“Go do your job, Detective.”
She held a breath that she did not exhale until he left. Her lungs shuddered with released tension. The EMT and her partner came to secure her in the back of the ambulance. Soon they were under way. Maggie listened to the mumble of the radio, rested her aching head on the pillow, and thought.
Neither of the EMTs had anything to say. Maggie was glad they weren’t sitting with her. She put her hand in her hip pocket and there was something there that hadn’t been before, that must have been put there when Gibbs touched her hip at the top of the stairs: a steel key with a barrel shaft and a red bow marked with a simple number. Maggie gripped it tightly as the ambulance drove on.
Chapter 21
It was the next day before Karl was allowed to bring her home. The hospital found she had a mild concussion, and monitored her all night, but nothing came of it. They stopped at the pharmacy for a bottle of pain pills, which she didn’t plan to take. Drowsiness was the first and most significant side effect. She wanted to be awake.
Karl wanted to support her as they walked from the car to the front door, but she shook him off. She went into the house under her own power. Her mother waited just inside with a girl tucked under each arm. When she saw them, Maggie felt a surge of emotion that had been missing before. She felt herself tearing up, and she put her arms around all three of them.
“It’s over now,” Susan said into her ear. “All over.”
The girls made happy sounds. It almost made her knees buckle, she was so glad to see them. Maggie kissed them both, then bussed her mother on the cheek. She stepped back and saw Karl watching. His face was soft, his eyes taking in the scene with warmth. This man she knew well. This man she loved. Despite herself, she hugged and kissed him, too, as if they had been apart until now.
“Home again,” Karl said.
“Right.”
They gathered around the kitchen table. Her mother made a breakfast feast with enough food for six people.
For an hour it was enough to sit and talk as though nothing had transpired to disturb this home. Susan wouldn’t allow Maggie to help clean up. Karl insisted Maggie go upstairs to lie down. “I’ll make sure the girls are okay. When your mother’s done I have to go back to work, though.”
“Of course,” Maggie said. She kissed him.
She undressed with some help and Karl assisted getting some flannel pajamas on her. They were too heavy for the season, but they felt soft and comfortable and that worked for her. Maggie’s arms and legs had begun to feel leaden, and she sat dizzily on the edge of the bed while Karl filled a glass of water for the side table. “You all right?” he asked when he came back.
“I’m feeling out of it all of a sudden.”
“You want me to stay?”
“No, you go.”
Karl took the bottle of pain pills out of his pocket and set them by the bed with the water. “Take those if it turns out you need them. Gibbs popped you pretty good, so don’t try to be a tough guy.”
Maggie nodded. She pulled back the sheets. Karl tucked her in. “Be safe,” Maggie said, and she touched his face.
He clasped her hand. “Always. Sleep now.”
She closed her eyes without even realizing it was happening. She heard him walking away. Sleep pressed down on her firmly, forcing her into the mattress. Maggie edged toward surrender until a sudden spark of awareness flashed in her mind. Her eyes snapped open.
The bottle still stood by the bed. She looked at the label for the first time. The prescription called for medication twice a day for a week. Fourteen pills. Maggie twisted off the cap and poured the pills onto the side table. It was hard to focus, but she counted an odd number: thirteen.
She read the label again. DO NOT CRUSH.
Her mother served orange juice with breakfast. It tasted fine, but a little chalky. She picked up one of the pills and touched it to her tongue. The bitterness would have been hidden, but that chalky flavor was distinct.
Karl’s engine hadn’t started outside. He was somewhere in the house, and for some reason it didn’t feel right that he was there. Maggie fell back onto the mattress. She was fading despite herself. She turned on the bed and saw the landline phone on the other side table. She made her way to it like a swimmer crossing difficult water. Her hand fell on the cool receiver. She dragged the whole phone to her and dialed from memory.
“Cooper,” said the man on the other end.
“Mike,” Maggie said. Her voice sounded like a breath.
“Chief? Hey, Chief, are you okay? Where are you?”
“I’m at home. Listen, Mike: what happened to that ledger Gibbs took from the Stricklands’ house?”
“Chief, I don’t think you should be worried about that kind of thing. Are you calling from home? Where’s Karl? Do I need to call Karl?”
“No!” Maggie said too sharply. “I don’t need Karl. I need you, Mike. The ledger. Is it in evidence?”
Mike paused. Maggie faded further. She thought she would fall asleep with the phone against her ear. “I’m not really sure what ledger you’re talking about,” he said at last.
“In the bedroom with Gibbs. He had it. He found it somewhere in the house.”
“Chief, I’m going to call Karl. Something’s wrong here.”
“Goddamnit, don’t call him! Who had access to the room? Who was the first one through the door?”
“It was Karl.”
Maggie pressed her forehead against the sheets. She was almost gone. “You have to find that ledger. You have to…”
She didn’t finish. She was gone.
Chapter 22
Maggie awoke in full darkness. She didn’t have the phone in her hand, but she heard the steady alarum of the off-hook tone throbbing from the abandoned receiver. Her mouth tasted like a desert, but her head didn’t hurt at all. The room was unusually cold, and she knew it was because her mother had turned down the thermostat, knowing Maggie slept better in cold surroundings.
First, she hung up the phone. Second, she got out of bed. Somewhere downstairs, Susan was talking brightly to her grandchildren. Maggie moved quietly, so they wouldn’t know she was awake.
Her clothes from the day before were in the hamper. Maggie dug through them, aware of the little desperate sounds she made as she clawed through the laundry. She found her pants and plunged a hand into both pockets but found nothing. She stifled a cry, then overturned the hamper completely.
Once she had everything spread out, she found the key. It had fallen clear of her pants, but still inside the hamper. In the dryer it would have made a distinctive rattle and couldn’t be hidden. In the hamper it was a secret.
“Maggie, are you awake?”
Her mother’s voice carried from the stairs down the hall. Maggie froze, then cleared her throat. “I’m up,” she said.
“Someone’s here to see you. Are you decent?”
“Who is it?”
“It’s Mike, honey.”
“Tell him I’ll be right there.”
Maggie looked around herself. She went to her dresser and opened the top drawer. She rummaged around inside until she found a small, flat case. Inside was a velvet bed supporting two teardrop pearl earrings. Maggie lifted the bed, put the key Gibbs gave her underneath and then put it all back as it was. Only then did she shut the drawer, grab a robe off the bathroom door, and leave the room.
She found Mike sitting on the floor in the front room with the girls. Lana had the side of a large plastic block jammed against her mouth, but had no way to understand that her jaw would never stretch wide enough to engulf the whole thing. It glistened with drool. Becky giggled as Mike played with a hand puppet of a fluffy lamb, talking in a high-pitched voice and making silly sounds that turned giggles into peals of laughter. Susan watched it all with delighted eyes.
Mike laughed, too, but when he saw Maggie, his face turned serious. “How you doing?” he asked.
“As well as I can be.”
“Mrs. Gilcoe,
” Mike said to Maggie’s mother, “do you mind if the chief and I talk in another room?”
“No, of course not. But don’t get her into any trouble.”
“No trouble, ma’am.”
Maggie beckoned Mike out into the hall. They walked to the formal dining room. It had double doors that could be pulled together. Maggie did that now. “Mike…” she said.
“I got that call, and I didn’t know what to think. You panicked me, Chief.”
“It’s Karl,” Maggie said. “He…I don’t know. I’ll figure it out on my own. But I have to find out about that ledger.”
Mike’s face was engulfed in shadows. She could see the concern in his eyes, the edge of his face limned by the streetlight. “What’s the story with this ledger? You call me up, you sound like you’re in a panic about it. What is it? Where is it?”
“I thought you’d be able to tell me,” Maggie said ruefully. “It’s part of what Gibbs wanted out of Carole Strickland’s house. And I’m pretty sure it’s some of what the killer wanted, too. A record of Gibbs’s business. Who was in his stable. Who their clients were and what they wanted. It’s the kind of thing we need to start pulling this together.”
“Hold on a second, Chief,” Mike said, and he raised his hands. “We don’t need anything. Everything that goes on here is strictly off the books. Karl and I are still the detectives on this case.”
Maggie swallowed. She didn’t want to say the next thing. “Mike, why didn’t Karl wait for backup before he went into Carole’s house on the night of the murders? When you found me there, you had backup. He didn’t go in for me without backup, but he went into Carole’s house with no one else behind him. And he got Carole’s blood all over him without anyone seeing what happened.”
“I don’t know if I like where this is headed,” Mike said. His voice was careful.
“I’m not accusing him of anything. All I want is to put the pieces together. Karl’s a good cop, you and I both know that, so it’s sloppy work at best. And you don’t have the ledger? It’s not anywhere? No one said anything about it?”
Mike shook his head. “No. Chief, what you’re saying—”
“He’s not a killer,” Maggie said quickly. “He might take someone down in the line of duty. Like Gibbs. It was a righteous shooting. No one’s going to fault him for that. Whatever else he might be, and I’m saying this because he’s my husband and you’d expect me to, he’s not a killer. That’s not in him.”
“Chief, you’ve been on the job long enough to know that you can’t always figure who’s a killer and who’s not. I’ve seen it, and I know you’ve seen it. I don’t want to believe Karl’s anything but a straight-ahead cop, but you’re making me ask questions. Maybe he’s not taking anyone out, but…”
“He’s hiding something,” Maggie said.
“Any guesses as to what?”
“I’m not sure yet, but we have to find out. He put something in my drink, Mike. He made sure I was asleep for whatever he had to do next. And if he wasn’t bringing the ledger in to you, that means he took it somewhere else. It might even be in the house.”
“You’ll look for it?”
“When I can. My mother’s here, and as long as you warn me when Karl’s headed my way…”
“So I’m your lookout,” Mike said.
“You have to watch him. You can see him when I don’t.”
“This isn’t right, Chief.”
“You can’t clear a suspect without looking into him first. That’s the rule.”
A sudden glare of yellow light exploded between them as the double doors were slid open from the other side. Karl stood there. His face was grave. “Honey. Mike. Am I missing a meeting?”
Chapter 23
Maggie swallowed everything and put on the face she knew Karl expected: surprised and pleased, but also tired and in pain. Karl’s expression was something else entirely: a thicket of emotions from annoyance to anxiety. “Karl,” Maggie said, “Mike came by to see how I’m doing.”
Karl looked at her, and then at Mike. Maggie saw Mike had turned studiously neutral. He turned it on in a second, and Maggie would never have known the difference if she hadn’t seen it happen in the moment. “How is she doing, Mike?” Karl asked.
“Good, man. Good.”
“I think Mom’s got some dinner for us,” Maggie said, and she kissed Karl on the cheek. His skin was almost imperceptibly moist. When Maggie touched her lips with her tongue, she tasted salt. Karl was holding on to something, too, but he wasn’t so skilled at it. Maggie showed him nothing with her eyes or her voice. “Do you want Mike to sit down with us?”
“Sure,” Karl said. “Come on and have some dinner, Mike.”
They sat around the table with Susan and the girls. Dinner was a hearty soup with chunky, hand-chopped vegetables and a homemade stock. Maggie sat opposite Karl with Mike at the end of the table. Maggie’s mother sat beside Karl and the twins had their own dedicated space. Very little was said. There was the clink of spoons and the sounds of Lana and Becky babbling to each other and to the grown-ups at the table, but not much else.
“Does anyone know any good jokes?” Susan asked brightly, but dead looks silenced her.
Mike pushed his empty bowl away. “I should get going. I have some things to check in on, and then I got to catch some shut-eye. I’ve been burning the candle at both ends.”
“I’ll walk you to the door,” Maggie said.
Karl stood up sharply and jostled the table. The girls stopped what they were doing and gaped. “No, I’ll do it,” he said. “Mike, come on. I’ve got to talk to you about something anyway.”
Mike glanced toward Maggie. Maggie saw her mother watching. “Feel better, Chief,” Mike said, and then left.
When they were both gone, Susan turned to Maggie. “Is there something happening here I ought to know about?”
“It’s better if you take care of the girls and let me handle it.”
“Is this personal or professional?”
“I’m not a cop anymore. It’s all personal.”
Susan reached across the table and put her hand on Maggie’s. “Whatever you think is going on, don’t let it ruin what you have here.”
Maggie slipped her hand free. “That’s not up to me.”
She left the table without offering to help clean up, stopping to kiss each of the girls on their heads. Karl hadn’t returned. She went up to their bedroom and sat, thinking, her mind exploring the house through memory. All the hidden places, all the little-used corners. Each one would have to be checked.
Karl’s footfalls sounded in the hallway outside the room. He appeared. “I have to go back in.”
“You just got here.”
“I know, but I have to go back in. I’m sorry.”
Maggie only nodded. She said nothing.
“I’m not sure what’s going on here,” Karl said quietly. “I know somewhere along the line I started to lose your trust. If you’ll give me a chance, I’ll earn it back. Whatever you think I’m doing, or you think I’ve done, you’re wrong. I’m still the same man I’ve been all along.”
Now Maggie looked at him. He stood in the doorway hesitantly, as if afraid to set foot inside the room. “I want to know one thing,” she said.
“Okay.”
“If I look, if I ask, will I find out you were sleeping with someone else?”
“Who else would I sleep with?”
“Carole. Maybe Holly Gibbs. Have you ever heard of Melissa Mason?”
Karl shook his head slowly. If before he had been easily read, now he was perfectly in control. Maggie couldn’t decide if she believed the mask he wore now. She couldn’t even be certain it was a mask at all, but she wore one with him, and it made sense he would wear one for her. Especially now.
“Go do what you have to do,” Maggie said when the silence went on for too long.
“I do love you,” Karl said.
“I know, Karl. But you should probably go.”
; He did go, and she was alone. This time she waited until she heard him drive away. Her mother’s sing-song talk as she put the girls to bed floated up to her, reminding her the house was alive even if Maggie herself had begun to feel differently. It had come on abruptly in the death of Holly Gibbs, and now it threatened the bubble of peace that surrounded her family.
She waited a full ten minutes to be certain he wasn’t going to come back, and then she went to work.
Chapter 24
She started on the second floor so as not to disturb her mother. The bedroom was her first target, though she was reasonably certain nothing was hidden there. She would have seen Karl do it, or she would have heard him, and even being doped up on the pain pills would not be enough to dull her senses that much. Or at least she hoped so.
The closets and drawers were clear, the space under the bed unoccupied by anything except dust bunnies. She halfheartedly searched the master bathroom, but again she found nothing. Then it was on to the hall, the closets, checking between linens and inside boxes of Christmas decorations and wrapping paper.
In the guest bedroom where her mother slept, Maggie was careful not to disturb anything that might give the search away. When she got downstairs, she’d have to figure out a way to distract Susan until she could clear the first floor. Maggie’s mother had an eye for anything out of the ordinary. She knew already there was more happening than she was being told, and maybe she knew far more than she let on.
The guest bedroom was clear. The second bathroom was clear. Maggie stood in the hallway, thinking. She looked at the door to the girls’ room, and a curtain of darkness draped over her. “No,” she said to herself. “No way.”
Maggie reluctantly stepped up to the door, step by slow step. The door itself was half-closed, the lights switched off. She saw light from the window, but there was deep shadow. She put her hand on the panel and pressed lightly. The door came open. She saw the matching cribs with sleeping forms, the dressers, the changing table, the toy box.
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