Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [144]
“Ready?” her aunt called, as Becca slammed the drawer shut. Connie, her expression vexed, threw open the door. “Come on, Becca. We’re late. I swear you’re slower than Jenny and you haven’t even brushed your hair.” Exasperated, she picked up Jenny’s brush and handed it to Becca. “You can do it in the car on the way.”
Becca followed her aunt and swallowed a smile as Connie’s high heels clicked out a quick tempo to the garage. She and Jim were scheduled to go out tonight, and Becca intended to be on a flight to Colorado.
Shaken from the sight of the wreck, Maggie huddled against the passenger window in Thane’s truck as it sped south toward Gillette’s home. She felt cold inside. Empty. And her heart squeezed in fear for her sister. Where was Mary Theresa? Was she alive? How was she connected to Renee Nielsen, and why was the woman driving her car? There was a connection—something she should know about Renee Nielsen, Maggie thought, but she couldn’t figure it out, couldn’t remember where she’d heard the name. Certainly not from Mary Theresa.
From Thane’s cell phone, they’d called Tom Yates, who was faxing as much information as he had not only to the Denver police, but also to the hotel for Thane. “He didn’t know much,” Thane admitted. “Just that Renee had moved away a few years back, up to Beaverton, which is a suburb of Portland, Oregon. She didn’t have a lot of friends and no relatives nearby, but he’ll send everything he’s got on her to us.”
It wasn’t a lot of information, but all they could get for the moment, so as she stared out the window, Maggie had to content herself with the hope that her sister was still alive. The countryside, brown patches of ground showing through the melting snow anchored by dead grass and weeds, flashed by.
“So tell me what you know about Renee Nielsen,” she suggested as she adjusted her gloves and tried to forestall the sense of doom that seemed to be forever chasing her. Maggie was more determined than ever to find her sister and she wasn’t about to stop checking out everyone who had seen her sister in the past couple of weeks.
“Not much to tell,” Thane replied. As his hands tightened over the wheel, Maggie was reminded of the cryptic message she’d gotten from her sister. “I knew Renee a long time ago, but she was just an employee who worked part-time. She just did odd jobs. Worked as a waitress at a local deli part-time, house-sat, took care of pets when people went out of town, and did housework on the side. Tom hired her to keep the house up, and when I was in California for any length of time I saw her. She was friendly, quiet, and pretty much kept to herself. I can’t begin to guess what kind of a relationship she had with Mary Theresa. I didn’t know her all that well. Seems to me she was married, but separated from her husband or some damned thing. Never did divorce him that I know of. But I didn’t know she was close to Mary Theresa.”
“Maybe she wasn’t close,” Maggie said, chewing on her lip pensively. “Maybe she just saw an opportunity.” She glanced at Thane, and her forehead wrinkled in worry as Thane wheeled the truck into a gated community spread around an exclusive golf course. A security guard in a gatehouse stopped the truck, asked whom they planned to visit, made a quick call, then waved them through.
“Looks like the hotel god has deigned to see us,” Thane said, driving across a bridge spanning a lazy creek. Patches of snow covered well-tended lawns of homes that were as expensive and elegant as the one Marquise owned. Thane pulled into a curved driveway that ended in front of a five-car garage. “Let’s go see what the second Mr. Marquise has to say for himself,” Thane said darkly, and Maggie didn’t comment.
As they reached the front door it was thrown open, not by a servant as Maggie would have expected, but by Marquise’s second husband himself. Syd Gillette oozed success. Nearing seventy, his girth had started to expand, despite his avid interest in golf and tennis.