Vengeance to the Max Read Free Page A

Horizon . Cameron had believed in Shangri-La, a place of perfect beauty and happiness.
    “Shangri-La is a state of mind,” he whispered.
    A state of mind Max had never been able to achieve, not before she met him, not during the years they were married, and certainly not in the two since the 7-11.
    Underneath the book were his favorite movies. Three of them. Steve McQueen’s Bullitt because Cameron thought it had the best car chase ever filmed. On Any Sunday , an obscure film about racing motorcycles, Cameron’s teenage fantasy. And the 1937 version of Lost Horizon . The last two were videotapes because when Cameron bought them, they weren’t on DVD yet.
    Every night for six months after he died, she’d watched that movie, over and over until the tape began to squeak. She’d watched it because she thought she was crazy hearing his voice, and because somehow, some way, she thought she could find Shangri-La if she did. She watched it because when she closed her eyes, she could feel his arms around her and remember his voice in her ear whispering, “Let’s go there together.”
    She put a hand to her cheek, the flesh dry despite the ache in her eyes and the tingle in her nose. She hadn’t cried, not in two years. After six months, she’d thrown out the VCR so she couldn’t watch the movie again. But she hadn’t thrown out the tape.
    “What else is there?” Cameron urged, making no comment on the torrent of emotions flooding through her.
    Hands shaking, she laid the tapes in her lap, along with the book and the CD. His Rolex watch stared up at her. They’d argued as they always had, she fearing they couldn’t afford it. She hadn’t thought they could afford the Miata he bought her when she made partner at the CPA firm, either. Hell, she was an accountant; she hated spending money on principal.
    “What’s the engraving?”
    She turned the heavy gold watch in her hand and read the words aloud. “To Cameron. This is the last one. Love, Max.”
    Watches were to a man what rings, necklaces, and bracelets were to a woman. Any woman but Max. Cameron could never have enough. She’d given in. Both to the Miata and the watch.
    It had been the last expensive thing he ever bought.
    A pair of gold cufflinks bearing his initials chinked against the watch as she set it back in the box. Cameron wore French cuff shirts when he had to appear in court. And there, next to the cufflinks, the tie pin his father left him, a ruby surrounded by several tiny diamonds. He’d worn it daily. It shone amidst a strange assortment of clothing she’d kept.
    A couple of white dress shirts, ties, underwear, and socks. She moved them aside with a gentle touch. A toothbrush clattered to the bottom of the box, falling from the shaving kit she hadn’t quite zippered. Why had she saved all this stuff? The ties weren’t favorites. And his underwear and socks? She’d admit to being a little out of her head at the time, but keeping all this? God, she’d been pathetic, more so than she’d ever imagined.
    “They don’t have anything to do with my sister. Dig deeper.”
    She did. And came up with a gun.
    “Jesus Christ.” Max held it suspended between thumb and forefinger. A Glock nine millimeter semi-automatic, magazine still in it. She wondered if she’d been idiotic enough to leave it loaded.
    “Where’d this come from?” She searched the room for the fine points of red that were Cameron’s eyes.
    “We got it for protection, remember?”
    No, she didn’t.
    “But you remember me teaching you how to fire it.”
    Yes. But somehow she’d thought they’d borrowed a friend’s gun. Okay, so her memory sucked. “But why’d I keep it?”
    “You were afraid they’d come back for you?”
    His killers. They’d raped her, beaten her, and left her for dead alongside a hiking trail. It was a miracle that Cameron returned from wherever dead people went to talk to her, to keep her alive long enough for the dawn and a jogger to find her.
    But