He hadn’t returned my earlier call, so he didn’t deserve a warning of my arrival. I had a hunch he wasn’t studying up on the latest congressional bill for screwing the taxpayers. The devil in me wanted to see what Max the Senator did on Sunday nights.
So I was playing girlfriend games. It happens.
I took a real live working elevator up to the top floor—marvelous how technology actually worked outside the Zone. My phone rang as I pushed the doorbell.
I checked caller ID. Not Max. I answered anyway.
“They’ve arrested Andre,” Julius said wearily. “Charged him with first-degree murder. The press is crawling all over the Zone.”
I had promised to curb the swearing, but a few epithets crossed my glossy lips. I’d hoped they wouldn’t charge him so quickly, but Vanderventers owned this part of town.
Julius knew all that. It was the media in the Zone that he worried about. I took a deep breath and tried to sound sane. “Are they in your face yet?”
“At the door. I’m not answering. Schwartz is outside patrolling, keeping them to public places. They can’t find anyone to talk to on a Sunday night. I just wanted to warn you.”
“I must have escaped before they got the word. I’m over at Dane’s, waiting for him to come home.” Since the good senator obviously wasn’t answering his door, I had to assume he was out. “You might want to try calling some of your lawyer friends, asking them who’ll be arraigning the case. Get back to me if you find out.”
“I don’t have many friends anymore, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Your books are still used in the classroom, Julius. You’ve earned respect. You’ll get it. Do you know any lawyers who will take his case?” I sat down cross-legged in the hall and rested my back against the wall.
“I’ll ask around, but the Vanderventers—” He caught himself, realizing I was sitting outside a Vanderventer door. “Paddy said he’ll help if he can.”
I thought about that. “Tell him to hold off. Until we know what’s going down at the plant, it’s better if his family still thinks he’s cuckoo.”
I wasn’t convinced he wasn’t cuckoo, but for now, he seemed saner than the rest of the world.
“Don’t do anything rash,” Julius said quietly, “but Andre may have a problem with confinement.”
I grimaced. I didn’t know about all of Andre’s problems, but I could imagine his reaction should anyone push him too far. Heads would roll. Literally. Special Ops with PTSD—ugly.
“I’m on it.” I hung up. Andre’s checkbook weighed heavy in my bag. Andre wasn’t poor by a long shot, but it didn’t matter how much money he had if he got a judge who wouldn’t allow bail. He could totally freak in jail, and then he really would off somebody.
It knotted my insides to ask for anything, especially from Max the senator. We were a few universes apart these days. He had his problems. I had mine. It would be better if the twain never met. But I couldn’t let Andre down. The pincers of eternal conflict squeezed my skull tighter.
The elevator door finally clanked and slid open. There were two condos up here, so I didn’t rush to stand. Damn good thing.
Senator Vanderventer stepped out with Glenys MacNeill, the late Max’s sister, hanging on his arm.
I could almost hear the Max inside the senator screaming Help! as if he were still caught behind my mirror.
16
The devil made me do it, I swear. Even if he was wearing Dane’s disguise, that was my Max that Glenys was drooling on. So it wasn’t for the sake of Max’s everlasting soul that I stood up and sauntered toward the couple stepping off the elevator.
I had on three-inch Ferragamos from the Goodwill store, and I was probably still half a head shorter than Glenys. Max’s family wasn’t small. I’d never let my size stand in my way. I smiled wickedly through my Luscious Ruby lipstick. I didn’t just swing my spandex-clad hips; I rolled them like a hooker. I shook out my glorious mane. I stunned the Max I saw in Dane’s eyes. He hadn’t been around enough lately to appreciate the new me.
Glenys narrowed her eyes and clung more possessively to Dane’s arm. Even if she didn’t know the soul inside his body was that of her brother, the senator was still her second cousin, for pity’s sake. Did the girl know no shame? If she had any brains or compassion at all, she would have recognized by now that the man who had walked out of the hospital a few months ago was no longer the same Dane she’d grown up with.
“Hello, Danny boy,” I purred. “I’m not into threesomes, so if you want to get it on with the lady, I’ll be moving along.”
“You’re that witch who killed Max!” Glenys cried in sudden fury, finally seeing through my vamp disguise. She dropped Dane’s arm like a hot poker and turned her glare on him. “You’re fucking Max’s whore?”
“Oh, very pretty, Glenys. Such elegant language.” I vowed again to quit cursing. It turned Glenys into an ugly bitch, even though she wasn’t half bad, in an older-woman sort of way.
“I told you I was busy, Glenys,” Dane/Max said apologetically. “I have several meetings scheduled for this evening. Tina is giving me background for one of them.”
Oh, Max, you liar, you. But then, I already knew he was a liar, which was how he’d ended up cursed in the first place.
“Sorry, Senator,” I said pertly. “It’s hard to resist. Sunday is supposed to be my day of rest, and buzzing up to D.C. to be blown off by a booty call kind of tilted my wheels.”
Max glared through Dane’s blue eyes. I smiled boldly, as if I teased and confronted U.S. senators every day. Glenys narrowed her eyes in disbelief, but she made a nice turnabout. She patted Dane’s arm, kissed his cheek, whispered a few sweet nothings in his ear. Then, after giving me a glare, she swung out.
She worked hard on that hip sway, but Dane/Max didn’t even look. Brothers really don’t notice sisters.
“Thanks, I think,” he said, unlocking his door. “She’s hatching some scheme to take over Acme now that Gloria’s out of the way. She seems to think we’ll inherit some of her shares. That’s a distant chance.”
“Her chance might be distant, but Dane has a good likelihood of inheriting,” I reminded him as we entered his chilly apartment.
I kept expecting Harley parts and clutter. Max had been a mechanic with a very loose bookkeeping system and no interest in domesticity, but he probably had a cleaning service these days. And no engines to take apart. One more fine mechanical mind lost to white-collardom.
“Isn’t it lovely that the buzzards are circling before the body is even cold?” I asked, rather than mourn what was no longer. Max was at least back here on earth instead of stuck in the outer rings of hell. For that, I should be grateful.
He opened the bar, poured himself a bourbon, and gestured to ask if I wanted anything. Figuring I needed a clear head for this argument, I didn’t take him up on the offer. My Max would have been swilling cheap beer, my drink of choice. I didn’t think there was any point in learning to swill the hundred-dollar-a-gallon stuff.
“The media is all over the story, by the way,” he said. “Thanks for the warning. It gave the speechwriters time to spin a good ‘we need to be with family’ press release so I could dodge questions I couldn’t answer.” He sipped his drink and stared into the dead fireplace. He didn’t realize I had the answers. After all we’d been through, he should have.