The last time Val had been at the Carressa mansion, she hadn’t made it past the gate. This time, Max punched a code into the keypad underneath the intercom and the wrought iron fence swung open with ease, welcoming its owner. The mansion itself was about a quarter mile from the gate, after a winding single-lane road that cut through a tiny patch of northwest wilderness with sky-high evergreens and ferns carpeting lush forest ground. Val gawked like the middle-class bumpkin she was when Max pulled up to a giant asymmetrical house made of vaulted glass walls framed by smooth pinewood beams, an integration of nature and the cosmopolitan that only a seasoned architect paid millions of dollars could have achieved.
Max unlocked the door and held it open for her, then punched another security code into the keypad adjacent to the entrance. It beeped, and the house lit up like the stage lights on an orchestra about to perform. The first floor was a sprawling open space that reminded Val of a Northwest Living magazine cover, with polished wood décor balanced against glass and steel fixtures. Everything was in its place, immaculately clean. She followed him up a spiral staircase to a guest bedroom on the second floor, done up like a posh hotel room at the Seattle Westin with dark gray silk bedding, solid oak furniture, and framed pictures of pressed Northwest flowers. Nothing personal distracted from the room’s elegance.
“Where’s your room?” Val asked.
“I stay in the guest house,” he said. “It’s about a hundred feet away, on the west side of the property. There’s a path that connects the two.”
“You don’t need to vacate your own home for me. I can stay in the guest house.”
“Actually, the guest house is my home. I hate this place. It was my father’s, not mine. I’m planning on selling it and moving to the city after the investigation into his death is over. I should have moved away a long time ago, but…” He trailed off, lost in a thought that darkened his eyes, before pulling himself back to the present. “Anyway, I’ve dismissed the help, so it’s just you and me for now. Help yourself to whatever you want. I’ll have Kitty bring by a change of clothes for you. Let me know if you need anything else.”
Before she could thank him for his hospitality, Max said, “Good night,” turned, and left, as if he couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Val would’ve loved to take a look around, but exhaustion from her long day dragged her brain into a stupor she was helpless to resist. She stripped off her moist clothes, slipped her gun underneath her pillow, and passed out on the guest bed.
* * *
Val woke with a start, not sure where she was for a moment until the previous day’s events came flooding back in heart-pounding detail. She eased her hand off her gun, then checked her cell phone; four missed calls from Stacey. Val queued up Stacey’s number, but stopped herself from dialing when she considered the massive amount of explanation she’d have to go through, as well as the inevitable talk about where their relationship stood. She texted Stacey instead: I’m fine. 2 much 2 explain now. talk to u soon, then turned off her phone.
She took a hot shower, washing away the grime from her mad dash down Chet’s alley. Her clothes still felt damp, and she recoiled from the musty smell they’d acquired after sitting in a wet pile all night. Wrapped in a towel, she padded to an adjacent room, also impeccably decorated with no personal touches, and rooted through a dresser drawer until she found a men’s dress shirt and boxer shorts for temporary coverage. She descended the stairs to the first floor, now awash in the early morning sun that filtered in through glass walls overlooking the crystal waters of Lake Washington. Her stomach growled, and she opened the stainless steel fridge to find it bare save for bottles of ketchup and mustard and other assorted condiments that would keep well into the next decade. She shut it and grumbled, shivering and hungry for a moment, then noticed the outline of the guest house through the window, behind a crop of trees. Val took a deep breath, steeling herself for the biting chill of the morning air, then opened the side door and ran across the cobblestone path to Max’s house.
Strains of rock music reached her about halfway down the path, and she was grateful she wouldn’t have to wake him up as she pounded on his cherrywood door. A few seconds later the door opened, and Max’s eyes widened when he saw her outfit. She couldn’t help gawking at him, too, shirtless in a pair of drawstring shorts and light boxing gloves, rippled muscles glistening with sweat. Her hands itched with the urge to touch him, and by the look on his face, he was thinking the same thing about her. Then she remembered how the last two times she jumped into bed with someone on a whim had ended in disaster, and she kicked the attraction away as she shoved past him.
“I need to talk to Barrister today,” she said, rubbing the cold out of her arms. Stepping inside the doorway, she froze for a moment as Max’s essence overwhelmed her. The scent of his workout infused the studio-style house, musk and male with overtones of sweat. She took in the worn punching bag still swinging from a chain in the corner, as well as his bed shoved against the wall, a tiny kitchen, and a bathtub shower all in the same space. It had the same aesthetic feel and open floor plan as the main house, except someone obviously lived here. Clothes lay piled in a corner, one of his expensive suits crumpled on top. Another suit was sheathed in plastic and draped across a love seat. A couple dirty dishes sat in the sink. Shelving with a hundred or more books took up the spot where a television would have been, next to more books stacked on the ground and a whiteboard with equations scrawled across its face.
Val felt as if she’d walked into a physical version of his mind, intimate and fascinating. Though she felt a little guilty for invading his personal space, she immediately liked it, and knew that was bad if she hoped to keep her distance.
“Funny,” he said as he closed the door behind her, “you don’t strike me as the suicidal type, but I’ve been wrong about people before.” He pushed a button on his phone mounted atop a couple small speakers and the music turned off.
In his kitchen, she slathered peanut butter on a slice of bread she found paired together on his countertop. “We know he’s somehow connected to Robby’s and your father’s deaths.” She ate between sentences. “He’s our only viable lead right now. If we move fast, he won’t be expecting us. We can catch him off guard, rattle his cage.”
“If he’s involved—which we don’t know for sure yet—then he’s capable of murder, or at least fine with having other people do it for him. We don’t know what he’ll do if you confront him. It’s not a good idea.”
“Fine. You stay here. I’ll go and let you know what happens.”
He sighed and ripped the Velcro straps off his gloves, pulled them off. “When?”
“Now.”
“May I suggest you put some real clothes on first?” He cocked his head to a stack of neatly folded women’s garments on his bed.
Val finished her peanut butter bread, walked to the edge of the bed, and picked through the clothes. She was surprised to see them all in her correct size, including a pair of soft leather boots. “I’m impressed your girlfriend was able to guess my size after seeing me for only a few minutes.”
“Who, Kitty?” He slipped off his shorts, and then his underwear, so he stood completely naked as he pulled his shower curtain back and turned on the water.
Val gasped and tried to avert her eyes away from his toned muscles and full endowment; she failed. A collection of deltoids, quadriceps, biceps, and abs filled her vision, all rippling beneath a sheen of sweat. A few long scars on his back and legs marred his smooth skin, and she wondered where he got them, what they felt like. For a fleeting moment she imagined licking all that salty water off him.
“Jesus, Max,” she said after she came back to her senses. “Some people consider spontaneous nudity to be rude.”
He shrugged. “I’m not prepared for company in the guest house. Anyway, I don’t have anything you haven’t seen before.”
Of course not, but he still made her mouth water. Whether he was naturally fit or worked hard to look that way, his body matched his face for beauty in a way that confirmed how unfair the universe truly was. To give one man the build of a quarterback without the bulkiness, the face of a cologne model, the intelligence of a college professor, and millions of dollars seemed like a cosmic joke at everyone else’s expense.
“And Kitty’s not my girlfriend,” he said as he stepped under the steaming showerhead, then whisked the curtain shut so only his head was visible. “I don’t have a girlfriend. It’s not practical with our condition. Women don’t like it when you’re always passing out during sex.”
“I’ve had some decent relationships. You just have to work around it.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You can just lay back and enjoy the ride. I’m expected to perform.”
Val hadn’t thought about what her ability might be like for a man. He made a compelling case for how much worse it could be, especially for someone like Max whose looks, intelligence, and money allowed him access to almost any woman he wanted—women with high expectations. His perceived deficiency between the sheets could be crippling.
While he finished his shower, she picked out a leggings-skirt combo and a long-sleeved cashmere top; not her usual style, but she needed all the help she could get in the fashion arena. She looked around for somewhere to change and found none. There really was no opportunity for privacy in Max’s home. Even the recessed bathroom was missing a door. It must’ve been quite a while since he’d had a visitor’s comfort to consider.
She doffed her borrowed shirt and boxer shorts and changed, telling herself that she didn’t have anything he hadn’t seen, either, while pretending to ignore his half-second glances in her direction. So he liked the way she looked, too, made him squirm a little like he’d done to her. Val bit her lip to hide a smile. Turnabout was fair play, after all.
“Why do you own a sex club?” she asked as she pulled the boots on. “Are you just into freaky stuff?”
“There’s some of that, I guess,” Max said with a laugh. “I—” He stopped lathering his hair and looked away for a moment, as if considering how honest he should be. “I originally intended to use it to conduct randomized experiments on people.”
Val cringed. “That’s sick.”
“I eventually came to that conclusion, yes. But by then I’d already bought it and done all the refurbishing, so it became an escape instead, and the observation room my office.”
“Observation room?”
“Poor choice of words—”
“Were you watching me?”
“No,” he said with a sliver of anxiousness, enough to convince her he was lying.
Val felt her cheeks heat up. Oh God, he’d seen her with Dirty John. She’d hoped to go through life pretending the unfortunate incident never happened, but now she had a damn witness. Of course Max had probably seen freakier people doing freakier things a million times before, but he’d still violated her privacy—like she’d violated his when she barged into his house. Maybe they were even—almost. She stood and marched to the shower.
“The existence of the observation room is in the contract people sign,” he said. “Everyone consents. You would’ve known about it if you’d come in through normal channels—”
She whisked back the curtain with one strong yank. He gaped at the sudden intrusion just as she slapped him across the face. “Pervert,” she said, and snapped the curtain shut again.
“Damn, you hit hard,” he said, rubbing his cheek and eyeing her over the shower rod. “If I had seen you in one of the Red Raven’s rooms, it wouldn’t have been on purpose. Sometimes I’ll do a general look around the club from the observation area to make sure everyone’s safe and—”
“Yeah, whatever. Make it up to me by getting your ass out of the shower sometime today. And buy me a gyro for lunch.”
She thought she heard him chuckle softly before the shower turned off. Val picked through his books and pretended not to notice his erection as he toweled down and got dressed.
“All right,” he said after he’d changed into jeans and a black V-neck sweater that killed all the anger she had left. Did he always have to look so good? “I’m ready to go do something incredibly ill advised. You?”
“Just a sec.” Val ran back into the main house and returned a minute later with her coat and handgun. She checked the magazine, slapped it into the hand grip and racked the slide back, then slid the gun into the shoulder holster under her jacket. “Okay. Let’s go talk to Norman Barrister.”