Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [257]
“Mind if we look around?” Agent Tully asked, but Maggie was already halfway up the open staircase. She reached the first landing when she heard Ms. Heston’s panicked voice.
“Oh, good Lord!”
Maggie leaned over the oak railing to see Ms. Heston pointing to a briefcase she had discovered in the corner of the living room.
“This belongs to Tess.” Up until now, the woman had been incredibly professional. Now her sudden panic was unnerving.
By the time Maggie came down the steps, Agent Tully had taken the briefcase and started carefully extracting its contents with a white handkerchief.
“No way that girl’s gonna leave this and not come back for it.” The panic rushed her words, reducing her previous crisp dialect to a slang version she obviously found more comfortable. “There’s her appointment book, her pocketbook…good Lord, something’s just not right here.”
Maggie watched as Agent Tully brought out the last item—a labeled set of keys. Without getting a closer look, Maggie knew they were the keys for this house. Suddenly she felt nauseated. Tess McGowan may have shown this house yesterday, but she certainly didn’t leave of her own free will.
CHAPTER 38
“We don’t know that Stucky had anything to do with this.” Tully tried to sound convincing, but he wasn’t sure he believed his own words.
It was obvious he needed to be the objective one. Ever since Ms. Heston left them, Agent O’Dell seemed to be coming apart at the seams. The calm, controlled professional now paced, quick long steps, back and forth. She ran her fingers through her short dark hair too many times, tucking strands behind her ears, tousling it with her fingers and tucking it in again. Her voice was clipped, and possessed an edge that hadn’t existed before. Tully thought he heard it quiver several times.
He felt as if he was watching from the sidelines as she passed by him. She didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands. They ducked into her trouser pockets, then a quick swipe through her hair again. Several times they slipped into her jacket, and he knew she was checking her revolver. Tully wasn’t sure what to do with her. This was so unlike the woman he had spent most of the day with.
It had gotten dark, and Agent O’Dell had gone through the entire two-story house, turning on lights and pulling closed what few draperies there were, but only after staring out into the night at each window. Was she expecting him to be there?
She was doing a second check downstairs now. Tully decided they needed to leave. The house was spotless. Though the master bedroom smelled strongly of a recent dousing of ammonia, there was no trace that anything had occurred in the house. Least of all, a brutal murder and a violent kidnapping.
“There’s no evidence that anything suspicious happened here,” he tried again. “I think it’s time we leave.” He glanced at his watch and cringed when he saw that it was after nine. Emma would be furious with him for having to spend the entire evening with Mrs. Lopez.
“Tess McGowan was the real estate agent who sold me my house,” O’Dell repeated. It was the most she had said to him in the last several hours. “Don’t you see? Don’t you get it?”
He knew exactly what she was thinking. It was the same thing he was thinking. Albert Stucky would have known too, especially since he must be spending a good deal of time watching Agent O’Dell. He would have seen the two of them together, just the way he saw the pizza girl and the Kansas City waitress. But the truth was, they had absolutely no evidence that McGowan was even missing, other than a forgotten briefcase, and that was hardly proof. He refused to fuel O’Dell’s panic.
“Right now there’s nothing