LITMIR.BIZ

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“Did you finally get some insight into me? Find anything interesting, Mr. Keen Eye?”

      She was teasing him. There was a small smile pulling up the corners of her lips. It caught his attention and held it for a few beats too long. It also applied pressure to the idea that he despised the woman next to him. That she was nothing more than a pain in the ass. His ass.

      Maggie put a fist on her hip. She must not have liked his slow response time.

      “Oh, come on, Detective,” she said more harshly. “Make an observation about me based on what you’ve seen. Wow me with your skills.”

      “It’s not as loud as I thought it would be,” he started, rising to the challenge. “The house I mean. With how you present yourself in public and one-on-one I assumed this place would be...more chaotic. Instead, it’s pretty calm. Ordered. Except in here.”

      He motioned to the desk and the scattered papers around her computer.

      “But I bet my badge that all of those are just for show. I can’t imagine someone like you would leave any important documents out like that. Even in your own house. I imagine those are tucked inside that filing cabinet.” Matt motioned to the coffee cups next. “I also assume you work at home, considering the amount of coffee cups on your desk and the treadmill. I bet you use it when you get tired of sitting around all day. Unless I’m wrong and you work late nights instead.” He walked over to the toy cop car. “And if I had to take a stab in the dark about this, I would bet you tried to talk Cody out of this toy, explaining that cops are too by the book for your liking.”

      Maggie’s eyebrow stayed high. She raised her hands in mock defense.

      “Your words, not mine,” she said. “But anyone could have drawn the same conclusions if they’d just walked through the house. Especially if they already knew me or, at least, of me. It’s not a hard stretch to see a treadmill and coffee cups in an office and guess the person works at home.”

      There was no smugness there but Matt did recognize a challenge when he heard one. Maggie was baiting him to prove himself.

      So he did.

      Dropping any hint of a smile from his lips he walked back over to her desk. He pointed to the baby picture of Cody. Her smile wavered before he even spoke.

      “You adopted Cody,” he said simply. “The house is filled with pictures of him as a toddler but this is the only one I’ve seen of him as a baby. And it’s cropped, which means you weren’t the one holding him.”

      Like a candle that had been lit, Matt could almost see her intention to tease him start to burn away. She crossed her arms over her chest.

      “I suppose if you make enough guesses you’re bound to get one right.” Her smile had dwindled down to barely there but he wasn’t reading anger from her. “The first time I met Cody he was three.” She motioned to the picture of him as a baby. “That was the only picture that had been taken of him until he was placed in foster care. I make sure he knows that even though I wasn’t there, I still like to look at how cute my baby boy was.”

      “He knows he’s adopted, then.”

      Maggie nodded.

      “There’s nothing wrong with being adopted,” she said, resolute. “And I wanted to make sure he knew that at an early age. I’m sure he’ll have more questions when he’s older but so far, he’s never had any problems calling me Mom. Even if I tell him it’s a little too formal sounding. But he’s a mini genius so I guess that comes with the territory.”

      This time the smile grew. Love. Pure and genuine.

      Matt might not have known Maggie Carson as well as he’d once thought but in that moment he knew one thing for certain. She loved her son with all of her heart.

      He opened his mouth to say something when his ringtone went off. The caller ID read “Ryan Ansler.”

      “That was fast,” Matt muttered. He looked at Maggie before pressing Accept. “Give me a minute.”

      * * *

      THE DRIED BLOOD had washed away easily enough in the shower but that didn’t mean Maggie wanted to push her luck by blow-drying her hair. The gash left by the bat wasn’t bad enough to need stitches but it was still throbbing enough to be uncomfortable. She stood across from her reflection in her en suite, trying to see if the past two days were showing.

      She felt tired and her legs were a little sore. The former could have been attributed to the sleep she’d gotten off and on in the hospital but the latter was troubling. Matt had been right about her working from home and using the treadmill when she felt too cooped up or restless. She wasn’t ready to knock out any marathons but over the past few years she’d gotten into fairly decent shape.

      So why were her legs sore?

      Had she walked around a lot the day before?

      Had she run?

      Maggie raked a hand through her hair and blew out a sigh. She’d always loved puzzles. Mysteries had to be solved. Questions had to be answered. That was all she’d ever wanted to do when she was little. Find the truth that people—bad people—tried to hide.

      But now that the new mystery involved her?

      She hadn’t asked to lose a day’s worth of memory. And well, she didn’t like the feeling.

      Just as Matt hadn’t asked to lose his wife. Or have Maggie start her own investigation during what must have been the worst low of his life like some dog after a bone.

      Again she sighed.

      “You in here?”

      Maggie straightened as the detective called into her room. One last look at her reflection and she nodded.

      “Yeah,” she answered, walking out to meet him in the hall. His eyes were wide. Something had happened. “Was that the sheriff?”

      “No, Detective Ansler. But we do have some new information.”

      Again, Maggie searched his expression. It was troubled. The cold knot that had formed in her stomach earlier started to expand.

      “And I’m guessing it’s not the answers to all of our questions.”

      Matt shook his head.

      “CSU reported in,” he started. “Your prints and Dwayne’s were found on the bat. A partial print was found on the inside of the screen door near the handle. And that’s it.”

      Maggie felt her eyebrow rise.

      “What do you mean that’s it?”

      “I mean those are the only prints in the entire house.”

      Her eyes widened.

      “And that’s not normal.”

      Matt shook his head. Again, he didn’t like what he was saying.

      “No, that’s not normal for a lived-in residence,” he replied. “Unless Dwayne has a serious case of OCD, that house should have been covered in his prints at the very least. Which means one of three possibilities.”

      Maggie held up her index finger, much like the sheriff had done earlier in the hospital.

      “One, that Dwayne wiped down the entire place after he was beaten into unconsciousness.” Maggie held up another finger. “Two, I wiped the place down before I did my own unconscious dance.”

      Matt held up his finger in lieu of her ticking off her third.

      “Three, whoever attacked both of you wiped the place down, erasing any evidence linking him or her to the house. And to you and Dwayne.”

      That cold in the pit of Maggie’s stomach was starting to unravel to the point of becoming flat. She had no sarcasm or joke to replace it. There was no denying she was caught in the middle of something.

      And

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