50% Off Murder (Good Buy Girls) (14 page)

“Time’s up, ladies,” Deputy Wilson said.

“It’s going to be all right,” Maggie said. She reached through the bars and squeezed Claire’s hands one more time. “I promise.”

Claire looked at her with sad eyes, and Maggie could tell she didn’t believe her.

The door at the end of the hall opened, and Ginger poked her head through.

“Maggie, time to fly!”

Ginger’s eyes were huge, and Maggie knew that meant that Sam was back.
Uh-oh!

“Hang tough,” Maggie said to Claire. “We’ll figure this out. You’ll see.”

Claire nodded, trying to look brave.

“Thanks, Deputy Wilson,” Maggie said. “You’ve been a huge help.”

“Just take care of that cat,” the deputy said.

Maggie nodded and ran. Ginger popped the door open wider, and Maggie dashed though it.

“He just pulled into the lot,” Ginger said. “If he comes in the back, we’re clear. Go, go, go!”

“Thanks, Stephen,” Maggie said. She snatched her purse off of his desk.

She didn’t wait for him to open the half gate that would let them out. Instead, she hopped over it and turned around
and held her hand out to Ginger, who grumbled while she swung her legs over it and grabbed Maggie’s hand to give her some forward momentum. Together they broke into a sprint for the front doors.

Maggie pushed open the glass front door just as the side door to the station opened. She shoved Ginger out ahead of her so she wouldn’t be seen. Maggie saw Sam Collins stride through the side door. Their eyes met for a nanosecond, and then Maggie was running down the stairs behind Ginger. As they bolted down the walkway, Maggie hit the button on her key fob to unlock the doors to her Volvo. Without breaking their stride, both ladies jumped into the car. Maggie was just pulling away from the station when Sam Collins appeared on the front steps, glaring at her disappearing taillights.

“So, that went well,” Ginger said. “Is it too early in the day to have a drink?”

“It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

“Thank God.”

They were sitting on the padded, wrought-iron furniture set that had been Maggie’s grandmother’s, each with a glass of wine, when Joanne arrived. Maggie had called her immediately and invited her over so they could discuss what Maggie had found out.

“I can’t believe you went to the jail and talked to Claire,” Joanne said. She strode onto the sun porch with a small bag from the Perk Up coffee shop in one hand.

“Oooh, what did you bring us?”

“Red velvet cupcakes,” Joanne said, and she put the box
down on the wrought-iron table. “Gwen had just marked these down to half off when I was going by, so I got a half dozen.”

“Those will compliment the wine perfectly,” Maggie said. She handed Joanne a glass and went to get plates and forks for the cupcakes.

“Two-buck Chuck from Trader Joe’s,” Joanne said as she poured. “My favorite.”

“You can’t beat the price,” Ginger agreed. “I wish Claire were here to enjoy this, too.”

“Speaking of Claire, spill it,” Joanne said.

Maggie put the plates on the matching iron coffee table, and they each helped themselves to a cupcake. She recounted what Claire had told her while Joanne and Ginger listened as they chewed.

Maggie took a big bite of red velvet cupcake—she had a weakness for cream cheese frosting—as soon as she finished talking.

“Is it just me,” Ginger said, “or do you two feel like there is more to the story?”

“There has to be,” Joanne said. “I mean, she saw him dragging a body out of his office, and she didn’t go to the police?”

Maggie swallowed the bite of cupcake and washed it down with a sip of wine. That was exactly what had been bothering her. Why hadn’t Claire gone to the police?

“I can’t help but wonder what she meant when she said that he threatened to tell everyone about her and her past,” Maggie said. “We have to find out what is in Claire’s past.”

“Doesn’t that seem intrusive?” Joanne asked. “I mean, if she wanted us to know, she would have told us, right?”

“She might have told me today, but she ran out of time,” Maggie said.

“If we’re going to help her, what we really need to do is find out more about John Templeton,” Ginger said. “If he was a venture capitalist, I may have some sources in the accounting world that can help.”

“Excellent,” Maggie said. “And I’m going to see what I can find out about Claire.”

“You’re going to investigate her?” Joanne looked appalled.

“No, but I am going to stake out the jail, and when I get a chance, I’m going to question her again, and hopefully she’ll have enough time to tell me why she was so afraid of Templeton exposing her past.”

“Girlfriend, you are flirting with disaster,” Ginger said. “If Sam catches you…”

“He won’t,” Maggie said. She was pleased that her voice sounded more confident than she felt.

“And I’ll ask Michael what he knows,” Joanne said. “He’s in a young entrepreneurs group, and he said Templeton came to a few of their meetings. Maybe he knows someone who invested with him who can tell us what he was like.”

“That works.” Maggie lifted her glass in a toast. “To setting our fellow GBG free.”

Ginger and Joanne clinked glasses with her, and Maggie felt optimistic for the first time since she’d seen Claire in her hideous cantaloupe-colored coveralls.

After Joanne and Ginger left, Maggie had dinner with Sandy and Josh. She volunteered to give Josh his bath and
read him a story, as Sandy was prepping for an exam the next day and needed to get in her study time.

Maggie and Josh snuggled in the rocking chair in his room while they read his favorite Thomas the Tank Engine book for what Maggie was sure was the five hundredth time. The nice thing about reading a book so many times was that her mind could drift to other things while she said the words aloud without paying attention.

Naturally, her mind drifted to Claire. What was in her past? She was a librarian. What could she possibly have done? Maybe she’d been a hooker? Maggie tried to picture it with the blonde bob and the glasses…er…
no
.

Maybe she’d been a member of a gang. Yeah, that didn’t fit either.

Josh closed the cover of the book, alerting Maggie to the fact that she’d read the last page. She hefted him up into her arms and sang a lullaby. His head drooped onto her shoulder as she swayed back and forth, rubbing his back with one hand while she cradled him close with her other arm.

His hair was still damp from his bath, and the scent of it brought back memories of holding her own daughter like this seventeen years ago. Rationally, she knew Laura was away at school fulfilling her dreams, but sometimes Maggie missed her so much it was just a black hole of ache in her chest, a void that would never be filled.

When Josh’s breathing evened out, Maggie laid him down in his crib. At two, he had almost outgrown it, but he never tried to climb out and loved it so much that Sandy wasn’t ready to move him to a big-boy bed just yet.

Maggie was just closing the bedroom door when she
heard a knock on the front door. She passed the office where Sandy was studying, and said, “I’ll get it.”

Sandy grunted acknowledgment, not even looking up from the piles of notes that surrounded her.

It was only seven thirty. The summer sun hadn’t set yet, and the air was still thick with humidity. Maggie hoped they’d get a storm soon to break up the unrelenting haze of heat.

She peeped through the eyehole in the door and felt her heart slam down into her feet. Why hadn’t she been expecting him? After the incident at the sheriff’s department, she should have anticipated this visit.

Standing on her front steps in his starched white shirt and badge and with a gun on his hip was Sam Collins. And he did not look happy.

Maggie thought about not answering. She thought about pretending that no one was home, but given that her car was parked in front of her garage, it seemed unlikely that he would fall for it.

Of course, she could tiptoe down into the basement and pretend to be doing a load of laundry, but what if he pounded on the door and woke Josh? That wouldn’t be good. There was no telling how long it would take the little guy to get back to sleep. With a sigh of resignation, Maggie opened the door.

A blast of sticky air hit her in the face like a slap. She kept the air conditioner set at a thrifty eighty degrees but even so, it was much more comfortable inside than out. She debated leaving Sam out on the stoop while they talked, but her mother had raised her better than that.

“Evening, Sam,” she said.

“Hi, Maggie,” he said.

“Do you want to come in?” she asked. Her voice betrayed her feelings, and the invitation sounded as if it had been forced out of her at gunpoint. She glanced at the gun on his hip. Probably a bad analogy.

He gave her a small smile, as if he knew how much it pained her to be polite to him.

“I don’t mind if I do,” he said.

She stepped aside, and he entered her house. A small house to begin with, it shrunk to the size of a mushroom once he entered.

He scanned the room, which was full of pictures of her daughter and a few of her husband. He took in the comfy furniture with a few antiques scattered here and there, giving the room some character.

“You have a nice home,” he said.

“Thanks.” She watched him watching her. If things got any tenser between the two of them, Maggie was pretty sure she was going to spontaneously combust. She drew on the generations of Southern hospitality she had grown up on with her grits and okra.

“Can I get you some iced tea or lemonade?” she asked.

“Lemonade would be real nice,” he said. “Thanks.”

Maggie grunted and led the way to the kitchen.

“I suppose there is a reason you’re here?” she asked.

She poured them each a glass from the pitcher in the fridge and handed his to him with just a hint of put-upon, manners be damned. Again, he smiled as if he knew exactly how she was feeling and he was amused by it.

“I have some questions about your visit with Ms. Freemont today,” he said.

“Oh, that.” Maggie had figured as much and had mentally prepared to sound casual. “Yeah, I’m watching her cat and he’s been horribly sick, so I needed to know what to do for him.”

“So my deputies told me,” Sam said.

He walked through the small kitchen and out onto the sun porch. Maggie followed closely behind him. She got the feeling he was looking for something, and she had a pretty good idea what. Mr. Tumnus chose that moment to run past them as if his tail were on fire.

“That’s the cat, isn’t it?” Sam asked.

Maggie pursed her lips and wondered how much trouble she’d get into if she didn’t answer.

Mr. Tumnus ran past again. This time she could see he was chasing a cricket.

“Mr. Tumnus, right?” Sam asked again.

“And would you look at him go?” Maggie said with wide eyes. “Praise the lord, it’s a miracle. He’s going to live.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam said.

He didn’t look impressed with the miracle before him, more like annoyed. He sat on the wrought-iron furniture, making the couch look smaller than it was, and said, “Maggie, I think it’s time you and I had a little chat.”

“Really?” she asked. “What about?”

Her grandmother had always said you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Of course, Maggie had always wondered why you’d want to, but since she’d been throwing nothing but vinegar at Sam since he’d gotten back and he
still hadn’t left her alone, maybe she needed to toss a little sugar his way. He might just run for the hills, which did seem to be his modus operandi.

He narrowed his eyes as she sat in the seat adjacent to his. He didn’t trust the nice her. Smart man.

“What were you really doing at the jail today?” he asked. When she opened her mouth to speak, he added, “And please do not give me any baloney about a sick cat. We both know he’s fine and always was.”

“Claire is my friend,” she said. “I wanted to see that she was all right.”

She took a sip of her own lemonade, trying to look the part of a worried friend who had no ulterior motives. One of Sam’s eyebrows lifted, and he watched her like a hawk tracking a field mouse. She stared at the rim of her glass, the picture of innocence.

“Did she tell you about Baltimore?” he asked.

Maggie’s gaze flew up to meet his blue one. Did he know about John Templeton? Had Claire told him about what she’d seen? Or was he trying to trick her?

“Mostly, we talked about how she was feeling,” Maggie said.

She didn’t like lying to a law enforcement officer, but since he hadn’t said he was here in an official capacity, and since she
had
been talking to Claire about her feelings, she felt pretty good about her answer.

“And how is she feeling?” he asked.

“About what you’d expect,” Maggie said. “Miserable.”

“Listen,” he said. He leaned forward and set his glass on the table. He rested his elbows on his knees and gave Maggie
a very direct, no-nonsense stare. “I don’t think your friend killed Templeton.”

Maggie sucked in a breath of surprised relief. This was great. Hopefully, he’d let her out of jail and turn his attention toward finding the real killer.