Part Four
Roswell, 2002
~Michael~
The summer of Max's trial was a nightmare. He was moved to Los Angeles in the end of March, and charged with murder in the death of Cal Langley. By the time he was arraigned, indicted, and assigned a trial date, it was early April. Liz was back in Vermont—under extreme protest. She was no longer speaking to either of her parents. They'd sent her back the week after she arrived unannounced, and hadn't listened to her begging, pleading, or threats. It was only when her father suggested that there were boarding schools farther from Roswell than Vermont that Liz finally went back to finish out the school year. Mr. Parker had promised that she could come back home for the summer, and had agreed to consider letting her visit Max in Los Angeles if she didn't give them any more problems before graduation.
But Max and Liz were both feeling the separation, and the first time I got to visit Max in Los Angeles I could see it. Max was thinner, and pale, and the first thing he asked was about Liz.
"Is she back home yet?" he demanded.
His parents had come through for their delinquent son and hired him a good criminal defense attorney, and then bailed him out of jail. He had to stay in L.A., though, so I'd driven out to meet him in the residential hotel where they were staying.
I shook my head. "No, she's got three more weeks."
"Damn." He ran his fingers through his hair. "Have you talked to her?"
"No, but Maria has. She says she's holding on." I looked at him curiously. "Why haven't you called her?"
"The school won't take my calls. Orders from Liz's dad, I guess." He looked miserable. "I thought maybe if she was home I could get through to her cell phone. She's out of range in Vermont."
"She writes to you, doesn't she?"
Max nodded, a faint smile crossing his face. "Every day."
"Then you know she's still in Vermont," I reminded.
"Yeah." He scowled. "I was just hoping. . ."
He didn't have to explain. I sat back in the plush hotel chair and looked at him. "Did you figure anything out about Langley?"
Max shook his head. "From the documents they've turned over to my defense team, it looks like the body they found was strangled in Langley's house around the time I got back from Vermont. Who ever did it used a telephone cord."
"But it's not Langley," I said.
"No, it can't be." He looked thoughtful. "He's a shape shifter—I don't think a telephone cord could do it. You remember what it took to kill Nacedo."
"The Skins."
"Right. So what we've got to do is find Langley. One of the things the prosecution has going for it is that I had a pretty public argument with Langley last fall. If the body they found isn't his, that takes away their motive."
"Who identified the body?" I asked, realizing that this was a little much for Langley to have pulled off by himself. He had to have involved someone else.
"His doctor," Max answered. "Some guy named Allward."
"Have you checked him out?"
Max snorted. "Are you kidding? I've got people following me everywhere I go. There's no way I could go check him out now."
"I'll do it, then." I grabbed a pen and paper from the coffee table. "His name's Allward? Do you have an address?"
Max got up and went to a file box full of papers and notebooks. He rummaged in it for a moment, then came up with a thick report. "Here," he said. "It's the autopsy report. Everything's in there."
"I'll check him out," I told Max. "I'll go by his office on my way back to Roswell."
"Be careful. He's got to be connected to Cal in some way. That makes him dangerous."
"Then I'd better get a good look at him, just in case," I said. I've always preferred to put a face on my enemies.
Max nodded. "Right. Then go back to Roswell and stay there. I can handle things here."
"You know Liz will be out here as soon as she gets out of school," I told him.
"No. She's safer in Roswell."
"Do you think that will matter to her?" I asked, shaking my head.
Max closed his eyes. "God, I need her," he murmured, more to himself than to me.
"Don't worry. I'm sure she'll be here soon."
If there was one thing I was sure of back then, it was that nothing would ever be able to keep Max and Liz apart for very long.
St. Petersburg, 2012
"Max doesn't want my help," Liz said. "He's never wanted my help."
"I said he needs it," I corrected. "Believe me, Liz. I know Maxwell, and he needs this."
"And you think he'll accept it?" Liz asked acidly. "He can do it himself, Michael, remember? Max can do everything all by himself."
That spoke volumes. Max had thought he'd been pushing Liz away so that she'd have a better life, but that hadn't been what she'd seen. All she'd seen was him pushing her away. "He can't do this," I said.
Her eyes were hard as she stared out the window. "What exactly is it you think he needs?" she asked flatly.
I wrapped my hands around the delicate china cup. "Max has exhausted his appeals. The last one was denied a month ago. Unless someone finds something completely new—new evidence, a witness no one interviewed before—he's going to spend the rest of his life in prison."
Liz flinched, closing her eyes briefly. "What do you think I can do about that?" she asked in a choked voice.
"You're a lawyer," I said with a shrug. "You could look over the trial transcripts and see if there's something that everyone missed."
"I'm a contracts attorney, Michael," she protested, opening her eyes. "I've never even been on a criminal defense team."
"Yeah, but you must look at legal stuff all the time," I insisted. "Contracts—you must go through them looking for all kinds of little tiny things most people would miss. I need you to do that with Max's case."
"Any attorney could do that," she told me.
"You're the only one who believes he's innocent." There. That was the crux of my argument. "When you look, you'll be looking for proof that he didn't do this—not some kind of loophole or bad process. Because you believe he's innocent." I paused, glancing at her. "You do believe it, right?"
She turned anguished eyes to me. "How can you ask me that?"
"Sorry." I shook my head. "The thing is, Liz, Max has given up. All this time, he's been able to tell himself he'll be exonerated—that he'll be free. But now there's nothing. He's spent nine and a half years in prison for a crime that he didn't commit. He's never gotten to have a real life. College, career, family—all that stuff the rest of us got to have? He's missed out on all of that. And now he's convinced he'll never have any of it." I thought of Sophie doing her homework somewhere in the apartment and I wanted to weep. Max would never know his daughter unless Liz agreed to help me with this. That was too much for any man to miss out on.
"Are you going to tell me I owe him this?" Liz demanded, her eyes damp.
"No. You don't owe him anything. But he needs this." I looked down. If Maxwell would kill me for coming here, he'd bring me back and kill me again for telling her this. "He's always needed you, Liz. That's never changed."
She drew in a shaky breath. "He has a funny way of showing it."
"Do you think he wanted this?" I asked her. "Come on, Liz. You know what he felt for you, and I think you know what he'd feel for Sophie."
Liz turned away from me, her eyes overflowing. "Michael, I can't go back there. It's too much."
Los Angeles, 2002
~Liz~
I had never been so glad to see anyone in my entire life.
Max and I had been apart for over two months by the time I finally got to L.A. I'd had to stand on my head and promise to qualify for sainthood in order to convince my parents to let me come. In the end I think they only agreed because they knew I would go anyway and they wanted to maintain their illusion of control over me.
But as Max and I stood in his hotel room, holding each other so tightly neither of us could breathe, I knew I would have sold my soul to get to him.
"I love you so much," I whispered. "I wanted to tell you that so many times. I love you."
He held me close against him, and I could feel his relief as intensely as my own. "I know, Liz. I love you, too."
"I was so worried about you," I murmured. "I couldn't sleep. . .I kept having dreams about you."
He pushed me back and stroked my cheek. "Good ones?"
"Sometimes. But they only made me miss you more." I could feel tears pooling in my eyes again.
"I dreamed about you, too," he said. "Every night. God, I missed you so much." He pulled me close again, and I closed my eyes tightly against the tears. "How are you?" he asked hungrily. He released me and led me over to one of the beds in the room. "Tell me everything. How was school—how was graduation?"
I shook my head. "I don't know. I couldn't think of anything but you." I reached for his hand, folding it into both of my own. "Why is this happening, Max? Why now?"
"I'm almost positive it was Langley, Liz," he told me. "He must hate me for what I made him do. . .I can't blame him."
"He knows why you did it," I protested. "He knows you were only trying to save your son."
"But I ruined the life he'd built for himself." Max sighed heavily. "If someone had done that to me. . .if they had taken you away from me, I don't know what I'd do."
"You wouldn't do this," I said firmly. "Langley's as bad as Nacedo was."
"If he's the one doing this."
I was incredulous. "Who else could do this?"
"I don't know," Max admitted. "It could be Khivar—"
"It's Langley, Max," I told him. "He's doing this to hurt you, and if I ever get my hands on him—"
"No!" Max almost shouted at me. "Don't even think about going near Langley or anyone connected with him."
Stung, I looked away. "Max, I know Michael's already gone to hunt down this doctor. I only want to help."
"You can help by staying safe," he told me. "I need you to be safe, Liz. Michael and I will take care of this."
"I'm not a little kid you have to protect." I squared my shoulders. "I want to help you."
"Liz, don't you get it?" He lifted my hand and pressed it to his heart. "If I lose you, nothing matters. I might as well spend my whole life in jail—worse. Without you, it's just not worth it."
"Don't say that," I whispered.
"It's true." He smiled sadly. "You're everything to me, Liz. Everything."
I was crying again as he pulled me close. "Max, you have to get out of this," I said. "I don't think I can live without you."
"Shh," he murmured soothingly. "It's okay. Everything's going to be okay."