Page 64 of Crash and Burn

“Yes.” Maggie said, putting emphasis on the word again, as though maybe he were being a little slow on the uptake … and maybe he was.

“Why?”

“What other option do I have?”

That was when the argument really began.

“Lay low. Wait. Don’t bring him here on purpose! You know what he does, Maggie!” He was practically yelling, the ramifications of what she was suggesting were possibly horrific.

“Yes.” She said it again, with emphasis, as though he weren't catching on. “And by doing this on my time frame—at least as much as possible—I'm prepared.”

“Areyou?” He was so angry. So petrified. They’d finally found each other and … this?

“As much as I can be. Besides, he's what fifty? Sixty years old?”

That didn't comfort Sebastian.

Maggie tried again, her tone soft even if her words weren’t. “He's been at this for decades. He has to be older now.”

“If he started young, he might only be in his forties,” Sebastian argued back as though those facts might sway her.

“Okay,” Maggie countered. “Let’s say he's in his forties. That might make him strong and fit, but I'm ready for him.”

“He struck again six months ago.” Sebastian was breathing heavily, failing an argument that was too important to lose. He stopped there, thinking she would catch on. But then he decided it wasn't worth it to let her draw different conclusions. “Six months ago, he was strong enough to overpower someone. This time—” Maggie finally gave some ground, looking down and then to the side, but Sebastian didn't let up. “—you might be ready, you might have your baseball bat. But what if he has drugs? What if you don't see him coming?”

“I know what he looks like!”

“He knows ways into this house that we don't!”

She shrugged as though to saywhat was she going to do?and Sebastian thought what she should do is stop telling people about the page they’d found, stop spreading rumors that she had something he would want. Sebastian was opening his mouth to throw his next stone, but Maggie beat him to it.

“Whatelseare we going to do?” She'd said it before as though it were rhetorical, but now she seemed to want an answer.

The good news was he had one. “We're going to lay low and we're going to let the police and the FBI find him.”

“We are?” she demanded. “They haven't found him yet despite all the evidence we’ve given them. You and I are damn confident it's Merrit Geller, but he hasn't even been arrested yet. He's been active for over twenty years andthey haven't found him. They're going to have to catch him in the act. Better me than someone else.”

He wouldn't have thought he could get any more petrified, but that had done it. All he could think wasanybody but Maggie. He was shaking his head ‘no,’ but she wasn’t budging. “We just spent the last two weeks loading up the FBI and the police withnewevidence, they're going to get him this time.”

“It's been two weeks, Sebastian.” She stood there in her suit and heels, looking professional and yet somehow angry. She’d pulled the clip from her hair, letting it fall down. Maggie was a sea siren now, one who would argue him to his death.

“Give them time.” He was begging.

“How much time can we give them?” Her words were soft. She was actually asking him, but she had her own answer, too. “I'm losing clients. I’ve canceled them for FBI searches of my home. I haven’t slept enough to figure out how to advertise. You aren't working at all.” This time her hand waved at him. “How much longer can you sustain that, Sebastian?”

“I have savings,” he told her.

“Good, but this isn't what they're for.”

“Actually,” he countered, finally having a point. “This isexactlywhat they’re for.”

Maggie nodded, conceding, but she played another card. “How many more shifts can you cancel before you don't have a job anymore?”

He didn't know the answer to that, but it wasn’t many. He was a firefighter. Redemption was his hometown, A-shift washisshift. He would likely have to move to take a job somewhere else, because the chances of one opening up here were slim. It was part of what he liked about working here: No one was going anywhere.

“Sebastian,” she told him, at least looking a little regretful now. “He's going to come back. He’s already proven that we can’t stop him. Our only hope is to control it.”

But Sebastian was confident they couldn’t.

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