Maggie felt her eyebrow rise.
“What do you mean that’s it?”
“I mean those are the only prints in the entire house.”
Her eyes widened.
“And that’s not normal.”
Matt shook his head. Again, he didn’t like what he was saying.
“No, that’s not normal for a lived-in residence,” he replied. “Unless Dwayne has a serious case of OCD, that house should have been covered in his prints at the very least. Which means one of three possibilities.”
Maggie held up her index finger, much like the sheriff had done earlier in the hospital.
“One, that Dwayne wiped down the entire place after he was beaten into unconsciousness.” Maggie held up another finger. “Two, I wiped the place down before I did my own unconscious dance.”
Matt held up his finger in lieu of her ticking off her third.
“Three, whoever attacked both of you wiped the place down, erasing any evidence linking him or her to the house. And to you and Dwayne.”
That cold in the pit of Maggie’s stomach was starting to unravel to the point of becoming flat. She had no sarcasm or joke to replace it. There was no denying she was caught in the middle of something.
And she needed to figure out what that something was fast.
Maggie gave the detective one decisive nod. He must have seen the intent in her eyes. Ever so slightly he tilted his head to the side. The human way to silently question something that was a mystery.
Under different circumstances, she would have liked to have been a mystery that the handsome Detective Matt Walker tried to solve, but now she was afraid the question mark she had been branded with was dangerous.
“Okay, then we only have one option.” She brushed past the man and headed for the living room. He followed her, his stare burrowing a hole in every step she took. He kept quiet as she grabbed her purse and dumped its contents on the floor next to the couch. “Let’s figure out what I did yesterday.”
His eyes didn’t leave hers for a moment. Then he nodded.
“I agree. I also want to call in CSU to dust for prints here. They’re still working on the partial, but considering how quickly you appear to have left yesterday, maybe if you did have company, we can at least find out who it was.”
“Good idea.”
Maggie was still trying to ignore how freaked out it made her feel to know someone or something had spooked her enough to run from her own home. Her eyes started to skirt over the various pieces of her life that had made up the inside of her purse when she realized Matt wasn’t moving.
Maggie looked up and met his eyes.
Trying to solve another mystery.
But not one that had to do with her.
“After I make this call you’re going to answer a few questions before we do anything else.” His voice was cold. She could almost swear she felt its chill from where she sat on the floor. He wasn’t going to let her off the hook this time. She’d run out of wiggle room.
“Sounds fair.”
Matt pulled out his phone but kept his eyes on her when he spoke again.
“And we’ll start with why you think my wife was murdered.”
Chapter Six
Erin Walker had been walking out of a three-story parking garage when the truck popped the curb and hit her. She was a tall woman and her height was the only reason she went over the top of the truck instead of under it. Though that stroke of luck wasn’t enough to save her. She was gone before she hit the ground.
Maggie had been working for the Kipsy City Chronicle at the time. She’d been gunning for the news editor position that was about to open up when she heard the accident over the police scanner. Wanting to get the scoop before another reporter who’d shown interest in the promotion did, Maggie had grabbed a notepad and pen and drove like a bat out of hell to get to the parking garage. The drive hadn’t been a long one. She arrived before any patrol officers, just after the EMTs.
That was when she saw Erin for the first time. From a distance she looked like she was sleeping. Like she’d decided, instead of going wherever it was she had started to go, that she’d lie down on the side of the street, wrapped up in her long blue coat and ready to fall asleep beneath the stars. Then the rest of the details had begun to filter in. Erin hadn’t been the only hapless victim. An older man who’d had the misfortune of being on the side of the road next to the opening of the parking garage had also been struck. He, however, was surrounded by EMTs. His name was Lowry Williams. He survived for two days before he succumbed to his injuries. According to everything she discovered, he was a good man.
And also the reason Maggie didn’t let go of what happened.
“Lowry Williams passed away before he was able to talk to anyone other than the emergency responders and hospital staff,” Maggie started. She really didn’t need to remind Matt about that. The detective might not have believed her back then or even now, but he’d done his due diligence and learned every angle of what had happened. Or so he thought. “Except that he did talk to someone. Me. Lowry didn’t have any family so I pretended to be a friend. I’m not proud of the lies I had to tell to convince a nurse to let me see him but it worked. He let me slip in to see him before he was wheeled out to surgery. It was the last time Lowry was conscious. Afterward the nurse realized I was a reporter and, to cover his hide, told me to leave. I imagine he never mentioned me to anyone else to, again, save his hide.”
Matt’s expression was blank.
“And what did Lowry say?” he asked, voice void of any notable emotion.
“He was in a lot of pain,” she reminded him. “He spoke in broken thoughts and I can’t even be sure my questions were understood by him. But there was something he said twice that stuck with me after I asked what happened. ‘She waved at him.’”
Matt’s body shifted. He dropped his hands to the top of his belt.
“She waved at him,” he repeated. “Who waved?”
“He was in so much pain but I assumed he meant Erin.” Maggie wanted to look away from the detective, to give him privacy with his thoughts at the mention of his late wife, but she had to press on. She had to make her point now that he was willing to listen to her. Even if it was only because it might be dangerous not to know. “It was such an odd statement that I couldn’t let it go. I went back to the parking garage and tried to track down the security footage from either the parking garage camera or the one across the street. But the parking garage tape had already been taken by the police and the one across the street had a ticket in for repairs.” Maggie cut her gaze downward for an instant. The detective might not like her next admission. “So I decided to take a closer look into Ken Morrison to try to find a connection.” Matt’s body tensed enough that Maggie knew just saying the name of the driver who had killed Erin was dangerous. Even if Ken was no longer living.
“Since they spent that night trying to stabilize him after his overdose, getting into the hospital to talk to him was a no-go,” she continued. “And then, after he passed, I spent some time tracking down relatives and friends, trying to find a connection between him and Erin. Trying to figure out why she would wave to him.”
“I’d never met him or heard of him before the accident,” Matt interrupted. “Erin’s coworkers and friends also had no idea who he was until that night.”
“But I kept looking anyway,” she admitted. “I just... I started looking into Erin instead.”
Matt’s face drew in, his lips pursed and his eyes turned to slits.
“You started looking into Erin?”
Maggie knew now was not the time to back down from what she’d done. From the decisions she’d made. From the detective. So she rallied herself, shoulders going stiff and back straightening.
“I started with her coworkers first and then friends. I looked at her online profiles. I was jus
t trying to find a connection to Ken outside of the accident. One that would explain why she recognized him and waved to him before everything happened.”
“And did you find one?” Matt forced out each word. “After you decided to pry into my wife’s life for some damn story, did you at least find a connection?”
Maggie tried to hide the sting she felt at his accusation but she didn’t correct him. It wasn’t important now why she’d done the things she did then. Her intentions changed nothing. She shook her head.
“No, I couldn’t find a connection. For all I knew he could have waved to her and she did it in response. But it didn’t matter because although that’s what grabbed my attention, it was what I found next that held it.” Maggie grabbed her keys off the coffee table and got up to lead the detective back to her office. She unlocked the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet and began to rustle through it with one file in mind.
However, it wasn’t there.
“What the heck?” she muttered, going through the files again. Matt moved around to her side and peered into the drawer. “I had it here,” she explained. “A folder containing everything about what happened. But it’s not here.”
“It was a folder?” Matt asked. Maggie nodded. She turned her attention to the detective when he swore beneath his breath. “And did it have a name on it? The folder?”
Maggie didn’t like the look he was giving her but she nodded.
“I always intended to take the information to you when I had something. Something concrete. It has your name on it.”
Matt pulled out his phone. He swiped through a few pictures until he found the one he wanted. Maggie inhaled as he turned it around for her to see.
The picture was of her, unconscious and on the floor. A bat was in one hand and a folder was next to the other. She didn’t have to use the zoom function to read the red print across the top of it. She knew what it said.
“That’s the folder I’m looking for,” she said. “Do you know where it is now?”
“In evidence.” Maggie started to sigh in relief. Matt ruined it. “But by the time I got to Dwayne’s house the folder was empty.”
Maggie froze.
She might not have her memories of what had happened but she knew one thing for sure.
“I decided a long time ago that the only reason I’d take that folder out of this house was to bring it to you.” Her hands fisted at her sides. “But now I don’t know what I figured out!” Anger was starting to burn through the outside edges of her chest, coming closer to the heart of her. Where it was born from, she couldn’t tell. But she didn’t like it. Maggie turned her full gaze on the detective. “Do you know what the truth is, Detective?”
Matt raised his eyebrow.
“The truth is I gave up on this case within the first year of the accident,” she continued without waiting for him to respond. “I was tired of being the only one who thought there was another layer to it. That there was some kind of conspiracy going on. That Ken Morrison wasn’t just some drug abuser who destroyed the lives of three people, including himself. I was tired of everyone hating me for believing there was more.” Maggie threw her hands wide, motioning to the house around her. “So when I hit too many dead ends, I stopped looking. I stopped asking questions. I got a new job. I started a family. I tried to redeem my image from, as you’ve said and as I’ve done, an ambulance chaser. I even joined a book club. I stopped looking.”
Maggie felt her anger turning to something else. A raw emotion she hadn’t realized was waiting to be unleashed. She took a step to the side and glanced at the filing cabinet.
“Something must have happened yesterday that was big,” she said. “I wouldn’t have brought this all up again if I wasn’t sure I’d found something.”
Fear.
That was what she felt. Beneath the surface of sarcasm and sass, fear was lurking. Sure, throughout the past four years she’d thought about Erin’s and Lowry’s deaths but she’d kept those thoughts private. After she’d confronted Matt about her suspicions back when it had happened, she’d created a county of enemies. It had made her reevaluate her life. Her drives, her goals, even her career. But to bring the case back to the front lines? That was dangerous, not only to her emotions but also to the life she’d spent the past few years building. To a life she had fallen in love with. To a son she would cross oceans for.
She turned her gaze back to the detective. He searched her face. She hated how vulnerable she felt at that moment. How could she complain about what she’d lost when he’d lost the woman he loved?
“What did you find back then?” he asked after a moment. “What was in the folder before yesterday?” His voice was like velvet. Smooth and strong and fluid. He took a step closer. It helped pull Maggie out of her widening hole of anger and fear.
She took a deep breath and answered, “A list of names.”
“Names? What names?” he started. “And where did you get the list from?”
Maggie wished she’d had her files now. It would have made her explanation easier. Still she straightened her back again and got ready to try to convince the detective that the list was not only important, but might have been the key to that night years ago, too.
However, Maggie didn’t get the chance.
The world around them filled with a nearly deafening sound. Maggie instinctively tried to escape it by ducking her head and covering her ears. The detective wasn’t far behind, throwing his body around hers. Maggie gasped into his chest as another burst of sound sliced through the air.
This time Maggie could place it.
It was glass. Shattering glass.
Someone was breaking the living room windows.
* * *
MATT’S HAND WAS on his gun as soon as the noise stopped.
“Get away from the windows,” he barked, already pushing Maggie back. He didn’t want her out in the open if the next one was broken.
He unholstered his gun and moved into the living room, senses on high alert. Both windows were broken and glass was scattered on the floor. In the middle of the shards next to the window that looked out to the street sat a brick, highlighted because of how out of place it looked against the light carpet.
Matt’s gaze snagged on movement outside the front window. Right through to a van at the curb. And getting into that van was a man wearing a baseball cap.
“Hey, you!” Matt yelled. “Stop right there!”
Matt flung open the front door just as the van’s door slammed shut. The tires squealed as the van began to peel away.
It presented Matt with a choice.
He could leave Maggie and chase the man who may or may not have been behind the attack on her and Dwayne or he could stay with her and call in the fleeing culprit. The first ran the risk to himself and to Maggie. The second ran the risk of letting their only lead get away.
Matt holstered his gun and hesitated.
And then Maggie ran up behind him and grabbed his hand.
“Come on,” she yelled, moving out the door and trying to tug him along. “We’ll lose him if we don’t hurry!”
“We can’t go!” Matt yelled. “It’s too dangerous!”
But Maggie wasn’t having it. She paused only long enough to look him square in the eye and say one sentence with absolute conviction.
“Matt, my son could have been in there!”
That was all it took to push his good sense to the side.
Maggie must have seen the change in his expression; she continued to pull him to his car.
This time he let her.
Matt had the pedal to the floor as soon as they were in, trying to eat up the gap between them and the van, but the closer they got the more erratic the driver became.
“Call this in to the Darby Police,” Matt said as their mystery perpetrator took a turn out of the neighborhood so fast he
popped the curb. The driver overcorrected and clipped the neighborhood welcome sign at the corner. It splintered but didn’t break apart. The van kept going like it hadn’t hit it at all. “This guy’s driving is going to get himself killed.”
“Just make sure it’s not us who get killed,” Maggie replied. Even in his periphery he could see her leaning forward, tensed, while her hand clung to the handle above the passenger-side door. He was feeling it, too. Danger and adrenaline. Both mixing together to feel like an odd form of excitement. That feeling was starting to pull out an unintended reaction in him. The corner of his lips quirked up.
“With my driving skills? I don’t think so.” He eased them out of the neighborhood without losing much speed. The van was hauling down a two-lane that stretched straight for a few miles before getting into the thick of Darby. No cars were on the road, which probably was normal for this time of day during the week, but that didn’t mean they were in any less danger.
“Was that Detective Walker being cocky?” Maggie asked with a nervous laugh as Matt tried to gain back some speed. He hated to admit the sound bolstered him.
“That was Detective Walker being confident in his abilities,” he responded. “But still we need to call this in.” He fished out his phone and tossed it to her. “Call 911 and put it on speaker so we can tell—”
Matt cut himself off as the van slammed on its brakes. He followed suit, lurching both him and Maggie forward. The space he had just been trying to close between the two vehicles disappeared so rapidly that by the time the Jimmy came to a stop they were within throwing distance.
“What’s he doing?” Maggie asked, all traces of excitement replaced by caution. In the next second the man answered. His reverse lights blinked on. “He’s going to hit us!”
The van lurched backward so fast that by the time Matt put the Jimmy in the same gear, the driver had already changed his course again. He cut his wheel so the van turned, giving Matt a clear view of the driver’s-side window. It was rolled down. Which gave the man pointing a gun at them an uninhibited view.
Forgotten Pieces Page 5
