Free Twice Kissed by Lisa Jackson

she added, “But I called his other place—the spread in California. Talked to a manager there. No one knows what happened to him.”
    “Convenient.”
    “Very.”
    “Keep looking.”
    “I will.” She nodded, her short blond hair moving a bit, brushing her collar. “They both can’t be lost.”
    “You wouldn’t think so.”
    “And he claimed he didn’t leave with her. Remember you questioned him yourself the day that she was reported missing.”
    “I remember. He’d had a fight with her.”
    “He wasn’t the only one.”
    “But he was the last. Good ol’ Marquise was on a tear last week, wasn’t she?” he muttered, recalling that she’d had it out with the cohost of her morning program and her latest boyfriend as well as her first husband. And those were only the ones he knew about.
    “Walker’s not on the up and up.” Henderson frowned and replaced the baseball in its stand, a small metal replica of a catcher’s glove that once had been painted shiny gold, but now showed dull black where the paint had chipped away. Narrowing his eyes on the skyline of the city, visible through a thick, plate-glass window, he scratched with one finger at the itchy stubble beginning to shadow his jaw. “I don’t like the guy.”
    “This isn’t exactly a news flash,” Hannah remarked with that irritating half-smile of hers. “You don’t like anyone.”
    With good reason, he thought. Most people weren’t to be trusted. Especially ex-husbands with personal axes to grind.
     
    “Looks like your lucky day,” Maggie said as she walked into Becca’s room and lifted the shades of her windows. Sunlight danced over the patches of snow that clung to the ground, and the room was suddenly awash with bright morning light. But as Maggie looked out the window, she saw the storm clouds gathering in the distance, gray and threatening, promising more snow than had been left in the middle of the night.
    Becca, groaning, rolled over in bed, and the ice bag, a Ziploc plastic container now filled with water, tumbled to the floor. Fortunately, it didn’t burst open. “What’s so lucky about it?”
    “You’re flying to California.” Maggie picked up the bag.
    Becca’s eyes sprang open. She pushed herself into a sitting position. “What happened?” she asked suspiciously as she rubbed her eyes and yawned.
    “I decided you were right. I have to go to Denver.” Maggie sighed and sat on the window ledge as the bright morning began to fade and the storm clouds encroached. “I don’t know what happened to Mary Theresa,” she admitted, staring at the clear sagging bag of water that had once been ice. “And I’m the only family she has left, so I’m going to Denver.”
    “Cool.” Becca didn’t seem too worried about her missing aunt.
    “Now, let’s look at that ankle of yours.” She walked to the bed and Becca willingly showed off her bruised and swollen foot. Gingerly, Maggie ran a finger over her daughter’s skin. Becca didn’t wince.
    “It’s better.”
    “It is?”
    “Much,” Becca assured her. It seemed as if the swelling had, indeed, gone down, though the area around Becca’s ankle had turned an even uglier shade of green-blue this morning and the discoloration had spread, running down to the back of her heel.
    “If you say so.” She forced a smile as she straightened, then walked to the bathroom, where she dumped the contents of the bag into the sink and tossed the used plastic into a wastebasket. “This isn’t the greatest time for you to visit Connie and Jim,” she said, returning to Becca’s room. It looked as if the proverbial cyclone had hit with the clothes, towels, books, and magazines scattered helter-skelter on the floor and every other available surface.
    “Sure it is.” Becca wasn’t going to relinquish her mother’s promise. “You can’t change your mind.”
    “I won’t.” Maggie hated leaving Becca while the kid was still struggling with crutches. Not that she had much choice