When Carina Kincaid called Max from the lobby and asked to meet with her, Max didn’t hesitate to agree. Lucy had thought her family wouldn’t cooperate; maybe they had a change of heart or Lucy wasn’t as perceptive as she appeared.
But when Carina knocked on the door and walked in with her brother, Connor Kincaid, Max suspected an ambush.
They didn’t disappoint her.
Max took them to the balcony to talk—she didn’t want to show them her evidence. If they wanted to cooperate, that was a different story, but she couldn’t give them any information by which they might be able to sabotage her investigation.
She’d learned the hard way that even innocent people sometimes didn’t want the truth to come out.
“Why do I think you’re not here to offer your assistance?” Max said, offering them both seats.
Neither Carina nor Connor sat down. They looked like brother and sister. Dark hair, slightly dark complexion. They both looked like cops. United.
“We want to know why you’re really here,” Connor said.
“I’m an investigative reporter. I specialize in cold cases.”
“Why are you here?”
“I like the US Grant. It’s one of the finest hotels in the country.”
“You know what I mean!”
Less than a minute and Max was fully irritated. Was that a record?
She said, “Justin Stanton was murdered. His case is unsolved. I’m going to solve it.”
“Bullshit. There’s another reason.”
“I don’t have a hidden agenda. You’re welcome to talk to my producer.”
“You want to exploit our family.”
Max really hated that word. She’d been accused of exploiting people when all she did was find the truth. “I’m happy to talk about my investigation with you if you would be willing to listen. But you don’t seem to have an open mind.”
Carina spoke for the first time. She looked tired, as if she hadn’t slept the night before. Max wondered why—what in the past gave her sleepless nights? What about Justin’s murder made her fear the truth?
“Nothing good can come from this,” she said. “Justin has been dead for nearly twenty years. I’ve looked into this case. There were no viable suspects. No evidence. Nothing that even points to a suspect. You can’t find anything because there is nothing to find.”
“Tommy Porter has been dead for fifteen years. Chris Donovan for six years. Peter Caldwell for nine months.”
“This is where you’ve gone off the deep end,” Connor said. “Donovan’s father was found guilty of murder. Caldwell’s mother is on trial for his murder. Only the Porter case is unsolved, and it’s nearly as old as Justin’s murder. Is that why you’re here? Did Donovan get you to find some thread of nothing to get him out of prison? Or maybe because you’re friends with Caldwell’s mother—you want to give the jury doubt that she did it.”
Max didn’t even respond to that ridiculous accusation.
“If you’re not here to help, I need you to leave.”
“You won’t get anything. This is our town, our people. San Diego isn’t as big as you think. You step out of line, we’ll take you down.”
She laughed. Because if she didn’t laugh, she’d lose her temper, and that wouldn’t end well for her—or for the Kincaids. She needed Lucy Kincaid’s help, at least until Andrew Stanton turned over all the documentation he promised. But once she had what she needed, she’d ice Lucy out of the investigation, because it was clear that the Kincaids were trouble.
“Good-bye, Mr. Kincaid,” she said.
“Please,” Carina said quietly. “This will destroy our family. My dad had a heart attack last year. My mom is very sensitive. She cried last night. My sister Nelia—losing Justin gutted her. It took her more than a decade to start living again. If you dredge up the past, the violence and death, you’re going to hurt everyone I love. Do you think it’s easy for me to come here and talk about this? I was there—I fell asleep on the couch and my nephew, who I loved with my whole heart, was taken out of his bed and killed. It took me years before I could forgive myself.”
It didn’t sound like she really had. Max’s lost a bit of her temper. She understood guilt; she understood grief.
What she didn’t understand was willful ignorance.
“I would tell you to please trust me, but neither of you seem very trusting. So trust your sister. Lucy seems to have a good head on her shoulders.”
“Leave Lucy out of this,” Carina said. “She was a little girl when Justin was killed.”
“She’s not a little girl now. She’s a rather exemplary FBI agent, according to my sources.” She had read all the articles Ben had sent her, and she really wanted to know more about Agent Kincaid. Ben promised to get her more information, but if he couldn’t, Max had her own sources.
Connor clenched his fists. “Leave Lucy alone. I swear if you do or say anything to hurt her—”
“Enough,” Max said. “You obviously have no intention of listening to anything I might say, and I’ve already had it up to here with threats from Lucy’s husband. I will solve Justin Stanton’s murder and the murder of three other little boys. Help or hinder, frankly, I don’t give a damn. I will get the answers. I always do.”
Most of the time.
You know who killed Karen, you just can’t prove it.
You have no idea who your father is.
You don’t know what happened to your mother.
Shit, why was her mother on her mind now? Of all times? Her mother had walked out on her twenty-two years ago, she wasn’t coming back now.
But you think if you can solve a nearly twenty-year-old murder you can find out what happened to your mother. Time will no longer be an obstacle.
She stared from Connor to Carina. “Good-bye.”
Connor wanted to argue and Max wasn’t above calling hotel security, but Carina put her hand on her brother’s arm and they looked at each other, exchanged that unspoken conversation that infused Max with a jealousy she didn’t understand. Sean and Lucy, Connor and Carina, others in her life who had a deep, intimate understanding of another person.
Max wanted that. She was an only child raised by older grandparents, she had been in and out of many relationships. She didn’t have that unspoken connection with anyone—someone who knew what she was thinking and how she felt. Where she didn’t have to explain herself. Where she had the same connection with them, not a friend, family member, or lover.
You thought Nick was the one.
No, that’s ridiculous. Nick was a cop on a case and Max was attracted to him. Sexual tension and all that.
You hoped. Because you’re tired of playing the game.
Maybe it was just better to be alone. Being alone didn’t scare her.
It just made her very, very sad.
Connor finally turned and walked out, Carina behind him. Carina stopped for a moment, looked at Max. “I hope you realize you’re doing more harm than good.”
Max didn’t comment. Nothing she said was going to convince Carina. Max could hope that finding the truth would make all the difference … but sometimes, people really didn’t want the truth. They would rather live in their own fantasy than confront what could be dark answers to difficult questions.
For Max, the truth was always better than the unknown.
She closed the doors behind the Kincaids.
Max was tired of this family. Having Lucy forced on her. What had she been thinking yesterday when she agreed to work with her? Though the rookie fed had been helpful, Max would talk to her own FBI expert before she concurred that the killer was a woman, or that there were more victims than those she’d already identified. Last night she’d put in a call to Dr. Arthur Ullman—he was a retired FBI profiler who taught a seminar at NYU. His last case had been Karen’s disappearance ten years ago. He and Max had become friends, and he often consulted with her when she needed a psychological profile or perspective. A different way of seeing the evidence.
Max finished getting ready. She didn’t need Lucy to talk to Detective Katella, and she honestly didn’t need her for the investigation. She couldn’t convince her family to help and instead seemed to have created even more of a problem for Max. What had Lucy said last night when she came by the suite? Something about how she’d approached her family wrong. Then she read over Max’s evidence in silence, barely uttering two words before she left just before midnight. Well, that misstep had been major, and now Max walked a tougher road.
She called the detective at the number Stanton gave her. “Detective, it’s Maxine Revere. We’re meeting at ten this morning—I was wondering if I could push it up to nine?”
“I’ll be here. I still don’t see what I can tell you that the police reports can’t, but anything I can do to find out who killed that little boy, I’ll do.”
“Thank you.” Max hung up and called the valet to bring her car around. She put together her briefcase and made sure her timeline was in order. She hoped to have more information to plug in, and she hoped David was making some headway with the Porters. She knew he didn’t want to talk to them, but he’d find a way.
He was dependable that way. Unlike most of the people in her life.
But even David couldn’t read her mind.