“I know.” Putting more
muscle behind the scrubbing effort, Maggie avoided her sister’s
perceptive gaze and skill to see more than anyone was comfortable
with. She’d known Grace would worry, which was why she’d left out
any hint of a connection to the park. Getting Grace riled up would
lead to her parents getting involved. She loved them all, knew they
meant well, but she had to handle this on her terms.
Harte may be problematic,
but he wouldn’t insinuate himself in all the areas of her personal
life. Plus, he was licensed to carry and shoot a gun. She would
tell herself his staking her street out was enough. “Honestly, I’m
fine.”
“Maggie, I…”
A purring car engine drew their attention.
They turned and watched the car roll slowly past.
“Isn’t that Mike’s old
car?” Grace moved toward the edge of the porch.
“Yeah.” The car he’d died
in and that she thought had been destroyed. How had the wide-jawed,
beefy man behind the wheel gotten it?
Shadowed by the angle of the sun, dark shades
and a ball cap, she couldn’t see the man’s face as he tossed a
padded envelope through the open passenger window onto her grass
before speeding away. Spasms speared the muscles lining Maggie’s
spine.
The package looked harmless, but Maggie
wasn’t interested in finding another bloody gift. Or more pictures
tying Mike to a dead woman, and she didn’t want Grace seeing them
either. She also wanted to figure out how the mystery driver had
accessed Mike’s car when the police had impounded it.
She grabbed Grace’s leg
when she started to move down the steps. “Leave it.”
“I want to know what it
is.”
“Leave it.” She pinned
Grace with a glare and pulled out her cell to call Harte. He
dispatched a patrol car to canvas the area for Mike’s car and
promised to be right over.
Maggie tried to get Grace to take the kids
while she dealt with the cops, but her stubborn sister resisted
until Harte and Craig pulled up less than five minutes later with a
patrol car right behind them. Harte and Craig moved toward her and
Grace. The officers headed to the envelope with some sort of
scanner.
“Mrs. Sullivan.” Craig
addressed her, but his gaze lingered on Grace.
Grace handed Emma over to
her and stepped toward Craig. “I would like to know what’s going on
around here.”
Maggie stood behind Grace and shook her head
at Craig begging him to watch his words. She was tired of being
sheltered by her family, and it would only take knowing the raccoon
wasn’t a prank for them to close in.
“It looks like a prankster
has zeroed in on your sister.” Craig smiled lightly at Grace. “Why
don’t you come with me? Tell me what you noticed?”
“You’re trying to hide
something.”
“Simply need to get your
impressions without mixing them with Maggie’s.” Before Grace could
argue, he took her elbow and led her away more smoothly than anyone
had ever handled her sister.
Harte—with his gaze boring into Emma—stiffly
closed the distance to Maggie. His hands worked in and out of fists
at his sides. Emma rolled her head and blinked at him with the wide
blue eyes she’d inherited from Mike’s dad. Eyes nearly as blue as
Harte’s.
He ran his hands up and
down his denim-clad thighs. His gaze never left Emma. “Whose
baby?”
“Mine.” She moved farther
away from Grace to make sure her sister didn’t get any worrisome
details. “Emma’s three months old. I was a few weeks pregnant when
Mike died.”
“Sh-she’s gorgeous.” His
Adam’s apple worked the words up in what sounded like a painful
squeeze. He kept rubbing his thighs, his fingers clawing at his
legs. Like he wanted to reach out, but was afraid.
“Thank you.” She swayed
slightly, side-to-side, and watched Harte.
His gaze flicked between
her and Emma, lingering longer on Emma. He seemed uneasy in his own
skin. And sad. “Harte.”
Instead of saying more about Emma, he shifted
visibly into cop mode with a hardening set to his jaw and
shoulders. He asked her about the car and the person driving it.
Not that she was able to give him much other than it being Mike’s
car, the man was big with a square jaw and he’d worn black glasses
and a ball cap.
“Detective Harte?” The
officers approached with the envelope.
“Yeah.” He blinked and
turned to Officers McClain and Lewis according to their nametags.
“What’s in the envelope?”
“An iPod.” Officer McClain
looked between her and Harte. Caution creased his face. “There’s
dried blood on it and an inscription on the back.”
Lancing agony stabbed Maggie. She’d have
clutched at her chest if Emma hadn’t been in her arms. It couldn’t
be. It had to be.
“I wouldn’t have missed
the dance,” she whispered.
The officers and Harte turned to her.
“It was Mike’s last
father’s day gift. He had this thing for Garth Brooks and a few
times the week before he died he'd quoted that line before going to
work.” It was the only thing that hadn’t been returned to her after
the wreck. It hadn’t been in the car when the police searched it,
so when had it been taken?
Tears she hadn’t shed since Harte held her a
year earlier built in her eyes.
“Maggie.” Harte reached
out.
She stepped back and swiped
at her eyes before meeting his piercing gaze.
Focus on control.
“I’m fine. Grace
knows about the woman in the park, but not her identity. She knows
about the raccoon, but not the paper. I want to keep it that
way.”
He pointed toward her
house. “There are gunshot holes in your door and a bloodstain on
your porch. How are you going to hide those from her?”
“Thank you for the
reminders.” Her skin itched at the thought of the raccoon blood
still lightly staining the porch. “I patched and painted the door
frame. As far as she’s concerned the raccoon was a kid’s prank. I
need her in the dark or my family will
become…difficult.”
Harte took the evidence bag
the officers had slipped the envelope into. “After I have this
processed I’ll get it back to you.”
“Thanks. Listen.” She
shifted Emma and looked over at Grace still talking to Craig. “This
crap is really beginning to freak me out.”
“I’ve upped
patrols.”
“And you’re spending the
nights in your car. Neither’s helping me sleep and frankly, the
neighbors are going to begin noticing things. Then
they’ll
be freaking
out.”
“I—”
“Surely don’t want
everyone aware that you are on the lookout for…
something
.”
“Maggie.”
She railroaded ahead. “You
want to believe you’ll do a better job of keeping an eye on things
from your car. That it’s enough to stop whatever you’re
expecting.”
She shrugged and patted his
arm. The brief touch was enough to register how big and hard his
arms were and to make her wonder what it would be like to have them
around her. Naked.
Not now!
“The truth is, everything
seems to be happening when you aren’t around or watching. As if the
person you suspect is watching closer than you.”
“I could assign someone
else.”
“Like Detective
Pritchett?”
His face hardened. Officer
McClain stiffened and growled. Clearly Harte wasn’t alone in his
hatred. It was a low blow to mention him, but she had to make her
point. She didn’t trust her kids to
someone else
.
“The neighbors have seen
you around.” She nodded to the house across the street where an
elderly couple watched from behind their blinds. “More cops will
raise suspicions. If you intend to stake out my house again
tonight, you may as well do it inside the air conditioning where
there’s a bathroom, food and fresh coffee.”
He stood and stared and
started to speak several times before finally saying, “I’ll see you
tonight,” before he turned and headed over to his car.
Well, she’d won. Sort of. He would be in her
home, around to disturb her mind on a constant basis. Perhaps it
hadn’t been the best plan and she may seriously regret it, but at
least now she had a better shot at learning what he knew. And how
it tied back to her or Mike.
She would just have to hope Jared didn’t get
too attached and, of course, be careful to avoid touching.
“Sullivan should have helped. The wife will,
or she’ll meet the same end.”
—Adalia
For two days following torment after torment
culminating with the iPod toss, Adalia remained silent—probably to
needle her way into Maggie’s conscience and get her wondering.
Worrying.
Mike’s death hadn'tbeen an accident.
Maggie's, if they failed to stop Adalia, wouldn't be anaccident.
Figuring out how Mike had known Adalia, and who had tossed the
iPod, would put them closer to puttin Adalia back behind bars.
An agreement to stay at Maggie’s home became
inevitable when she’d recited the inscription from the iPod. In
that moment, remembering the man he’d met a year earlier as well as
his regretful gaze, taking the song quote as a final message from
Sullivan, BD knew why Mike had worried about her safety. With the
acceptance came uncomfortable reality. There was no backing down
and someone was going to get hurt.
He’d been back over and over the case files
and still couldn’t see the connection between victims. His gut, and
ten years of police work, pointed to Mike as the key. How? How
involved had Maggie’s husband had been with Adalia? How did a
linguistics professor with a gorgeous wife and kids in the suburbs
get tangled up with a killer?
Shifting facts around in his mind, BD
considered the background checks he’d run on Maggie and Mike.
Rockewell-esque family history and solid financials, without any
large deposits leading up to or following Mike’s death aside from
the life insurance payout. Thanks to a healthy policy and smart
decisions, Maggie wouldn’t have to worry about money, but BD had
more to consider than her financial state.
Whatever Adalia wanted had to be money
driven. Did Maggie know about it? Did she have something without
realizing it?
Things in the Sullivan house seemed fairly
settled emotionally, but loss had a way of sneaking up, busting
through egg-shell fragile memories and ripping new craters of grief
in the heart. He worried he’d crack the shells if he worded a
question wrong or came home when the kids were awake.
Not home. Can’t think of it
that way.
Even now, with the warning playing in his
head as he sat in the circle driveway of her home, he couldn’t stop
wondering. Wanting.
He tried avoiding Maggie and the kids,
staying close enough to protect yet distant enough to evade
attachments. To her, her sad son, her blue-eyed daughter. The risk
of attachment was huge for him. Maggie scared him, made him feel
things, emotions, he’d long ago buried.
Time did not heal all wounds. Some
experiences and losses cut too deep, until the slightest trigger
rekindled a memory, good or bad. Like Emma with her breathtaking
blue eyes. Jared with his wounded spirit trying to break free.
Maggie caring for and playing with her kids.
Maggie.
She smiled sweetly, smelled heavenly and
cared openly. Her brightness fractured his inner darkness and
awakened the desire to touch her every time he got close. Too long
in her company and he’d be a goner. This case needed to be solved
fast, and that wasn’t going to happen with him hiding in the car
outside.
Renewed determination to do anything
necessary to stop Adalia gripped him, propelled him out of the car
and to the front porch.
Feeling like an intruder,
even though Maggie had given him a key, BD stepped into the
entryway and looked around her perfectly organized house. Earlier
than normal, expecting some sort of chaos or drama, he instead
heard silence.
Rather than set his bag of
clothes in the entryway, he carried it to the guest room to his
left. She’d move it the first second she saw it anyway if he left
it out. Any little thing that got nudged out of perfect alignment
was quickly righted. Couch pillows sat a certain way, foods in the
pantry were faced and categorized like in a grocery store. He
didn’t remember the house being quite so precise a year ago. Was
her OCD a coping mechanism? A grasp for control?
Stepping back into the living room, he again
noticed the quiet. Too quiet.
It wasn’t a simple silence from no one being
home or from everyone being asleep. There was more noise in the
middle of the night. Now there was nothing. His neck tingled with a
sudden chill of dread.
Unsnapping the safety on his holster and
drawing his weapon, BD stepped down into the living room.
Adalia hasn’t gotten to them.
He moved silently through the house, checking
the office and bedrooms. Empty. His instincts hummed more with each
room.
I didn’t fail to protect her so quickly.
Hustling through the dining room, he heard an
almost imperceptible clicking from the kitchen. With his gun
lowered to his side he looked in.
Sitting cross-legged on the dining room
table, pristinely dressed in pleated slacks and a satiny looking
blouse, with her long hair neatly braided, Maggie focused on her
laptop screen. Emma slept next to her in the carrier. A plastic
tote tub with a garden hoe across the lid sat by a table leg.