Dan grimaced. Normally he had iron control over his emotions, but right now he was tired and in pain. Not to mention something about Maggie really confused him. He wasn’t used to feeling off balance. He sighed and nodded at the chief to show her that he had gotten the message.
Pulling his phone from his pocket, he sent a quick text to Jace with Phillip’s name. This process would move quicker if he had the case details. A minute later, his phone vibrated. He read the text and frowned.
“This just keeps getting stranger,” he muttered to himself.
“Lieutenant?”
He shook his head and handed Chief Garraway his phone. “I had Lieutenant Tucker check our case files. No Phillip Michael Nelson was ever reported as dead or missing in LaMar Pond.”
Chief Garraway narrowed her eyes as she read the message for herself. Her lips pressed together. “Ms. Slade,” she said finally, “do you happen to have a picture of your husband?”
Maggie sprang to her feet and dashed out of the room. The sound of a drawer opening and closing came through the thin walls. A moment later, she hurried back, holding a small photo album in her hand. She flipped through it as she approached until she found the picture she wanted. Then she handed it to the chief, who in turn glanced at the photo and handed it to Dan.
“Yeah, I remember him. We found him in Lake Erie. He had been shot. We were never able to identify him.” He hesitated. If he had been alone with the chief, he’d be fine giving her the rest of the information. He decided to hold his tongue until he could get the chief by herself.
“You found him in the lake?” Maggie whispered, her voice cracking, pain saturating each word.
She covered her face with both hands briefly, shuddering. A strange tension seized him. Not tears. Please, Lord, anything but tears. He was relieved when she brought her hands away from her face. Her lashes were damp, but no tears fell.
“I don’t understand. He was killed in our house.”
That surprised him. “In your house? We went through your house after you disappeared. There was no sign of murder.”
“Not that house. The one we were fixing up together.”
“We found no other property in your name.”
Maggie rolled her eyes and sighed. “That’s because it’s not in my name. It’s in my mother’s name. She was selling it to us. But the deal hadn’t closed yet.”
Chief Garraway nodded. “Okay. Just tell us what happened.”
Maggie took a deep breath. “I came home from work early and heard arguing. It was really loud. I walked to the doorway of the kitchen. Phillip saw me and shouted for me to run. He threw himself at the other man. The gun went off and Phillip fell. I ran out, hopped in my car and took off.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police, Ms. Slade?” Chief Garraway inquired.
“Because the man who shot him was dressed as a policeman.”
Silence.
“Let me get this straight, a cop killed your husband?” Dread curled in Dan’s stomach. It felt as though he’d eaten a lead ball for lunch. Not again, he thought wildly. As much as he didn’t want to believe her, didn’t want to believe that someone charged to serve and protect could do the opposite, he had seen that happen too often in the past. If there was even the possibility, it needed to be taken seriously.
Apparently, Maggie thought he was mocking her. She burst to her feet and crossed her arms across her chest. “I’m not lying! He was dressed like a cop! He kept demanding that Phillip hand something over. He threatened to bring him into the station. Said the chief of police had issued a warrant for his arrest.”
“You said the man demanded Nelson hand something over. Any idea what it was?” Now they were getting somewhere.
But she shook her head and sank wearily back onto the couch. “I don’t know. I had to get out of there. The man might have said he wanted to arrest Phillip, but he wasn’t holding handcuffs, he was holding his gun—and he looked like he couldn’t wait to use it. I think he planned to kill Phillip all along. And then I realized he would know who I was. I’d brought over plenty of my things—letters and paperwork with my name on them—and there were pictures of Phillip and me together on our wedding day hanging on the wall. It wouldn’t be hard for him to know who I was.”
Chief Garraway turned back to Dan. “What information was the LaMar PD able to find out about Nelson after he was found?”
Dan shook his head. “Not much, Chief. His fingerprints weren’t in any databases, so he had no criminal record.”
“Did you circulate his picture?”
“Yes, ma’am. But it must have set off some sort of red flag. Before we got any responses, the FBI stepped in and took over. We were out of the whole case.”
“The FBI?” Chief Garraway’s voice rose in surprise. “Just what was your husband involved with, Ms. Slade?”
“Chief, I can have the LaMar department go over to Maggie’s other house and see if they can find anything.” When she nodded, he got the address from Maggie and stepped outside to call Paul. A few minutes later, he hung up. More bad news. He sighed and pivoted on his heel to head back inside. Stopped.
A row of high shrubs blocked the side of the house from the street. But from his angle, Dan could clearly make out several sets of footprints in the dirt between the house and the shrubs. They had to have been recent, since it had just rained two days ago. The sizes were different, showing that they belonged to more than one person, but all of them were large footprints. Much too large to have been Maggie’s.
He burst inside, startling the women. Briskly, he explained what he had seen.
“That means that you were being watched. Probably to determine your identity. And by more than one man. Whoever that man sitting in jail is, he had a partner. Maybe the man who killed your husband. Maybe someone else. We have no way of knowing how many people are involved.”
Chief Garraway took charge. “Right. Willis, request officers to process the scene. Ms. Slade and her children will accompany us to the station. This house is not safe for them, even with us here.”
Dan remembered his conversation with Paul. As hesitant as he was to deliver more bad news, there was no sense in holding back. “I checked with the LaMar Pond PD. The address that Maggie gave me burned down eighteen months ago.”
What had her husband been involved with? The question reverberated around Maggie’s brain time and time again as she rushed about getting herself and the twins ready to go. Maggie got herself and her cranky kids out the door in record time. The idea that someone had been watching her gave her the willies.
Not to mention the obvious fact that somebody had tried to kill her earlier. This house was no longer safe for her. Or her babies. She glanced over at the lieutenant just in time to see him wince and rub his side. She grimaced, feeling guilty that he had been injured while protecting her. With her hair tucked
