by B. J Daniels
He parked in front of the sheriff’s ex-wife’s house and warned himself not to screw this up. Reading between the lines of what the undersheriff had said, Mark thought Celeste Duma had done something to the sheriff’s girlfriend.
Smiling, he climbed out. He loved this sort of small-town drama, especially when it involved the sheriff. It surprised him Flint wasn’t the one coming over here himself. Flint must be going crazy with worry. Why else would he let Mark be calling the shots?
He covered the butt of his gun with his hand as he walked toward the front door. There was no car parked in the drive. As he passed a window in the garage, he peered in. Empty. This was going to be a waste of time. No one was home.
Ringing the bell, he glanced around the neighborhood. It was a much nicer one than where he and Vicki lived. She’d talked him into moving in with her. Another mistake he’d made. She spent most of her time puking her guts out since getting pregnant. She never felt like doing it anymore. He worried this was what marriage was going to be like.
He rang the bell again and then knocked. Total waste of time.
At the sound of a car engine, he turned to see a large dark SUV pull in. Wayne Duma. Now, here was someone who thought a whole lot of himself, Harp thought. Hell, he’d bought himself and his wife matching SUVs for one of their wedding anniversaries. How full of himself was that?
Duma was frowning as he exited his vehicle. Clearly he didn’t like seeing a deputy on his doorstep. “Can I help you?” the man asked in the same tone he probably used with solicitors at his door. It only pissed Harp off more.
“I’m looking for Mrs. Duma.”
“She’s not here.”
“So I gathered. Can you tell me where she is?”
Wayne looked as if he was losing patience. Harp felt the same way. “What is this about?”
Harp didn’t answer. “I need to talk to her. Sheriff’s department business.”
“She’s left town.”
“When did she leave?”
“Earlier. I insist you tell me what this is about.”
“Where did she go?”
Duma looked as if he wanted to dig his heels in.
“Maggie Thompson is missing. I need to speak with your wife.”
The man groaned and looked away. “Not this foolishness again.” He turned back to Harp. “My wife has gone to a spa. If Maggie is missing, it has nothing to do with Celeste.”
“What spa?”
“I have no idea.”
“Was she driving there or flying?”
Duma shook his head. “I didn’t ask.”
“I’m going to need to have a look around. I’m sure we can get a warrant—”
“That isn’t necessary,” Duma said, stepping past him to unlock the door. “Help yourself.”
Harp stepped in and looked around. “Nice place you have here.” He walked through the house. It appeared a housekeeping service had been there recently. It had that smell. It did nothing to improve his mood since he’d never had a place that smelled this good.
“I’m going to take a look upstairs,” he told Duma, who didn’t bother to answer. He was on his phone. Harp listened as the man left a message for his wife to call him.
Upstairs, he stuck his head in each room. The place was immaculate. He couldn’t see Celeste down on her knees scrubbing the bathroom floor to make it shine like that—let alone to wipe up blood. Rich people, he thought with a sharp bite of jealousy.
He figured, as clean as the place was, it wouldn’t be hard to find blood evidence—if there had been any. But so far, he saw nothing to indicate that there had been anything going on there.
At the end of the hall, he pushed open the door into the master bedroom and felt his pulse shoot up. The room looked as if it had exploded. There were clothes everywhere, on the floor, on the bed, thrown on the closet floor.
He heard Duma behind him. The man gasped and then swore.
“Can you explain this?” Harp asked.
“Apparently Celeste had trouble deciding what to take to the spa.”
“Right. Don’t touch anything in this room.” He pulled out his phone. “The sheriff is going to want to talk to you.”
CHAPTER FOUR
AT THE SAME TIME her boyfriend was calling the sheriff, Vicki was doubling over in pain. She clutched the sink next to the toilet bowl. Ever since she’d lost the baby, she’d had terrible cramps at that time of the month. Keeping Harp off of her for the days she was flowing was hard enough. But the lying...
She told herself that she couldn’t keep this secret any longer from Deputy Harper Cole, the man she’d fallen in love with. Every day, she promised herself that she would tell Harp that she’d lost the baby. But when he came home, she just couldn’t bring herself to confess.
He’ll leave you the minute you tell him.
After all, it had been the only reason he’d moved in with her. She hadn’t told, thinking she would get pregnant again. But here was another month and no baby. The doctor had said she shouldn’t have any trouble getting pregnant again. She’d thought that if it happened soon enough, Harp would never have to know she’d lost the first baby. He never paid any attention to how many months had gone by.
He’d asked her once when she was going to start showing. “Guess you’ll be looking like you stole a basketball soon enough. Does that mean we aren’t going to be able to do it?”
She’d assured him that they could have sex—the one thing that seemed to make him happy—almost to the end. “But only if you are more gentle.”
That had cheered him up. Nothing else about living together had. True, she wasn’t much of a cook. Often she was bored and just watched television all day. She missed working at the café, but she couldn’t very well go back there without admitting that she’d had a miscarriage early on in her pregnancy.
What was she going to do? she thought as she doubled over again with a cramp. And how was she going to keep this from Harp? She couldn’t pretend to have the flu every month for five days. Even Harp would figure that out after a while.
She had to get pregnant again. Otherwise...
Vicki felt the pills she’d taken begin to work on her cramps. Without the pain, her thoughts cleared some. She considered what Harp had told her had happened the night that man had come looking for Mariah Ayers, now Cahill, and had almost killed both Mariah and Darby. Harp had admitted to her that he wasn’t the hero everyone thought he was. He’d lied and she was the only one he’d ever told about it.
Now with the sheriff’s girlfriend missing and him being put on leave, maybe Harp really did have a shot at becoming the next sheriff. But only if no one ever knew the truth about that night.
She placed a hand over her stomach. Maybe she didn’t need a baby to keep Harp after all.
* * *
“I CAN ASSURE you that Celeste had nothing to do with Maggie Thompson being missing,” Duma said from a chair in the interrogation room at the sheriff’s department thirty minutes later. He was a big man, distinguished, gray at the temples.
“How can you be so confident of that?” the undersheriff asked.
Flint watched through the glass window that acted as a mirror on the other side. Harp had stayed at the house to make sure nothing was disturbed until the state crime team arrived out of Billings. Flint desperately wanted to be the one questioning Duma.
“I need you to let me handle this,” Mark had said. “You know you’re too emotionally involved.”
Swearing under his breath, he’d nodded. “You’re right. I’ll do whatever you suggest. I trust you, Mark.”
“You’d do the same thing in my shoes. The DCI will want to talk to you. After that, you’ll need to find somewhere to stay since your house is now a crime scene.”
Flint had felt a
s if his heart would burst when Mark had gotten the call from Harp. “What did Harp find over there? Please, Mark, you have to tell me.”
“Nothing to indicate that Celeste had anything to do with Maggie going missing. But she’s left town and she was apparently upset before she left. Flint, I told you—”
His heart had started pounding the moment Mark had answered his phone and said, “Bring Duma down to the sheriff’s department for questioning.”
Panic had made his knees go weak. “Celeste?”
“No—Wayne Duma. He says Celeste left town to go to a spa.”
“She’s lying. You have to—”
“Flint, he’s coming downtown. We’ll find out what he knows.”
“She picked today to leave town? Mark—”
“I know. We have to find Maggie. That’s what we’re doing.”
Flint had nodded, but his heart had been racing. Celeste had done something with Maggie. This had been building for some time.
“I know you’re right, Mark, but I need to know what’s going on or I’ll go crazy. Starting with what Duma has to say.”
Mark had suggested he watch the interrogation. Flint had agreed, although he could feel the clock ticking like a time bomb in his chest. Maggie had been missing for at least several hours now. Statistically, the sooner they found her, the better chance they would find her alive. He feared she’d been taken on impulse. He envisioned the scene back at his house. The two women arguing, maybe getting into a shoving match, and then Maggie getting hurt.
If she was badly hurt, things would have gone downhill from there. Celeste would be scared. She’d do something stupid, like abduct Maggie to keep what had happened from coming out. Things would only get worse from there. Celeste would be running scared. She would realize how hard it was to hide someone. How desperate would she get, all the time not realizing that she was getting in deeper and deeper?
He stared through the glass, wanting to shake the truth out of Wayne Duma.
“How do you explain the condition your bedroom was in?” Mark asked.
Duma rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable. “Celeste and I had a fight last night. She was still upset this morning.”
“What did you fight over?”
“I don’t even know. With Celeste...” The man looked away. “We haven’t been getting along for some time now. This morning, after another rough night, I suggested we might want to take a break.”
“Divorce?”
“I didn’t say that, but I think that’s the way she took it. I told her we would talk about it later when we were both calmer.”
Flint felt his stomach roil. Celeste would have been beside herself, he thought. She might not like the choice she’d made in hooking up with Duma, but she wouldn’t want to give up the luxury, the name or the perceived power that came with it. Given the kind of mood she must have been in, anything could have happened.
“I went to work,” Duma continued. “I knew she had some meeting she was going to. I almost didn’t take her call later that morning when my assistant said she was on the line. I didn’t want to continue the argument, especially at work and on the phone.”
“But you did take the call.”
He nodded. “She was still upset. She sounded hysterical. I honestly thought she might do something to herself if I didn’t stay on the line. So I let her talk. She went on about the two of us, the same stuff I’ve heard before. I don’t give her enough attention, that sort of thing.” He sighed.
“Did she mention Maggie Thompson?”
Duma looked away for a moment. “She told me that she’d run into Maggie at the grocery store and that her ex and Maggie were moving in together.” He cleared his voice. “She was calmer then, I thought. She said she was having trouble dealing with it, that she had some unresolved feelings for Flint and that part of our problem was that she blamed me for their divorce. If she hadn’t met me...
“But that she loved me and just needed some time away. She said she was sorry she’d put me through so much. She sounded as if she was accepting that her ex was going to find happiness with someone else. She promised that when she came back everything would be much better.”
Much better because Maggie would be out of the picture. Cursing, Flint couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He wanted to put his fist through the glass. He’d been married to Celeste. He knew what extremes she went to when she felt she was about to lose something she wanted. There was no telling what she would have done.
“Did she tell you where she was going?” Mark asked.
“No, just that she was packing to go to a spa. She sounded...calm.”
According to Harp, Celeste had been anything but calm given the shape of the bedroom where she was packing, Flint thought. Had she gone from there over to his house the two of them had shared and confronted Maggie?
Celeste probably still had her key, not that she would have needed it since she knew he usually left the door unlocked. So she could have been waiting for Maggie. Or worse, he thought with a curse, she could have just walked in and surprised Maggie.
He mentally kicked himself for not getting the locks changed, for not locking his door. But this was Gilt Edge, after all. Aside from a rash of break-ins a few months ago by some teens... The point was that Celeste could have gotten to Maggie—and had.
But then, so could anyone else, he thought and shook his head. It hadn’t been anyone else. He knew who had Maggie. He was staring at the person’s husband.
“I’m telling you Celeste wouldn’t have done anything to Maggie. Yes, maybe she tried to scare her off with some stupid vandalism, but kidnap her?” Duma shook his head. “She wouldn’t do anything so...”
“Crazy?” Mark asked.
Duma hung his head. “She was just angry. By now, she’s over it. We’ve had fights before.”
He didn’t sound convinced they would patch things up, Flint thought. This man had seen Celeste’s crazy. He was running scared this time and probably fed up. Flint knew that feeling, having been there with Celeste himself.
“I think my wife has too much time on her hands and...” Duma looked up at Mark as if pleading with him to agree that Celeste wouldn’t have hurt Maggie. “This whole thing is so...frustrating. Yes, my wife might need...help. I’ve tried to get her to see someone.” He put his head in his hands. “It’s put a terrible strain on our marriage. I should be more patient with her, but when she calls me at work with this foolishness...”
“Did she mention that she was going over to Flint’s house to see Maggie?”
Duma lifted his head. “No. I told you. She said she was going to a spa.”
“But she didn’t mention what spa or where and you didn’t ask?”
“No. I was just relieved that she was going away for a while.” He looked guilty, and for a moment, Flint almost felt sorry for him. Maybe if Duma hadn’t had an affair with Celeste while she was still married to him, Flint could have worked up more compassion for the man. Instead, he felt as if Duma had gotten what he deserved: one crazy-ass woman who was capable of doing just about anything.
But if Celeste had lost it and done something to Maggie... He clenched his fists tighter. They had to find Celeste. It was too much of a coincidence that she’d left town now—at the same time Maggie had gone missing. Especially now that he knew how upset Celeste had been.
Mark was questioning Duma about other spas Celeste had gone to. Mark had gotten a warrant, so they were checking into Duma’s bank and credit-card statements. In the meantime, the state crime team would be arriving and going over Flint’s house as well as the Dumas’. Flint had mixed feelings about that. Maybe they would find proof that would help find Maggie. Or maybe they wouldn’t find any physical evidence other than Flint’s own DNA at the scene and kick him off the case.
“Does C
eleste own a gun?” the undersheriff asked.
Flint’s ears perked up. Duma raised his head. He looked guilty. Flint swore.
“I bought her a gun when...when she told me that her ex was harassing her,” Duma said. “I know now that it wasn’t true.” He sighed. “But I thought if it made Celeste feel safer...”
Mark asked about the make and model and if Celeste had taken it with her. Duma swore he had no idea if Celeste had taken the gun.
Who takes a gun to a spa? Flint thought.
“The DCI team out of Billings will want to take a look at your house after they finish with the crime scene,” Mark said. “I hope you’ll cooperate.”
Duma sighed. “I want to help in any way I can.”
Flint listened as Mark finished up with Duma, who promised to call him with the names of the spas that Celeste usually went to.
He hated the waiting. Worse, hated feeling so helpless. Hours had gone by. Where was Maggie? Unfortunately, he knew firsthand how investigations could take a wrong turn, how law enforcement could spend too much time suspecting the wrong person, how people died while the cops were barking up the wrong tree. He couldn’t let that happen. Once they found Celeste—
“Sheriff?” The dispatcher stuck her head into the small room adjacent to the interrogation room where he was standing. “We just got a call. I think you’ll want to take it.”
His heart took off like a wild horse in the wind. “About Maggie?”
The dispatcher looked embarrassed. “No. I’m sorry. The caller said it was about Jenna Holloway.”
* * *
JENNA HOLLOWAY HAD disappeared following an argument with her husband, Anvil, last March. Anvil admitted to striking her after she’d confessed to having an affair with another man, but swore she wasn’t hurt when she drove away.
What had sent up red flags were Anvil’s actions after she’d allegedly left. He’d destroyed a section of Sheetrock with his fist and then he’d cleaned up the kitchen, mopping the floor before washing the clothes he’d been wearing.