Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [86]
Maggie curled into a fetal position on the cold tile of the floor, closed her eyes and her ears. The world spun, and the words of an old Beatles’ song, “Yesterday,” reeled through her mind.
That was the last time Maggie had seen Thane for a long while. He and Mary Theresa had married the day after she and Maggie had turned eighteen and the ceremony had been private, just the two of them, in Reno, Nevada.
Now, so many years later as they wound through the heart of the city of Denver, Maggie thought it strange that she and Thane were together again, looking for the woman whom they had both once loved, the very woman who had torn them apart.
“Mary Theresa made it sound like you and she never saw each other again.”
“We do. Just not a lot. In fact the last time wasn’t all that pleasant.” His lips compressed as he drove around a car that was attempting to park on Larimer Square where redbrick warehouses and buildings built before the turn of the century had been incorporated into shops, galleries, and restaurants. Maggie barely noticed.
“Why not?”
“We had a fight.”
“About?” she asked, incredulous.
“Money, for the most part. The argument got out of hand. We were at her house and a neighbor overheard it. That’s why the cops think I have something to do with her disappearance.”
“Did—did you threaten her?” Maggie asked, still disbelieving.
“I might have.”
“Might have? Are you crazy? Might have?” She shook her head. “Listen, Thane, you’ve got to be straight with me. What the devil was this about?”
He hesitated a split second as he edged his truck around a minivan that had decided to stop in a loading zone. “Mary Theresa wanted to borrow money from me. It’s not important.”
“If the police think you’re a suspect, I’d say it was damned important.”
“Didn’t you ever fight with your husband?” he asked suddenly. “You were separated, gonna get a divorce, right?” She nodded, some of the wind stolen from her sails. “That’s the way it was between Mary Theresa and me.”
“But you kept seeing her.”
“Not like you’d think. It usually was a case of Mary Theresa just showing up. No notice, no phone call beforehand. She just appears. Most of the time at the ranch in California when she needs to get away. Sometimes I’m there. Once in a while she comes up to Cheyenne, but not often.” He glanced at her and added, “It’s never been romantic between Mary Theresa and me, Maggie. Never. Even when we were married. There was lust at first, yes. Lust and guilt, but once the lust wore off, it was just regret. We didn’t have much in common. Still don’t.”
“But she’s still in contact with you. I don’t understand.”
One side of his mouth lifted in a cynical smile. His eyes darkened a shade. “That makes two of us. Your sister is a complicated and screwed-up woman, Mag. She…” He shook his head. “She always plays both ends against the middle.” He hesitated, as if searching his own dark soul. “It’s hard to explain, but there are times when she needs something—a place to hide, I guess. Sometimes she’s just broken up with a boyfriend, or there are problems at work or whatever. She just has to get away.”
“So she runs to you?” Maggie asked, incredulous. Could she have been fooled for so long? True, Mary Theresa was an actress, but why would she keep Maggie in the dark?
“Not to me. Usually to the ranch outside of Sonoma.” He lifted a shoulder. “For some reason she thinks of it as kind of a sanctuary.”
“I didn’t know.” But there was so much she didn’t understand about her twin, so much she never would.
“She has a room there,” he admitted. “It’s the same one she had when we were married.”
“When you were married?” she repeated and wondered why he was trying to con her. Her temper, always at ready, kicked in. “Do you expect me to believe that you didn’t sleep with your wife?”
“Not after she lost the baby. We were still