Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [152]
“Dear God.” Maggie’s soul turned to ice.
“As I said, it might have been a hit-and-run accident where the driver had panicked—”
“But that’s unlikely.”
“Or a goddamned coincidence.”
Maggie’s voice sounded far away even to her own ears. “Come on, Detective. Neither you nor I believe in coincidence. The most likely scenario is that someone tried to kill my sister.” He offered more platitudes, and she hung up more scared than she’d ever been in her life.
“Tell me,” Thane demanded.
She briefed him on the conversation. “I guess you were right.” Her eyes met his and locked.
“Damn!” He grabbed hold of her arm. “I knew this was going to be dangerous. Son of a bitch! Son of a goddamned—”
“Hey, slow down.” She pulled away from him, nearly falling backward when he unexpectedly let go.
“We need to leave.”
“And go where?” she demanded.
“Out of Denver. I never should have brought you here.” Furious with himself he let fly a blue streak.
“And where will we go? Think about it, Thane. We’ve got to find Mary Theresa. Now more than ever. Her life is probably in danger!”
“I know, Mag Pie, and that means yours is as well.” He snatched her wrist, dragged her into the bathroom and forced her to look in the full-length mirror. “It doesn’t take a genius to see that you’re in danger. If someone is trying to kill your sister and even went so far as to kill Renee, thinking she might be Marquise, what do you think will happen when he gets a good look at you, huh?” She stared into her own haunted eyes and swallowed hard. It was true. She and Marquise had been mistaken for each other all their lives. Her gaze met Thane’s in the mirror and in his steely blue eyes she saw fear, pure and primal.
“We can’t leave,” she said despite his punishing grip. “Not until we find my sister.”
“What if it’s too late, Maggie?”
“It isn’t. I won’t believe it.” She rotated toward him and he surrounded her with steel-strong arms.
“Okay,” he said, his lips brushing against her crown. “We’ll try to find her, but you’ve got to promise me that you’ll be careful.”
“And what about you, Thane? Can you promise me the same?”
His muscles flexed and he lowered his mouth to press his lips to hers for one single tantalizing instant. Then he rested his forehead on hers and said with unerring certainty, “What I can promise you is simple, Maggie. I’m gonna get the son of a bitch who’s behind all this and when I do, believe me, he’s gonna wish he was dead.”
Henderson sat at his desk and stared out at the night. His coffee was cold, his stomach rumbling, and he was sick to the back teeth of Marquise or Mary Theresa Reilly or whatever the hell her name was. He’d called Maggie McCrae out of some sense of duty as sooner or later the press would find out that another vehicle had been involved in the accident and they would be swarming on the story like yellow jackets at a backyard barbecue.
He twirled his pencil, glanced at the photo of Marquise pinned to his bulletin board and thought about the other cases under his command. They paled in public interest and, he had to admit, in his as well. Like the rest of the viewing audience he was half in love with the foolish, egotistical celebrity. Yes, she was vain, a liar, a woman who stepped on those who got in her way, a flamboyant personality who obviously didn’t know the first thing about getting her shit together, but there was something enigmatic and dangerously fascinating about her.
Since her disappearance, she’d garnered media attention from as far away as Chicago and Tampa. Once nearly forgotten, a dull dying has-been, she’d suddenly gained that unique luster of a tragic heroine—a woman lost; a beautiful female in the throes of some mystery. And even he wasn’t immune. “Christ,” he growled, disgusted with the turn of his thoughts. It was time to wrap this thing up—long past.
He glanced at the manila folders haphazardly stacked on the corner of his desk—a pile of other investigations that he couldn