RESORT TO MURDER (22 page)

Maggie laughed and held up a hand to stop
the gush of words.

"I'm fine. What do you mean "we". Who else
was looking for me?"

"Rob of course!” Dyna seemed surprised that
Maggie wasn't keeping up with her. "The poor guy. I nearly attacked
him when I first realized you were missing. I accused him of doing
all sorts of terrible things. But then I saw the look on his face
when he finally figured out what I was screaming about - I mean,
the blood just drained from it! So I knew right away he was
innocent."

Maggie pulled herself up. "Rob was
worried?"

"Worried! He was out of his mind. It's a
good thing he wasn't with you all when Burnelle and Eric came back
to the barn. He would have, I don't know, done something
awful."

"Really?” Maggie hugged her knees and smiled
with delight.

"Uh-huh. Anyway, when we finally got word
that you were safe, I asked him about the lesson thing. You know,
the tennis lesson with Mr. Anderson that was canceled but that Rob
told you he kept, when you were being trounced by the blue
van?"

"Yes?" Maggie urged, her interest
intense.

"He canceled it because he was helping out
Holly. He found her crying at the spot where Lori had been killed.
When he tried to console her, she just got worse, saying things
like how Lori was too good to die, and that it should have been her
instead of Lori 'cause her life was worthless, and she was no use
to anyone, and so on. I mean, she was really down.

"So Rob took her into the sports shop,
canceled the lesson with Mr. Anderson, and let Holly talk it all
out. He didn't tell you about it because that would be violating
her privacy. Of course, he didn't know at the time what that led
you to think."

Maggie smiled, remembering Holly's firm
statement yesterday that Maggie was looking at the wrong person,
that Rob was an okay guy, and knew now what had prompted that.

"And your brother Joe left a message last
night. Something about him finding the stuff you wanted and that
you might be right. What does he mean?"

Maggie's face became sober. "I asked him to
do a search of old newspapers in the West Virginia and western
Maryland area, the area that the gardener, Jack, told me he rode
through twenty-some years ago. It was a long shot, but what he said
about meeting Burnelle in a diner there made me suspicious. She had
Eric then, but she seemed reluctant to talk about him to her old
school friend. That was very uncharacteristic of her. I felt she
was hiding something about him, and now I'm sure she had actually
kidnapped him when he was a baby."

"Kidnapped!"

"Yes. And I think Lori was on the brink of
proving Eric wasn't really hers."

"How?"

"That blood drive, remember? Lori probably
noticed Burnelle's and Eric's blood types, and, from the biology
class she had recently taken, noticed a problem. She wasn't an
expert in genetics, but she had probably learned enough to be
puzzled by it, and said something about it to Burnelle."

"About the possibility that their blood
types were too different to be mother and son?"

"Yes, or maybe just asking what Eric's
father's blood type was, to account for Eric's type. Whatever the
question, it must have set Burnelle off. Thinking Lori would expose
her, would bring the authorities down on her and part her from her
son, Burnelle immediately silenced her."

"By killing her.” Dyna's face was grim.

Maggie nodded. "You should have heard
Burnelle back there at the barn. She is completely obsessed with
Eric. We knew she was protective of him, but this went way beyond
anything I've ever heard of. If she was sick enough to steal a baby
from its parents and pretend he was her own, she was too sick to
raise him as a normal mother would."

"So she killed the girl who died of an
overdose of sleeping pills, and the guy who crashed his car driving
back from the hotel late at night?"

"Probably. We may never know for sure unless
she confesses. They must have threatened her hold on Eric somehow.
She may also have murdered the man Jack was hitching a ride with,
after he found out she had Eric. Maybe by slipping some kind of
sedative into his food."

"And who knows how many others we don't know
about?" Dyna said.

"That's right. Who knows."

There was a knock on the door and Dyna ran
to answer it. Maggie heard Rob's voice asking about her, sounding
worried.

"Why don't you go in and see for yourself?”
Dyna answered, stepping aside for him to enter.

He lurched through the door in a blend of
hesitancy and eagerness, his eyes lighting up when he saw Maggie
smiling at him. "Hi," he said. "Are you okay?"

Maggie grinned and nodded. He stood looking
down at her, his face a mixture of emotions, until she held out her
arms. He sank down into them, pulling her close with a relieved
sigh. Maggie saw Dyna over his shoulder, pulling the door behind
her as she tip-toed out. Maggie closed her eyes, then, and smiled,
and hugged back.

Maggie held onto Rob, loving the feel of
him, the smell of him, then gently pushed him back. "Do you forgive
me?" she asked.

Rob's eyes opened wide. "For what?"

"Oh, just a little thing like thinking maybe
you were a murderer."

"If I had known what you were getting
yourself into...."

"You would have what? Locked me away in an
ivory tower?"

Rob grinned. "Yeah, something like that. Or
maybe, you know, actually helped you."

Maggie laughed. "Oh, come on. You know you
would have tried your best to talk me out of it."

"Probably. And then you would have been
really convinced I was guilty. Maggie, you could have been
killed!"

Maggie loved the concern
she saw in his eyes. She put her hands up to his face to hold it.
"I know. But I wasn't. I'm sorry for scaring everybody, but it all
turned out all okay.” She pulled his face close and kissed him,
softly at first, then harder. It turned out
very
okay, she thought as she
tightened her arms around him, and felt his tighten around her.
Wonderful feelings and thoughts flowed through her as they kissed,
and not one of them, she realized, was a math postulate.

They were interrupted by a knock on the
door.

"Maggie, the sheriff wants to talk to you,"
Dyna called.

Rob stood up. "I'll come back later."

"Promise?” Maggie asked, reluctantly
watching him go. Dyna, who seemed to be playing gate-keeper, let
him out and ushered in the sheriff.

"Hi there, young lady," Sheriff Burger said,
striding to the foot of the bed, hat in hand. Maggie noticed his
quiet air of authority and intelligence, features she’d missed in
their first two encounters. Was it simply the terrible pain of
dealing with Lori's death and her impatience to alleviate it, for
herself and for Lori's family, that blinded her to his true
qualities? The sheriff had been working steadily on solving the
Highview murders all the time, but she’d thought him inactive and
uncaring. Now she knew otherwise, and she felt guilty for her
misjudgment.

"I just thought I'd let you know those two
are safely locked up," he said, "and thanks to you, most likely
they'll be put away for quite a long time."

"You deserve most of the credit,
sheriff."

"Well, we won't start arguin' about that,"
he said, winking. "Also, your car is at Cooper's garage. They'll
probably have it back to you by tomorrow in pretty good shape."

"Thanks so much for all your help."

"Not at all. Thank
you
for yours, but next
time, how about you just leave it to us. I hate to see young ladies
ruin a good pair of shoes like you did."

Maggie grinned, and he lifted his hat to her
in farewell.

"We'll be in touch."

Maggie watched him go out the door. His
words hung in the air. Next time?

Fatigue rolled over her, then, as the last
molecule of adrenaline in her weary body was used up. She slid down
in the bed and pulled the covers up close to her face, letting all
thoughts fade away and sleep take over.

It seemed like only five minutes later that
her phone rang loudly in her ear. Maggie sat up in confusion,
blinking at the bright light now streaming through her window.

"Hello," she rasped as she pulled the
receiver to her ear, nearly knocking the base of the phone off the
table.

"Maggie! When are you coming home?" her
brother Joe demanded, his voice piercing through her fog.

Maggie laughed, shaking the sleep from her
head, and pushing the phone base safely back into place. Poor Joe.
So far away, and feeling helpless and frustrated because of that.
She had so much to tell him. Things that would probably earn her an
earful from him, but possibly also a little respect. As his older
sister, she felt she deserved that. And as her much-loved brother,
he deserved something too. She sat up a little straighter to
deliver it.

"Joe," she said, "you're such a nag."

###

Mary Ellen Hughes is the
author of several mysteries. Please visit her website:
http://www.maryellenhughes.com
to learn more or to contact her.