Chapter 15
Maggie’s muscles locked in place, and it took her a second to read the words on the front. Then the air rushed from her chest.
It was a different scent. This one was vanilla. Maggie used peach.
It was okay. It wasn’t hers.
Of course it wasn’t hers. Because why on earth would her aunt take her toiletries? She wouldn’t.
But someone did. The voice whispered in her head, giving her that uncomfortable itch again.
Argh. She hated this. She hated that this person wouldn’t leave her alone. That the deputy on the phone last night had laughed at her. Actually laughed out loud, repeating three times that she was calling because she’d lost her soap and toothpaste.
Outside the shower, she checked the toothpaste, and yep, it wasn’t hers. This entire thing had been a waste of time, and she should never have broken in. Stupid. And she would be storming straight down to Polly and telling her troublemaker best friend exactly that.
She stepped out of the bathroom and was halfway to the door when an old shoebox under the bed caught her attention. She stopped, a memory of her aunt going through that box coming back to her.
Maggie had been fourteen and wanting a lift to Polly’s house because it was raining. She’d walked in on her aunt rifling through the box. She hadn’t even gotten her question out before Lilith had lost it. Yelled at her. Told her to stay out of her room and mind her own business.
Needless to say, she had not received that lift.
She crossed the space and lowered to the floor to pull out the box. Once it was on the bed, she opened the lid…and stiffened.
“Mom.”
On top was an old newspaper clipping. An article about her mother’s death. And there, below the heading, was a photo of her and her mother. She would have been about six. They looked happy.
The article headline read: Young Mother Drowns in Deep River.
Unexpected tears filled her eyes, and she looked back at the photo, running a finger over her mother’s face. They’d shared the same eye color. This hazelly brown with specks of honey.
Her gaze lowered to the article. Lilith had highlighted sentences and words. Maggie skimmed the highlighted sections.
The incident occurred late in the evening, shortly after Sinclair was seen leaving Trap.
Sinclair was alone.
The river was calm with no recent storms.
Authorities ruled the death accidental, with no signs of foul play.
The body was found downstream, several hours after going missing.
Lilith had circled “several hours” and put a question mark beside it.
Why? Why highlight and circle and question things?
The distant thuds of footsteps made Maggie look up.
The door swung open and Polly appeared, a look of what could only be described as horror on her face.
“Polly, what are you—”
“Don’t be mad.” Polly stopped in front of her, chest heaving.
“You only ever say that when you’re about to tell me something that will make me mad.”
“Your aunt is pulling up.”
“What?” She turned to look out the window, and yep, her aunt’s Mazda sat in the driveway. “Shit!”
“Yeah, shit.”
She turned back to Polly, whispering so her words barely crossed the distance. “What do we do?”
“It’s fine. We’ll hide until she leaves. Maybe she forgot something and she’s about to go back to yoga.”
“Or she skipped yoga and she’ll be home for the rest of the day. What if she comes up—”
For the second time, footsteps sounded on stairs.
They were screwed. And not the good kind.
“Hide!” Maggie quickly grabbed the lid and shoved it onto the shoebox before pushing it under the bed.
When she looked up again, Polly was pulling the wardrobe door closed after her.
Maggie barely had time to slide under the bed before the door opened. Lilith walked toward the bathroom, but the door didn’t close after her. It sounded like she was rifling through a drawer.
This was not good. So not good.
She pulled out her phone and texted Ethan.
Maggie: Help!
She’d barely hit send when she sent another text.
Maggie: I’m stuck under Lilith’s bed and Polly’s in the wardrobe. Don’t ask how this happened but we need to get out before she finds us.
The three dots popped up.
Ethan: I can be there in two minutes.
She closed her eyes. Thank God.
But just because he was close didn’t mean she was safe. What if Lilith opened her wardrobe? Or what if she spotted Maggie under the bed before Ethan got there?
Fear bled into her limbs.
If Lilith found them, she’d call Ward. She wouldn’t care that Maggie was family.
She watched her aunt’s feet near the bed, heart stuttering.
The mattress creaked as she sat on the edge. A second later, Lilith’s voice sounded, making Maggie jump.
“I want to speak to Sheriff Ward.”
Maggie frowned.
“I don’t care if he has an appointment. It’s Lilith Sinclair, and I want to speak to him now.”
There was another pause.
“Hi, Rodney. I heard about the fire at the old firehouse. I would like to know the details.”
Why would her aunt care about that?
“So, no suspects?”
Maggie almost rolled her eyes. Of course there were no suspects. That would require Ward to actually work.
“Okay. I need you to let me know if there’s an update.”
Maggie’s frown deepened.
“Yes, it’s my business. I need to know that I’m safe in the town I live in. What’s to say this dangerous arsonist isn’t going to attack residential homes?”
Another pause.
“I know Maggie was there. Me wanting an update has nothing to do with that girl.”
She should probably be used to her aunt referring to her as that girl. It still wasn’t nice.
“Just keep me updated, Rodney.” She hung up, muttering words to herself that Maggie couldn’t make out.
Her aunt stood, but her phone immediately rang.
“Nel, hi, darling.”
Lilith was friends with Nel?
“Yes, getting changed for brunch now. I took the earlier yoga class, which wasn’t the same, but for you, I was happy to swap it.”
Maggie wrinkled her nose at her aunt’s sweet tone. It was weird and unfamiliar and felt fake.
When her aunt hung up, she walked toward the wardrobe.
Oh no…
Maggie was a millisecond away from outing herself to save Polly when the doorbell dinged.
Please God, let it be Ethan.
Lilith left the room, and the second her footsteps hit the stairs, Maggie rolled out from under the bed and the wardrobe doors opened.
“That was close,” Polly whispered. “How do we get downstairs though? We can’t get down without her seeing us from the front door.”
“I know a way out.” Maggie grabbed Polly’s wrist and tugged her out of her aunt’s room and across the hall to her old bedroom.
She closed the door softly before racing to the window and tugging it.
It didn’t budge.
She tried again. Still nothing. Crap. Had her aunt done something? Sealed it shut?
“Maggie, what are you doing?”
On the third pull, it finally groaned open.
She cringed.
It was fine. If her aunt heard, Ethan would take care of it.
She swung one leg over, then the other.
“Maggie.”
“Relax, I’ve done this a million times.” Sure, she’d been sixteen and fearless, but she’d lived to tell the story.
One deep breath, and she dropped the small distance to the back porch roof, the small thud making her flinch. But she didn’t have time to overthink anything.
She looked up at Polly and waved her friend down.
Polly’s eyes flared. “Are you crazy?”
“Come on,” Maggie whisper-yelled. “It’s a small drop.”
“Oh yeah, and the Grand Canyon is a crack in the sidewalk.” Then Polly groaned and swung her legs over. She knew this was the only way down. She scrunched her eyes, and a second later, she dropped.
“See, it wasn’t so bad,” Maggie whispered, tugging her friend up.
Polly rubbed her backside. “It wasn’t so good, either.”
“Please remember who got us into this situation.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m the worst.”
They moved to the edge of the roof.
Polly glanced up. “What about the open window?”
“There’s nothing we can do about that.”
“She’ll know someone was in her house?”
“Right now, all I care about is getting out of here before she sees us and calls Ward.”
Ethan jogged up the steps to Lilith’s front door and rang the bell. Joel sat in his own car, behind Ethan’s. He wouldn’t come out yet.
What the hell was Maggie doing in her aunt’s house? Hell, what was Polly doing in there?
Right now, that didn’t matter. He had to focus on getting her out.
When the door didn’t open, he banged on the wood. He was a second away from breaking the damn thing down when the door swung wide.
Lilith frowned. “Ethan, what are you doing here?”
“Hi, Lilith. I was wondering if you could step outside with me and discuss your ponderosa pine.”
Lilith glanced at the tall tree in her front yard. “Is something wrong with it?”
He stepped back, giving Lilith space to step onto her porch. Eventually, she huffed and stepped out of her house to follow him down to the tree.
“After the fire at the station, my team and I are doing property checks for potential fire hazards,” he said, pulling the words out of his ass.
“And my tree is a fire hazard?” Lilith asked, disbelief threading her words.
“When it becomes overgrown, yes. As a precaution you might want to prune the lower limbs and ensure you keep all needles and cones off the ground.”
“I’ve lived here for over thirty years. There’s never been a fire.”
“There never is—until the first one. I can get names of people who can do the work if you’d like?”
Her lips thinned. “I’ll look into it myself when I get time.”
Meaning, she wouldn’t. Ethan might have been lying about the neighborhood checks, but he wasn’t wrong about the fire hazard.
Lilith looked like she was going to turn, only to face him again. “Are you and Maggie dating again?”
The sound of Maggie’s name from Lilith made every protective instinct scream to life. “With all due respect, ma’am, that’s not your concern.”
If his words offended her, she didn’t show it. “That girl has made an art out of cutting people out of her life.”
“I need to go, Lilith.”
“She’s a flight risk. You’d be smarter to stay with Nel.”
“You’ve never given Maggie enough credit.”