Page 17 of Crash and Burn

He wouldn’t either. She knew that much. If anything happened to her, he’d blame himself and his circumstances with Hannah and his ex. But it wasn’t his fault, and Maggie wasn’t his girlfriend anymore. She said the words again. “Three hours.”

“Thank you. Really. I appreciate it.”

She looked between the two men who seemed to believe that that fixed everything, but it messed everything up. Her volunteer work was cut an hour short, but the chief seemed to think it was worth it to get his firefighter back and not have to call in a sub.

Heading out into the main room she found Hannah squealing and running around. She was playing with Sebastian and Kalan. Apparently one of them was chasing the other two, but Maggie couldn't figure out quite which way it went. When it calmed down, she packed the little girl into her stroller and gathered Hannah's things along with her own, making it look more like a camping trip than a walk home.

As she said goodbye, knowing the guys were watching her, and thinking … well, whatever they thought about her doing all this for Rex and Hannah, She heard the Chief’s phone buzz and her heart sank. Sure enough, thirty seconds later the alarm rang and the men scrambled into action. She heard the call—both trucks. It could be nothing, but there was every chance that Rex wouldn’t even be done with this call in three hours, let alone have another sitter lined up to get his daughter.

She tried to put her best face forward to the little girl. None of this was Hannah’s fault, but Maggie felt only resentment as she pushed the stroller through the bay doors and down the sidewalk. As the trucks rolled and bounced past them, Hannah waved and squealed and Maggie looked up in time to see a few of the guys waving back to her.

They hit the park and played until the small bag of snacks ran out. She counted the cars that went by, suspicious of everyone and everything and hating being out in the open. But Hannah loved the park and the silver sedan wasn’t evil, just someone she didn’t know. When they were done, she pushed the stroller the five blocks back to her own home, her stomach twisting the whole way.

She’d texted Rex multiple times but got no word back. So Maggie fed Hannah dinner and they watched the sunset out the front window.

Even as Hannah squealed at a pair of squirrels running up and down the big tree in the front yard, Maggie looked at her watch. It had been five hours and there was no word.

Were the guys safe? The fire must have been bigger than just a small call. They were called out for more than just smoke alerts and medical emergencies, though they got those, too. Sometimes wildfires came close to town, and their crew was added in with the smoke jumpers and stations from Lincoln or even Omaha.

They were as safe as they could be, but it wasn’t a safe job.

She checked her phone again as the front yard grew dark and she grew more and more worried. As she pulled Hannah away from the window, Maggie saw the silver sedan go by again.

Chapter Sixteen

Maggie had slept on the couch in the living room the night before. The crick in her neck wasn't doing her any favors nor was the maybe four hours total sleep she'd gotten during eight different attempts.

Stretching her arms up, she felt the pull of angry muscles. Maggie tipped her head side to side, glad that Hannah wasn't here. Having a toddler would have only made the night worse and heightened her paranoia.

Rex had shown up and fetched Hannah about thirty minutes after Maggie had finally given up and put her to sleep. He'd managed to text a few minutes before he was on his way but it wasn't much warning. Still Maggie was glad to have Hannah with Rex where she belonged, even though it had meant Rex missed part of his shift.

He hadn’t been able to find a babysitter at all. Maggie quashed her guilt. She felt bad that she couldn’t help him out, but she was concerned about having Hannah overnightbeforeshe’d seen the silver sedan go by at both the park and her house.

So she’d stayed up late, fully dressed and sitting on the couch. She clutched her high-powered LED flashlight and sat in the dark, watching out the small slit in the front curtains. Maggie had hoped she would be able to see if someone came on her property. She was hoping the streetlights were bright enough she could catch the license plate if the silver sedan went by again.

It hadn't.

She’d given up around two a.m. then woken up numerous times throughout the night to various creepy noises. She’d shown the light into the front yard once and the back yard three times. If anyone had actually been on her property, the powerful beam had scared them off.

In the morning, she’d headed outside and checked the grass for any new evidence. There had been no new footprints, but there hadn't been any new rains either and Maggie honestly didn't know what she was looking for. She thought about calling Sebastian and telling him about the silver sedan—just so someone else would know where to start looking if something happened to her.

But the sun was coming in through the sheers and the fears of the night before began to recede. So, after she'd eaten her oatmeal and had her coffee, Maggie got dressed for the day and called the police station. She was hoping for a little bit of good news to tip her world back to upright.

She waited on hold two different times as she was passed from department to department. Finally, Officer Balero answered the phone. “Miss Willis—”

“Maggie, please,” she offered. Despite the strange tension lingering between Sebastian and the officer, Maggie liked her. Maybe she'd find out whatever that bit of gossip was later. “I was hoping to get my box of jewelry back. I've been looking through my aunt's records and trying to find who the tenants were. I’d like to return things to their owners.”

“Oh,” Marina seemed surprised by the request and it took her a moment to respond.

In the space before she answered, Maggie felt her stomach twist—a feeling that was becoming far too common in her life.

Her best case scenario was simply that they wouldn't return the box. And though she was trying to find the owners, she really didn't care about the jewelry itself. Right now, she didn't know who it belonged to. If she found out who it belonged to, he could go to the police and request it back himself.

But that wasn’t going to happen. Marina’s next words stunned her. “We don't have the box anymore … Nor any of the jewelry.”

“What happened to it?” Maggie blurted out the words before thinking. That was not her usual style. As a lawyer she'd been carefully trained to think before she spoke. But she felt she was blurting out so many things these days, because the world was moving both too slow and too fast.

Her brain tumbled over ideas as if she were running too quickly downhill. Maybe it had been lost. She'd always heard about evidence going missing. If that was true, she didn't care, but it was the tone and the officer’s voice as she gave the information that had Maggie's tension ratcheting up again.

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