by Dana R. Lynn
“If you didn’t make an appointment with the police because of the trial, then why had you made the appointment?” Chief Garraway had stationed herself directly in front of Maggie, a position that said she was in control. Normally, Dan would have remained standing, too. At the moment, though, he couldn’t seem to find the energy to rise. Between spending the past week on the late shift, hunting down Maggie and now getting stabbed, he was whupped good.
Some hair was hanging in his face, annoying him. Shaking it back out of his eyes, he focused on Maggie as she answered.
“I had thought that I was being followed. But almost as soon as I made the appointment, it stopped. I canceled the appointment. I’m sorry. I should have called you in person to tell you why, but I was embarrassed. Then I got married, and I forgot about it...until Phillip was killed.”
“Back to Phillip. Tell me about him.”
The chief’s tone made it clear this wasn’t a request.
Shrugging her shoulders, Maggie’s eyes grew distant. Dan could practically see the thoughts whirling in her head as she searched for where to begin. He could see her pain weighing her down as she remembered.
Dan watched the woman with a clinical sort of interest. She was beautiful, he acknowledged—but that wasn’t what interested him right now. What he found interesting was the tenseness in her posture. Everything about her suggested the willingness to run at a moment’s notice. He had the feeling that the only things that were keeping her in that house at that moment were the two children sleeping in the next room. Somehow he felt that they were the only things that anchored her to anything. He had seen that same sort of wariness in soldiers’ eyes in the battlefield in Afghanistan. Was it just the trauma of seeing her husband killed before her eyes? If indeed there had been a husband. He still felt the need to see some proof of that. Growing up in the foster care system had taught him that there were many people willing to play on others’ sympathy to get what they wanted.
But deep inside, he believed her, although he couldn’t say why.
Just as he was beginning to think that the silence had gone on for too long, Maggie appeared to come to some sort of decision. She nodded her head, lifted her chin and faced them with defiance beaming out of her eyes. The most incredible blue eyes he could ever remember seeing. Where on earth had that thought come from?
“His full name was Phillip Michael Nelson,” she began. Although she appeared calm, he detected a slight tremor in her voice. “We met about three years ago, right after I started working at the Journal. We got engaged a year later. We never really got around to planning a wedding or setting a date. Then one day, Phillip said he had it all figured out, and that we should rush off to Las Vegas to get married.”
“And you just went along with that?” Dan blurted out. He didn’t mean to sound so incredulous, but man, he just couldn’t picture it. How could an intelligent woman not ask the important questions? Questions such as “Hey, honey, why the hurry?” They’d already waited a year.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Maggie snapped. “I trusted him. If it meant that much to him, I was fine with it.”
Chief Garraway gave Dan a stern look that clearly told him to keep his opinions to himself. Dan grimaced. Normally he had iron control over his emotions, but right now he was tired and in pain. Not to mention something about Maggie really confused him. He wasn’t used to feeling off balance. He sighed and nodded at the chief to show her that he had gotten the message.
Pulling his phone from his pocket, he sent a quick text to Jace with Phillip’s name. This process would move quicker if he had the case details. A minute later, his phone vibrated. He read the text and frowned.
“This just keeps getting stranger,” he muttered to himself.
“Lieutenant?”
He shook his head and handed Chief Garraway his phone. “I had Lieutenant Tucker check our case files. No Phillip Michael Nelson was ever reported as dead or missing in LaMar Pond.”
Chief Garraway narrowed her eyes as she read the message for herself. Her lips pressed together. “Ms. Slade,” she said finally, “do you happen to have a picture of your husband?”
Maggie sprang to her feet and dashed out of the room. The sound of a drawer opening and closing came through the thin walls. A moment later, she hurried back, holding a small photo album in her hand. She flipped through it as she approached until she found the picture she wanted. Then she handed it to the chief, who in turn glanced at the photo and handed it to Dan.
“Yeah, I remember him. We found him in Lake Erie. He had been shot. We were never able to identify him.” He hesitated. If he had been alone with the chief, he’d be fine giving her the rest of the information. He decided to hold his tongue until he could get the chief by herself.
“You found him in the lake?” Maggie whispered, her voice cracking, pain saturating each word.
She covered her face with both hands briefly, shuddering. A strange tension seized him. Not tears. Please, Lord, anything but tears. He was relieved when she brought her hands away from her face. Her lashes were damp, but no tears fell.
“I don’t understand. He was killed in our house.”
That surprised him. “In your house? We went through your house after you disappeared. There was no sign of murder.”
“Not that house. The one we were fixing up together.”
“We found no other property in your name.”
Maggie rolled her eyes and sighed. “That’s because it’s not in my name. It’s in my mother’s name. She was selling it to us. But the deal hadn’t closed yet.”
Chief Garraway nodded. “Okay. Just tell us what happened.”
Maggie took a deep breath. “I came home from work early and heard arguing. It was really loud. I walked to the doorway of the kitchen. Phillip saw me and shouted for me to run. He threw himself at the other man. The gun went off and Phillip fell. I ran out, hopped in my car and took off.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police, Ms. Slade?” Chief Garraway inquired.
“Because the man who shot him was dressed as a policeman.”
Silence.
“Let me get this straight, a cop killed your husband?” Dread curled in Dan’s stomach. It felt as though he’d eaten a lead ball for lunch. Not again, he thought wildly. As much as he didn’t want to believe her, didn’t want to believe that someone charged to serve and protect could do the opposite, he had seen that happen too often in the past. If there was even the possibility, it needed to be taken seriously.
Apparently, Maggie thought he was mocking her. She burst to her feet and crossed her arms across her chest. “I’m not lying! He was dressed like a cop! He kept demanding that Phillip hand something over. He threatened to bring him into the station. Said the chief of police had issued a warrant for his arrest.”
“You said the man demanded Nelson hand something over. Any idea what it was?” Now they were getting somewhere.
But she shook her head and sank wearily back onto the couch. “I don’t know. I had to get out of there. The man might have said he wanted to arrest Phillip, but he wasn’t holding handcuffs, he was holding his gun—and he looked like he couldn’t wait to use it. I think he planned to kill Phillip all along. And then I realized he would know who I was. I’d brought over plenty of my things—letters and paperwork with my name on them—and there were pictures of Phillip and me together on our wedding day hanging on the wall. It wouldn’t be hard for him to know who I was.”
Chief Garraway turned back to Dan. “What information was the LaMar PD able to find out about Nelson after he was found?”
Dan shook his head. “Not much, Chief. His fingerprints weren’t in any databases, so he had no criminal record.”
“Did you circulate his picture?”
“Yes, ma’am. But it must have set off some sort of red flag. Before we got any respon
ses, the FBI stepped in and took over. We were out of the whole case.”
“The FBI?” Chief Garraway’s voice rose in surprise. “Just what was your husband involved with, Ms. Slade?”
“Chief, I can have the LaMar department go over to Maggie’s other house and see if they can find anything.” When she nodded, he got the address from Maggie and stepped outside to call Paul. A few minutes later, he hung up. More bad news. He sighed and pivoted on his heel to head back inside. Stopped.
A row of high shrubs blocked the side of the house from the street. But from his angle, Dan could clearly make out several sets of footprints in the dirt between the house and the shrubs. They had to have been recent, since it had just rained two days ago. The sizes were different, showing that they belonged to more than one person, but all of them were large footprints. Much too large to have been Maggie’s.
He burst inside, startling the women. Briskly, he explained what he had seen.
“That means that you were being watched. Probably to determine your identity. And by more than one man. Whoever that man sitting in jail is, he had a partner. Maybe the man who killed your husband. Maybe someone else. We have no way of knowing how many people are involved.”
Chief Garraway took charge. “Right. Willis, request officers to process the scene. Ms. Slade and her children will accompany us to the station. This house is not safe for them, even with us here.”
Dan remembered his conversation with Paul. As hesitant as he was to deliver more bad news, there was no sense in holding back. “I checked with the LaMar Pond PD. The address that Maggie gave me burned down eighteen months ago.”
THREE
What had her husband been involved with? The question reverberated around Maggie’s brain time and time again as she rushed about getting herself and the twins ready to go. Maggie got herself and her cranky kids out the door in record time. The idea that someone had been watching her gave her the willies.
Not to mention the obvious fact that somebody had tried to kill her earlier. This house was no longer safe for her. Or her babies. She glanced over at the lieutenant just in time to see him wince and rub his side. She grimaced, feeling guilty that he had been injured while protecting her. With her hair tucked inside a hat, Maggie followed the cops out to the cars. With reluctance, she watched her babies being belted into their car seats in the chief’s car. Lieutenant Willis straightened up, sketched a cocky salute at the chief and sauntered to his own car on the street. She definitely would have preferred to ride with the lieutenant rather than his stern-faced chief. But she went where her children went, so she stepped into the car without protest and buckled up.
“I don’t suppose it would be possible to let the owner know no one is in her house?” Wendy had been a good friend. She hated to let her down.
“We can do that. Will she shorten her mission trip?” Realizing her mouth had fallen open, Maggie closed it with a click. They really had researched everything.
“Either that or she’ll have to find someone else to house-sit.”
“Good.” Chief Garraway touched her radio. “Move out, Lieutenant. We don’t have all day.”
Lieutenant Willis’s voice responded back with a pert “You got it.”
Almost as soon as they merged onto the interstate, Siobhan started to fuss. Maggie looked at the chief, expecting to see an impatient frown. Instead, she saw the other woman’s lips twitch.
She blinked, sure she had imagined it. Nope. Chief Garraway’s mouth had turned up at the corners. Amazing.
“It never fails, does it?” The chief’s voice was mild, conversational. “They can be as quiet as mice, but the moment you are trapped in a car with them, they start wailing. At least that was my experience with my own.”
Maggie had no idea how she was supposed to respond to that. It had never occurred to her that Chief Garraway might be a wife and mother. The older woman wore her authority like a cloak. It was hard to look past it.
“I’m going to see if she will calm down with a pacifier.” Maggie twisted in her seat to place a pacifier in her daughter’s mouth. As she did so, she noticed a car moving toward them. It was dodging in and out of the traffic. Unease slithered down her spine and sank into her stomach, leaving a greasy, queasy feeling.
“Chief,” she began, her voice pitched low so as not to further disturb the babies.
“I see him.” She touched the button to the radio. “Lieutenant? We have a vehicle that appears to be moving in on us.”
“I’m a little ways behind you, Chief. I will—”
They never heard what he was going to do. The car was beside them. It jackknifed, slamming into the chief’s car’s side. She yelled as the driver’s door caved in and her left arm slammed against the window. It remained limply at her side as she continued to steer with her right hand. In the backseat, the twins started screaming in terror. Desperate to see her babies and ascertain if they were hurt, Maggie started to unbuckle.
“Don’t you dare!” the chief barked.
Realizing how her being unbuckled could affect the chief’s driving, Maggie clenched her fists and remained seated. Her jaw started to ache. She had started grinding her teeth.
A siren blared as Lieutenant Willis roared up behind their attacker, a blue light flashing on the dashboard of his unmarked car.
The other vehicle sped away, zigzagging furiously through the traffic. Lieutenant Willis pursued the car, but Maggie could see the distance between the cars growing. His voice came over the radio, snapping out a description of the car, its license plate and location. Maggie could almost feel his frustration crackling through the radio.
“Lost him, Chief.” They could barely hear his voice over the howling twins.
“Understood, Lieutenant. We are pulling off. Need to have the babies checked over.”
Chief Garraway maneuvered the cruiser awkwardly off the next ramp, calling for an ambulance crew as she did so. Her face was drawn with pain, and sweat was beading on her forehead.
The car had barely stopped moving when Maggie pushed open the door and ran to the back door. After wrenching it open, she checked on the twins. Only the chief’s demand that she not remove the children from their seats or the vehicle prevented her from grabbing her babies out of the car. Worry simmered in her gut as she tried to soothe the angry twins. A couple of times she winced as Siobhan hit a piercing note.
When the ambulance crew arrived, it soon became apparent that the chief was stuck inside the vehicle. Maggie’s heart bled for Chief Garraway. The older woman was obviously in pain, wincing and muffling groans. Maggie couldn’t help but feel that this situation was somehow her fault. Stop it! You didn’t ask for any of this. Still, the knowledge that within twenty-four hours two officers had been injured trying to protect her was humbling. Maggie felt the weight of the debt she owed them. She grimaced. She didn’t like being in debt to anyone.
Two members of the crew used a set of metal cutters and set about the arduous task of extracting the chief from the damaged vehicle. The noise was horrendous. While they were doing that, another team member carefully examined Rory, Siobhan and Maggie. Lieutenant Willis pulled in as the crew was strapping Chief Garraway onto a stretcher. He leaped from his car and hurried over to his chief, an anxious expression on his face. Even injured, the woman was reluctant to hand over control.
“This is an attempted murder investigation here, Lieutenant. But we need to know what happened back in LaMar Pond that started all of this. She’s the only one who can identify the man who shot her husband. Do what you can to uncover the truth at that end. She’s the key to all of this. If our department can help you in any way, just ask.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll take care of it.”
“Your children seem to be fine, miss.” Maggie turned her attention to the young paramedic who was looking over Rory. The baby boy ha
d stopped fussing now that he had been removed from the terrifying vehicle and had a full view of his mother. He smiled and waved his chubby arms at her. Overwhelmed with relief, Maggie’s eyes burned as tears gathered. She blinked them away, although one managed to escape down her cheek. The paramedic handed Rory to her, and she cuddled him close. When he protested and squirmed, she realized she was gripping him too close. She had almost lost them. These children were the only things that mattered in her life. She had to do everything she could to protect them.
“Mama! Mama!” Siobhan demanded her attention. Maggie bent down and made what she called the twin exchange. Rory stopped fussing as soon as he was free.
Siobhan was another story.
* * *
Dan stepped back from the ambulance as the driver closed the door, effectively cutting off his view of Chief Garraway. It was rather shocking to see the indomitable chief put out of commission. As far back as he could remember, she had never even taken a sick day. And here she was being wheeled away in an ambulance.
The sniffling noises behind him reminded him of the reason why his former chief was injured. Maggie was comforting Siobhan, bouncing the disgruntled little girl on her hip and shushing her. It wasn’t fair, but he felt an irrational surge of anger toward the woman. If it hadn’t been for her, Chief Garraway would be fine. All because she’d been too chicken to go to the police a year and a half earlier. If she was telling the truth about the corrupt cop, going to the police might have caused her to be killed herself.
Enough. He had a job to do.
“Can you get her settled down enough to move to my car?”
Maggie jerked up her head, startled.
“You’re not supposed to reuse car seats that have been in accidents,” she gasped. “They might be defective.”
He sighed impatiently and rolled his neck on his shoulders. This day had been too long already.
“Look, Maggie, right now I’m more worried about the jerk that has it out for you. Defective car seats are better than none at all. You and your kiddos are targets here. We need to move. Now.”
