Anger flashed. In an instant. Clint tensed. “Maggie didn’t do this.”
“I know. But we need to know all that we can right now.” It was the truth. PAVAD apparently prized victimology just as much as any other form of profiling. Maggie Tyler was an unknown in this game now. But all that was going to change.
“Maggie and I…she…” Pain flashed in the man’s green eyes. “Maggie’s perfect.”
Not what he was expecting from a man describing his housekeeper. Far from it. “How so?”
“She…”
That’s when Knight got it. It wasn’t Miranda Clint had a thing for. It was another woman a lot closer. “How long have you been involved?”
“She’s worked for me since Violet was about two months old. Just…just before Vi Preston went after her cousin Pandora. About the time Rowland Bowles was here. He had her in his movie. She showed up one day, the flyer for a housekeeper I’d hung in her hand, and still wearing makeup from that movie set.” Clint’s voice broke. “I wanted her to leave, but I was desperate.”
“Why?” There was so much pain in the man’s words, Knight wondered at it. He’d never felt that strongly about a woman. He could say that without a doubt.
He probably never would.
“She’s a Tyler. I’m a Gunderson. I…no Tyler has any business being near me since everything went down with Clive and my brother Jay. But Maggie said she’d work for half pay. Room and board. I think she felt sorry for me. Or Violet.” He gave a grimace. “Or she was trying to escape those brothers of hers. They can be a bit wild. But they crack down hard on Maggie when she even wants to do something normal. Overprotective.”
“Overprotective enough to take her and your daughter and shoot up the house?”
“No. They may be a bit on the troublemaking side, but the Tylers wouldn’t do anything like this. Law-abiding, for the most part.”
“Dr. Talley said there was recent trouble between them and your family.” Miranda needed to get her ass there, where Knight could see what she knew.
She should have checked in by now. She and Agent Lorcan should have been back hours ago. Knight pulled his phone free and dialed Miranda quickly. It was a satellite phone, encrypted with bureau software. It was guaranteed to have signal just about everywhere.
It was a PAVAD luxury.
She didn’t answer.
He followed with a text. Nothing.
Carrie Lorcan was silent, as well. And that shocked him most of all. Carrie Lorcan was one of the biggest sticklers for protocol he’d ever seen. She wouldn’t have let a text go unanswered.
Something more was going on. Knight would bank on that.
Someone called his name softly. Knight turned. Kelly Compton waved him over. Knight stepped in her direction.
“You hear from Dr. Talley or Carrie Lorcan?”
She hesitated, then shook her head. “No, but I did find this in Maggie Tyler’s bathroom.”
Dr. Compton held out an evidence bag, already clearly labeled. Knight took it and looked inside. He bit back a small curse when he saw the pink-and-blue package.
He looked at the man next to him. And made a judgment call. He held the envelope out so Clint could get a good look at it. Not exactly protocol, but he didn’t give a damn.
They had a missing young woman and an infant out there somewhere.
Clint’s curse was low and filled with more emotion than Knight cared to quantify. More pain.
“How far along?” Knight asked, quietly, well aware that Clint’s colleagues surrounded them. And that the other man didn’t trust a single one of them. Knight wouldn’t either. Not now. “And who would know?”
“Two months. Two months and three days.” Clint’s eyes met his. Tortured. “I…buried my wife two weeks after my daughter was born. Three months later, Maggie moved in. And I did something stupid with her a few months ago. Something I never meant to happen. She is eleven years younger than I am, naive, and too good for the likes of me. It didn’t happen a second time. We argued a few days ago. I… she called me this morning. Told me we needed to talk. About something important. I told her…it had to wait. Until after this case. I thought she was going to tell me she was quitting. I should have talked to her last night. But we argued. We argued. She told me…after this case, she was leaving.”
“And this morning? When did you last see her?”
“I left her and Violet still sleeping. I looked in on Maggie to make sure she was ok. I heard her up in the middle of the night. I should have gone to her. I should have gone to her and just talked to her. Maybe she would have told me about the baby. I…who did this, Knight?”
It wasn’t Clint. Shots had been reported ninety minutes ago by a neighbor about half a mile up the road who’d been driving by on their way home from the pharmacy.
Ninety minutes ago, Clint had been in Masterson forty miles away. With Knight and the sheriff.
There wasn’t a tighter alibi than that.
Knight surprised himself when he put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “We’ll find them, Clint. I promise.”
Knight looked at the law-enforcement officers surrounding them as Clint was led away by his own boss.
He looked at Dr. Compton. “Process that yourself. And…make certain that the WSP doesn’t see it at all. Not until absolutely necessary.”
“You think it’s important?” she asked, softly. “I can get creative. For a few hours or so. Unless it’s relevant to the investigation. It could get inadvertently misdirected to PAVAD. As could the beer can and samples from the vomit. I’d prefer it go that way, myself. I could have Ally run it tonight. Keep it with our people. Just in case.”
“Do that. Quietly.” Not his call, but someone had to make it. And Miranda was nowhere to be found.
Someone was out to get Clint Gunderson. He wasn’t about to deliver another tool for hurting Clint right into
