It wasn’t Quin she glimpsed downstairs. It was a man.
Maggie scurried to the closet, grabbing the comforter on her way. She practically threw herself inside and closed the door.
And was very, very silent.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Maggie O’Dell’s apartment would alone convict her.
At first, Nora saw nothing out of the ordinary in the small ground-floor garden apartment. In fact, it was virtually empty: The living room had a secondhand couch; the dining/kitchen area a small table with two chairs; and the bedroom a mattress on the floor with sheets and a blanket pulled tightly around the corners. But as she dug deeper into the dark crevices, Maggie’s crimes became clear.
The pristine kitchen concealed death well. A container in the refrigerator matched that one with the fatal iced tea in Anya Ballard’s dorm room. This one, too, was full. Nora didn’t know if it was poisoned, but they would find out.
In a drawer, jimsonweed was spread on paper towels, drying. In the drawer next to it, a set of knives, handmade, perfectly aligned in a special tray that appeared to have been built for this set of knives.
One knife was missing.
Nora wondered if one or more of them would test positive for blood.
It was the bedroom closet that had Nora most on edge.
The closet was a walk-in, nearly as large as the bathroom. The few articles of clothing hung far to the left side. Every inch of the walls was covered with photos and articles. For a moment, Nora thought she’d walked onto a cheesy movie set when she saw a picture of Jonah Payne taken from a distance at his Lake Tahoe house. Written in black permanent marker across the top:
Pictures of Maggie with Scott, with Anya, with Quin.
The captions were everywhere.
There was a picture of Anya Ballard in a naked embrace with Leif Cole, taken from outside a window. A picture of Quin with … Danny? Yeah, Danny. Whoever was the guy before the new one, Devon. They were at a house Nora didn’t recognize, probably Danny’s. The woman was a voyeur.
The picture of Maggie and Quin bothered Nora the most. Centered on the wall with a big heart around them. She recognized Quin in the picture. It was taken three or four years ago when Quin had gone through a short-hair phase and sported a sleek bob. They both were smiling, Quin’s arm slung over Maggie’s shoulder. The image unnerved Nora. Quin trusted Maggie, and that trust could get her hurt, or worse.
“Nora,” Duke said quietly.
She turned around. He’d closed the door. On the back side was a violent shrine dedicated to Nora.
Over and over, covering pictures of Nora taken while she worked, while she went to the store, while she was sunbathing in her backyard earlier this summer.
One of the pictures had her head cut off. Another, her throat slit with what looked like dried blood around the edges. And another had her heart cut out.
“Oh God,” she gasped.
Steve Donovan called her name from the bedroom.
She opened the door with a shaking, gloved hand.
“Donovan.” She motioned him to go inside while she stepped out.
“Holy shit,” he said.
“She doesn’t stay here,” Nora said, looking around. “It’s too dark, too barren. No privacy. This is her stop- ping-off point. A place to hide, to regroup, to keep her supplies close. Donovan, we need every photo analyzed to see where it might lead us. Every nook and cranny and hiding place. She has another house. It’s private, no neighbors. That’s where she’s living.”
She stepped outside, close to being claustrophobic in the sterile apartment. She dialed Quin’s cell phone. With each unanswered ring, Nora’s fear grew. She should never have let Quin leave Rogan-Caruso without an armed guard. What had she been thinking? About her own pain and guilt, forgetting that she was dealing with a killer who had a connection to her family. Her
Voice mail picked up, Quin’s cheerful voice proclaiming, “Hello, buttercup, this is Quin Teagan, I’m not available-ha ha-but leave a message and I’ll call you when I’m free.”
Nora said, “Quin, call me as soon as possible. Wherever you are, stay there. Let me know where. You need police protection.” She hung up and bit her bottom lip.
“After seeing that you think she’s going after Quin?” Duke sounded both angry and scared. “Did you see what she did to your pictures?”
“But-”
“You’re the one who needs protection.”
“She knows she can’t get to me, not easily. Especially now-you’ve hardly left my side, I’ve been working, I haven’t been alone. Quin is my Achilles’ heel. Maggie knows I’d do anything to save her.” And Nora would. She’d delivered Quin nearly twenty-nine years ago. She’d been terrified of hurting the baby, certain from her mother’s screams that Lorraine was dying. Then she held her, wrapped in a towel, and knew true love.
“How does she know this?”
Nora pushed aside the memories. “Quin told her I was overprotective and controlling. And I’m sure it sounded worse. Maggie is a good judge of people. That’s how she was able to manipulate her boyfriend and Anya for so long. How she was able to fool people into thinking she had a conscience. She knows how to behave. But it’s an act. She’s full of rage and can easily snap. We have to find Quin.”
“Let’s go.”
She glanced at her watch. Seven-thirty. “I doubt she’s still at work. I’ll have police check her house and if she’s not there, her office.”
After she talked to Sacramento PD dispatch, Nora called Quin on her house phone on the chance she’d left her cell phone in the car, while Duke sped out of the parking lot. It rang four times; then voice mail picked up.
“Hiya Sexy, it’s Quin, leave a message and I
“Quin, it’s Nora. If you’re there, pick up the phone. Please. I need to talk to you.”
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
“Dammit, Quin, now’s not the time to be stubborn. I’m worried. Call me back.”
Weather permitting, Quin walked to work because she lived only fourteen short blocks from her office building. Today, she wished she had driven. She didn’t want to go home. She wanted to drive away. Anywhere. Away from Sacramento. From Nora. From her mother. She’d tried to reach Devon, hoping he’d take her to Lake Tahoe. If not, screw him. She’d go herself and find a hot guy on a roll and fill the emptiness inside with good sex. Nora disapproved of her lifestyle, which had spurred Quin on. Who was Nora to judge, anyway?
But Quin didn’t want to find just any guy. She wanted Devon. She really liked him. He was smarter than most of the guys she dated, funnier, cuter. And a doctor. He cared about his work the way she cared about hers. Which is why she’d buried herself in work after walking out on Nora this afternoon.
She turned up the short walk to her town house. She liked the three-hundred-unit complex that took up two square blocks near the river, Old Sac, the movie theater, the K Street Mall. It was convenient, clean, and attractive.
