Remember When (In Death #17.5)(34)

He'd never carried a weapon. The fact was, he was phobic about guns. She still remembered the story of how he'd done his first stretch, before she was born. He'd hit a cat while driving away from a B&E and not only stopped to check, but took the injured cat to a vet. The local cops spotted the car-stolen, of course-in the lot.

The cat recovered and lived a long, happy life. Big Jack did two to five.

No, he wouldn't have had any part in the murder of Jerome Myers.

But the con could be conned, couldn't he? Had he gotten roped into something that was bigger and badder than he'd believed? Had someone dangled a shiny carrot and had him hopping along after it?

That she could believe.

So he'd sent Willy to tell her something, or give her something, but he'd died before he could do either.

But he'd tried to warn her. He knows where you are now.

Had he meant Max? Had he seen Max and panicked, ran into the street?

Hide the pooch? What the hell had he meant? Could Willy have placed some kind of dog figurine in the store? Laine tried to visualize the store after Willy's visit. She had personally arranged all the displays, and she couldn't think of a single thing out of place. And neither Jenny nor Angie had mentioned any strange items.

Maybe he'd meant "pouch." Maybe she'd misunderstood. You could put gems in a pouch. But he hadn't given her a pouch, and if he'd had a bag of gems hidden on him, or in his things, the authorities would have found it.

And this was all just stupid conjecture, based on the word of a man who'd lied to her.

She let out a huge breath. How could she pretend to hold honesty in such pompous hands when she was living a lie herself?

She had to tell Vince and Jenny everything. She supposed it went against her early childhood training to volunteer information to a cop, but she could overcome it. All she had to do was figure out how to tell them.

"Let's take a walk, Henry."

The words acted like an incantation and popped the snoozing dog up as if his legs were springs. He bounced all the way to the front door. A walk would clear the cobwebs, she decided, give her time to sort out the best way to tell her friends.

She opened the front door so Henry could fly out like a cannonball. And saw Max's car parked at the end of her lane. He was behind the wheel, eyes shielded with dark glasses. But they must have been open and trained on the house, as he stepped out of the car even before she'd shut the front door.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"I said you're in trouble. Maybe I brought some of that trouble along with me, maybe it was already here. But either way, I'm keeping an eye on you, whether you like it or not."

"I learned how to take care of myself about the same time I learned how to run a three-card monte scam. So the only watchdog I need is Henry."

As Henry was currently trying to climb a tree in pursuit of a squirrel, Max merely gave the dog a baleful stare. "I'm sticking."

"If you think you're going to collect your five percent by staking out my house, you're going to be disappointed."

"I don't think you had anything to do with it. I did," he added when she sneered and turned away to walk. "When I first made you, I figured you had to have some piece of it. I did some checking on you, and things didn't add up right on either side, but I stopped looking at you for the job."

"Thanks so very much. If that's so, why were you breaking into my shop?"

"My client wants facts, not feelings, though they give me a nice retainer largely based on my instinct track record. I've been through your house with you," he said when her head turned sharply. "A woman's hiding any portion of damn near thirty million in diamonds on the premises, she doesn't let some guy help her sweep her floors and take out the trash. Next step was to take a look around the shop, verify there was nothing there that linked you."

"Missed a step, Max. I believe it has to do with a lot of naked bouncing on your hotel room bed."

"Okay, let's run this. You see a halo?" He pointed a finger at the top of his head.

She felt a little bubble that might have been humor in her throat and ruthlessly swallowed it. "No," she said after a narrow-eyed stare. "But wait... are those little horns?"

"Okay, give me a flat yes or no. A guy opens his hotel room door to an incredible-looking woman, a woman he's got all kinds of feelings for messing around in his head-and other parts of the body. The woman indicates-no, let's get it right-the woman states without qualification that she'd enjoy an evening of intimate physical contact. Does said guy close the door in her face?"

She stopped by a skinny stream running briskly from the spring rains. "No. Now you give me one. Does a woman, upon learning that the guy she had this intimate physical contact with set her up, and lied about his purpose and his interest, then have the right to kick his lying ass black and blue?"

"Yeah, she does." He took off the sunglasses, hooked one arm of them in the front pocket of his jeans. They both recognized the gesture for what it was.

Look at me. You have to see what I'm saying as much as hear it. Because it matters.

"She does, Laine, even when that interest twisted around, changed into something he'd never dealt with before and bit him on that ass. I think I fell in love with you last night."