Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [168]
“I didn’t know you knew how to throw your voice at will.”
“I don’t. I just got lucky. It’s…it seems to work best when I’m scared, when I’m on some kind of adrenaline rush. Jesus, I don’t know. Come on. We’ve wasted enough time already.”
Maggie agreed. She couldn’t get out of Mary Theresa’s house fast enough. They hurried outside and climbed into the car. “You’ve got to face Thane whether you want to or not,” Maggie said as she slid behind the wheel.
Everything Mary Theresa had told her had turned her blood to ice. Her sister was so calculating, so self-centered, and yet they were twins. Outside, alike; inside as different as night and day.
She twisted on the ignition. Nothing. “What the devil?”
“What’s going on?” Mary Theresa said, her eyes scanning the darkened neighborhood where sprawling mansions stood on large plots, windows glowing warmly in the night.
“Don’t know.” She tried again.
The car didn’t even sputter or cough.
“This is ridiculous.”
“Come on, come on.”
“I’m trying!”
Again she tried the ignition but the car was dead.
“I don’t have time for this. We’ll chance taking one of mine,” Mary Theresa insisted but Maggie sensed a trap. The rental car had been running fine, no hint of problems during the days she’d used it.
“I think we should go to the neighbors’—”
But Mary Theresa wasn’t listening. She’d grabbed her bag and was already storming into the house, opening the unlocked door and rushing inside. Maggie, warning bells clanging in her head, took off after her.
“Wait, M.T.—”
She ran inside and this time Mary Theresa had snapped on the kitchen lights. “I’ll just be a minute,” she explained, when Maggie blinked against the glare. “No one will notice and even if they do, we’ll be gone in a flash.” She opened a cabinet where keys were hung on the inside of the door. “Here we go…oh, shit, the keys are gone.”
“What do you mean, ‘gone!’”
“The spare sets, they were all here.” Her forehead puckered and fear crossed her features. “Oh, God, I’ll bet Wade took them!”
“Where’re yours—?” Maggie asked, then remembered Mary Theresa’s purse had been in her Jeep.
“Let’s go—uh, I’ll call a cab.” She reached for the phone, but as she did Maggie heard the scrape of a shoe behind them. Whirling, she spun and found Eve Lawrence, big as life, in the hallway leading to the garage. “Oh, God—”
“Eve!” Mary Theresa’s voice was hushed.
“I figured you’d show up here.” Eve wasn’t smiling; in fact, her eyes reflected a sadness and she clucked her tongue as she shook her head. “Put down the phone, Maggie.” Sighing, she said, “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this.”
Maggie started to step forward until she spied the small pistol tucked discreetly in Eve’s gloved hand. “You should have stayed where you were supposed to, Marquise.”
“You left me for dead.” Mary Theresa was moving now.
“I was coming back.”
“Sure.”
Eve sighed. “You had to have more pills, Marquise. Otherwise the suicide wouldn’t look real.”
“It wouldn’t anyway—there, there was evidence that other people had been there. You couldn’t have gotten away with it.”
“No one could connect me.” She frowned thoughtfully. “It would have worked. Especially if Renee had kept a cooler head.”
“You killed her,” Mary Theresa said.
“I didn’t have much of a choice.”
“But why?” Maggie asked. “You killed a woman for money—”
“For money. Is that what you think?” She wasn’t looking at Maggie now, but Mary Theresa.
“What else?” M.T. asked, but there was a flicker of worry in her eye.
“Take a wild guess.”
Mary Theresa swallowed hard.
“Thane wasn’t the only man your sister stole from someone, was he, Mary Theresa?” Eve took a step forward.
“Oh, Eve, don’t—” Mary’s face was the color of chalk.
“Oh, no, and it wasn’t only Robby Inman who fell for you. You remember him, don’t you, Maggie, Syd Gillette’s son-in-law, I told you about him.” Eve’s voice had risen an octave and her eyes were bright, shimmering with tears.
Maggie’s heart froze. Suddenly she understood.
Eve nodded. “My second husband, Scott.” She sighed and leveled her pistol at Mary Theresa.