Full Scoop (23 page)

“I don’t like this one damn bit,” Queenie said as Zack helped Maggie adjust the Kevlar vest in her bedroom. “What if he decides to shoot her in the head? Then what?”

“Let’s try to think positively,” Maggie said, knowing Zack was a breath away from scrapping her plan. She shrugged on her blouse and buttoned it. He and Maggie made their way into the kitchen, Queenie following close behind. Jamie and Max leaned against the kitchen counter. Jamie was clearly upset.

Zack’s cell phone rang. He yanked it from his pocket impatiently. “Yeah, what?” he said. His eyes registered surprise. “Um, Miss Zahn, you’ve caught me at a really bad time,” he said as Maggie sighed and gave a major eye roll. “May I call you back?”

“Okay,” Zack said to Maggie a few minutes later. “Remember what I told you. I’ll be watching every move through the scope. Everybody is on standby.”

Maggie nodded. “You’re positive the street and sidewalks are clear?”

“Yes. Once it’s done, that place will be surrounded. Ambulances too,” he added. “And don’t forget, you’ll need to—”

“I know what to do, Zack,” she said.

His gaze lingered a few seconds before he started for the stairs. Maggie swallowed and dialed Lydia’s number as Queenie and Jamie walked into Mel’s bedroom and closed the door. Only Max remained.

Carl Lee answered. “Did you find the money?” he asked. “Is it in good shape?”

“Yes, the plastic bags protected it.”

“Where is your friend’s car? Lydia has already moved hers from the garage. She’s waiting so she can close the garage door once it’s inside.”

“After I speak with Mel.”

“Watch what you say, Maggie.”

Maggie took a deep breath.

“Mom?”

Tears spurted from Maggie’s eyes. She struggled to find her voice. “Oh, honey,” she said. “I’ve missed you so much. Are you okay?”

“Uh-huh. I think Ben is sick. Lydia is very upset.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Mel.” Maggie swiped at a tear. “Do you know what to do?”

“Yes, but why are you coming over here?”

“I’m giving Mr. Stanton his money. But you are to walk across the street and go straight inside the house. Queenie and Jamie will be waiting for you.”

“Are you going to be okay, Mom?” Mel sounded afraid.

“As long as you do as you’re told.”

“Okay, but I have something very important I want to ask you later.”

Carl Lee took the phone. “I’m waiting on the car.”

Maggie turned to Max who walked out the door. “It will be inside the garage in two minutes,” she said. “I’ll be carrying a black suitcase with me. I will cross the street as Mel crosses.” She paused. “I want to be able to give her a hug.”

He hung up.

Maggie waited until Max returned through the back door. “Be careful, Maggie.”

Maggie waited on her front porch. Across the street, Lydia and Ben’s door opened and Mel appeared on the threshold. Maggie’s heart soared at the sight of her daughter. On the outside she appeared unharmed. Maggie would do what was necessary to help her with any wounds on the inside, and she took great comfort knowing how strong and determined Mel was. Finally, she nodded at the girl, and they began to walk across the opposite lawns. They met in the center of the street and hugged. Tears streamed down Maggie’s cheeks. “You know you’re grounded again, right?” Maggie said with a grin.

“Duh. Is Carl Lee Stanton my father?”

“Yes. I’m sorry you had to find it out this way.”

“Well, I hate him. If he goes back to prison I don’t have to visit him, do I? I mean, a judge can’t order it, right?”

“No.” Maggie kissed her forehead. “Go to the house, honey. Arm the alarm system. Do not come back out until I get there.” She saw the question in Mel’s eyes. “You have to trust me.”

“Don’t forget about Ben.”

Maggie stood straight and walked toward the Greens’ house. The door was open and empty. She stopped at the bottom of the steps. And stared into the barrel of a gun.

“Let me see what’s in the suitcase,” Carl Lee said.

Maggie set the suitcase on the ground, flipped the locks, and opened the lid. The money was stacked neatly inside.

“Toss one of the stacks to me,” he said.

She did as she was told. It landed inches from the door. “Sorry. Do you want me to try again?”

“Close the suitcase and come forward slowly.”

From Maggie’s upstairs guest room, Zack held the rifle steady and looked through the scope, his target fixed on the front door across the street. The window was open, a breeze fluttered the curtain, but Zack was careful to keep the barrel out of sight. “Come out, you mean bastard.”

Maggie walked up the steps slowly. She paused at the edge of the porch. She could see Carl Lee’s hand on the gun. “Don’t point that thing at me.”

She sniffed. “I hate guns. Stop pointing it at me.”

He pulled the hammer back.

“Okay, I’m coming,” she said quickly. She stopped several feet in front of the door. “Could you stop pointing it at my head now? I’m not coming any closer with that gun at my head.” She sniffed again.

“Shut up and follow the plan!”

She started to cry. “I’m scared!” She stepped a foot closer. “Stop pointing that gun at my face. What if it goes off accidentally?”

“I’m going to count to three, Maggie,” Carl Lee yelled, “and you’d better have your ass inside this door or you won’t have a face left.”

The words floated to the window where Zack stood, gaze and rifle steady, face dark with hatred.

Maggie hesitated. She didn’t fear death; she feared leaving her child motherless.

“One—”

She inched forward.

“Two—”

Maggie cried louder. The suitcase slipped from her hands, hit the porch and fell open, tossing stacks of bills in every direction.

“Shit!” Carl Lee shouted a list of obscenities.

“It’s not my fault. This suitcase is crap,” Maggie said.

All at once, Carl Lee grabbed a handful of her hair. She yelped and tried to pull free.

“Three!” he said.

Suddenly a look of outright shock and disbelief hit his face, and he went slack. The gun fell just inside the door, and Maggie yanked her hair free. She couldn’t tear her eyes from his dazed expression, even as she wondered what was happening.

He suddenly lurched forward as though propelled by a strong wind.

“What the hell?” Zack said, finger poised on the trigger as he watched Carl Lee stagger forward, unarmed.

Maggie rolled away only seconds before Carl Lee slumped and folded on the threshold. She saw the large knife buried in the back of his neck; her doctor’s mind quickly told her the wound was lethal. She looked up at Lydia. Her face ravaged, the woman stepped over Carl Lee’s body and offered Maggie her hand. Maggie grasped it tightly. They sobbed in each other’s arms. “Ben?” Maggie managed to ask.

“He’s holding on,” Lydia said.

“Mom!”

Lydia released her, and Maggie turned and smiled as Mel flew out the front door of their house. Not wanting her daughter to see Carl Lee’s body, Maggie quickly cleared the steps and porch and met her near the street. Mel threw herself into Maggie’s open arms, and they clung together tightly. Maggie drank in her scent as the first siren wailed.

Maggie was jolted from her sleep, her heart pounding hard and erratically, stomach twisting. She bolted upright on the sofa, looked about the room, and her mind quickly flashed a rerun of Carl Lee Stanton’s draped body lying in Ben and Lydia’s doorway. Carl Lee was dead. She went slack with relief.

It was over. She and Mel were safe. Safe!

She took pleasure in turning on the table lamp. They could stop hiding behind closed drapes and stumbling about in the dark. Life would be normal again. They could go back to their old routine, and Maggie would never again complain about feeling as if she were in a rut. She couldn’t wait for her next rut. She looked forward to Mel complaining about how bored she was.

Maggie looked at the clock on the fireplace mantel. Eight P.M. Once she and Mel had pulled themselves together, answered questions put to them by the police, and said good-bye to everyone, they’d slogged to the nearest horizontal location and dropped.

Now, Maggie felt numb. She was grateful that her ordeal and the exhaustion that had followed left her senses dulled. It would make things more bearable over the next few days. Like remembering the regret in Zack’s eyes as he’d hugged Mel and promised to keep up with her via e-mail. And watching him drive away, heading back to his life and a career that left little room for anything else. Maggie felt the ache tug the fringes of her heart and dreaded that moment when everything became clear and she had to face the enormous loss.

Zack had made Mel and her laugh. He’d lifted them and comforted them and done all he could to make them safe. That he had personally given Maggie multiple orgasms was an added bonus.

Okay, so she was going to feel like shit for a while.

Maggie heard a car turn into her driveway, and she waited a breathless moment before pulling one drape aside and peering through the small slit. She did not recognize the man who climbed from the car and started up her front walk. She disarmed the alarm system and opened her door, but made certain the storm door was locked. She watched through the glass as the man hurried up the front walk and climbed her front steps. His yellowish-gray hair was mussed, and his navy suit looked as though he’d slept in it.

He gave a sad smile and shrugged helplessly when he saw her looking through the glass. “I know I’m too late, Dr. Davenport. I heard the news in the car on the way over.”

Maggie recognized his voice. “Dr. McKelvey?”

He nodded. “James.”

Zack tried Maggie’s number again, and it rang endlessly. “Dammit, Maggie, stop looking at your caller ID and pick up the phone!” He hung up and spouted a foul word. After driving around for more than an hour and missing her so bad his gut ached. Not only that, something was wrong. He felt it. It had begun as a nagging doubt when he’d slipped into Maggie’s bedroom with a brief note. He needed time to think, he’d written. He’d reached to put the note on her night table when he’d spied James McKelvey’s name and number. He wished now that he’d asked Maggie about it.

He was probably being paranoid, but McKelvey was a drunk who’d been accused of professional misconduct by one of his female patients. Instinct told Zack there was probably more to it or McKelvey would not have closed a lucrative practice or taken a job in a prison, a huge step down professionally. He punched in Max’s number. “It’s me, Zack,” he said, the minute Max answered. “Just how good is that damn computer of yours?”

Maggie unlatched the storm door and opened it. In all the commotion she had completely forgotten about the man. “Please come in.” She closed the door behind him.

“I’m so sorry, Dr. Davenport,” he said. “I won’t waste your time giving you the dismal details of what I went through to get here. I tried calling you several times on the drive from Savannah.”

“I unplugged the phone,” she said. “It was literally ringing off the hook, and my daughter and I were just too tired to deal with all the calls.” She smiled. “I’m Maggie, by the way.” She offered her hand, and they shook. Maggie guessed him to be about fifty years old. He had the ruddy red look and tiny broken veins on either side of his nose that suggested he might indeed be an alcoholic.

“I have reservations at a hotel in town, but I had to come by and make sure you and your little girl were okay. Did I wake you?”

Maggie realized her clothes were badly wrinkled, and she had no idea how her hair looked. She smoothed it back. “I was already awake when you pulled up,” she said. “My daughter and I pretty much zonked out once everybody left. Please sit down.”

He looked surprised as he took a seat on the sofa. “You’re alone?” he asked. “Wouldn’t you feel better having a friend or family member with you?”

“We’re fine,” she said. “Really.” She started to sit. “Could I get you a cup of coffee or soft drink?”

“No, thank you.”

He slid close to the edge of the sofa, leaned forward, and clasped his hands in front of him. “I heard your daughter was, um, taken hostage. How is she?”

“Shaken but better than most girls her age would be after that kind of experience. Carl Lee did not hurt her in any way,” she added. “I think by the time she wakes up, probably a couple of days from now, she’ll be even better.”

McKelvey studied her. “You’re a lot prettier than the grainy newspaper clipping Carl Lee and I have.”

Maggie wasn’t certain she’d heard him right. “Excuse me?”

He reached for his wallet. “Carl Lee asked me to get him a photo of you. All I was able to get was this newspaper clipping.” He pulled it out and unfolded it. “You’re much prettier in person.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Why do
you
have a clipping of me?”

He looked at her. “I felt—” He paused. “I felt I knew you. You were all he talked about, Maggie. In session after session,” he added. “How you followed in your grandfather’s footsteps and became a doctor. I’ll bet you’re a good pediatrician. You have a very gentle and loving nature about you. No wonder Carl Lee couldn’t exorcise you from his thoughts,” he added. “I imagine it would be difficult for any man.”