“I know where Margaret Slade is.”
Lieutenant Dan Willis held the phone receiver away from his ear and stared at it, shocked. His colleagues Lieutenant Jace Tucker and Chief Paul Kennedy halted their lively discussion on the upcoming football game to watch him. Jace raised his eyebrows. Paul leaned forward. Dan pressed a button, putting the caller on speaker.
“Margaret Slade, you said? You’ve seen her?” Dan nodded as Jace whistled silently. Maggie Slade had vanished more than eighteen months ago in suspicious circumstances. Although he had never stopped looking for her, he had all but given up hope of ever finding her. Alive, anyway.
“Yes, Officer.” The caller’s voice quavered. In Dan’s mind, he was picturing someone’s sweet white-haired granny. “I went to the post office two days ago. Maybe three. I saw some of them missing persons flyers. I thought one of them looked real familiar. It wasn’t until this mornin’ when my neighbor was puttin’ out her trash that I realized it was her.”
“Are you sure? How long has she lived there?” Calm down, Dan reminded himself. This could be another dead end. Dan couldn’t help it, though. Hope rose up in his soul.
“She’s not the real owner. Name’s Mary Connors. Hair’s different than the photo, and she keeps to herself. She moved in almost a year ago, renting, I suppose. I would go ask her, but her car’s not in the driveway.”
“If she does return, please don’t confront her with your suspicions. And don’t let on that you’ve talked to the police.”
The caller agreed, her tone colored with reluctance. People loved to get involved in police business. Especially if they felt they could accept some of the credit. Maybe he was cynical, but he’d seen it happen before.
Dan quickly took down the address and hung up, his adrenaline flowing. Jace leaned over his shoulder to peer at the address. When Jace reached down to pick up the paper, the plain gold wedding band on his left hand flashed as the morning sunlight streaming through the window caught it.
“Huh. Never heard of the place,” he mused.
“I have,” Dan told him. “It’s right outside of Pittsburgh. Big enough to get lost in, but small enough to not feel like a city. Chief?”
Paul nodded. “Yeah, it’s pretty quiet here today. You go ahead and check this out. But do it quietly. If she gets any clue we might be onto her, she might take off again.”
Unasked was the question of why was she still in hiding. Maggie had been a juror in a high-profile murder trial almost six years earlier. Some of the jurors had been murdered a year and a half ago. Maggie had disappeared. Did she know she was safe now? That the murderers had been caught? Or was she hiding for another reason altogether?
“Would you call Chief Garraway?” Dan threw over his shoulder as he headed out of the room. The LaMar Pond department he belonged to now had been collaborating with his old precinct in Pittsburgh on the case. Although Maggie was from LaMar Pond, their past three leads had taken them to Pittsburgh. The two precincts had decided that it was in the best interests of all involved if they worked together. Dan had taken the position as the liaison. He caught Paul’s nod. Good. He was outta here.
Two and a half hours later, he coasted down the quiet suburban street. His right foot hovered over the brake pedal, ready to tap it at a moment’s notice. Leaning forward in his seat, he narrowed his eyes as he scanned the house numbers: 52414...52416... There! 52418 Cherry Lane. That was it. The driveway was still empty. Turning the wheel, he parked his unmarked car on the opposite side of the road. To keep him from looking suspicious, he pulled a map out of the side pocket of the door as a prop and spread it out over the steering wheel. Then he waited.
A yawn caught him by surprise. It figured. He should have known his insomnia would catch up with him. He took a sip of coffee from his travel mug. Hopefully the caffeine would help him remain alert. In an effort to keep himself busy, he reviewed the facts of the case.
The anonymous caller had claimed she recognized Maggie Slade from the missing persons flyers in the post office. There was always the chance she was mistaken. It had happened before. The picture used in the flyers had been from her passport. It was at least three years old. Lots of changes could have happened in that time. He planned to be cautious.
The one fact that kept going around in his mind was that the caller had reported that the woman in question was known as Mary Connors. Not very original. Anyone who was really interested could find out that Maggie’s full name was Margaret Mary Slade. And that her mother had been Anna O’Connor before she married. Nope, it didn’t take a detective to figure out how she had come by the alias. Now all he had to do was sit back and wait for her to appear.
Dan sat still, his eyes vigilant. He scanned the street and then turned his narrowed gaze back on the house, checking for any sort of movement. A car turned onto the street. He kept his posture casual, even though he wanted to sit forward. No use giving himself away.
The car was at least eight years old, a dark blue four-door sedan. Nothing fancy. In fact, no one would look twice at it. It passed him. He put his cell phone to his ear and moved a finger along the map. Anyone looking at him would think he was trying to get directions.
A car backfired. Dan jumped, bumping his head on the roof.
“Idiot. It’s just a car. Not a gun,” he muttered, disgusted with himself. He hadn’t always jumped at loud noises. Just since his second tour in Afghanistan. For a brief moment, his heart sped up as he recalled a burning house. A woman’s voice shrieking through the flames. His gut churned. No. He refused to be drawn into thinking about the past. He had a job to do. He forced himself to focus his attention on the vehicle approaching.
The car slowed, stopped briefly and then continued to swerve into the driveway.
Dan ran the license plate number through the database. The vehicle was registered to a Miss Wendy Stroup. The owner of the house. A registered nurse. Her background check 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,