“They’ve finished and the house is open. I get to go in now and clean out all the black fingerprint dust and try to put everything to rights again.” She sounded resigned.
“We will,” he told her. She was probably the only woman he was willing to go clean a house that large for. But in a burst of brilliance, he realized he probably wasn't the only one willing to help Maggie out.
First though, he had to call the chief. He needed another shift off. And he couldn't just trade with someone—he couldn’t pick up extra shifts until this was over. The problem wasn’t the day, it was leaving Maggie alone for twenty-four hours. “I need to make a call or two. Are you good for a few minutes?”
She nodded but didn’t move. Cleaning the house was daunting, but it shouldn’t make her that tense or give her that thousand yard stare … He definitely needed to get his shift subbed out.
He was just hanging up when Maggie’s phone buzzed again. This time it was a text, then another and another.
She was flipping through them, her frown pulling tighter and tighter. At last, she turned around and showed him her phone and the picture that had come through. “Look what the FBI found.”
It was just a picture of fabric with pen circles on it, large and small. The pictures showed it in blue light and red, each revealing some other hidden stain. It took a moment to see that it was a pillowcase. But the look on Maggie’s face told him this was about much more than just a piece of bedding …
Chapter Forty-Six
Maggie walked across the room in a daze and dropped down onto Sebastian's couch. It was a good thing the piece was large and cushy or she would have hurt herself.
This time, when he sat next to her, he wasn't wrapped around her comforting her, instead he was clearly waiting to hear what she said. “What is it?”
She took a deep breath. “Remember the itemized list that I made the FBI give me when they took things out of the house as evidence?”
He nodded.
“There were weird things on it, but I didn't think anything of it because there were so many weird things. It seemed like they were taking anything that could possibly be evidence of anything.”
“But the pillowcase is important?” he asked.
“They found it at the back of the top shelf in the closet in room five. We must have missed it but, according to the list of what they took, that's where they found it.”
“Why would a pillowcase be up there?”
“Apparently the FBI wondered the same thing and they tested it. It had Aunt Abbie's saliva on it.”
“What?” Sebastian frowned suddenly, seeming to go through the same thought process she initially had. “I mean I guess if you drooled a little while you were asleep?”
“That would make sense,” Maggie conceded, but that wasn’t what Marina had explained. “The thing is, Abbie was a stickler for clean laundry, and she didn’t sleep in room five. Ever.” Maggie needed a deep breath to go on and was glad that Sebastian was willing to wait. “It had someone else's saliva on it too.”
She watched Sebastian's face fall as he began to put the pieces together. “They were sharing a bed?”
“That would make sense, except that the evidence was found on opposite sides of the pillowcase,” Maggie told him, repeating the information.
Sebastian frowned again, not following. Marina had needed to explain what it likely meant to Maggie, and now she had to tell him.
She needed a deep breath. “It looks like it's the pillow that one of them slept on, and that it was held over the face of the other.”
“I'm sorry, what?”
Maggie didn't answer. She couldn’t. When she found her voice, she barely managed to get the words out. “They told me Aunt Abbie died in her sleep, but now they think she was murdered. Something about the way the DNA and evidence is on one side—like he slept on the pillow more than one night. And on the other side the skin cells and traces of lotion are rubbed in, like maybe she struggled …”
“They think she was murdered?”
Maggie nodded and began to cry in earnest then. “That’s what it looks like now.”
“What did the autopsy say?”
She shook her head against his chest, getting her tears on his t-shirt. She hadn’t cried or broken down despite having her home broken into or finding serial killer trophies in her home. She’d even suspected Abbie of falling for a serial killer. But this? It was the last straw. And Maggie felt like shit for thinking poorly of Aunt Abbie just because everyone else around her seemed to have no morals. “There was no autopsy. She was in her 70s and, at the time, it looked like a relatively peaceful death.”
He held her close with one arm, and murmured, “I’m so sorry.”
She watched as he ran one hand through his hair. He’d requested today off and at the time she’d pressed him to go to work, but she was glad now that he wasn’t leaving. Though she didn't know if he could truly afford the time off anymore, she trusted him to make his own decisions.
Her heart twisted and she swallowed hard at the thought that Abbie had been murdered. It was worse than anything she'd imagined before. Previously, the victims had been people she didn't know. But this was too close to home—it was literally in her own home. It seemed now, the only reason it was her home was because Abbie had been murdered.
Sebastian's arms went around her and held her tight. Only then did she realize she was sobbing. Maggie took a few minutes to get herself together then realized she didn't know what she should do next. Looking to Sebastian, she said, “I don't quite know what to do now. I'm not an investigator. I don't work for the FBI. I can't solve this case. But I want to!”
He stayed silent for a moment and it all poured out. “I need to find her killer. I … I told you I thought she might have been sleeping with the killer and I … I feel so awful for thinking that.”
“It was a reasonable assumption.”
“No, it wasn’t! I only thought it because—” She cut herself off. This was what happened when she cried. She tended to tell people what she really thought.
Sebastian waited a beat, then whispered, “You can tell me.”
“You’ll realize that I’m stupid.”
He shifted rapidly, looked at her like she was … well, stupid. “How would I ever think that? I see you moving to a new town, starting your own business. You’re a lawyer, and a damn good one from what I’ve heard. We all lock our keys in our cars sometimes, Maggie.”
She wanted to laugh, and just wound up snorting a little. “Yeah, did you think you should marry someone then find him fucking your best friend in your bed?”
Silence.
Yeah. She was stupid. Stupid for trusting Ryan and Celeste. And stupid for telling Sebastian just how stupid she was now.
“They what?” He didn’t seem to believe her.
“Yeah. About a week before the wedding. I mean, that’s when I walked in on them.” She paused, and sniffed. Better to tell the whole thing now. “He said he still wanted to marry me—”
“He thought you’d be okay with that?” Sebastian shook his head as if to rid an awful thought.
“They both did. Said it was the first time and it was a whim. But I’d found her earring in our room before, and Celeste said she must have dropped it when she came over.” Maggie heaved a breath. Hopefully, Sebastian didn’t think she was as dumb as she felt for not realizing all of it sooner. “And even if it was the first time? That wasn’t forgivable. So I lost my fiancé and my best friend in the span of ten seconds.”
“That sucks—”
But she was on a roll. “And my father the next day when I started announcing that the wedding was canceled.”
“Your father? Why?”
“Because he thought I should forgive Ryan. He said the wedding was too expensive to cancel and that all marriages had some adultery in them.”
“What!”
Shit. If Sebastian didn’t cut things off because she was stupid, he’d do it because she was so mess
ed up. But it was a little too late to take it back now. “So, I guess my parents’ marriage wasn’t the good one I thought it was.”
“Your mom passed a while ago, right?”
Maggie nodded, but said, “When I was thirteen.”
The space between them descended into silence. What else could he say? He was too decent a guy to tell her to just go home. She waited him out while he took a deep breath and finally spoke.
“That’s why you came to Redemption?”
She nodded. She’d only ever said that she “needed a change.” It wasn’t a lie, but it was nowhere near the truth.
“I’m glad you told me,” Sebastian said, hugging her now and letting her sink into the relief that he wasn’t pushing her away. “That makes more sense now why you feel you have to be involved in this.”
“It is happening inside my house,” she pointed out.
“True. Let’s go back.” He stood up as if the decision was made. “You’re the best one to know what was there all along and what wasn't. You were even there as a kid when some of the boarders lived there, right?”
“Yes!” Maggie thought about it suddenly—she'd not put those pieces together before. The boarders.
Abbie hadn't let her interact with the boarders much. When she was little, they'd seemed more like part of the house, the same way other guests did at a hotel. But maybe she could remember something, maybe she'd met this criminal before.
“We'll put the place back together and maybe we'll find something new. We’ll make sure the FBI and the police have all of it.”
“And we'll lock that damned cellar door,” Maggie added fiercely, wondering what other entries to her home might exist that she didn't know about.
“We'll check everything.” He said it as if he heard her worries out loud.
She’d expected to move to Redemption, open her business, and spend her spare time painting the house. She’d thought she would meet the townspeople and make friends with other women her age. She’d thought her biggest concern would be drumming up enough business.
Instead, she'd met the firefighters and taken over Aunt Abbie's volunteer position at the station. Some of the older firefighters had remembered her from when she was a kid, and it seemed a natural fit. She dated Rex and then spent so much time watching Hannah for him. Now she was hunting a killer. None of what she was doing had been on her agenda.
But then again, neither had Sebastian.
“Okay,” she agreed. “I'm ready to go.”
He grinned. “Well, I need a shirt and shoes. And why don't you give me a few minutes to pack a bag?”
Sebastian suggested they take his car, just so hers wouldn’t be obvious in the driveway. Then he drove them through Freddy's, the local burger joint.
They arrived at her house with hands full of hot burgers and cups of skinny cut fries. Opening the front door, Maggie headed for the dining room, but quickly realized there was nowhere to eat or even sit. Every surface was dotted with black fingerprint powder, in a few places it was bright green.
The chairs were pulled into the corners of the room, two of them still upside down, and the table was skewed in the room. The living room was entirely rearranged, and Maggie didn’t think that if she even found a space, eating near all the black dust could be safe, so they settled on the front steps, watching the kids go by on their bikes as they ate the burgers.
They watched a young woman walking two large dogs. Just behind her was a man with a dual stroller. When they finished, Maggie wadded up her trash and took Sebastian’s from him.
“I’m going to make a few calls,” he pointed to his phone but didn’t get up.
Nodding at him, she pushed the door open with her elbow and headed inside. She couldn’t help but survey the damage, but in the middle of the living room she spotted black dust along the mantle and on the bricks that lined the chimney.
She almost dropped the trash she held. Why hadn't she remembered before?
Chapter Forty-Seven
When Sebastian finally came inside, he expected to find Maggie pushing the furniture back into place or cleaning the smudges the FBI left behind. Instead, he found her kneeling in front of the fireplace, pushing at the bricks. Her fingers were dirty where she'd smeared the fingerprint dust.
“What are you doing?”
“I didn't remember,” she said, out of breath and almost frantic.
He tried to stay calm because she wasn’t. “Is the chimney another entry point?”
At least that made her sit back onto her heel and laugh. Then she stilled and her voice became wary. “At least not that I know of.”
He wasn't going to go there. “Then what did you remember?”
“Old houses have secrets.” She said it almost cryptically.
She was right, but it didn't actually mean anything. It didn't tell him why she was on her knees, pushing at bricks already covered in spots of black dust, the fingerprints standing out as stark reminders of her home being invaded again … “I don’t understand.”
“Aunt Abbie told me that when the house was built, there were soldiers in this area and they liked to leave secret messages. She said every hearth had a loose brick.”
Interesting. Maggie was looking for a hidey hole.
“Did Sabbie show you which one?”
“Of course not. That would be too easy.” She was still on her knees, still examining the bricks for something he didn’t see and then pushing on each one.
She waved her now blackened fingers in an arc around the open fireplace. “Looking at the fingerprints here, I can tell you that she told him.”
Sebastian felt his eyes fly wide open. This time, he looked past Maggie. There were distinct patterns to the collections of fingerprints. There were a handful above the mantle, where Maggie had set pictures and a mirror—all of which had been moved in the FBI search, so he couldn’t tell what those prints meant now. There were some at the side of the opening to the fireplace. And still others clustered on one or several bricks in a few different spots. But right next to them, whole swaths of brick were clean, with no dust or prints at all.
“Holy shit, you’re right.” Whether or not it was here, Sebastian didn't know. “Step back with me.”
He put his hand on her shoulder and in a fluid motion, Maggie rose to her feet. Taking a few steps back, they examined the whole fireplace with a new plan.
Sebastian watched as she almost wiped her fingers on her pants, but then managed to lace them together and keep the fingerprint powder off her clothes.
“Do you see a pattern to it?” he asked.
“I don't know. My guess is that he was looking for a singular brick that comes out if jiggled the right way.”
She took a breath and said, “The problem is that I can’t tell which prints are me touching the wall to close the fireplace, or the FBI moving the pictures, or someone trying to find a loose brick.”
“So, we start with the ones that have a lot of fingerprints.”
“There's a few clusters on the lower left, and most of them are on the upper right. It looks like he didn't remember which brick, but he knew where to look.”
The two of them now dove into it together. They pushed and pried and tried to budge individual bricks. The fireplace had been painted white at some point. The question was, was it before or after whoever-he-was had hidden information there?
“How did the crime scene techs even find all these prints? Who would look at a fireplace for clues?” Maggie eventually asked.
At least this was something he could answer. “They probably didn't. They look everywhere using special lights. Then they dust and collect every print they find.”
“I thought the technique lifted the print … so why are they all still here?”
“The tape they use lifts the top layer of dust. They don’t need the actual print—the oils left behind—unless they’re after DNA. And these days, sometimes they just photograph it.”
They were still pushing on bricks when
he had a thought. “Do you have Sabbie’s prints on file somewhere? Does the city?”
“Why?”
“Do you think maybe her fingerprints are still in the house? Maybe some of these are hers.” Nostalgia struck him. The techs might have revealed traces of Maggie’s aunt still here.
“Her prints are on the documents, probably, but not on the walls or anything.” She motioned to the windows where more black powder covered the edge as though tiny little dark snowfalls had simply deposited around her house. “I had a professional cleaning company come through. They cleaned every nook and cranny. It was so expensive.”
“This place is so big and so full of nooks and crannies,” Sebastian mused. It was no modern home, where the walls could just be wiped down. There was wainscoting in the dining room and a chair rail and crown molding in every room. He couldn’t imagine being responsible for keeping it clean. “It's beautiful. And Sabbie loved this place.”
“Then why didn’t she take better care of it?” Maggie asked. “She didn’t fix a lot of what needed it. The roof is old, and the floors have to be refinished. That wallpaper should have been replaced about three decades ago …”
He heard the sigh in her voice, but he also remembered Sabbie. “She just loved it exactly as it was, at least that's how I understood it. I don't know, maybe she didn't have enough money.”
But he guessed Maggie knew that and he probably shouldn't have said it. Sebastian tried again. “Despite wearing those old jeans that had completely lost their color and those workman shirts, I always got the impression she chose that cabbage rose wallpaper and the fancy antique sofa.”
“It is funny. So many things about Abbie were just about comfort. She was one of the first adult women I knew who fully understood that she was pretty, but that wasn’t her value. Right down to that she never married and she ran this boarding house.”
Maggie seemed caught in her memories for a moment, then she cried out, “Oh shit. I found it!”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Crash and Burn (Wildfire Hearts Book 1) Page 17
