Allison Brennan - Cutting Edge

“What tripped her up, however, is her thinking she was going to outsmart the police. She planted a suicide note with a poor attempt at copying Anya’s handwriting. Ironically, there were no prints on the iced tea jug that the poisoned tea came in. Whoever poured it wore gloves or wiped it clean. She or Scott Edwards slit the neck of her old high school friend Russell Larkin, who was the I.T. guy for Butcher-Payne. We’re not sure how, but they retrieved codes off Larkin’s computer that enabled them to get into Butcher-Payne without detection. I have agents in Paso Robles where Maggie grew up trying to locate her. I have an agent at the college interviewing students who knew her. I have another agent poring through property records, and Duke Rogan is reviewing all background information one more time in the hopes of finding out where she is hiding.”

Nora stopped, her heart racing. Quin still didn’t look at her. Nora felt like she’d irrevocably damaged her relationship with Quin. She ached for her sister, wished she could take back the harsh words, wished she could understand. Maybe she’d been wrong keeping Quin from Lorraine. All she’d wanted for her small family was stability.

“Quin-we’ve been friends now as well as sisters. Please. Look at me.”

Quin slowly turned. Her face was splotchy, her eyes red. “Leave me alone,” she whispered.

“I can’t. I fear for your safety.”

She laughed, the pitch high and fake. “Maggie? Even if you’re right, she would never hurt me.”

Nora didn’t believe that for a minute, but knew it would be fruitless trying to convince her now. “Do you know where she is?”

Quin shook her head. “I saw her in June. I didn’t know she was in Sacramento. If she’s still in Sacramento.”

Nora tried not to let her words sting. “If you hear from her, you need to let me know immediately. She’s dangerous.”

“I’ll take it under advisement.”

Quin walked out the door. Nora sank into the chair behind Duke’s desk and put her head in her hands. She had to believe that Quin would see reason when she calmed down. Quin wasn’t stupid, she was just hurt, upset, and confused.

Tears never came easily for Nora, but her eyes burned and she squeezed them shut. She knew better than to let the guilt in. If regretted, every decision, including those she made about Quin, would be threatening a flood of remorse. Quin, things she’d done as a child, her resentment of her mother-even turning state’s evidence, though the right decision, weighed down her heart. She’d protected Quin because it was all she had to cling to, Quin was all she had that kept her strong when too often she’d wanted to disappear.

She couldn’t lose Quin, but could she accept her sister’s relationship with Lorraine? How could she constantly battle the lies from Lorraine’s mouth? She didn’t want to defend herself and her decisions, right or wrong, for the rest of her life. She felt defeated and alone.

Duke entered his office after he saw Quin run out, obviously upset. Nora had her head on his desk, her shoulders slumped and quivering with tension and restrained emotion. He ached for her, wanting to wash away her anguish.

Walking over to her, he put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed. “I’m sorry. That must have been hard.”

She sat up, leaning back into his hands as he rubbed her tense shoulders. “She’s believed Lorraine’s lies about so many things-I don’t know where to begin to set her straight. I lost her long ago and I didn’t even see it. I was in over my head and didn’t know it. I wish to God I could take back some of the things I said.” Her voice cracked and she bit her bottom lip.

“Quin’s smart. She just needs to think it through.”

“She thinks I’ve been lying to her about important information. Like her father.” She rubbed her eyes. “I can’t believe I’ve been so blind. She’s resented every decision I’ve made.”

Duke wished he could do something, but this was between Nora and Quin. All he could do was stand with her.

“Did Jayne have anything for you on the security tapes from Butcher-Payne?” she asked him.

“I know how they messed with the video. Actually quite smart. They brought in a computer that directed a completely different feed into the digital recording, essentially recording blanks over the actual images. I think that’s how they corrupted Russ Larkin’s computer as well. It’s impossible to get the true recording, but I’m glad Jayne figured out how they did it. My security system had a fatal flaw, now I can fix it.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said.

He spun her around in the chair, his face inches from hers. Her big round eyes were filled with heartache. “And it’s not your fault that Quin is having problems accepting the truth.”

He heard a rattle on his table in the corner. “Your cell phone is vibrating.” He walked over to the table and brought the phone to her.

“Thanks.” It was Lindsey Prince, one of the agents in San Luis Obispo.

“I got news for you,” Lindsey said in a rush. “First, a photo of Maggie O’Dell from high school. We’re at Kinko’s now, scanning it in, and will email it pronto.”

“Terrific. Send it to both me and ASAC Hooper. He’ll need it for the APB and I’ll distribute it to my team.”

“There’s more. We talked to the local sheriff and he knows Maggie O’Dell very well. She was quite the juvenile delinquent. Mostly vandalism and petty crime, and her parents always paid restitution when she was caught. It’s a small town, they didn’t do anything more about it. Except, the sheriff has long suspected that she killed her boyfriend. He just can’t prove it.”

“How?”

“Hemlock.”

“Hemlock?”

“Specifically, water hemlock. But she denied even seeing him that day, no one saw them together, and her father vouched that she had been sleeping most of the afternoon because of a flu bug.”

“Was he lying?”

“The sheriff thought so, but had no physical evidence to tie her to the death. Some people thought the kid accidentally ate the hemlock. Others thought he was killed. His parents received a substantial amount of money from an insurance policy they had on him. But even so the sheriff always suspected Maggie. From the start, her reaction didn’t fit for him. But she didn’t rattle.”

“How did the boyfriend ingest water hemlock?”

“The autopsy was unclear-there were no undigested leaves or roots in his stomach. But the pond nearby had a considerable amount of water hemlock growing near the shore. There have been documented cases of cattle being poisoned from drinking water that had been saturated with the plants. The sheriff, under pressure from the family, closed the case as an accidental poisoning. Because he couldn’t prove murder, there was the possibility of suicide, and the insurance wouldn’t pay on self-termination.”

It fit Maggie O’Dell’s M.O.-there had been no traces of jimsonweed leaves in the Rose College students; the water had leeched the poison from homemade, deadly tea bags.

“And,” Lindsey continued, “the victim was supposed to picnic with another girl that day, but her grandfather died the night before and she left the state. The victim’s mother said that he’d broken up with Maggie weeks before, and wouldn’t have gone to see her.”

“That probably didn’t sit well with Maggie,” Nora said. “Anything on Russell Larkin?”

“He was Maggie’s neighbor, though graduated several years before she started high school. His younger sister was in O’Dell’s class. I want to talk to her next, but she’s on a plane now, flying in from Northwestern for Larkin’s memorial service.”

“Down there?”