Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [72]
Her heart did a stupid little thump, and she berated herself for being a fool where he was concerned. She always had been, though. There seemed to be no changing that. Disgusted with herself, she closed the blinds, cleaned up in the bathroom, and flopped onto the bed. She heard Thane come in, listened as he made a couple of calls—she couldn’t make out the words—then closed her eyes. A small headache that began at the base of her skull and crawled upward nagged at her, and she silently prayed for her sister. Through all the pain and tears, all the feelings of betrayal years ago, she had loved her twin, felt close to her. “Please, M.T., be safe.”
She heard the sound of Thane’s footsteps as he climbed the stairs, held her breath as he walked past her door. He didn’t slow a bit, and she told herself that she didn’t want him to look in on her, that had he opened the door it would have been an invasion of her privacy, that she needed her space to think this all through. And yet a small and very feminine part of her was disappointed that he hadn’t stopped or rapped softly and tried the door.
Furious with her thoughts, she pounded on her pillow, twisted the comforter over her, and squeezed her eyes shut. She needed to sleep, to clear her mind, to wake up refreshed so that she could face the police in Denver and find out what the devil was going on.
Reed Henderson was on his second cup of coffee. Thankfully the caffeine was beginning to surge through his bloodstream and take hold. He’d already ducked a bevy of reporters, ignored calls from the local news stations, and even evaded the DA, who was demanding answers.
About Marquise.
A fading local star who was starting to become a cult figure. Or so it seemed. She’d never even been that famous in life, but now, with her disappearance, hers was very much the name on everyone’s lips. He doubted that anyone else cared much. She wasn’t exactly a national obsession; a couple of bit parts in B-movies in her early twenties, a stint as a weathergirl before she ended up as a news reporter for a small station in Sacramento. Then she landed the job in Denver. She’d been an anchor for one news team before jumping to a rival station as a talk-show host of a daily morning program that, according to the demographics, appealed to housewives in their mid-thirties with two years of college and pre-school-aged children.
Marquise wasn’t exactly high-profile as far as the rest of the country was concerned, but the local press and viewers had loved her. Until recently. In the past year Denver AM had fallen off in the ratings; there was talk of replacing Marquise with a younger, fresher, more with-it face or canceling the show altogether.
So much for her professional life.
However, it was better than her personal one: two husbands, a string of lovers, and a nearly estranged sister. Everyone else who had been close to her was dead. Both parents gone and even the brother—well, if he could be called that—had committed suicide. Maybe it ran in the family—though Mitchell Reilly had been only a first cousin, the son of Frank’s deceased sister who had been unmarried at the time of her son’s birth. No one had known who the kid’s father was, and when Carol had died of a genetic heart defect not long after Mitch had come into the world, Frank Reilly had stepped up to the plate and not only adopted the kid but raised Mitch as if he were his son.
Henderson frowned to himself. Marquise’s friends were an odd mix and he was still working on those.
Hannah poked her head into the open door. Behind her, phones rang incessantly over the buzz of conversation, jangle of keys, and hum of computer monitors. Every once in a while laughter erupted, or someone shouted over the din, but the small cubicles and open desks created a sense of barely organized mayhem.
A slow-spreading