out of her. Though she wasn’t about to let him see it. She shifted into battle stance. What was his plan? What did he want? Why the hell had he supplied her with his own motive?

She remembered Cameron’s question. Who stood to lose the most power? Traynor did.

“That’s why you wanted him dead, isn’t it? Because Lance wanted Angela to stop doing tricks. He wanted exclusivity. No more men, no more videos. Your little blackmail scheme would go right up in smoke.” That’s what the dream had portrayed, Lance’s anger over the videos.

Bud laughed, put his arm along the back of the couch and braced his head on his hand. The robe once again shifted, exposing the tip of his penis. Just as her uncle had always done, just the tip, the very tip.

“God, I love you, Max. I really do. You’re so bright. You see the lascivious in everything.”

“In everything to do with you. Did you even care who committed the murder for you?” No, by the glint in his eye, she could see he didn’t. Baxter, Julia, Hammerhead, even Angela herself. Traynor didn’t care. He’d probably manipulated them all, but only Julia had succumbed.

“Sometimes it’s the act itself that counts, Max, not the actor.” He dropped his hand, parted the folds of his robe, and deliberately wrapped his fist around his cock. “The way you look at me almost makes me come, Max. Such anger. Such hate.” He pumped himself to hardness.

To make a comment, to move, even to look away from that massaging fist would shift power in his favor. Max spoke as if it neither scared her nor moistened her insides. “You lied to me in the beginning, didn’t you?”

He rewarded her words with a little moue of pleasure.

She went on. “You never wanted to marry Julia. You never wanted her money. You wanted her to kill for you. How’d you get her to do it?”

He threw back his head and guffawed. “I love that you believe me capable of mind control. You ascribe such power to me, Max. It makes me want to live up to your expectations. Let me come in your mouth, my love.” He added the last too easily, and gripped harder, pumping faster.

God, if he came with her watching ... Max couldn’t bear to think about it.

“It isn’t power. It’s evil. Not something to be proud of.” She stopped. Venom filled her, poured over into her next words. “Tell me, what would you have done if Julia had killed them both, effectively halting your little video scheme?”

“I’d have groomed another Angela.” He smiled. “Perhaps even you, Max.” He tipped his head, still working his cock, and waited for her reaction. She gave him nothing.

“Of course, you can’t prove any of this, Max. Can you? Believe me, I’m going to love your frustration over that.”

“I’ll prove it. Some day. Somehow. I’ll make people see you for what you are.”

“Come closer, Max,” he cajoled. “Will you swallow my cum if I promise to tell you how I did it?”

“You’ve already tried that ruse. The answer is no.”

“Only because I can’t convince you I’d tell the truth, Max. I will tell you what you want to know. If...” He came forward swiftly, startlingly her into jumping back. He didn’t touch her, only rested his elbows on his knees, fully, proudly exposing his engorged penis, his thumb massaging a drop of pre-cum into the slit at the top.

She allowed derision, not aversion, to color her tone and her features. “Do you really think your pathetic”—she glanced down to his crotch with a contemptuous smile on her lips—“display is going to intimidate me?” He merely smiled, an indication that he liked the fight in her. She pushed harder. “People are catching on to the real you. Baxter Newton knows you’re evil.”

He sighed, suddenly clasping his hands behind his head and flopping back against the sofa cushions. His cock bobbed and swayed as he settled. “Ah, Baxter.” He tipped his head up to look at her. “He’s trying so hard to pretend his daughter isn’t a murderer, Max.” He looked at his fingernails, smiled as if he approved of their sheen. “I helped him by lying for her.”

“Did he ask you to lie?” She already knew, had from the moment she’d envisioned Julia at the office door. They were all lying. Every one of them. Their alibis were collusive. “What price did you put on the alibi?”

“Now wouldn’t that spoil your fun if I told you everything?”

She shook her head. “I’m not having fun.”

Bud rose. Her gaze rose with him. He pulled his robe closed and stepped forward. Max put one foot back, then stopped herself.

“Such a pity,” he said. “I’ll give you a few nuggets, Max. I introduced Julia to Angela. I told our poor beautiful Julia what would happen in her office that night, between her husband and her lover.” He sneered at the word. “And I made sure Baxter knew she was missing from her little soiree, pointed out that we hadn’t seen her in a long, long time. Then I showed him the video.” His lips spread in a self-satisfied smile. She didn’t bother to ask how he’d managed the timing of that one. “Later he practically begged me to lie, Max. A foolproof plan, don’t you agree? I’ve got them all by the balls.” He raised a hand, squeezed it shut like a vise, and bared his teeth.

What was he really after? To keep Angela as his blackmail stooge? No. He’d already said how easily he could replace her. Maybe he wanted nothing more than that power position. Over Angela, Julia, and Baxter. And anyone else he’d managed to
immortalize
over the years.

“How did you get to be such a monster?” Cameron had told her. Perhaps it was true. The victim can only expunge his victimhood by becoming master.

Bud merely smiled, one side of his lip rising higher than the other. “Baxter won’t break the alibi to save his daughter. Julia won’t break it to save herself. And I got what I wanted all along.”

What, she wanted to scream at him.

Bud pushed closer. Max stood her ground. “Except for one thing,” he breathed the words against her neck.

She put a hand on his chest and said, “Back off, dirt bag.” Then she shoved him back the one step he’d taken.

“Don’t you want to know what else I want?” he purred.

“I couldn’t care less.” She didn’t need to ask.

“You.”

“You’ll never have me.” Her voice rang strong, sure.

“Oh, but I will. And I did, in a manner of speaking.” He paused, letting fear of the unknown sink in. “Why do you think Hammerhead and my naughty little Angela let you get so close to them?”

Because he’d told them to. “No,” she still tried to deny. God, fool that she was, she’d been manipulated, too, fallen so easily in with his plan.

He retreated, stretched his neck, and puffed up his chest with a deep breath. An alien blackness colored his inescapable gaze. “Who do you think watched you last night to make sure you carried through on your promise to Angela?”

Oh God. She was going to throw up.

He preened. “Yes, Max, I was the one who watched your steamy little scene in the backseat of my friend’s
Lincoln
. I think I might even have come at the precise moment your lover did.”

God. That was worse even than watching him stroke himself.