Page 33 of Crash and Burn

“How about pasta?” he asked. Thinking about the kind of Italian food that could lull them both into a night’s sleep worthy of a carb-coma.

But there was something about the way she smiled at him that made him wish she wasn't actually thinking about pasta. He would stay at her house tonight, but how long would he make it before he just blurted out what he really wanted to say?

Chapter Twenty-Eight

On Sunday morning, Maggie found herself alone again for the first time in two days. Sebastian had headed home early to shower, repack his bag, and show up for his shift. As a volunteer she wasn't due in every time A-shift was on duty.

Some how she’d managed to no blurt out her feelings the whole time, even though things stayed pretty low key. She wasn’t sure if she was proud of herself or ashamed.

When Sebastian asked, she told him that she was good by herself. It had been both the truth and a bald-faced lie.

Shewasgood by herself. Maggie went to the grocery store—something needed after she and Sebastian had eaten everything she had. He ate twice as much as she did but feeding him was a small price for in-home security, especially from someone she enjoyed spending time with.

When the groceries were put away, she tackled her aunt's office, organizing what remained after the FBI confiscated everything useful. Maggie would have loved to use the office for herself, but she would have to sort everything to make the space usable. So she only lined up the remaining papers and put them in drawers.

Then she made herself a decent meal as if to prove to herself that when Sebastian wasn’t here she could cook for and feed herself.

Even when she’d finished eating, it still wasn’t noon yet. Knowing she wouldn't sleep well that night, she tried to nap. Though she managed to fall asleep and catch a few hours, she hadn't been able to stay asleep. She’d slept much better with Sebastian here the last two nights, but she was still running on a deficit. As the sky had grown dark that evening, she considered what to do with the long night in front of her.

She wasn’t going to sleep, that was certain.

She fielded texts from Sebastian and reassured him that she was fine. The real problem was that shewasfine—fine enough to take advantage of some good internet and bad curiosity.

With the information the FBI had given her, Maggie began researching both the Blue River Killer and the La Vista Rapist. She poured over old reports, missing women and a few young men, bodies found, reports filed, basically anything that pinged when she searched. When that overwhelmed her, she found more scholarly articles on serial predators and how they operated.

Even what little she’d found was enough to convince her that the two perpetrators were separate people. Which made it even more concerning that both their trophies had wound up in her home … and in the same box.

She didn’t know yet what the closet meant.

Maggie had set up in her living room, ready to check the front window at each passing engine. She had her phone at the ready to take pictures and record the license plate if she saw the silver sedan again. But though she was several hours into the night, the only thing to go by had been the Raylan family’s minivan.

Next, she pulled up the picture files on her phone. She and Sebastian had messaged them to each other as a way to preserve the full trove in two different places. So she had copies of everything he had taken and he had hers.

She flipped through, looking for something unique about the victims, some thread. Not that she thought she’d find what the FBI hadn’t, but she wanted to know what had been here …

She pulled up pictures of the victims on her laptop, their faces large on the screen, smiling in family photos or senior yearbooks. It didn't get her very far, but it got her far enough. Another car passed by, revving its way down her street. Maggie fought a shudder, but she could already tell the engine was too loud to be the sedan. Sure enough, she’d pulled back the curtain to see the taillight of a motorcycle and she felt her stress drop back down from the spike.

Whoever it was who had killed these people and raped these young women was still out there. The smiling senior photo of one victim made Maggie’s heart drop: the necklace in the picture matched the necklace that they'd found in the back of the closet. The young woman was from Beatrice, a small nearby town just south of Lincoln.

Maggie hadn’t known about the predators because she didn't live here. It had been a number of years since she'd spent a summer with Aunt Abbie. But the locals understood what the killer was doing and, according to the news, they were afraid.

Maggie knew it was well past time to stop reading. She reassured herself that the FBI was checking on her. And she reiterated the words they'd given her: they didn't think he would be back.

The FBI had very openly and visibly searched her house and confiscated everything they could find. Whatever her prowler had been looking for, it wasn't here anymore. That should be obvious to anyone watching the place.

She told herself that if the FBI was confident, she was confident. But it was another lie.

Still, she pulled up another article and reached into the big bowl of popcorn she’d made. This was not popcorn kind of entertainment, Maggie just needed something to eat that would help her stay awake. It turned out it wasn't the popcorn, but what she read that was doing an excellent job of it.

The Blue River Killer was called that because he left his victims in shallow water. The first had been found in the Blue River, though the Platte River closer to her had also seen a few. It didn't take long to find more journal articles written on him. Maggie also found the locations where he'd killed. The pattern to his killings began to make a disturbing amount of sense. Her own home wasn’t dead center, but it was certainly an option. The feds had to have been searching for him near here long before now.

They simply hadn't gotten to checking out Aunt Abbie’s boarders … or they had and, for whatever reason, dismissed them.

Maggie’s eyes felt bloodshot. Her brain was stuffed full and her heart hurt for the victims left in these predators’ wakes. She’d had enough for one night. Looking up at the clock, she saw it was just after two a.m. Sebastian hadn't texted for a while and she was getting sleepy.

Closing up her computer, she headed upstairs to comb through Abbie's remaining records. But, an hour later, it was clear the FBI had taken everything of value. Maggie was left with a stack of papers on her desk that resembled trash more than anything else: receipts for restaurant dinners, dry cleaning tabs from a decade ago, old flyers for a county fair. Maggie almost swept if off the desk and into the trash can. But she couldn’t. Abbie had saved it.

It sure looked like trash and Maggie wondered how much she owed Aunt Abbie … The woman had left her a house that, despite the dire need for modernization was more than serviceable and worth far more money than any of Maggie’s cousins had received. She left the crap on the desk. She would have to decide what to do with it—probably toss it—but she wouldn’t decide in the middle of the night.

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