Page 133 of Maddy's Justice

“Are you all right? Where are you?” Connie quickly asked.

“Luckily, all I got out of it was a bloody nose from the airbag.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t some drunk who…”

“Marc, he was wearing a ski mask and shot at me. He shot at me a bunch of times. He missed but blew out my windows.”

“Holy shit,” Connie said.

“I’m scared. I didn’t go home. I got up the hill and flagged down a car about a mile away. I told the poor guy my husband hit me. He wanted to take me to the police, but I decided to wait with that. He took me to a gas station. I got a cab and came to a motel. I’m in a Motel Six in Burnsville at 35W and Highway Thirteen. Will you come here, please?”

“Give me the room number,” Marc said which she did.

Melanie opened the door and threw her arms around Marc’s neck.

“Please come in,” she said with obvious relief. “Thanks. Thanks for coming.”

“Are you okay?” Connie asked.

“Just my nose,” she answered. “It might be broken.”

“Let me see,” Marc said. “This will hurt,” he added pushing gently on her nose.”

“Ow. Yeah, but it’s not bad,” Melanie said.

“I don’t think it’s broken,” Marc said. “I’ve seen guys who got punched and broke their nose. They usually get black eyes too.

“Now,” Marc continued while they sat down. “What happened?”

“I told you,” Melanie said. “This guy deliberately ran me off the road. At first, I held the wheel and that’s when he rolled down his window, the passenger window, and started shooting. I got scared and went down the hill.”

“Why would somebody…” Connie started to ask.

“I’ve been thinking about that all night. I didn’t sleep a wink. I think it’s the firm. I meant to tell you. When you two met with us about the settlement offer, after you left, I asked about what was going on down on the thirty-eighth floor. I told Brandon someone saw him down there, but I didn’t tell him who. Of course, he denied it. Claimed they must have been mistaken.”

“I wasn’t,” Marc said.

“Marc, we went down to thirty-eight. The door you showed me? It’s gone.”

“What? Gone? How? Are you sure you were on thirty-eight?

“Yes. Positive.”

“We saw it,” Connie said. “Exactly the way Marc described it.”

Marc said, “It’s not that difficult for a good crew to remove a door, put up sheetrock and cover it up. But, to do it right, they’d have to paint over it. Did it look like the spot had been freshly painted?”

Melanie thought for a moment before saying, “Now that I think about it, the entire wall looked freshly painted.”

“That’s why it wasn’t noticeable,” Marc said. “A good crew could do the job in one evening.”

“They’d have to bribe the security guys to conveniently have a camera malfunction,” Connie said.

“Okay, then that’s what they did. But why? What are they hiding? And what did they do with it?”

The three of them went silent and looked at each other hoping one of them had some answers. Eventually, Marc removed his phone and dialed 411. He asked for a number and when he got, he had it dialed.

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Melanie said.

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