Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [88]
“What?” she asked, her temper flaring again. She was tired, hungry, and angry that there wasn’t any more information than before.
“That’s what we intend to find out.”
“Have you talked to all her friends? Her…her boyfriend? Her boss? Her hairdresser, her personal trainer, her…” She let her words fall away.
“Everyone we know of. I was hoping you could come up with some other people she might have contacted.” He glanced over Maggie’s shoulder and, using two fingers, motioned to someone hovering on the other side of the door to come in. Maggie glanced behind her as a petite woman with platinum-blond hair and an upturned nose sauntered into the room. “This is my partner, Hannah Wilkins. Maggie McCrae. I think you and Mr. Walker have already met.”
Thane tilted his head and started to climb to his feet, but Hannah waved him back into his chair. Her eyes hadn’t left Maggie. “So you’re the twin sister. I guessed as much.” Hannah shook Maggie’s hand, glanced at the picture on Henderson’s bulletin board, and shook her head. “You’re a dead ringer for her.”
“Not quite,” Maggie replied, a little uneasy at the woman’s intense scrutiny.
“I doubt that many people can tell you apart.”
Not even the man I loved. Maggie sensed Thane’s gaze touch hers for a heartbeat, before he took a swallow from his cup.
“Let’s bring in another chair,” Henderson suggested, but Hannah shook her head.
“I’m fine. Been sitting all morning.” As if she anticipated Thane offering her his chair, she sent him a steely glance. “Really. Thanks.” She leaned against the filing cabinet. “This is perfect.”
“Whatever.” Henderson shuffled through some of the mess of papers on his desk. “We were hoping you could fill in some blanks for us, Ms. McCrae.”
Maggie leaned back in her uncomfortable chair. “Sure…I mean, whatever…” There was no reason to fight these people, at least not yet. Though Henderson might not care as much as she for Mary Theresa’s safety, he appeared thorough, earnest, and though probably overworked and cynical, had a wealth of information, manpower and technology at his fingertips. So what did it matter if his desk looked like a three-year-old had done his filing?
“Good. Now tell me about your sister and your relationship with her.” The most gossamer of smiles touched his lips. “I think we’ve already established the fact that you’re twins.”
She glanced at the picture of Mary Theresa pinned to the bulletin board. Yes, they were twins, but she was a pale, washed-out version of the vibrant woman smiling in the slick publicity shot. Maggie’s head pounded; she was tired and worried sick. “Yes, we’re twins. Identical, but mirror image. Mary Theresa—well, Marquise—is left-handed and I’m right. There are other characteristics as well, nothing quite as obvious. Anyway, she and I lived with our parents in Rio Verde, California; that’s about an hour or so north of San Francisco, not too far from Sonoma.” Maggie explained about growing up in their family, about her parents’ and Mitch’s deaths. Once in a while Detective Henderson broke in with a question or comment and even more rarely Detective Wilkins did the same, clarifying a point here and there.
They didn’t ask about her affair with Thane. She didn’t mention it. There didn’t seem to be any reason to bring up the painful topic, and she never said a word about her means of silent communication with her sister. Henderson and Wilkins wouldn’t believe her if she did, and anything she might confide in them would be taken with a very jaded grain of salt.
Henderson listened, eyed them both, and once in a while reached for a baseball buried under a manila envelope on his desk, only to ignore it. Hannah Wilkins scratched a few notes on a pad she