“Because you haven’t been answering your phone. This is the third time he’s called me.”
Max didn’t take the phone, so David answered. Max tried to ignore the conversation as she looked for any sign that the shuttle was near. It was nowhere in sight.
“She’s right here,” David said. “No, she didn’t lose her phone.”
Max swore under her breath and took David’s phone from his hand. “I didn’t answer my phone because I didn’t want to talk to you.”
“You have to talk to me sometime, sweetheart.” FBI Special Agent Marco Lopez spoke low and clear, working double-time to control his Cuban temper.
“Not today.”
“You intentionally left before I saw the news.”
“I told you yesterday I had a funeral in California.”
“You didn’t tell me that you filed your article, and you had plenty of time to record a three-minute spot for the local news. You exposed my informant and jeopardized my case!” His voice rose in volume as he spoke.
Max had a lot of experience remaining calm while talking to Marco. “Your informant put one of his hookers in the hospital for a week and thwarted the investigation into Candace Arunda’s murder.”
“He was my only link to the Garbena cartel!” Though Marco was born and raised in Miami, his parents had both come from Cuba, and when he got angry and spoke fast, he adopted a hybrid Americanized Cuban accent.
“I’m not rehashing this with you,” she said. “I told you why I was in Miami when you asked last week.”
“You should have warned me.”
“Last time I gave you an early copy of an article, your boss attempted to have it scuttled.”
“That was nine years ago!”
“Fool me once,” she said.
“Dammit, Max! You avoided me because you know you overstepped this time.” She pictured Marco pacing his office, his free hand opening and closing.
“Overstepped?” Max took a deep breath. Marco, more than anyone, could raise her blood pressure. “Is that what you call exposing the truth about the brutal murder of an underage prostitute? Is an ‘in’ with the cartel more important than justice for a seventeen-year-old girl?”
“Don’t twist what I said! You know I care. You should have given me twenty-four hours to clean up this mess. Ramirez would have been in prison either way.”
“Your team screwed up, another girl was in jeopardy, and I’m supposed to give you time to fix it because we’re having sex? Garbena is costing you your soul, Marco.”
David cleared his throat. Maxine didn’t care about attracting an audience as much as her assistant, but she stepped farther away from the other travelers waiting for the shuttle.
“You’re the most frustrating woman I’ve ever known!”
“I’ve never lied to you, Marco. I wish you could say the same to me.” She hung up and returned David’s phone.
Her stomach was twisted in knots. She wished she could have left things differently with Marco.
“You should have told him before you left,” David said.
“He knew why I was in Miami, and he lied to me.”
“He couldn’t tell you—”
Max rarely interrupted, but she didn’t let David finish. “He lied. He didn’t say, ‘Max, I can’t talk to you about this case,’ which he’s done in the past and I accept. This time, he deliberately gave me false information to protect his criminal informant, and then he expected me to put it in print. You know as well as I do that Marco and his team want the big fish, and if innocent guppies get eaten in the process, it’s collateral damage.”
“You still should have told him. He shouldn’t have read it in the morning paper.” He glanced at her, understanding narrowing his eyes. “You intentionally sabotaged your relationship. Why?”
She didn’t answer right away because the shuttle pulled up. There were five of them, and Max sat in the back row of the twelve-passenger van. David sat next to her. Maybe because of David’s appearance, or her previous phone conversation, the other passengers crammed into the front.
David was perceptive. She may not have consciously wanted to end her mostly off relationship with Special Agent Marco Lopez, but it was primarily physical. They had a long history. But she couldn’t allow her libido to control her career. She never had in the past, and just because she had feelings for Marco didn’t mean she’d allow it to happen now.
“In the nine years I’ve known Marco I’ve never lied to him,” Max said after the van started moving. “I’ve never told him I was someone I’m not. He thinks he can change me, and every time I see him we screw like rabbits and he tries to get me to bury my story. When I don’t, he accuses me of not caring who I hurt. I’m tired of explaining myself to him, and I’m not going to change just to please him.”
“I give you six months.”
“For what?”
“To find a story to cover in Miami so you have an excuse to go back.”
Max laughed, a deep throaty genuine laugh. “That’s why I love you, David. You remind me that I am flawed.”
He smiled, which made the two-inch jagged scar across his left temple almost charming. “It’s the least I can do.”
The shuttle van pulled up in front of the rental car kiosks. David had previously taken care of the arrangements and handed her the paperwork. While the other passengers disembarked, Max said, “Marco needs to find a sweet Cuban girl who likes his macho bullshit and does what he says when he says it. I’m done.”
She thought saying it out loud would make her feel better, but all it did was remind her how rigid she could be. No matter how much she cared about someone, she couldn’t—she wouldn’t—compromise her core values for them. She had no doubt Marco felt the same way, which left them at an impasse.
A dark sense of melancholy overcame her. It was, truly, over.
Chapter Two