Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [92]
“Good.”
“So far we’re treating your sister as a missing person, nothing more.”
“You’re not concerned with the possibility of foul play?” Thane asked.
“We’re concerned, but don’t have enough evidence to prove it.” Henderson’s serious mask didn’t crack. “We haven’t ruled out homicide or even suicide—”
“Suicide?” Maggie said. “Mary Theresa would never take her own life. What is this?”
“How well did you know your sister?” Henderson asked, and for the first time in her life Maggie didn’t know how to respond.
She and Mary Theresa had grown up so close, but even then they’d been on different paths, and as they’d become adults they’d drifted further and further apart. There were so many secrets, so many lies, so many betrayals. The truth of the matter was that she didn’t know Mary Theresa very well. Marquise even less.
“I just don’t believe that she would take her own life. Why would you even think such a thing?” She turned worried eyes to Thane.
“She tried once before,” Hannah Wilkins said. “A year and a half ago.”
“No…I don’t believe it.”
Henderson lifted a shoulder. “Her stomach was pumped at Pinehurst Memorial.” He shuffled through the papers on his desk. “She had enough sleeping pills and antidepressants in her to do the job. But she called nine-one-one in time.”
“Oh, God,” Maggie whispered, then eyed Thane. “Did you know about this?”
“After the fact.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” She was horrified. This was her twin sister; aside from Becca, her only living relative.
“She wanted it kept a secret. From everyone. Somehow she pulled it off. Hard to do when you’re a quasi celeb.” He glanced at Hannah. “Must have paid off people at the hospital to keep it quiet.”
Maggie shivered. It seemed that almost everyone she held dear to her was gone. Mitch, her parents, and her husband were all dead. Her sister and daughter were both somewhat estranged from her and as for Thane Walker…well, he too was lost. Rubbing her arms, she pulled herself together. Right now she had to find Mary Theresa. If she was alive, then they could begin to mend their emotional fences. If.
“As I said, your sister wasn’t the most stable person around,” Henderson reiterated, and stared at her long enough for Maggie to suspect that he was considering the fact that she, too, had been under psychiatric care at one time. Not that it was a crime or rare. Unless your name was McCrae. “Then there was the note.”
Cold dread grasped Maggie’s heart in icy fingers. “What note?”
“We found it in the wastebasket by her computer.” Henderson produced a scribbled piece of paper, sheathed in plastic, and Maggie recognized her sister’s backhanded loopy style.
I can’t take this any longer. No one understands me. No one cares. I should just end it all.
Maggie nearly dropped her half-empty cup of coffee. She couldn’t believe it, not Mary Theresa. Never. She was too full of life, too full of herself. “Anyone could have written that,” Maggie whispered, her voice husky as she stared at the damning note.
“It looks like her handwriting, though.”
Maggie nodded, stunned. Was it possible? She glanced over at Thane, saw denial in his eyes, and remembered her sister’s desperate plea. She’d heard it when she’d been alone in the barn. Or had she? Her head began to pound, and she was suddenly exhausted.
Henderson rounded the desk and she thought he was about to escort her out