Sebastian glared at them as though warning dogs to sit and stay. The agents only nodded to Mr. Gentson as he left, a confused look on his face. He managed a concerned expression for Maggie over his shoulder.
“I'm okay, Mr. Gentson. You have a good day.” She closed the door behind him and turned, even before she was facing the two newcomers, they were holding out badges toward her.
“FBI. Omaha,” the man announced.
Maggie made a point of leaning in and checking their badges against their faces, though she wasn't sure what the point was. Once she realized everything matched and that she wouldn’t know a fake if she saw it, she decided to play the kind hostess.
“Come on in.” She motioned everyone into the living room, then watched as the two agents followed her awkwardly while Sebastian brought up the tail position, almost like a sheepdog unwilling to let them turn and escape. She appreciated that.
With a firm hand, and an irritation level that matched them interrupting her first chance to sleep in over thirty hours, she motioned them onto the uncomfortable couch. Then she quietly lowered herself into the matching ornate chair and waited.
The two agents looked to each other, one of those passing glances of understanding that didn't require words.
It was Watson—a blonde woman whose hair was scraped back into a bun and who could only have looked more like a TV version of an FBI agent were she wearing dark sunglasses inside the house—who spoke first. “It would appear that you already know why we're here.”
Maggie wanted to nod. She wanted to tell them how angry she was that it had taken this long for her to be told what was going on. Instead, she offered only information. “A week ago, I handed a jewelry box to officers at my local police station. I had found it hidden under a floorboard. The tangle of jewelry inside seemed odd. I also had a burglary … actually just a break in. I can't be confident they took anything.”
The two nodded but, once again, didn't say anything. She could feel Sebastian’s presence behind her, and she wondered if he had those big arms crossed and was offering her brute muscle as a backup. It probably wouldn’t intimidate the agents, but Maggie appreciated it. Shame she couldn’t turn her head to look without losing her authority play.
“Since you're here,” she continued almost rudely, “I'm assuming the jewelry in the box was associated with the Blue River Killer.”
The two agents looked to each other again, and Maggie felt her stomach drop. Then Watson spoke and it got worse.
“Not exactly.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Maggie swallowed hard. Agent Watson’s words could not indicate anything good.
Sebastian had reacted, too, walking out across the room and grabbing the chair that matched the one she was sitting in. He picked it up, rather than risk scraping the floor, and pulled it over to sit next to her. He made it look as though the piece was as light as a folding chair and not the massive beast Maggie knew it to be.
For a moment, she thought he might reach out and take her hand again, he was close enough. Instead, he sat there, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped in front of him. Something about his expression let Maggie—and the agents—know that he meant business.
It was Decker who began speaking this time. “What I'm about to tell you is sensitive information. I'm sharing this with you because we're going to need your help putting the pieces together.”
Maggie nodded, she considered it more of an acceptance that he had said the words than an agreement to do what he suggested. She was still pissed that she hadn't been told what they’d found before now. She was well aware they weren’t legally obligated to tell her anything other than if she was in direct danger. It didn’t mean she couldn’t argue about it though.
“I'll be honest, agents. It's very concerning to me, as a citizen, that it took this long to get back to me. My evidence was turned in a week ago. You clearly know there's a link between my jewelry box and very serious crimes, yet no one told me about this before today.”
Watson let a quick expression betray her, but when she opened her mouth her tone was neutral. “You were told about it before today. You were the one who told us about the connection.”
“No, ma'am,” Maggie countered sharply, her lack of sleep adding to her irritation. “It's a connection I surmised on my own. When I called the police station to ask for my jewelry back, they would only tell me that the FBI had confiscated it. I merely put obvious pieces together.” She emphasized each of the last three words.
“Yes, ma'am. I understand.” Watson nodded, walking back her earlier irritation.
Maggie didn't mention what information Marina Balero had exchanged with her, because the fact was Marina hadn't explicitly said any of that. Maggie found herself very grateful that she'd given the officer a way to answer without having to say the words.
Sebastian remained silent, but still sat beside her acting like he would take out anyone who pissed her off. It took a moment, but Agent Decker picked up the thread. “The reason you haven't been contacted before now, was because we were still putting pieces together. We received the box in our possession only three days ago and our analysts have been working on it nonstop, given what we found inside. We can't act until we have certain information, but Agent Watson and I were dispatched here as soon as we were given the go ahead.”
As a lawyer, Maggie understood what laypeople often didn't, that law enforcement was very strictly bound in a lot of cases. She was still irritated, though. Her safety, after all, was at stake. She thought so, even if they didn’t.
She waited them out, hoping to get the agents to cough up more information, but it was Sebastian who offered a stern look and prompted them. “Well then, tell us what you found.”
It seemed legal concerns were on agent Watson’s mind as well. She turned to face Maggie but gestured toward Sebastian. “This man introduced himself to us at your door. I'm assuming that you're accepting of his presence here. And that you're okay with him hearing the information that we're about to give you.”
She watched as Sebastian almost rolled his eyes, but legally they needed her permission to say anything personal in front of him.
“He's a friend and he absolutely can stay and hear anything you have to say,” she offered her explicit agreement.
Watson nodded. “Three pieces of jewelry appear to belong to victims of the Blue River Killer.”
Maggie felt the words like a sharp pop to her chest. She’d thought she was ready, but she wasn’t.
Her brain scrambled and her thoughts went simultaneously in two directions. One concern was that she had been right—the FBI had managed to confirm what she suspected all along. But the second thing? “Only three?”
There had been close to seventeen pieces of jewelry tangled in that box. Her stomach churned harder now.
“Yes, ma'am. Only three so far. But that is what makes this case so concerning.” Watson looked to Decker and he told Maggie the rest.
“Two other pieces in the collection—”
Maggie almost shuddered at that word.
“—appear to belong to Blue River Killer victims as well, though we've not yet been able to get confirmation from the families. One of the victims is still considered missing, not confirmed dead. So we’re stuck waiting on that.”
These were all things she and Sebastian couldn’t repeat in public until the families were told first. She might feel sick to her stomach and she might have a creepy jewelry box and a break in, but she wasn’t a murder victim or even missing, presumed dead. That was something to be grateful for.
Maggie took a deep breath to stabilize her wildly swinging emotions. It only partly worked, but she nodded at them to continue. There were still many more pieces to account for.
But the agents weren’t making that any easier.
“The problem is an additional four pieces of jewelry appear to have belonged to victims of the La Vista Rapist, who has been operating in Omaha for the past seven year
s.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sebastian had tried to keep his mouth shut, but it had been very difficult. The information they were hearing was more than enough to make him want to put his fist into a wall or at least whisk Maggie away to somewhere safe.
The agents were talking about all of this as though it didn’t affect her, but it was Maggie's jewelry box—Sabbie’s tenants—in question, and they were in Maggie's home.
Still, he’d not been prepared for that last bit of information. It had stunned him and broken whatever dam was holding him back from joining in. “Are you suggesting that they're the same person?”
He’d heard about the La Vista Rapist. The entire firehouse had been alerted by the police. They were all on the lookout for any cases that bore similarity to the ones happening in Omaha. The city wasn’t that close, but it wasn’t that far away, either.
He even had some case-specific information, because firefighters interacted with medical patients as first responders. Knowing what might identify a serial case was critical information. But he couldn’t tell Maggie that.
He'd have to ask around. At least, as of right now, he didn’t know of any cases where the La Vista Rapist had ventured outside the bounds of West Omaha.
He had so many questions. Though he tried to keep an eye on Maggie and gauge her reaction, he was also watching Watson and Decker.
The agents looked at each other once again. Though they both had excellent poker faces, that move was their tell.
This was about to get worse.
“It's plausible that they are the same person.”
There was a heavy pause and Sebastian waited for the gut punch.
“It's also possible that they knew each other.”
This time it was Maggie's turn to lose her cool and blurt her question. “You think they know each other? Like they are friends and this is some kind of a high school pact?”
It was Decker who took a deep breath and put his hands on his knees, as though the conversation were somehow turning more casual. Sebastian knew it wasn't.
“There's scientific data showing that if a room has a hundred people in it, and two of them are sociopaths, they'll find and acknowledge each other in the first five minutes.”
It took Sebastian a moment to put together why that information was pertinent. “You think the two were operating separately and then found each other.” He was tempted to use air quotes.
“Anything's possible,” Watson added as though covering for a gaffe her partner made. Decker hadn't said anything of the sort. “It's possible they were childhood friends. It's also possible they are not sociopaths.”
“It's hard to believe anyone with a conscience would do these things,” Maggie stated, disgusted tone bleeding through. Sebastian ached for her.
Watson answered that question, too. “There's a story that no one hated Jeffrey Dahmer as much as Jeffrey Dahmer.” She offered only a brief pause before she filled in, “We don't know the motives for the crimes. And though we have profiles on each perpetrator, the information doesn’t necessarily answer these questions. The profiles are often broad and vague until we get more evidence.”
How they didn’t have enough evidence on the Blue River Killer was beyond Sebastian. The killer had been operating for close to thirty years now, and seventeen bodies had been confirmed victims. More were suspected. That should have been enough.
Watson was talking again, and he pushed himself to pay attention.
“That ‘more information’ is likely in this house.”
Sebastian felt his heart sink and watched as Maggie's posture visibly slumped. He wasn't going to make her ask. “What is it that you want?”
“We need to search the house.”
“We've been searching it,” Sebastian countered, as though that would make them say, oh, okay, I guess you're on it then.
He was considering what to do. Maggie needed sleep. She also needed a house that wasn’t possibly full of serial killer and criminal mementos.
Just who had Sabbie been renting to?
Maggie stood up abruptly, hovering over everyone else in the room. “I haven't slept in over thirty-six hours. You're welcome to come back tomorrow morning and search the entire place.”
“We need to begin as soon as possible,” Watson stated, still sitting as though she understood that letting Maggie stand and dominate the conversation was making Maggie feel better.
Maggie shook her head. “I could have been informed when the FBI claimed the box, that there were circumstances the FBI was investigating. I could have been warned that my safety might have been in danger. You chose to wait three days. In fact—”
“We were forced to wait until the evidence cleared.” Watson interrupted, but Maggie wasn’t having it.
“Yes. I understand. And you need to understand that now you'll need to wait until you get my consent.”
Sebastian hid a smile. Lawyer Maggie was on the case.
“We can come back with a warrant.” Decker stated it as though it was friendly banter, instead of the threat they all recognized it as.
“You should have come with one in the first place,” Maggie smacked back.
For a moment, Sebastian wondered if they knew what they were up against. But then he remembered she had a sign out front. If they didn't catch that she was a lawyer, then they weren't very good agents.
She softened her tone. “I will happily let you search my house. But I haven't slept since I woke up yesterday. You interrupted a meeting with a client rather than calling ahead and asking me when it would be a good time. And now you spent almost an hour here when I was supposed to be catching up on sleep because I. Was. Up. All. Night.”
She was repeating herself, but even no-sleep Maggie was magnificent and formidable.
The two agents looked to each other again. “Why were you awake all night?”
Maggie lost it. “Because people have been breaking into my home! And I've had the same car pass my house multiple times!”
Sebastian felt his head snapped to stare at her. Why hadn't she told him?
It hit him quickly. Maybe she hadn’t told him because he’d been working. He didn’t have the kind of job where you called up and told someone that, knowing they’d be home by dinner.
Maggie rattled off information about a silver sedan. He noticed that Decker had pulled out a notebook and was jotting down information as quickly as she spoke. “License Plate?”
“I didn't get it. The times I saw it, I had my friend's daughter with me. I was babysitting. And I wasn't in a position to leave her and run out and chase the car down the street … I haven't seen it since.”
“You've been watching?” Watson added in.
“Yes. I've been watching.”
Sebastian suspected her stern tone was part of what caused the conversation to wrap up. They needed to come back with a warrant. Maggie suggested that she wasn't being rude but that she wanted the paperwork as a matter of course. She asked them to grant her at least six hours of sleep.
At last, they left. Sebastian closed the door behind them.
He expected to turn and have Maggie fall into his arms and pass out. Carrying her up the stairs and tucking her into bed would feel wonderful after this crazy morning.
But Maggie didn't fall or crumble at all. Her shoulders didn't slump, and she didn't sway. She simply watched over his shoulder out the window until the agents closed their car doors and left.
Then she pinned him with a glare. “We have work to do.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Maggie was beyond dog tired, but there wasn’t going to be any sleep. What she’d planned had been snatched away.
The FBI was coming, and they were going to search her house. If Maggie was lucky, they would wait the six hours she requested, but there was no guarantee. If they knew what she had in mind, they would come back sooner.
The search they were intending to do had just pushed Maggie’s agenda forward.
�
�You need sleep,” Sebastian told her, his warm hands resting on her shoulders and making her want to do what he said.
“I have to document the whole house before they tear it up.”
“Document?”
“Photograph every room. Copy all the papers.”
He frowned at her. “Are they going to take Sabbie’s paperwork?”
Maggie nodded, “And everything they find that might be pertinent. I don’t think I can fight it, it’s a murder investigation—well, actually an ongoing multiple murder investigation. I don’t want to fight it. I want them to have the evidence they need to find this guy—” or both of them, she thought. “But I need copies of those documents for myself.”
Maggie sighed. Aunt Abbie had been horrible at paperwork. This was going to be a mess.
Luckily, she had Sebastian on her side. “Then, point me in the right direction.”
“First, I have to change.” She was not going to rummage through drawers and closets and boxes of old documents in her suit. Sebastian, always on his game, asked where he could start while she was changing.
“We need photos of every room, from many angles. Be sure to get every item on a tabletop or a shelf.”
“Like documenting a house for fire insurance.”
She hadn’t thought of it that way. “Yes!”
“I’ll start in the living room then.”
She emerged a few minutes later, more comfortable in her jeans and t-shirt. She had her hair up and her sneakers on but hadn’t washed off her makeup. It was a little much for rummaging around but she had to get started.
Sebastian finished the living room and they headed up to Abbie’s office together. She had to prioritize in case the FBI came back sooner.
While Maggie had hoped to find neat stacks of paperwork that she could feed through the photocopier, she’d only found a few slim stacks that worked. She let Sebastian carry the box down to the office and copies those. The rest she started photographing.
Crash and Burn (Wildfire Hearts Book 1) Page 8