Page 62 of Crash and Burn

“I got on my phone and checked the contracts we photographed.”

He didn’t like the sound of that, but Maggie continued. Her body was tense in his arms, but there was nothing he could do but hold her.

“Merrit Geller was here when the chairs were reupholstered. And Marina told me that they weren't making an official call yet about the prints—that the lab wanted to do one more run—but it looked as if the La Vista Rapist’s DNA was on that pillowcase.”

Sebastian nodded along. The house was full of fingerprints and Marina had been feeding Maggie and him whatever information she could. So far, nothing had turned up from the Blue River Killer.

But the La Vista Rapist had left clean, fresh prints all over Maggie's house, and apparently older ones, too.

“Is it him?”

Maggie shrugged in his arms. “It’s possible. But so far the two are not officially linked.”

Sebastian understood. They had a name and a person who'd been here. Until they had something that could hold up in court to show that those prints belonged to Merrit Geller, they couldn't say the man was, in fact, the rapist.

“Surely, the FBI or the police in Lincoln are working on finding him. On getting a DNA or a fingerprint match?”

“That would be my guess,” Maggie added. “Unfortunately, it was Marina’s guess as well. She's not part of the unit and they aren’t sharing information.”

“That sucks,” Sebastian said, thinking that was the end of it. But it wasn’t.

Maggie propped herself up on one elbow. “Here's the kicker: I remember when Aunt Abbie reupholstered the chairs. She told me how much she loved the fabric and she talked about when they had done it. She told me she had a friend who helped her …” Maggie let the words hang in the air.

Sebastian put it together. “And those prints match the La Vista Rapist?”

“I don't know yet.” She was clearly frustrated. “I mean, I looked around the house and it looks to me like the same prints. But what do I know?”

Sebastian wanted to squirm just as much as she was, but fought to stay calm. It seemed Maggie wasn’t done dropping bombs.

“I didn't understand when I was a kid, but thinking back to the things she said, and what she talked about them doing together, and the way Aunt Abbie worked … Sebastian, she was in love with him.”

“Why do you say that?” He didn’t remember Sabbie having a lover or even a boyfriend.

“She told me about herfriend.I was just a kid. I didn't think anything of it, even as a young teenager. But looking back, thinking about the way she talked about thisfriend, he had to have been her lover.”

The words were clearly not comfortable on her tongue.

Sebastian understood. His whole life, he believed Sabbie to be just an older woman. Only recently had he come to understand that just because people looked older than him didn't mean their lives were empty. But in his memories of Sabbie, she was only running the boardinghouse and handing out candy to the neighborhood kids.

“I'm afraid that, when they get this confirmed, they're going to discover that Abbie had a decades-long affair with him.”

“That long?” He was surprised by Maggie’s assessment.

“I don't know, but he kept coming back and he kept renting a room. She trusted him enough that she wrote him a contract on a napkin. And Abbie was in love with the boarder who helped to reupholster those chairs. I'm confident enough of my memory on that …”

She took a deep breath, “I’m getting more convinced that person was Merrit Geller and that he is also the La Vista Rapist.”

This time her sigh was pained as she pulled out of his arms and flopped onto her back, exasperated. He wished they could make love again and at least release some of this awful stress.

She rolled only her head to face him. “We have to do something.”

“Like what?” Concern bloomed in his chest. Maggie was the kind of woman who went after what she wanted. It was amazing and sexy but, right now, it was downright scary.

“I can’t go on like this. This man has been in my house multiple times.”

“The guys went around everywhere, and they didn't find any new entries.” He protested but understood when Maggie raised an eyebrow.

“I appreciate their efforts and, in any other house, I’d feel safer. But I'm not confident that other entries don't exist.” She paused. “Old houses have secrets.”

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