“How about you don’t just yet,” Nico said, reaching for her phone.
She stared at him. “Why not?”
“Because she’s likely to say something to somebody else,” he said. “And, so far, we want to keep your presence at home a secret.”
“I don’t like keeping secrets.”
“I know,” he said. “But there are times when it’s very important that we do keep things quiet. This is one of them.”
She put her phone down on the table, hopped up, and paced about the kitchen. “This is back to you thinking that Maggie might be involved.”
“No,” Nico said, “it’s back to keeping things close to our chest, so we don’t confuse the issue with lots of other people knowing stuff when they don’t need to know just yet. Let’s clear all these people and see if we can come up with other suspects. Because the bottom line is, you were still kidnapped, and two of your kidnappers are dead, and one’s in custody, and bugs were found in your house. What we don’t know is how long they’ve been here.”
Keane raised his head and looked over at Nico. “Good point,” he said. He turned toward Charlotte. “When was the last time you were gone from the house?”
At that point, she was at the far end of the kitchen by the coffeepot. She spun and stormed back toward them. “I go out for coffee a lot. Sometimes I take my laptop and work in the coffee shop.”
“They wouldn’t need more than an hour or two to install these, so even that could have been enough of a window for them to have completed this job. But, just in case, when was the last time you left overnight?” Keane asked.
“At least six months ago,” she said. “But that would be even worse because it would mean that the bugs were here all this time.”
“And what was the start date for when Maggie worked with you and when was the first day that Vanessa worked with you?” Nico hesitated, then added, “And the last day she worked with you.”
Charlotte took a slow deep breath and walked over, then picked up a laptop that she had in a fancy huge wardrobe-type cupboard and brought it back to the table where she sat down and opened it. “I did hire my newest assistant, I think within about three weeks of the previous one not showing up again.”
“And so, in the meantime, you did all the work yourself?”
“In the meantime, I did none of it,” she said simply. “I just let it build up. And that’s when I realized I couldn’t continue without an assistant.”
“And did Maggie start working from your home?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Only over time has she been slowly taking some of the work back to her place.”
“Do you pay her full-time?”
She nodded. “But I’m not sure I need full-time. That’s a discussion I’ll have to have with her.”
“Did you make that as a potential down the road when you first hired her?” Keane asked.
She looked up and frowned at him. “Do you really think that she would have had me kidnapped to stop me from reducing her wages?”
“Put that way, it sounds pretty foolish,” he said. “But I’m trying to get an idea of what makes her tick. Maybe she wants part-time, and maybe full-time was too much for her. I don’t know.”
She groaned and sagged back. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be bitchy. I’m just … This whole thing is particularly unnerving.”
“And that’s why I wondered if you needed to have a nap,” Nico repeated.
“I slept so much on the flights that now I’m just feeling frustrated.” At that, she hopped up and filled three coffee cups for the three of them. When she brought them back, Keane looked at the cup in her hand and said, “Maybe you shouldn’t be having any. You’re already very jittery.”
She gave him a flat stare which let both of them know that anybody who tried to take away her coffee from her would pay for it.
Nico really liked that spirit and spunk. He hadn’t seen enough of it, but now that she was back home again, and they were trying to solve this problem, he quite enjoyed seeing that part of her personality show up.
Chapter 9
The coffee was more of a prop than a necessary stimulant because, right now, Charlotte’s body was buzzing. Irritation was the primal reason. She hated all the references to Maggie being involved. But, as Charlotte sat here, being honest with herself, she was considering whether, in any way, Maggie could be involved or not. What did Charlotte really know about the woman? Then Nico started asking similar questions to what had already been in her mind.
“Is she married?”
She shook her head.
“Siblings?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Children?”
“I don’t know.”
His eyebrows rose at that. “How long has she been here in town?”
She glared at him. “I don’t know, several years at least.”
He settled back.
She didn’t need him to say anything to realize that basically she didn’t know anything about Maggie. “It’s still early in the investigation,” she announced. “Why not turn your attention to somebody else?”
“Why?” Keane asked under his breath. “This one looks really good.”
She glared at him.
He gave her a half a smile and said, “We have to be realistic here. Essentially you don’t know very much about this woman.”
She sank back into her chair and shook her head. “I thought I did.”
“And what would you think that you know?” Nico asked.
“She’s caring. She’s efficient. She’s punctual, and she does the job I need her to do.” She frowned as she tried to think about her. “She’s pleasant and easy to talk to. I don’t know. She has more of a grandmotherly look, and I find her somebody easy to have around.” Even she could tell that those were completely inane reasons. “Look. I’m not very much into business mode apparently, and I’m doing so much less on the activism front now, and this
