Page 47 of Crash and Burn

“In the meantime, I thought you should be alerted to what we now know, so that you can stay safe.” Marina pulled out her phone. “They have these suspects.”

But first, she glared at the two of them, making sure she had their attention. “You can't do anything or hunt anyone down, because they're just suspects right now. The police haven't released this information and they didn’t decide to give it to you. I did. If you do anything, it will blow back on all of us.”

She glared again, then softened. “But given what you’ve seen and heard, I'm concerned that they might be coming back for theirtrophies—”the word came out on a choke, “I want you to stay safe.”

She motioned with the phone, finally holding up the photo on the small screen. “Have you seen this man?”

Sebastian gave it a thorough look before turning to Maggie. She shook her head first, then Sebastian did, too. That neither of them had seen the suspect was concerning.

He added, “I can't be sure. I wasn't looking forhim, and I didn't know what Iwassupposed to be looking for.”

Marina nodded and lowered the phone. Sebastian thought she was putting it away, but instead she flipped to a second picture and held the phone up with another face he didn't recognize. Again, he shook his head. Maggie did the same. But the third photo she held up was Merrit Geller.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Maggie laid in bed staring at the ceiling. She was exhausted.

The information from Marina had been overwhelming.

It had been shocking to see the face of Merrit Geller on Marina’s phone, but also comforting. They were on the right track.

When Maggie had excitedly shared what she'd already learned, they'd found out that another of the photos produced a name that had been in Aunt Abbie’s rental records as well.

As the FBI had taken the records, Marina had not been privy to that information, but the three of them managed to put it together. As excited as they were, Marina was disappointed in the FBI. “They really need to be sharing this with you!”

Though Maggie and Sebastian had agreed, it didn't change anything.

Taking a deep breath, Maggie stared at the old plaster of the ceiling. It had been painted in 3D swirls with some odd brush. And she should have been falling asleep, but her brain turned next to Sebastian.

The locks he’d ordered arrived almost as soon as Marina left. But it had been growing dark. So, while she owned new locks and doorknobs, she figured they wouldn’t get installed until the next day.

Sebastian, however, insisted that she not go another night with doors that a killer might have a key to.

Maggie’s brain rolled over.Probably. The killer onlyprobablyhad the key to her home. But that was too much.

They had been only partway through the first installation—which, of course, had taken longer than expected—when Kalan called Sebastian. Though the other firefighter had originally been inviting Sebastian out for drinks, the invite was quickly turned the other way and within twenty minutes Kalan and two other A-shift guys were on Maggie’s doorstep and ready to help.

Kalan had been shocked. “How many doors does this place have?”

Maggie would have laughed if it hadn't been going dark and she hadn't been learning how to install new locks on the fly. “Four external doors!”

“Whoa,” Kalan had been shocked. “Obviously front and back …”

He pointed from where he stood to where Luke Hernandez and Ronan Kelly were installing the one on the back door. The front and back doors were almost perfectly aligned at either end of the hallway running almost through the center of the house.

“But there's also one from the laundry room,” Maggie told him. It discreetly let people out onto the back porch. “And there's a side door. I think one of the downstairs rooms was intended to be a den or an office and it opens to the side of the porch.”

The front porch wrapped partly around the side of the house, and the back porch spanned the entire width of the place. Though they didn't meet up in a full circle, she still had a stunning quantity of inside and outside access.

“What is this part, Kalan?” Ronan called out from the back door.

“Why are you asking me?” the big man almost hollered it back, but his voice carried easily.

“Because, we figured you’ve been installing these things since you were three!” Luke almost cackled and they all laughed at a joke Maggie didn’t get.

Kalan rolled his eyes. “While I have been installing locks since I was seven, it wasn’t full doorknobs like this.”

Maggie couldn’t help asking. It was too much mystery to leave alone, and she couldn’t stand to be on the outside of a joke. “Why do they think you should do this? And why were you installing locks at age seven?”

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