Maggie was the one who broke the silence.
“Well, I can’t say that’s how I imagined getting you into bed.” There was the normal Maggie snark in her tone.
“You always have a response for something. Do you realize that?”
They both kept their gazes to the ceiling. Still, he saw her shrug.
“I do what I can.”
“And what exactly were you doing just now?” he asked. “Before you fell over onto me.”
“To be fair, you scared me so the falling part is on you.” Her voice softened. “But originally, I came in to check up on you. You’ve been asleep for a while now.”
Matt grabbed at his side and fought through the pain to grab his phone off the nightstand. It was a quarter after nine.
“Honestly, I think you need more sleep,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right. But I guess it’s hard to sneak around with a crutch. Sorry I woke you.”
There were no missed calls or texts on his phone. Which meant there had been no breaks in the case while he’d been asleep. It was frustrating, to say the least.
“Is Caleb still outside?” he asked. He’d been so tired he’d barely spoken to the deputy earlier.
She nodded.
“I let him know when I was putting Cody to bed. I gave him a stern, motherly warning to not disturb us unless something big happened.” She flashed him a smirk. “And even then be quiet about it. If there’s one thing I’m proud of about my kid, it’s that he sleeps hard. But Heaven help us if he does wake up. I’m pretty sure I’ve learned the skills of an expert negotiator because of that boy.”
Matt smiled and shifted his gaze until he saw Cody’s sleeping form through the open door. His mouth was open and his arm was hanging halfway off the bed.
“I envy how easily kids can sleep,” he admitted. “The older we get the harder it becomes.”
He hadn’t meant to take the conversation down a more serious path but suddenly it felt like he had. Silence moved between them until Maggie let out a breath that dragged down her body, despite the fact she was already lying down.
“It’s because we know the truth about nightmares,” she whispered. “They can be all too real.”
Matt angled his head to get a better look at the woman. Green eyes met his. Within them a nearly imperceptible shift happened.
The two of them whispering in the dark suddenly felt right. Them, so close together he could still feel the warmth of her body, felt right.
Matt glanced down at Maggie’s lips.
Suddenly, he felt like the two of them hadn’t just been trying to solve a mystery all day but also building toward something.
“Maggie,” he started but she didn’t let him finish.
With an almost-apologetic smile she pulled herself up until she was sitting with her back against the headrest. He could tell the movement was painful but she didn’t complain.
“Sorry again for waking you up. But now that I know you’re alive and well, I think it’s time I made the long trek back to my room.”
The moment, whatever it was, dissipated.
Maggie was back to being the woman who had found herself in the middle of trouble.
And he was back to being the detective who needed to figure out who was behind it all.
* * *
IT WASN’T UNTIL he awoke the next morning that Matt remembered what his dream had told him the night before. A part of him wished Maggie was still in bed with him. Rolling over to tell her his theory would have been a lot less painful.
He felt like he’d been hit by a truck. Well, he really had been. The side of his body was an ache he couldn’t escape. One that whined as he tried the simplest of tasks. Never mind his ribs. The doctor had confirmed they had been bruised. The adrenaline had masked that particular nuisance after the crash but now there was nothing dulling it. Apparently, Maggie was having the same issues.
He looked through the open door between them after he finished changing and caught her eye. She was sitting up in bed, her foot propped up on some pillows.
“Not being broken isn’t the same as feeling okay,” she called. “At least if something’s broken, they give you more pain medication.” Her brow was furrowed. She uncrossed her arms to wave him in. The bed next to her was disheveled but empty. The bathroom door was open but empty. She followed his gaze to it. “Cody’s in the hallway talking Deputy Foster’s ear off. I didn’t want Cody to go to school, considering Brick Thrower made a point to let us know that he’s familiar with my life. On the off chance he still wants me after getting that key, I don’t want to give him the opportunity to grab my son.”
“Speaking of the key, I realized something about it.”
Maggie’s entire body perked up.
“Yeah? What?”
“It was a small key, right? Probably to a lock?”
Maggie nodded.
“And what do people nowadays really use those for?”
“Other than bikes and maybe the occasional shed, I don’t know.”
A thread of excitement started to wrap itself around Matt’s gut. The idea of a lead, no matter how theorized, was one of the best parts about his job. It pushed them closer to the truth, to completing the puzzle.
“Storage units,” he answered. “You rent a unit and bring your own lock.”
Maggie’s eyes widened. Then she was smiling right along with him, catching on to his excitement. However, it didn’t last.
“But whose storage unit would it go to? And why would that guy yesterday want it?”
Matt had already had the same questions. He pointed to her.
“I don’t know but you did at some point. Why else would you have hidden it?”
“The operative word is did,” she pointed out. “Now? Not so much.”
“If you could figure it out once, you can do it again.”
The hotel door opened. Cody walked in, looking thoughtful. Deputy Foster nodded to Matt before shutting the door behind the boy. When Cody saw Matt he hesitated.
“Cody, you remember Detective Walker?”
The boy’s eyes were wide. Such acute concern seemed to cross his face that Matt felt his face draw in, too.
“You got hurt like Mom,” the boy said. “You have cuts on your face.”
Matt had forgotten that beyond feeling bad, he also looked it. Maggie, on the other hand, had lessened the intensity of her appearance with makeup. But no amount could cover up everything. Matt wished he’d thought to ask Maggie how she’d explained what had happened to the boy.
“I did,” he decided to tell the truth. “But it’s not that bad.”
Cody looked him up and down. Then he nodded, apparently accepting Matt’s statement as truth.
“Okay.” The boy turned to Maggie. “Mom, I’m hungry.”
Maggie laughed. She shared a look with Matt.
“He really does care,” she promised. “Just not a lot until he gets some food.”
Matt put his hands on his waist and turned back to the boy, serious.
“Well, I can’t blame him. Us men need nourishment.”
Cody nodded, mimicking Matt’s stern expression.
“Yeah, Mom.”
Maggie held her hands up.
“I guess I can’t argue with that logic.”
Chapter Fifteen
It wasn’t until Tuesday afternoon that something shook loose with the case. By that time it had been four days of hotel living. Four days of fast food and room service. Four days of being cooped up and slowly going stir-crazy. Four days of forced proximity with a man Maggie had spent five years avoiding.
The first day Matt had kept his distance after breakfast. He’d kept the door open between their rooms but worked on his laptop and phone, out of sight at his desk. The only conversation she’d heard was him
checking on Dwayne’s condition at the hospital. Maggie had tried to eavesdrop on more of his calls, or when Sheriff Reed or Detective Ansler had stopped by, but Cody had made that difficult. It was like she had a toddler all over again. His books, toys and the television did little to ease his restlessness. It wasn’t until day two that Matt was able to ease some of the pressure.
“Want to explore the hotel for a few minutes with me?” he asked after they finished off their lunch at the lone table in her room. “I was thinking about stretching my legs.”
Cody had lit up like a Christmas tree. He was still working through his shyness with Matt but the offer had been too good for him to stay silent. His little eyes found their way to hers and he’d started in with a chorus of “Please, Mom” and “Pretty please.”
Matt’s “I won’t let him out of my sight” was what really did the trick.
The two had marched out of the hotel room with purpose and they’d come back in with smiles. Apparently, Matt had regaled the boy with watered-down police stories full of action and mystery. So much so that they’d taken another walk that night—and every day since. It became a little ritual, one Maggie couldn’t join in on.
While she was itching to stretch her own legs or to track down and follow any bread crumbs that could lead to lost memories, Maggie was grateful for the break. Her leg, along with all the other postaccident pain, had been given time to heal. Or at least get to the point where mobility without cringing was possible.
She’d used the downtime to drag out her own laptop—grabbed by the sheriff and his wife, who had offered to pick up extra clothes for her and Matt and Cody—and revisited her original investigation into Erin Walker’s death. Afterward, she’d made a list of everything they knew from recent events. Including his interest in the key she’d hidden at the hotel. Following Matt’s theory that it could belong to a storage unit had focused her attention on the several in Kipsy and the rest of the county. She’d stared at the new and old information until her eyes crossed. Until she felt like she was going crazy. Nothing was adding up. Not one damn thing.
That is until Tuesday afternoon when a news story popped up on the Kipsy City Chronicle’s Facebook page. It was a link to their crime blog but it was the caption that made Maggie stop scrolling.
The Kipsy Police Department is asking for the public’s help in finding a suspect in a recent break-in at a local storage-unit facility.
Maggie clicked the link, heartbeat already speeding up. A picture of a Danny’s Storage Facility billboard was at the top of the page. The press release beneath it was short. However, it was enough to get Maggie going. She grabbed the pen and hotel notepad and scribbled down Danny’s Storage Facility’s address. When she was done with that, she focused on her leg.
The swelling had gone down but there was still some soreness. She’d spent the past few days testing the limits of her mobility and could, at the very least, walk without her crutch. It just hurt a little and was less of a walk and more of a limp.
Now she tested her leg again, moving around the room in search of socks and shoes and lipstick. The lipstick wasn’t necessary but Maggie still grabbed the tube and put it on with conviction. She was excited and wanted Matt to get on the same wavelength. Plus, she hoped putting on lipstick showed him without her having to say it that she meant business. Maggie straightened her back, held the piece of paper in her hand like it was the track-and-field baton and waited to pass it off to the detective the moment he came through the door.
Luckily, she didn’t have to wait long.
“We saw a squirrel jump off the roof,” sang Cody, riding his own wave of excitement into the room. Maggie paused only long enough to get an explanation for that.
“One of the rooms was open and we scoped it out,” Matt jumped in. “Through the window we saw a squirrel jump off the roof next door onto a tree.”
Cody made a stretched-out scoff.
“That’s what I just said!”
Matt laughed and held up his hands in defense.
Maggie used the opening to push the paper into the palm of one of them. It confused the detective but he read it regardless.
“And this is?”
Maggie was brimming with excitement now. It showed her how stir-crazy she’d actually become being cooped up in their two rooms for days.
“Cody, why don’t you go see what’s on Matt’s TV?” she answered instead. “Channel 14 has an all-day marathon of Bill Nye the Science Guy.”
Maggie didn’t have to tell the boy twice. He was already singing the theme song before he even made it through the adjoining room’s door. Matt, however, was waiting with his eyebrow raised.
“That’s the address to a storage-unit facility in Kipsy,” she started. “There was a break-in, but they don’t have any leads as to who was behind it.”
It was as if someone had sprinkled Miracle-Gro over the man. He perked right up.
“This could be our guy.”
Maggie nodded but held up her index finger to keep his attention.
“But the break-in happened last week,” she corrected. “They just didn’t catch it until this morning.”
His eyes widened.
“So barring coincidence, this break-in could have been—”
Maggie couldn’t help herself. She cut him off.
“Me! It could have been me. The timing lines up with my missing chunk of memory. I hid the key before lunch in the hotel room. So maybe I took Cody to school and went to the storage unit afterward. Then took the key with me to meet whoever gave me that card for the hotel but then I, for whatever reason, felt the need to hide it. And well...”
“But why? What did you find that led you to the key in the first place? And when did you leave your house without your purse or keys?”
Maggie’s thread of excitement began to unravel.
“I don’t know,” she admitted with a shrug. “But that storage unit may or may not hold the answer.”
Matt eyeballed the address again.
“Did you tell anyone else about this?”
“No. Just you.”
He ran his hand through his hair.
“I need to call Billy. Get someone out there.”
Maggie held her hands up in a stopping motion.
“Or, hear me out,” she said. “We, me and you, go check it out first and let them keep following whatever leads they’re following.”
Matt raised his eyebrow and snorted.
“I’m not about to welcome trouble by walking straight into it. That’s not good police business, or any business really.”
“But we don’t even know where our mystery perp is,” she pointed out. “Last time we saw him, you shot him. There’s a good chance he’s long gone or at least lying low.” Maggie swept her arm backward, motioning to the room as a whole. “As much as I’ve enjoyed our nose-to-the-grindstone, operating-out-of-a-hotel-room methods of investigation, we haven’t gotten anywhere in days. Neither have the rest of the department or the local police. And again, as much as I’ve enjoyed our nonangry meals and our nightly game show viewing, we can’t stay in this hotel forever.” Maggie lowered her voice, hoping Matt caught her shift from optimistic to the direct opposite. “Eventually, we’ll all have to go home. Our separate homes. But right now this is the only lead we have. And I want—need—to see it for myself. To see if any of it is a missing piece to what I did during the span of one lousy day.” Matt kept his eyes on hers as she took a small step closer to him. “Please, Matt, I need to do this. Help me do this.”
For one long moment Maggie was sure he’d say no. Then cite off all the reasons—all legitimate, too—that the two of them going back out into the field, busted and partially broken with a target on her back and a child hidden in a hotel room, was a no-good, very bad idea.
But he didn’t.
Detective Matt Walker actually g
rinned.
“I think I’ve finally accepted the fact that you’re just the most persistent pain in the backside I’ll ever know.”
Maggie felt herself beam. She placed a hand over her chest and upped her Southern accent to classic Scarlett O’Hara.
“Why, Detective, I do think that’s just about the nicest thing I ever did hear.”
* * *
DEPUTY FOSTER HAD been on guard duty every day since they’d first come to the hotel. His partner, Dante Mills, took the night shift so he wouldn’t be run ragged. Though Matt almost wished the deputy was a little slow on his feet that afternoon. Because he might have swallowed their story a little easier. Instead, his eyebrows rode high and his questions swung low.
“And why can’t we just send Detective Ansler out there?” he asked, circling back to his original objection of the two of them leaving.
Maggie opened her mouth to, no doubt, argue her points again, but Matt gave her a look that doused that particular flame. She let him do the talking, though he could tell she was ready to jump in at any moment she thought he was failing. So he decided not to fail.
“Listen, Caleb, there are lines,” he started.
“Lines,” the deputy repeated.
“Yeah, lines. There’s a misconception about lines. On account of there’s not just one of them,” he continued. “There are tons of them. Boatloads of them. And they all separate something you haven’t done yet from something you shouldn’t do at all. The moment you cross any line, you can’t go back. There’s just another line now, in front of you, that you shouldn’t cross, either. So in our line of work, it’s important we don’t cross the lines. And if we do, that we don’t cross so many that we stop seeing the new ones that pop up.” Matt squared his shoulders. He liked Caleb and didn’t want to lie to him. So he was taking the direct approach, flowered by some blunt conversation. “In my career I’ve crossed a few. Ones that I didn’t realize were even there until I’d jumped clear of them. And I know you can agree with me on that.”
Caleb had more demons than most in his past. So he kept quiet on the point. He certainly couldn’t dispute it.
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