“Is there any reason that you believe Mrs. Dawson would be a flight risk?” Lou asked Mike.
“I don’t even know her, so it's Maggie’s call.”
“I will put up my house,” Maggie said, confidently ignoring Mike’s protective stance. “It’s paid for.”
“Address?” Lou typed in Maggie’s address. When she was satisfied, she again slid the paperwork across to Maggie.
Lou picked up her phone and typed in a text as Maggie started filling out the information. As she printed it, Lou took the pages and typed them into the computer.
Mike’s phone rang and he excused himself. He went outside to speak with whoever it was calling.
A young woman came in the door with a large handbag. She sat in the chair Mike had vacated.
“This is Love,” Lou said to Maggie. “She is a notary.”
“Love?” Maggie asked.
“My parents were hippies. Actually, they still are,” Love said.
I just need your driver’s license or passport,” Love said as she pulled out a log-book and her notary stamp.
Maggie dug through her backpack and pulled out her passport. Love opened her book and copied down the information she needed for ID. She then pointed to a line in the book.
“Please sign exactly as your name appears in your passport.”
Maggie signed the page. Lou set a new set of pages in front of Maggie.
Maggie signed each page and watched Love stamp and sign below.
“Okay. All done.” Lou said, “Thanks, Love.”
Love smiled. “My pleasure, ladies.”
Mike opened the door just as Love was leaving. He held it for her nodding a greeting as she walked through.
“All done,” Lou said.
“When will Liza be released?” Maggie asked, standing.
Lou looked at her watch, “It’s too late to get these processed today. Florida is three hours ahead. I’m afraid she is going to have to sit in jail until Monday, maybe even Tuesday.”
“As soon as I can post it, I will let you know,” Lou said, sitting back in her chair.
“Thanks for your help,” Maggie said.
“I’ll be in touch,” Lou said again this time with a forced smile.
Maggie walked next to Mike out the door. The cool air hit her face.
“You okay?” Mike asked.
“I’m fine. And you?”
“Yes, that was Zoey. She wants to go on a school trip. I told her I would think about it.”
Maggie’s felt her phone vibrating in her backpack. She fished it out and saw that she had three missed calls from Sue. She pressed the phone number that automatically dialed the number. Sue answered on the first ring.
“Hey Maggie, I’m so glad you called. Kat told me you were in town and I have some information about Chase you need to know. I didn’t say anything to the police, but Kat said she would help out. Can you meet Kat and me at the Logistics Center?”
“Sure, what time?” Maggie asked.
“First thing in the morning?”
“I can do that. Would you mind if I brought my friend Mike with me?”
“I think it's best if it’s just you. Kat is pulling some strings to get you the clearance. We don’t want to cause any more attention, but I need to show you something in Chase’s Office.”
“No problem. I just appreciate you are doing this. See you soon.” Maggie hung up and looked at Mike. “I guess I’m going to Chase’s office tomorrow morning, but you can’t come.”
“You got this,” Mike smiled sweetly, “I have some calls to make and we can catch up later. Just take good notes.”
“Will do!” Maggie held up her phone where she would keep her notes, unlike Mike’s old fashioned pocket style notebook. He just shook his head, but the smile that stayed on his face was consoling.
“What should we do with the rest of our day?” Mike asked.
“I would love to get something to eat.”
Chapter 8
After dinner, Maggie and Mike returned to the hotel. Maggie still had the bottle of wine; she bought the night before but didn’t drink. She struggled with whether to ask Mike to join her for a glass. Mike walked her to the door and waited while she searched through her pockets for the key card.
She finally produced it and unlocked the door. Mike stood in the open doorway, taking up the entire space.
“Thank you for coming all this way,” Maggie said. “It means a lot.”
“I care a lot about you, Maggie. I hope you know that.”
Maggie stood frozen as Mike took a step forward, close enough she could smell the remnants of his aftershave.
“I…”
Mike didn’t let her finish; he took her face in both his hands and kissed her so gently she only felt the light touch of his soft lips as if a feather brushed against them. She closed her eyes and in the next moment, his lips were back, but this time they landed hard, with passion. She reached up and put her hands around his neck and returned the affection.
Finally, Mike broke the spell moving back, “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“I know we agreed to stay friends. I don’t want to ruin this.”
“What is this?” Maggie asked, frustrated at the pretense of it all. “We have an attraction and…” she paused, “what if this is real, like the real thing?”
Mike took another step back, now standing in the open doorway they hadn’t bothered to shut,
“I’m just…I…” and he left. He walked right out the door and when Maggie could move, she went to the door, forcing herself not to look out the peephole. He was gone, just like that. Her face was still hot, and her lips numb.
Now she needed that glass of wine to settle her nerves.
Maggie poured some wine into a plastic cup provided by the hotel and sat on the bed. She opened her backpack to pull out her notebook. She needed to concentrate on her meeting with Sue and Kat.
Instead of the notebook, Maggie pulled out the stack of paperwork she took from her dad’s house. There were birth certificates and legal paperwork. She was confused when she came across a document filed with the King County Court. It was a request for a Name Change. The original name on the document was Harrison Gentry and the new name was Gene McFarlin. Her father’s real name was Harrison? Why had he changed his name? The date of the change was May 17, 1965. She would have been two years old.
She flipped open her laptop and typed in the name Harrison Gentry. Instantly a headline popped up. Counterfeiting Cops, her father had been a police officer in Tacoma, Washington, and was sentenced to a twenty-year prison term for taking part in a counterfeiting scheme. He and his partner, Officer Dale Ford, were caught with over $200,000 in fake bills.
Maggie found several other articles, including one that reported that Officer Harrison Gentry only served three years of his twenty-year sentence. His defense attorney convinced the judge he was innocent using the ‘mistake of fact’ defense. Gentry claimed Ford was an investor in a real estate project in Portland, and as his partner, he thought the money was legitimate. The judge must have bought it because he was released, but Officer Ford was not so lucky, and as far as Maggie could tell, served the full 20 years.
“I bet Ford wasn’t pleased with my dad,” Maggie said to herself. “Maybe that is why he had to change his name. Maybe they were in witness protection.”
Maggie was still in shock when she continued looking through the internet search of her father Harrison Gentry when she came across a marriage certificate issued in June 1959 between her father Harrison Gentry and a woman named Sarah Anne Marshall.
It was the exact name on the birth certificate Britney had given her and she had been carrying around since the cruise. Until this moment, Maggie couldn’t believe her childhood was anything but ordinary. There were so many secrets. Her father now a stranger and a mother she couldn’t remember.
It now made sense why she and her sister were so different in both looks and mannerisms. Was
Liza even her sister?
Maggie then typed in Gene McFarlin, the name she grew up thinking was her father’s real name. There wasn’t much except a marriage to Joanne White in 1966. Maggie would have been three years old. Maggie couldn’t breathe as it was now definite that Joanne was not her biological mother. It took Maggie a few minutes to clear her brain. She felt like she was in a fog. Who was she? Where was her real mother, the woman on the other birth certificate, Sarah Anne Marshall?
Tears ran down both of Maggie’s cheeks. She was lost and confused. All she wanted to do now was crawl under the covers, but there was a soft knock on the door. Maggie ignored it; sure, someone was knocking on the wrong door. Another soft knock was followed by a little bit stronger of a knock. Maggie wiped her eyes and looked out the peephole.
It was Mike Marker.
“Maggie, open the door. I need to talk to you.”
Maggie stood frozen with her hand on the door handle until she heard his voice again, “Maggie, please, I know your standing at the door.”
Maggie opened the door a crack. She blinked several times as if to clear her vision.
“Can I come in?” Mike asked her in a gentle voice.
Maggie opened the door wide, allowing him into her space. He immediately saw she was upset and had been crying.
“Oh no, Maggie, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It’s not you,” she said as he gathered her into his arms. She put her head on his chest and let herself melt into him.
“Then, what’s wrong?”
She couldn’t speak but took full advantage of the strong arms holding her up and cried.
She cried for what seemed like hours but finally exhausted, released Mike and sat at the edge of the bed.
Finally, she recovered and told him what she found. He took the papers from the bed and stacked them in a pile. He set them neatly on the side table.
“I know it’s a lot to take in at once, Maggie, but it doesn’t change who you are. You are an amazingly bright, beautiful woman. One that I am glad to know. Everyone has a past, and everyone has secrets.”
“I need to tell you something,” Maggie said, blowing her nose with a tissue Mike had handed her sometime during her crying spell.
“Are you sure you don’t want to get some sleep? We can talk in the morning.”
“I think you need to hear this,” Maggie patted the space next to her on the bed and then turned to face him.
“Okay?” Mike looked concerned.
Maggie held her breath before she could say the next words. “I was married to Chase.”
Mike stayed silent, going over the words Maggie just said.
“What? Wait… No way.”
“It was a long time ago, another lifetime,” Maggie started.
“You were married to your sister’s husband? The dead guy?”
“Technically, he was my husband first, but again, it was a long time ago.”
“Wow, I certainly didn’t see this coming.”
“I knew Chase since we were children. We were best friends. I spent a lot of time at his house during my teens. We shared a common interest in reading, especially anything science fiction. When my mother disappeared, I was only 15. Chase’s mother stepped in and became a segregate mother to me. Chase and I had an on and off type of relationship. It wasn’t very dramatic, more of convenience. We both finished college and were settling into our careers. It was actually at our ten-year high school class reunion that we ended up with too much to drink and spent the night together.”
“Five weeks later, I was pregnant. We were not exactly in love, but we were best friends. Against his mother’s wishes, we visited the Justice of the Peace, forgoing a big ceremony. Seven months later, we were the parents of twins. They were tiny. Kyleigh was only two minutes older, weighing only 5 lbs. 2 oz, and Kyle only 4 lbs. 10 oz. Kyleigh always took the position of the firstborn and was always a little mother to Kyle and his protector. They were great kids, and we lived the typical middle-class existence of ballet lessons, little league, and teacher conferences. The kids were our total focus, and they were the light of both of our lives. Chase was an amazing father, and my father was an amazing grandfather. Life couldn’t have played out any better.”
“I had no idea you had kids. You never talk about them,” Mike said.
“The kids were 13 years old and soon began living separate lives. This particular weekend they were both at sleepovers. Kyleigh was with her best friend Chandra and Kyle was at his best friend Brian’s. It was just after dinner when the Sheriff pulled up in front of our house. I saw the car from the plate glass window in the front of the house, so I ran out thinking that they had finally found my mother but the Deputy with tears in his own eyes, told me that my son had been shot and killed.”
“Oh no, Maggie,” Mike placed a hand on her hand while she continued tears again streaming down her cheeks.
“I don’t remember much after that. I’m not sure if I fainted, blacked out or just blocked it all out. The next thing I remember is that I was sitting on the couch next to Chase and he had his arm around me, tears streaming from both his eyes as the Deputy explained the boys were in a tree fort in the back yard when the parents heard the shot. The father said there were three boys in the fort. They had their sleeping bags and were going to spend the night out there like they had several times before. One of the boys brought a gun from home and they were playing with it. One of the boys said that Kyle reached for it, his hand on the barrel pulling it toward him when the boy holding it pulled the trigger and it went off.”
“‘Whose gun was it?’ I asked, but the Deputy said they didn’t know. Chase jumped up and ran toward our bedroom. A few minutes passed when he came back. He was small bent over when he looked up at me and then the Deputy. It’s my gun, he said. His eyes, already red from crying, were now dark with despair. I knew instantly he was blaming himself.”
“Life never got better and as much as Chase blamed himself, he found ways to blame me too. I packed Kyle’s overnight bag and allowed the kids to stay at other people’s homes. He had been against the idea. Neither of us outwardly blamed each other but inwardly, whether we realized it or not, we did blame each other.”
“I’m so sorry, Maggie,” Mike said, now with tears in his eyes.
“The real victim was Kyleigh. She lost her brother to a terrible accident and both parents to overwhelming grief that consumed them so much that they forgot they had another child. We argued constantly and one day, we both noticed Kyleigh was gone. She had been staying with Sharron, Chase’s mom, here and there, but soon it was for weeks at a time until there were no clothes, books, or personal items left at our house.”
"When we finally noticed, Chase called his mother, and she was furious and told him that Kyleigh would be living with her. We realized we had not only lost a son but our daughter. We didn’t even discuss separating, but I moved out and, six months later, received divorce papers in the mail. I signed them without even considering anything that was I them. I trusted Chase to be fair and I think he was. I even showed up to court without an attorney. The judge was reluctant to grant the divorce, but I convinced him. I just wanted it over.”
“I tried to call Kyleigh at least once a week for months, but she continued to refuse to speak to me. I sent cards for birthdays and other holidays and heard nothing. I am ashamed to say that I finally gave up. I haven’t tried to contact my daughter in over ten years.”
Maggie blew out a big breath.
“So, how did Chase end up married to your sister?” Mike asked.
“Honestly, I don’t know the details, but what I can gather, as soon as I moved out, she started bringing him food and helping with housework. She was there for him to work through the grief when I wasn’t available. After the divorce, Chase and Liza got married. I honestly considered suicide but didn’t want to make it so easy on them, so I just moved as far away as possible to South Florida. At first, I hated her; then I got numb to th
e whole situation, now I don’t blame either of them.”
“No wonder you reacted the way you did at the gun range in Palm Beach. Maggie, you should have said something.”
“That was the first time I had held a gun since my son died.”
“It was a long time ago,” he said.
“Not long enough to forget the pain but long enough for forgiveness. My sister is all I have.”
“You still have a daughter,” Mike said softly.
“Who still despises me. I’m afraid I’ve lost her forever.”
“It’s been a long time, maybe…”
“Honestly, I don’t know if I can face the heartache again.”
“She just lost her father,” Mike reminded Maggie, shaking her out of her self-pity.
“I don’t even know how I would get a hold of her,” Maggie hung her head.
“Aren’t you with the best Private Detective in the entire world?”
Maggie smiled at Mike’s handsome face, “The best-lost dog detective ever, but I’ll take a chance on you.”
“It’s going to cost you,” Mike said, winking at her.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Maggie rolled her eyes, but her body relaxed. She had Mike by her side. She knew she wasn’t alone anymore and the thought of connecting with her daughter giving her some hope.
Mike stayed silent. His face was not giving any hint of emotion.
“I just came to apologize for earlier, Maggie. I care so much about you. Just know I am here for you.”
“Thank you, Mike, I do appreciate your friendship and honestly, I am feeling a lot lighter getting all that off my chest.”
“I’ll bet,” he said, “that was a lot of baggage to unload at one time, but now you need to get some sleep, you have a big day tomorrow.”
“I hate leaving you behind,” she said.
“Don’t worry about me.” He smiled tentatively, “I am getting together with a few old Marine buddies in Silverdale.” He stood and bent over and kissed Maggie on the top of her head. She felt like a child. He walked to the door and paused.
Deception Trail: A Maggie McFarlin Mystery Page 6
