Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [74]
“Jesus, listen to you.”
“It’s all true.”
She let out a small cynical laugh. “That’s what I love about you, Henderson. You’re so damned sensitive and empathetic.”
He ignored the jab. “Goes with the job.” He glanced at his watch. “When are they showing up?”
“Sometime this afternoon according to the message.”
“Good.” He placed the baseball in the chipped replica of the mitt, then opened the thick file on Marquise, and sifted through some of his notes until he found a copy of Marquise’s last will and testament. The document was surprisingly simple for such a complex woman. The only beneficiaries were Margaret Elizabeth Reilly McCrae and her daughter, Rebecca Anne McCrae.
Henderson couldn’t wait to talk to the ex-husband again. And the twin sister. She should be interesting.
Hannah walked into the room and rested a hip against his desk. Reaching forward, she tapped the polished nail of a long finger on the copy of Marquise’s will. “Where’d you get this?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does; we both know it. But, well, forget the legalities of it. Right now this document doesn’t mean diddly-squat. No one’s recovered a body. The woman might not be dead.”
“Then where is she?” Reed asked, because the thought that he’d been set up, that he might possibly be a pawn in Mary Theresa Reilly Walker Gillette’s scheme stuck in his craw.
“That’s a good question, Detective,” Hannah said, as the phone jangled, catching Henderson’s attention. “A damned good question.”
Somewhere a door slammed. Maggie’s eyes flew open, and she focused on an unfamiliar room. Where was Becca? Her heart galumphed in a few unsteady beats before she remembered that she was at Thane’s ranch, and they were on their way to Denver. To find Mary Theresa.
She threw off the comforter and marched to the bathroom, where she splashed water on her face, finger-combed the tangles from her hair, and glared at her reflection. She managed to wipe away the smudges of mascara from under her eyes, dab on some lipstick, and toss an if-this-isn’t-good-enough-it’s-too-damned-bad look at her reflection before grabbing her things and hurrying down the stairs. She dropped her bag and purse on the floor near the front door.
Thane was in the den on the telephone. “…yeah, I know. There’re just some things I gotta take care of…we’ve been over this before, Carrie.” A pause. He turned and saw Maggie standing in the doorway. For a split second their gazes collided, skated apart, then hit again.
For an instant she couldn’t move, then gave herself a hard mental shake. This was Thane she was dealing with. Thane. The man who had taken her heart and trampled it with the worn-down heels of his damned shit-kicking cowboy boots, the man who didn’t seem to have a past, the man who had married her sister and now was a suspect in Mary Theresa’s disappearance. “I said I’d call.” He hung up and surveyed her with an intensity she found unsettling.
“Trouble in paradise?”
One side of his mouth lifted, though the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Let’s just leave it at trouble. You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Just let me connect with Howard. Then we’ll take off. There’s fresh coffee in the maker.” He turned back to the phone, and she left him alone. In the kitchen, she poured coffee and stood at the window. The snow had stopped, at least for the moment, but already the tire tracks that they’d left only hours before were nearly filled by drifts. Overhead, the first few patches of blue sky were visible.
She shivered as she thought about the hours ahead. What would she find in Denver and where, oh, where was her sister?
She heard the sound of Thane’s boots and turned as, shoving an unruly lock of his hair from his eyes, he appeared from the hallway.
“Okay. Howard’s on for a few more days.”
“So we can leave?”
“Yes.”
She took a last swallow from her cup, then tossed the dregs down the sink. “I think you