Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [87]
“No.” But then I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know anything about your life with her. Folding her arms over her chest, Maggie glared out the window and refused to be saddened by something that had happened years ago.
“Believe me, there’s a lot she probably didn’t let you know about her life and you might not like it. She had a dark side, Maggie.”
“Don’t we all?” she tossed back, unable to stop herself.
“Not like her. Brace yourself. You might be about to find out things about your sister you didn’t want to know.”
“I think I already have.”
The police station loomed before them, and Thane, his countenance grim, his expression harsh and unforgiving, parked the truck in a parking lot that had been cleared of snow. With a glance at her, he reached for his hat. “It’s now or never.”
“Let’s go.” She didn’t want to waste another second.
They walked together along the snow-crusted street, past people dressed in anything from business suits to Western jeans and denim jackets to ski coats and stocking caps. A television van was pulling up as they climbed a few steps. Thane held the door to the station open for her, and, within minutes, they were ushered upstairs to Detective Reed Henderson’s office, two Styrofoam cups of coffee warming their hands, the detective himself seated behind a battered metal desk overflowing with files, notes, and scattered papers. If there was any rhyme or reason to his method of doing business, Maggie couldn’t figure it out.
He’d been gentleman enough to introduce himself, shake her hand, offer her a chair, and order coffee from an underling, but the eyes in his hound-dog of a face didn’t show the slightest bit of warmth.
“So you still haven’t heard from your sister?” he said as Maggie, cradling her cup in fingers that were still cold, noticed a picture of Mary Theresa on the bulletin board behind him. Her throat constricted. Despite all the pain, they were still blood kin—twins. So where was her sister? What had happened to the flamboyant and wild Marquise?
She licked suddenly dry lips. “No. Not a word.” Well, aside from that one desperate nonvocal plea for help. But she didn’t mention that. Wouldn’t. If she did, Henderson would probably have her evaluated by some kind of criminal psychologist on the force. Avoiding the detective’s eyes, she took a sip from the weak coffee in her cup.
“And you?” He lifted one eyebrow in Thane’s direction.
“Nope. Stopped by the ranch on the way here. No messages.”
Nodding as if he expected no more, Henderson tented his hands and looked over the tops of squared-off fingers. “So you went all the way to Idaho to pick up your ex-sister-in-law.”
“Yep.” Thane lifted a shoulder. “Didn’t want her to have to face you alone.”
“Any other reason?”
“Nope,” he drawled. “Just here for moral support.”
“So you’re a do-gooder, Walker?” Henderson said skeptically, his expression doubtful.
“Nah.”
“Didn’t think so.”
Maggie felt the tension in the air, the antagonism between the two men. Obviously neither trusted the other. Nor, come to think of it, did she.
“So I take it you don’t know any more than when you called me,” Maggie said, her spirits sinking. She hadn’t realized until this moment that she was expecting good news upon her arrival in Denver, had hoped that Mary Theresa would have shown up, flustered, tired from a hastily planned trip to who-knew-where, but pleased and amused that she’d caused a stir.
No such luck.
“Nothing more,” the detective admitted. “She’s still missing,