Marked Down for Murder (Good Buy Girls) (16 page)

“You mean I’m being robbed? Step on it, Sam!”

“On our way,” Sam said. He put down the radio and stepped on the gas.

He flashed his lights only twice to move other cars aside, but he didn’t use his siren. Maggie wondered if it was to keep from scaring off the burglar. Who would rob her shop? She didn’t have anything of extreme value.

Sam parked along the side of the building. “I’m going to check the front first. Stay here.”

He was out of the car before she could protest. Maggie stared out the window but she couldn’t see around the corner to see what, if anything, had happened to her shop. She tried to wait, really, she did. But this was her livelihood now and she couldn’t just sit there while someone ripped her off.

Maggie pushed out of the car and made her way to the corner of the brick building. She only planned to peer around the back to see what was happening—after all, Sam couldn’t be in two places at once—but when she saw who was standing in the shadows, rattling the doorknob, she stepped forward.

“Maxwell Button!” she cried. “What are you doing trying to break in to my shop?”

“What do you not understand about ‘stay here’?” Sam asked as he came up behind her.

“I stayed,” Maggie said. “For a minute.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “What if it hadn’t been Max?”

“We can’t argue about it, because it is Max,” Maggie said. She spun back to face him. “Speaking of which, what are you doing here, Max?”

She strode forward, and as she drew near, she noticed Max was wearing a suit. The light went off in her head and she cried, “Tonight! You’re proposing to Bianca tonight?”

“Tomorrow, actually. If I could get my ring, I was going to take it over to Doc’s to sort of grease the wheels for his approval. I know he and Bianca are new at this father-daughter thing since they only discovered each other a few months ago, but I want to do it right,” Max said. “Is the suit too much?”

“No, it’s perfect,” Sam said. “Doc will approve, don’t you worry.”

“Why didn’t you call me?” Maggie asked.

“I did,” Max said. “Like a bazillion times.”

“Oh, I shut my phone off in the hospital,” Maggie said. She cringed. “I’m sorry, Max.”

“Hospital?” Max asked. He looked concerned. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Joanne had her baby,” she said. “A baby girl.”

“Oh, that’s awesome,” Max said. “And they’re both okay?”

“They’re perfect,” Maggie said. “But come on, you need your ring.”

She retrieved her keys out of her purse and unlocked the back door. Then she led the way to the safe, which was bolted to the floor in the closet. While Max and Sam turned their backs, she opened the safe and took out the velvet box with Max’s ring inside. She popped the lid just to make sure the ring was still there. It sparkled at her in all of its flawless glory. She closed and locked the safe and handed the box to Max.

“Good luck,” she said. “Not that you’re going to need it.”

“I don’t know,” Max said. “It’s all about the timing. If Doc approves of my marrying his daughter, then I’m taking her to Richmond for dinner and the symphony tomorrow night. We have balcony seats, and with a little help from the maestro, it should be a proposal she never forgets.”

“Oh, Max,” Maggie cried. She hugged him hard. “I’m so proud of you. Classical music is her passion—that’s perfect.”

Max blushed. “Thanks. I took to heart what everyone said. I really do want her to remember this forever. And who knows, maybe, if she says yes, we’ll make our two of a kind into a full house, too.”

Maggie grinned at him. “That would be amazing.”

“Yeah, unless someone beats you to it,” Sam said. “Shouldn’t you be getting over to Doc’s before his porch light goes out?”

Max glanced at the time display on his phone. “Uh-oh, gotta run.” He was halfway out the door before he turned around and said, with a wicked grin, “But if that’s a dare you’re offering, Sheriff, I’m in.”

The door slammed shut behind him, and Maggie turned to Sam.

“Explain.”

“What?” he asked with a shrug.

“Did you just challenge Max to see who would get married first, or am I hearing things?” she asked.

“Just keeping him motivated,” Sam said. “Why?”

As if a dam had burst and caused a flood in a low-lying area, the words Maggie had been chewing on for days came pouring out of her mouth unchecked, unstopped and un-sandbagged.

“Because I don’t want to have a baby,” Maggie said. “I’ve already done the midnight feedings, tooth fairy visits, and exploding science projects. If that’s what you want, then we have to break up, because I don’t want to hold you back. You’ll just grow to resent me and you may lose your chance to have the family of your dreams with someone younger who wants the same thing.”

Sam stared at her with his mouth agape. He looked like he was about to speak when his phone rang. He checked the display and let out a sigh. He raised one finger to Maggie to indicate he needed a minute. She clenched her hands together in anxiety, not knowing from his expression how he felt about her outpouring of honesty.

Sam barked, “Collins.”

Maggie heard a sharp voice on the other end. She could tell it was bad news.

“I’m on my way,” Sam said. He ended the call and was already running toward the door. “I’m sorry, Maggie, I have to go.”

“Wait, what’s happening?” she cried.

“Summer’s house is on fire,” he said.

“I’m coming with you,” she said.

“No, you’re not,” Sam said.

“Really?” Maggie asked. “You know I’ll just follow you.”

Sam growled. “Fine, but this time you stay in the car.”

Maggie locked the door behind them and they hurried down the sidewalk to Sam’s squad car. This time it was an ear-piercing journey with both lights and siren warning anyone and everyone of their impending arrival.

A fire truck was already parked in front of the house when they arrived. From what Maggie could see, they had kicked in the front door. Floodlights on the truck illuminated the house and the smoke that was billowing from the back of it.

An ambulance was parked on the side of the house and Sam started for it at a run. Disregarding the “stay in the car” thing, Maggie was right behind him.

Sam looked over his shoulder and snapped, “Can’t you even pretend you’re going to listen to me?”

“Sorry, no,” she said.

He took her hand in his and they jogged the rest of the way to the ambulance.

An emergency medical technician was working on Deputy Wilson as she sat in the ambulance on a stretcher. Summer and Blair were sitting on the back end of the ambulance, and they both looked pale and disheveled, but not harmed.

“Deputy Wilson, are you all right?”

“Fine.” She coughed. She didn’t sound fine, and she didn’t look fine either.

The EMT was a handsome black man, and he gave Dot a concerned look and said, “She has smoke in her lungs and some second-degree burns. She’ll be all right but I want to take her to the hospital.”

“She’s a hero,” Blair Cassidy said. “We were asleep but she woke us up and got us out.”

“Any idea what started the fire?” Sam asked.

“Oh yeah,” Dot said. “A Molotov cocktail thrown at the house. It exploded on impact. Whoever did it was traveling on foot, and I only know that because I happened to be looking out the back window when they tossed it.”

“A drink?” Blair asked. “They threw a drink at the house?”

“A Molotov cocktail is a handmade bomb,” Sam said. “A glass bottle full of gasoline with a kerosene-soaked rag in the mouth that serves as a wick. It’s used more to light things on fire than blow them up.”

“Well, mission accomplished there,” Summer said. She was looking at her house with large, sad eyes.

“Who would do such a thing?” Blair asked. “We could have perished in a fiery death.”

“Wild guess, but I’m betting it’s the same person who shot at you,” Dot said. She broke into a coughing fit, and Sam and Maggie exchanged a concerned glance.

“Hospital, Deputy Wilson.” Sam said it sternly as if he expected a fight.

“But I need to give a description and I want to canvass the area behind the house,” Dot protested. “I know about where I saw the person, and maybe there is some trace evidence left behind.”

Sam looked at the EMT for input. He was a good-looking man with broad shoulders, close-cropped brown hair and a kind smile. His badge had a medical symbol on it and the name
JAVIER
.

“Officer Wilson,” Javier said. His serious tone indicated he was about to deliver bad news.

“The name is Dot,” she said. She gave him a coquettish smile, which somehow was extra charming with the oxygen tube running under her nose.

“Dot.” He said her name with a grin. “As the man who has just tended your burns and put you on oxygen”—he paused to adjust the plastic tubing that ran from her nose and over her ears to the oxygen tank strapped to the wall—“I am asking you to please go to the hospital and not let my hard work be for nothing. It would be a shame if something bad happened to a fine-looking woman such as you.”

Dot’s eyes went wide. She leaned over to glance around him at the others.

“Is he flirting with me?” she asked Maggie in a whisper loud enough for everyone, including Javier, to hear.

Maggie glanced at the EMT, who was grinning at Dot as if he thought she was about the coolest thing he’d seen all day.

“Yes, I believe he is,” she said.

“Well, isn’t that something?” Dot asked. “And I’m in uniform and everything.”

“I like a woman in uniform,” Javier said, and he wiggled his eyebrows at her. “And just so you know, I can’t ask you out if you go against my medical advice. It would start our relationship off on terrible footing.”

Dot gave him an intrigued look and said, “Get a load of you.”

“She needs to go to the hospital,” Javier said to Sam.

Javier did not look like he was willing to debate the issue, and Sam looked back at Dot with his forbidding sheriff’s face.

“Hospital,” Sam said to Dot. “I’ll protect the scene. If there is anything to see, you can do it in daylight tomorrow.”

Dot punched the stretcher in frustration. “Cute EMT or not, tomorrow will be too late. We have to move on this now.”

She then broke into a fit of coughing that only served to prove Javier right.

“Medic!” a voice called.

They all turned to see one of the firemen being carried out of the house. He was holding his arm at an awkward angle. Another EMT waved to Javier from the group of firemen, obviously wanting backup.

“I’ll be right back,” Javier said. He frowned at Dot. “Do not go anywhere.”

Dot gave him a sulky nod and he dashed away to help his colleague with the fireman.

“I’m going to check out the house,” Sam said. “Ladies, why don’t you all sit in the ambulance with Deputy Wilson and keep her company.”

Maggie knew this was code for
Do not let her out of your sight.
Summer and Blair seemed to get it, too, as they nodded and climbed into the back of the ambulance with Maggie. It was an awkward foursome gathered there, with Blair and Summer on the bench across from Dot while Maggie sat on the edge of the stretcher. The three of them had Dot surrounded, and she wasn’t going to be able to escape the ambulance no matter how hard she tried.

“He thinks he’s so smart,” Dot muttered. “Just because he wears the big badge.”

“Tell me about it,” Maggie said.

Dot began to cough, and Maggie saw Blair and Summer exchange a worried look.

“We owe you our lives,” Summer said. She put her hand on Dot’s arm. “Please do what Javier and Sam tell you to. St. Stanley needs a woman like you on the force.”

It was the nicest thing Maggie had ever heard Summer say. Dot blushed and fidgeted with the oxygen tube in her lap.

“Thanks,” Dot said. “I was just doing my job. Someone is out to kill you, Blair, and I’ll be darned if I’m going to let that happen on my watch.”

“Thank you,” Blair said. She looked faint and Maggie figured Dot’s words did not have the soothing effect she had been going for.

“So, Sam told me that he found a link between Terry Knox and Bruce Cassidy,” Maggie said. She thought talking about the case might take their minds off the house that was still ablaze behind them.

Blair nodded. Summer let out a shaky breath and forced her gaze away from the house.

“It looks like Terry murdered the Cassidys and assumed their identities,” Summer said. “I just can’t believe it. I mean, he just didn’t seem like a killer.”

“I didn’t think so either,” Maggie said. She and Summer stared at each other. This was the first time Maggie could remember that they had ever been in accord about anything. It was weird.

“I still think Sam should let me help canvass the area. I saw the person who threw the firebomb,” Dot said. “They took off into the woods, but they were dragging their left leg like they’d hurt themselves. I know we could catch them if we get everyone out in the woods.”

Maggie frowned. “What did you say?”

“We could catch them if we—” Dot said, but Maggie interrupted.

“No, before that.”

“They were dragging their left leg,” Dot said.