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“Do you want to check? If there’s a gun missing, I might be able to get a search warrant for a certain one’s apartment tonight.”
Maggie looked up at Justin, wishing he could have completed his confession, whatever that was about. But it was more important to find out what else was missing. And the shotgun was gone. The upstairs wasn’t ransacked as the first level had been, and it made Maggie wonder if the thief hadn’t watched her from the window and seen that she was getting the dog ready to come around front. She told the sheriff that.
“It might very well be what happened. If she was on horseback…”
“She?”
Justin flushed, but he didn’t hesitate to fess up.
“The person who has been spying on you is someone I dated briefly. I mean once. She obviously has a problem. I suspected she was the one who has been spying, and I saw her at the preserve today and confronted her, and she admitted it.”
“Oh. How awful.”
She looked at him and mouthed,Last night?and he nodded.
“Ugh,” she said.
All the excitement she’d felt, all the passion, the hope for the future fizzled out in a second. She didn’t even want to stand next to him after that confession.
“I’m so terribly sorry. I swear to you there’s nothing. She’s nuts.”
Dave came over to her and reiterated what Justin had just said. “I can vouch for my brother, Maggie. The woman is insane.”
“Did you suspect she was the person on horseback the other night?” Maggie asked, doing a slow burn.
“Yes. I intended on talking to her on my volunteer day.”
Biting her lip, Maggie waited for Dave to leave them. She looked up at Justin. “So you knew there was a possibility she might return when you went to the water with me last night.”
Slowly nodding his head, he thought about what she was implying. “I wasn’t thinking about her, Maggie. That sounds lame, but I just thought it was an isolated incident if it was her, not that she was stalking you.”
Dave came back to them as the deputies finished their work. “We have fingerprints and are going to see about that warrant. Will you be okay, Miss Angel?”
“Yes, thank you, Sheriff.”
He tipped his hat, looked at his brother and left. Maggie wanted Justin to leave. She realized she might possibly be irrational, but she wanted to be alone, as unsafe as it might be.
“I’ll talk to you later, okay, Justin?”
“Maggie, I’ll stay to help you clean up.”
“That’s not necessary,” she said decisively. “I can manage.”
“I know you can manage,” he said, frightened. “I don’t want you alone tonight.”
“Justin, I want you to leave.”
Taken aback, he stood with his mouth open, finally getting it that she was angry with him.
“Do you blame me for this?”
“I don’t blame you,” she said, pointing to the cottage. “Not for the theft or the mess that was made. You should have said something to me right away that you suspected an old, jealous girlfriend of snooping around, and I would never have stripped naked and had sex with you in the open until she was dealt with. That’s what I blame you for.”
“It was stupid. A slipup. I didn’t want to alarm you unnecessarily. She wasn’t a girlfriend. I’m telling you, Maggie, it was never that. It was a one-night stand. I didn’t use her or lie to her or make like it was ever going to be more than that.”
“Oh my god, I don’t want to hear this right now, okay? Please leave. Leave me alone.”
It was the same thing she’d said to Russ just the day before. She took Brulee from him and walked up on the porch, shutting the gate. Then she went inside and shut the door. The mess was overwhelming, but she placed Brulee in her crate so she didn’t get into the food, and started there. It took a while, maybe five minutes, before she finally heard the truck start up, and then she was alone. As she worked, she ignored the tears.
