showed nothing shady. He scanned the picture of Miss Stroup. Small and blonde, aged twenty-eight. The car door opened. A young woman exited the vehicle. Definitely not Wendy Stroup. It was hard to tell her age, but she could have been twenty-seven. Was that Maggie? Her hair was shoulder length, medium brown. Not the black curls from her photo. Still, hair was easy to change. Her face was thinner than it was in her picture. But was it her?
A jogger made his way down the street. He passed the young woman and tossed her a single wave. She gave him a slight wave and a somewhat forced smile back.
And that was when he knew.
Her smile was the one he’d seen in the pictures of the woman he’d been trying to find for the past eighteen months.
As soon as the jogger passed, the woman hurried to the trunk of her car and lugged out a stroller. A stroller? None of his information suggested a child. She flicked her wrists. The stroller sprang open, and she locked it in place. Whoa. A double stroller. His mouth dropped open as he watched her open the back door of the vehicle. She retrieved one sleeping baby, probably close to a year old, and deposited him in the stroller. Then she repeated the action, this time lifting out a little girl. Before she could place the child in the stroller, the baby girl let out a holler. There was nothing he could do to prevent the grin tugging at his lips. That kid had powerful lungs. Even with the windows up, he could hear her. Maggie’s tense face softened. She pulled a pacifier out of a diaper bag and plopped it into the child’s mouth. Peace resumed. She snuggled the baby close for a few seconds, then dropped a light kiss on her head and placed her in the stroller.
Her movements grew jerky. Agitated. The woman was nervous. If she was in hiding, she might feel exposed out in the open like this. He would. She pushed the stroller at a jog up the driveway and around the back of the house. A minute later, the blinds in the front window twitched.
He sent off a brief text to Paul, letting him know what was happening.
Chief Garraway would be interested in the developments of this case, seeing as he was in her jurisdiction. Knowing how much she detested texting, he dialed her personal cell number. He knew if he dialed the office number, it would probably go to her voice mail.
She answered on the second ring.
“Garraway.”
“Willis here, Chief,” he identified himself. “I found her.”
He could hear Chief Garraway suck in a breath. “Is she alive?”
“Yes, ma’am. But it seems we were missing some information.”
“What information, Willis? Don’t play games. Just spit it out.”
Dan grimaced. Better just say it and weather the explosion.
“She has a couple of babies with her. Twins.”
Silence. That didn’t bode well. Then Chief Garraway’s voice exploded across the line.
“Twins! We checked all the hospitals, didn’t we? How could a juror from a high-profile case go missing for over a year, then waltz into a hospital, give birth to twins, then walk out again without us being any the wiser? Can you explain that to me, Lieutenant?”
Dan sighed. “No, Chief. I can’t explain it.”
“Are they hers?”
“I can’t say for sure, ma’am, but my gut says yeah, they’re hers. I haven’t made contact yet.”
“All right. Keep me posted.” She ended the call.
Dan leaned over slightly and slid his phone into the back pocket of his jeans. His hair fell over his eyes. He shook his head, knocking the hair back. He’d never intended to let it grow this long. It was starting to annoy him, so he’d probably cut it when this case was over. He’d probably shave his short beard, too. Right now he had a job to do. Time to meet Miss Maggie and find out why she had disappeared all those months ago.
He reached back and grabbed a leather jacket from the rear seat and put it on. Zipped, it hid the holster with his service revolver. He set off at a casual stroll. Remembering Maggie’s secretive posture, he walked around to the back door. He might have a better shot at getting her to open her door if she didn’t feel as though any passersby could see them talking.
The back door was opened a crack. That was surprising. A woman that wary, he would have assumed she’d have the door shut and bolted.
A scream inside the house jolted him from his thoughts. A woman’s scream. Followed by the distinct sound of a slap. The woman cried out in pain.
“Where is it hidden?” This was a man’s voice, speaking in a menacing snarl.
Dan broke into a run and burst into the house. Two people were locked in a furious struggle.
With a cry, the woman shoved her elbow into the man’s abdomen. He grunted and his hold loosened. She broke away. Her assailant grabbed a fistful of her brown hair and yanked.
Her hair fell off. She had been wearing a wig.
“Police!” Dan yelled, holding his service revolver in front of him. The assailant jerked around and immediately switched targets. Thrusting Maggie aside, he lunged at Dan with a bellow, a large hunting knife in one hand. Dan aimed but was unable to shoot without risking hitting Maggie. In seconds, the assailant was upon him, the wicked knife catching the light as it slashed down.
A burning sensation in his side alerted Dan that he had been stabbed. No time to worry about that now. His attacker was strong but clearly had no training. Dan, on the other hand, had specialized military training—training he hadn’t needed to use in several years. But now it kicked in as automatically as if a switch had been flipped. In short order, he had the attacker handcuffed and seated on the ground while he called in to the station to report the situation.
He was aware of Maggie running to check on the children still strapped in the stroller. Listening to the dispatcher, he twisted around to watch her. Maggie had taken a protective stance in front of the stroller, her glare hot and fierce. A grin threatened to form at her resemblance to a protective mama bear. He squelched it. Pretty sure she wouldn’t appreciate it in the current situation.
“I’m sending a black-and-white to your location, Lieutenant Willis,” the slightly nasal voice of the dispatcher informed him.
“Glad to hear it. Tell them to come around to the back door.” Dan snapped his phone shut and slipped it into his back pocket. That done, he turned to face the woman he had been searching for—Maggie Slade, aka Mary Connors. Her black curls were starting to slip from the bobby pins. Her skin was pale, but her dark blue eyes were alert. Close up he couldn’t believe he had doubted it was her.
“Maggie, I’m Lieutenant Dan Willis with the LaMar Pond Police Department. I’ve been searching for you for a long time.”
It hardly seemed possible, but her face paled further.
* * *
Maggie retreated several steps before realizing there was no place to run. No way to grab her babies and escape. She was trapped.
And confused.
The jogger, a man who had been waving at her for weeks, was sitting
