Into the Fire

by Margaret Daley

  “Like most, I judge people on first impressions. I like you, Maggie. You would be good for Kane. And besides, you have Kenny’s stamp of approval, and he’s one sharp kid.”

  I like you, Maggie. She tried to swallow past the lump in her throat, but it was lodged so tightly. She needed to change the subject and quickly searched her mind for a safer topic. “Is your cooking class still open?”

  “To you, yes. Have you decided to take the class?”

  “After tasting your lasagna, I’m envious. I’m probably a hopeless case, but yes, I would like to give it a try.”

  “Great! I’ll sign you up, and we can go to class together. No sense in both of us driving to the same place.”

  Maggie finished drying the last piece of china, trying to slow the rapid beat of her heart. Suddenly the idea of spending so much time with Vicky disarmed her more than Maggie had thought possible. This was what she’d wanted. Yes, but couldn’t she have just given Vicky a questionnaire to fill out? Surely that would be a less painful way to find out what she wanted to know.

  “This is gonna be fun. Lately I haven’t had much time for women friends. I realize talking with you that I’ve missed those friendships. Sometimes there are things you just can’t talk to a man about. For some reason I feel a kinship with you.” Vicky laughed, waving her hand in the air. “I guess that sounds funny to you, but it must be because of what you did for Ashley. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that.”

  “This dinner and your cheesecake were thanks enough,” Maggie choked out, pivoting away.

  “Well, I could debate that, but I’ll spare you. I’m just glad you’re right across the hall.”

  With her back to Vicky, Maggie took her time hanging up the towel on the hook. Tears were threatening to fill her eyes. She couldn’t let Vicky see them. How would she ever explain them? she wondered frantically, desperate to get her emotions in check.

  Maggie glanced at the clock on the wall. “Oh! Look at the time. I have a full day tomorrow. I’d better call it a night.” She kept her face averted for as long as possible. When her gaze finally touched Vicky’s, her control slipped further away. “Thanks for the lovely dinner.”

  Maggie hurried from the kitchen, said a few words to John on her way to the front door and was out in the hall before her vision blurred. She felt as though she were coming apart atom by atom, and there was no way she could stop it. Inside her apartment, she made her way to her bathroom.

  I like Vicky. I enjoy the camaraderie. For a while I felt I belonged to her family.

  With that realization came the guilt, the confusion. Maggie stood before her mirror over the sink, trying to pull herself together. She had thought coming to Seven Oaks would be so much easier than it was turning out to be. She had thought back in St. Louis all she had to do was waltz into Vicky’s life, have her questions answered and move on with her own life.

  Not so.

  The tears began to flow. As they streamed down her cheeks, she realized she hadn’t unpacked the tissues yet, so she grabbed the toilet paper and dabbed at her face. Still, she cried. Needing more tissue before leaving to head into her bedroom, she decided to take the whole roll with her. It might be one of those nights where she finally let go of the tight restraints on her emotions. Through the film of tears, she fumbled with the dispenser and dropped the metal rod. It skated across the tile, coming apart. Inside, a small, black rectangular object skidded from its protective nest.

  A flash drive hidden in the toilet paper holder?

  Chapter Six

  When a rap came at the front door, Maggie continued to stare at the small black flash drive. The pounding continued, and she realized she wouldn’t be able to ignore whoever kept knocking. Sucking in several calming breaths, she stooped and picked up the computer device, similar to one she’d used before but not hers.

  Whose then? Henry’s?

  “Maggie!” Kane’s worried tone prodded her into action.

  She hurried from the bathroom, swiping her cheeks to rid her face of all traces of her tears. Her heartbeat matched the insistent pounding as she touched the knob. She wrenched open the door.

  Kane stood in the lighted hallway, his concerned expression skimming over her features. “What’s going on? Are you crying?”

  “It’s nothing.” She gestured as though to dismiss the last several hours.

  Kane captured her hand as he took a step forward. She moved back. Shutting the door with a nudge of his foot, he released her and ran his finger gently across her cheek.

  “I’d say that was a tear, and I doubt you’d cry over nothing.”

  She showed him the flash drive. “I found this in my bathroom hidden in the metal roller of the toilet paper dispenser.”

  One eyebrow rose. “And that made you cry?”

  “It isn’t mine, which means it must be the prior occupant’s.”

  “You think Henry hid it there? Why?”

  “Good question. I wonder what’s on this.”

  “There’s only one way to find out. Let’s look. If it’s Henry’s, then we’ll give it to David in case there’s some kind of evidence on it. Do you have a computer? If not, I do downstairs.”

  “Yeah, I set up my home office in the spare bedroom.” She pointed toward the hallway.

  “Where Henry did.”

  The thought bothered her more than it should, but with what she had been hearing about the man, he wasn’t a nice person. She didn’t like having anything in common with him. Living in the same apartment was bad enough.

  Inside the spare bedroom, she quickly crossed to her desk and sat in the padded chair. She ran her hand across the polished piece of walnut that Kane had used to make the piece of furniture. “This is beautiful. Edwina said something about you retiring from the university to work full-time making furniture.”

  “I’m at peace when I create a piece. My heart isn’t in my job at the school. All the uproar over Henry’s murder has just proven that to me.” Kane pulled a chair up next to her. “When I came back from the Middle East, I needed to do something familiar, so I went back to my old job, but I quickly realized I don’t want to do it any longer.”

  “Hence the new occupation.” Maggie booted up her laptop. “I’m thankful I love what I do. Helping people regain their speech abilities after a stroke fulfills me.” Feeling his gaze on her, she connected with it. “When are you going to retire?”

  “At the end of the school year. I informed Dr. Johnson, the president of Seven Oaks University, last week.”

  “How did he take it?”

  “Not well. He doesn’t like change.”

  “Not many people do, but life is full of changes.” Boy, did she know that! Since her adoptive father had died, her life had been one series of changes after another.

  Kane stuck the flash drive into the USB port. “If this belongs to Henry, let’s hope it will give us some answers. I’m tired of Dr. Johnson breathing down my neck as if I caused all this uproar.”

  Maggie clicked on the only file folder that popped up. When a screen came up asking for a password, she groaned. “Nothing can be easy. Do you have any suggestions what Henry’s password is?”

  “Well, we could try the obvious ones, but there’s always a chance this isn’t Henry’s. Try science and science department. Or Seven Oaks University.”

  After typing in those words and nothing happening, she looked at Kane. “What’s his birthday?”

  He shrugged. “I should have it on his application he filled out when he wanted to rent the apartment. But truthfully Henry isn’t an obvious kind of guy.” He stared off in space, a frown wrinkling his brow. Suddenly a smile spread across his face. “I may have a solution. We could be here days trying to figure it out, but I know someone who is great with computers. As a teen he hacked into the high school network and changed some friends’ grades. He might know how to get around the password. He takes care of the computers at the university.”

  “Who? Let’s call him.” />
  “It’s Bradley Quinn. You met him at Edwina’s the other evening.” Kane pulled out his cell phone, then placed a call to Bradley. When he hung up, he faced Maggie. “He’s coming right over. We’ll meet him down in my apartment. I’ll get Henry’s application in case we need it.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, Maggie sat at Kane’s desk in a corner of his living room, staring at the screen while Kane retrieved the application. She tried a few more words—apartment 2A, the address of the building, stamp collector. Nothing worked, and she didn’t know Henry well enough to come up with any more words.

  When Kane entered with Henry’s application in hand, she said, “Tell me about Henry.”

  “He used people.” Kane took the chair next to Maggie. “But that won’t help us figure out his password. Let’s try his birth date.”

  After Kane recited it, Maggie typed in the numbers then tried using the month spelled out. Neither opened the file on the flash drive. “Okay, besides stamp collecting, what else did Henry do in his free time?”

  “He read a lot.”

  “What kind of books?”

  “Thrillers.”

  “That figures,” Maggie mumbled while inputting words having to do with that pastime. “Does anyone in the building know Henry better than you?”

  “Edwina might, and I’ve gotten the impression that Vicky, John and Henry went to high school together here in Seven Oaks. They all grew up here and are only a few years apart in age.”

  “Anyone else? Maybe someone at the university?”

  “Dr. Johnson and Henry grew up together.”

  “So they’re friends?” Maggie hadn’t gotten the idea that John or Vicky had been friends with Henry.

  Kane plowed his fingers through his hair. “Not exactly. On the surface they gave that impression, but I don’t think they had much to do with each other since Henry moved back to Seven Oaks.”

  “If Bradley can’t help us, I could talk to Edwina while you see Vicky and John about Henry.”

  “Speaking of them, why did you leave so fast this evening?”

  “Left fast? Whatever gave you that impression?”

  “I came back to the living room to find you were gone, and John told me you hurried out the door after helping Vicky clean up.”

  Maggie stared down at the keyboard. “It was late. I thought it was time to go. I…”

  “Why were you crying? Did something happen at John and Vicky’s that upset you?”

  Everything, she wanted to shout but didn’t. She homed in on one of the myriad things that bothered her about the evening and said, “I hated to see Ashley so shy and afraid of me.”

  “She’s that way with everyone. It took her a year to warm up to me. But why would that make you cry?” His assessing gaze studied her.

  “Because she reminded me of myself at that age.”

  “You, shy?”

  “Yes, painfully so.” She looked away from the intensity in his eyes that threatened to peel away the layers of her defense. “I was adopted twice. Once as a baby until the state took me away from the couple for neglect and abuse. I have no memory of that because I wasn’t even two when it happened. That’s just what my second adoptive father told me when I asked questions about my past. I lived in a series of foster homes for several years until I could be adopted again. Then it took over a year before I was.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I learned to fend for myself at a young age. It’s made—” A buzzing sound halted Maggie’s words.

  “That must be Bradley.” Kane crossed to the security panel and pressed a button. “Kane McDowell here.”

  “Hey, it’s Bradley. I brought a program that should do the trick.”

  Kane buzzed him in, then made his way to his door and opened it. “Maggie, we’ll finish our discussion later.” Shortly after, the tall, thin young man entered Kane’s apartment.

  “Did you forget a password, Kane?” Bradley asked, shrugging out of a light jacket.

  “Not exactly.” Kane gestured toward where Maggie sat.

  Bradley’s gaze lit upon her, widening slightly. He covered the distance to the desk. “Miss Ridgeway. Nice to see you again. Is this the flash drive?”

  “Yes. I can’t get into the file on it. It’s protected by a password.”

  “Have you tried all the ones you usually use?”

  “I’ve tried everything I can think of.”

  Bradley sat where Kane had while he took up a position behind Maggie. Angling the computer toward him, the young man began working to recover the password by using a program he’d brought. “This may take some time. Make yourselves comfortable.”

  Kane made coffee for them, then sat with Maggie to wait.

  A few hours later Bradley said, “Got it. It’s Sam Maples—all one word, lowercase.” He clicked on the file as Maggie reached to retrieve the computer. “I didn’t know you knew the new chair of the science department.”

  “I don’t. I found this flash drive in my apartment. It wasn’t mine, but I didn’t know whose it was.” Maggie pulled the laptop toward her.

  “Then this must be Henry’s. Maybe he kept information about the professors in his department.” Bradley relaxed back in his chair as though he wasn’t going anywhere.

  As Maggie opened the file, Kane turned to the young man. “Thanks for coming on such short notice.”

  Frowning, Bradley stood. “If you need any more help, I’m just a phone call away.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Kane headed for the door.

  While Kane let Bradley out of the apartment, Maggie clicked on the first photo in the folder. An older man embraced a young woman in what looked like a classroom.

  “What’s on the file?” Kane asked when he came back to the desk.

  “Is this Sam Maples?” She showed him the screen.

  “Yes.”

  “Is that a student?”

  “It’s hard to tell at that angle. I can’t see her face well, but I do know it isn’t his wife. His wife’s his age.”

  Maggie opened the next picture file. The photo depicted a young woman with long auburn hair kissing Dr. Maples in his office.

  “It could be a student. She’s about the right age.” Stationed behind her, Kane leaned forward to get a better view.

  “There’s another I can open.” The third one, taken as though the person with the camera was standing outside a window, showed Sam and the same redhead in a passionate embrace. Maggie shifted to glance back at Kane, his close proximity threatening her concentration. “Why would Henry have these pictures?”

  “Maybe he used them to hold over Sam.” Kane sank into the chair next to her.

  “So, if Henry was blackmailing Sam for some reason, that could be a motive for killing him.”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m beginning to see why you don’t think Henry is a nice man.”

  “We’d better let David check into that. I’ll call him. Knowing him, he’ll come over tonight for the flash drive.”

  She closed down the files in the folder and removed the device. “Good. The sooner this is resolved the sooner I’ll feel safe. This could be what the burglar was looking for.” Pushing to her feet at the same time Kane did, she bumped against him. She stepped back, but not before her heartbeat quickened.

  He clasped her arms, focusing her attention on him. A grin tilted his mouth upward as he cupped her face. “David’s good at his job. He won’t railroad Sam because there are only a few leads. Leave it to him.”

  “Okay.” But curiosity whittled its way into her mind. Had they found the murderer?

  * * *

  “Are you sure you don’t mind watching Kenny and Ashley?” Vicky asked Maggie in the middle of her birth mother’s living room on Saturday morning.

  “No, I told you Wednesday night after cooking class I didn’t mind watching them when something comes up. Besides, this gives me an excuse not to finish unpacking and to check out the new park
a few blocks away.”

  “Ashley will love that. The city has finally updated all the playground equipment. She has been asking me to take her, but I haven’t had the time.” Vicky snatched up her purse. “I don’t usually have to work on Saturday, and I should be back by noon.”

  Maggie waved her hands. “Go. Don’t worry. We’re gonna have a picnic and be back about two. That’ll give you some time to unwind before the kids descend on you.”

  “Ashley is in her room getting dressed,” Vicky said, heading for the door, “and Kenny is downstairs helping Kane with some sanding.”

  “Does Kenny want to go to the park?”

  “Ask him. I never know with him. One day he wants to be all grown up and the next he doesn’t. But he doesn’t play like he used to. He doesn’t say so, but I think he’s worrying about something.”

  “Do you think it’s because of Henry’s murder?”

  Standing in the entrance to the apartment, Vicky shrugged, an intensity to her expression. “He was acting strange before that, but I’m sure that hasn’t helped. What happened to you hasn’t helped either.”

  When Maggie had mentioned Henry’s name, Vicky had flinched, and anger glinted in her eyes. As Maggie suspected, someone else who hadn’t liked Henry. “Hopefully that’s over. Everything this past week has been peaceful although David hasn’t come up with any solid leads. Don’t worry about us. We’re gonna have some fun.”

  As Vicky left, Maggie thought about what David had told Kane after checking into what was on the flash drive. The detective had talked with Sam Maples. He’d also been surprised by the photos Henry had of him and couldn’t give an explanation of their origin. David hadn’t had enough to charge him with anything. The young woman in the picture was of legal age, and Dr. Maples’ wife had given him an alibi for the night of the murder. But the detective would keep Sam Maples on the list of suspects.

  “Is Mommy gone?”

  Ashley’s quiet words grounded Maggie in the present. She swung around to face the little girl, who was dressed in jeans and a pink T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Again, Maggie had the overpowering urge to sweep her sister up into her arms and give her all the love she had bottled up inside her. Instead, she smiled at the child and said, “Yeah, she just left.”