Hidden Danger

by Jennifer Pierce

“Dear Lord, thank You again for this day. Thank You for keeping Maggie safe. I pray that You'll continue to keep her safe and give her peace in knowing that this is not her fault. Comfort her in this difficult time. I pray for Your guidance in finding the person at fault. Amen.”

  “Thank you.” They sat in companionable silence and sipped their tea.

  “Jacob went home last night,” Maggie volunteered, breaking the silence.

  “That’s great. How’s he feeling?”

  “He’s sore but okay. We talked for a little while last night… He still doesn’t know about us.”

  He looked in to his tea glass, avoiding her gaze. “I never said anything. After you left, Jake and I kind of went our separate ways. We didn’t stop being friends exactly. But he had his Army life. I went into law enforcement and had my life. He married Caroline and they had their life together. After Caroline’s death, he poured himself into his work and was hardly home. And being Sheriff has kept me busy.”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t because you were afraid he’d kick your butt for hurting his little sister?” She took a drink of her tea and arched her eyebrows.

  “Whatever! I always won our tussles.” Laugh lines creased his face.

  “Sure. Admit it, you were scared,” she teased.

  The laugh lines disappeared, and his face hardened. “I was honestly waiting for him to come beat down my door that first week. Then he left, and you left a couple days after. I’m surprised you didn’t tell him.”

  “No, I didn’t tell him. He actually still doesn’t know. He was going back to the Army, and he’d recently started dating a girl. He always worried too much about me and he didn’t need to be weighed down with my baggage. But that’s all in the past. Since we’re stuck with each other, tell me what made you choose law enforcement.”

  “That’s an easy one. Remember right before we started dating I had been in some trouble?”

  She nodded, taking a drink of her tea.

  “Sheriff Rogers kept in touch with me and mentored me. After you left, the guys I had gotten into trouble with were all arrested. Most of them are now serving some hefty jail time. A lot of people saved me from winding up in there with them. Jesus saved my soul, you saved my heart, and Sheriff Rogers saved my life. I wanted to do that. I wanted to help others. I signed up for the police academy the week after you left. What about you? An elementary school librarian, huh?”

  Her cheeks started to heat. “Yeah. That was only meant to be a stepping stone in my career, but I sort of fell in love with helping kids. Nothing beats the look on a child’s face when they finally understand something they’ve been struggling with for a long time.”

  “What about your writing?”

  “I still write. I had some things published in magazines and anthologies, but I haven’t submitted anything in a long time.” Her eyes were heavy with sleep, and a yawn forced its way from her mouth.

  “You should go lie back down and get some rest.”

  “I think I’ll try again. Here’s hoping it’s successful this time. Goodnight, Cody.”

  “Goodnight, Maggie.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Cody made sure all the windows around the house were locked. He always kept them latched, but he wasn’t going to take anything for granted. Satisfied that the house was secure, he went back to the couch and pulled Maggie’s notes from his pocket. He looked at every word, staying vigilant for any noise out of the ordinary.

  When he began to get drowsy, he started a pot of coffee, grabbed the notes, a notebook and a pen and sat at the kitchen table, making his own notes. He listed all the lines from the rhyme and each act that accompanied them. Maggie was right, everything was centered around her except Dee’s murder.

  One for sorrow. Maggie was standing on her father’s porch, in the middle of nowhere, twenty minutes outside of town, when the beanbag was shot.

  Two for joy. Her parents’ rings had been stolen from the house and delivered to her.

  Three for a girl. Her best friend's car was vandalized.

  Four for a boy. Her brother was attacked.

  Five for silver. Her hotel room was vandalized and a veiled threat left on her birthday.

  Six for gold. Dee was dead.

  Seven for a secret never to be told. Dee's death was revealed as a homicide.

  Maybe if they could get one step ahead of this guy, they could stop him. He grabbed his laptop off the kitchen counter where he had left it yesterday afternoon. Booting up the search engine, he began researching the rhyme. There were several different versions of the rhyme and a lot of them ended with the number seven. There were, of course, other versions that went as high as fourteen. Cody found a rhyme that he thought could be the one their guy was using. If that was so, there would be a number eight, for a wish.

  How could someone do something dastardly with a wish?

  He refilled his coffee cup and did another walk through of the house. He stopped outside the guest room and listened for anything out of sorts. Satisfied Maggie was sleeping soundly, he went back to the living room. He pulled the Bible from the end table and turned to Psalms.

  * * * *

  Shuffling seeped into his subconscious and startled him awake. He was on his feet, with his hand resting on the butt of the gun on his hip when Maggie emerged from the hallway. He relaxed, taking his hand away from the gun.

  He must have dozed off because the sun was streaming through the front window blinds, casting stripes of golden sun on the floor. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and ran his hand through his rumpled hair. “Sleep well?”

  “Not really.” She took a seat on his couch. “You?”

  “Some.” He walked to the window and looked out on to the front yard. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary. He turned back to Maggie and gestured her to the kitchen. “Would you like something to eat? I've got some cereal, but the milk is definitely bad. Found that out when I tried to add some to my coffee this morning. I might have some toaster pastries. Want one? Unless you want dry cereal.”

  “I haven't had a toaster pastry in ages. What are you, nine?”

  “Hey, don't knock the tarts.”

  He followed her into the kitchen, grabbed the box from the pantry, and offered them to her. After she took one, he grabbed one for himself and put the box back in the pantry.

  “I’ll be right back.” He put his toaster pastry on the table, walked through the house, and went outside to check the perimeter. He was probably being ridiculous, but he couldn’t be too careful. Everything was in order. He returned to the kitchen. “I did some research while you were sleeping, and I think I might know what the next line is. ‘Eight for a wish.’ Can you think of anything that he could use for that line?”

  She took a bite from the toaster pastry. “I have wishes—who doesn't—but I can't think of anything that he could use.”

  “Why don't you humor me and tell me some of them.”

  “Okay.” She put down her food. “One of my big wishes is to get kids reading more. In today’s day and age, it seems like no one reads anymore. Everyone is consumed with electronic devices. Reading is good for the brain, and believe it or not, you learn while you read, even if you’re reading for enjoyment.”

  “You’ve always been a bookwork. Remember that year you asked everyone to buy you books for your birthday?” He opened the shiny package containing his breakfast.

  “That was every year.” She chuckled.

  “True.” He nodded. “Back to the kids, how would you accomplish that?”

  “Reading contests. Not like who can read the best but more like an achievement type contest. I do a small contest where they’re rewarded for reading.” She took another bite. “What I’d really like to do is pick one book a month for each age group and have a month-long party based on it. Arts and crafts. Costume parties. Fun recipes. The whole shebang. Unfortunately, there’s not enough funding.”

  She had always been creative. He had no doubt she’d make her program a
huge success.

  “I’ve also got the kids I tutor. I’d love to have more resources to help them. Not every child learns the same way. It’d be great to have things that help me cater to each learning type.”

  Her eyes were alight while she talked about helping others. He noticed she hadn’t list any personal wishes. He thought it would be safe to rule out any of those other things. Everything that had happened involving Maggie had been personal to her and had happened here in Whitehaven, not in Houston.

  “What about personal wishes?” he prodded, hoping she would open up a little.

  “Well, I'd like to be a published author someday. Of course, there's the typical girl wishes, you know, marriage and kids.” She toyed with the plastic package from her breakfast.

  He had wanted those things, too. He’d wanted them with Maggie and had even been prepared for the next stage in their relationship. He had the ring to prove it, still in the velvet box from the jeweler. He hadn’t been able to part with it, even after all these years. It was tucked away in a drawer in his bedroom.

  “I can't think of anything that he could use. I really can't, unless maybe it has something to do with my dad’s stuff.”

  Maybe there wasn't anything to the typical wishes of marriage and kids, but she had mentioned her writing. To destroy everything that someone had worked hard on could be devastating to that person. “Where do you keep the things that you write?”

  “Well, I used to have it saved on my laptop. I'd back it up to a thumb drive every couple of months. But one day my computer crashed. I still had the thumb drive, but I hadn't backed it up in weeks. Now everything is saved to the cloud.”

  “How protected is your cloud?”

  “It's pretty secure. I mean, anything can be hacked. Do you think he plans to attack my writing?”

  “I don't know, but that's a possibility. Maybe you should back everything up to a thumb drive just in case. I have an extra one floating around my computer desk. I'll get it and you can use my laptop.” He pointed to the laptop sitting on the kitchen counter. After searching the computer desk, he finally found the thumb drive in the bottom drawer and returned to the kitchen where Maggie was booting up the laptop.

  He sat at the table while Maggie plugged the thumb drive in.

  “Everything is still here so we have averted that potential disaster. Thank you.”

  She saw the notebook lying next to her stack of paper towel notes. “What's that?”

  “I told you I did some research last night. I jotted down some thoughts.”

  “May I?”

  He pushed everything to her.

  She chewed on her bottom lip as she read. “You know; I think there is a pattern.”

  “Really?” He came around the table and stood next to her. Leaning one hand on the chair behind her and the other on the table next to the note pad, he bent to get a closer look at the list. Her breath hitched at his proximity. His mind traveled to the kiss they shared last night, and he thought about an encore.

  She swallowed hard and turned her attention back to the notebook in front of her. “Yes. You know, I didn't give it any thought when these things were happening, but there is a new taunt every day. I got into town on Monday, and we were shot at that night. Tuesday morning the package containing my parents’ rings was delivered. Wednesday, I had lunch with Cassie and her car was vandalized. Thursday morning, I found Jacob battered on my porch. Friday was my birthday and the awful message in the hotel room. Yesterday, we found Dee's body in your car, and early this morning someone broke into the house and left the video.”

  “You're right. Why didn't I see that?” He straightened and walked to the sink. How had he missed that?

  “The same reason I didn't. We were so focused on the what and the why that we weren't paying attention to the when.”

  “So, if that's the case, then we could assume that whatever he has planned won't happen until tomorrow. Since we have a whole day to anticipate his next move, do you think there would be anything at your father's house that could be used? Do you want to see if we can figure out if that move might involve your father's belongings?”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  They had both freshened up and climbed into his truck. They were going to spend the afternoon going through her father's home office.

  “I still want you to be careful. We may think our guy is doing things on a time frame, but we can’t be certain. We’ll go to your dad’s house and go through his paperwork. See if he acquired any new property or investments.”

  Once they were at the house, Cody unlocked the padlock that a deputy had installed on the outside of the door after documenting the scene and collecting evidence. He closed the door behind them, moved the end table to hold it shut, and activated the alarm before doing a sweep of the house. No one was lurking in the shadows waiting to attack them.

  They started in her father’s office downstairs. There wasn’t much to the room—an old metal desk with two drawers, a filing cabinet, an old loveseat, and a wingback chair. The far wall had a huge picture window with a small school desk below it, and the left wall displayed a built-in bookshelf.

  She remembered as a young girl she’d come work at her small desk while her father worked at his. Her father would take a break and sit in the chair. He’d let her climb on his lap with one of the books from his shelf. He had titles ranging from Moby Dick to The Scarlet Letter to The Lord of the Rings. That room was where her love of reading had been born along with the desire to create her own stories.

  She sat at her father’s desk and ran her fingers over his pen collection lined up neatly. She opened the top drawer and looked through its contents. It was mostly office supplies, more pens, a stapler, staples, paper clips, and envelopes.

  The second drawer contained her father’s banking documents. What she hadn’t known when she was younger was that the work her father was doing was really paying the bills and studying his Bible. Her eyes misted at all the memories that surfaced.

  Cody had started digging through the filing cabinet. “Your father kept everything.”

  “Tell me about it. I found a bottle of aspirin in his bathroom that expired in 2008.”

  “Ouch. I sure hope he wasn’t still taking those.”

  She laughed as she rose from the desk and crossed the room. “Have you found anything of interest?”

  “Oh, yes. I’ve found several interesting things but nothing our guy could use. I mean, what could he do with tax returns dating back to 1988 or divorce papers from 1956?”

  “Oh my goodness. He still had my grandparents’ divorce papers? You’ve definitely beat me in the old category.” She wandered to the bookshelf and picked up an anthology of Shakespeare’s works. She opened it to her favorite play. She’d always giggled at Bottom’s transformation.

  As she had gotten older, instead of climbing in her father’s lap and letting him read to her, she’d climb into the wingback chair and read quietly to herself. She was there so much her father had bought the loveseat for her so he could have his chair back.

  Cody closed the bottom drawer and moved to the middle one. He looked through it while she thumbed through the books. Her dad’s collection had dwindled considerably in the last few years. Most were now in her collection.

  Cody closed the middle drawer and moved to the top. “Bingo.”

  She slid the book back onto the shelf and joined him at the cabinet.

  “Here’s a folder that says deeds.” He pulled it out and thumbed through the pages. “There are several deeds, but they all have the same legal description. Looks like he had his own makeshift abstract on this land.” He handed her the folder and went back to the drawer. “Here’s a folder with your name on it and one with Jake’s name.”

  She smiled at her father’s sentimental nature. “Yep. Mine’ll have old report cards, school pictures, drawings, and my writings. Jacob’s file will have pretty much the same thing, except it’ll also have some Army related things. Speaking of
Army stuff, did you come across any of dad’s?”

  “Yes. I saw some discharge papers, photos, medals, and ribbons in the middle drawer.”

  “Good. I’ve got to remember where those are.” She wanted to come back and spend some time looking at all those historical photos.

  “What do we have here?” He pulled a picture from a file and whistled.

  Could he have found something important? He turned the picture around. It was her third-grade school picture. Her hair was neatly fixed in ringlets, and she wore a bright yellow dress, which brought out the dark black circle around her eye.

  “Is that sweet little Maggie sporting a shiner?” He made tsking noises.

  She snatched the photo from him and stuck it back in the folder. “Yes, it is.”

  “Do tell.” His eyebrows quirked up.

  “Alexander Brown tried to kiss me on the monkey bars, so I punched him.”

  “If you were the one doing the punching, how did you get the black eye? Did he fight back?”

  “No. He screamed and let go of the bars. He went down kicking. My legs got tangled up with his and took me down with him. I took an elbow to the eye on the way down.”

  Cody roared with laughter. “I’m glad you didn’t hit me when I tried to kiss you.”

  “No. I was glad you did. I was starting to wonder how long it would take you.” She laughed. Things grew awkward after that statement. She had been referring to the first time he kissed her. Not the most recent kiss. Was he thinking she meant that one?

  Cody cleared his throat. “I’m not finding anything else.”

  “I didn’t see anything else, either. I could us a drink. You?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you think there could be anything of use in the basement?” she asked Cody as they sat at the kitchen table where they had taken a break.

  “It can't hurt to look. Why don't I do that, and you can search your father's room and see if there is anything there?”

  Searching his office was tough, but going through his personal belongings would be harder. She had purposely stayed out of his room, other than the day when her parents’ rings had been stolen, knowing the memories would be overwhelming. But if going through that stuff could lead to finding something to stop this guy, then she would do it. She'd have to pray for the strength to make it through it.