“Lucas bought that for me when we were in Sun Valley checkin’ out the area.” She turned back to the window.
“Lucas bought it?” Emily wondered if it might have his fingerprints on it.
“Yep, he surprised me with it.” Maggie remained at the window, arms crossed, watching for her son. “I’d admired it at the gift shop and when we got home he gave it to me.”
“That was thoughtful.” Emily took advantage of Maggie’s distraction at the window and slipped the paperweight into the plastic zippered baggie inside her purse.
“Lucas is wonderful that way. I can’t imagine what he and Josh would have to disagree about.” Maggie turned away from the window.
She went back to the dining table and put both hands out, leaning on the edge of the table, pouring over the open books and magazines. She flipped one closed.
Maggie stood upright, crossed her arms again, and looked at her friend. “I can’t concentrate, Em. Where’s my son? What’s goin’ on?”
“I thought he’d be back by now too, Maggie. Why don’t we go down to Lucas’s office and find out what’s going on?” Emily suggested. She was getting a little concerned herself.
Maggie, with worry written all over her face, nodded in agreement.
~*~
At almost seven o’clock, Emily and Maggie entered the Graystone Building and headed directly to Lucas’s office. The door to the suite was open, yet the front reception area was almost dark, lit only by the stream of light coming from where Lucas’s door stood ajar.
They listened for voices before entering, but there were none. Emily half-expected to hear a shouting match the way Josh had described the encounter he was going to have with Lucas.
“Should we go in?” Maggie whispered, looking to Emily for confirmation.
Something didn’t feel right. Maggie must have sensed it too. Emily pulled the gun out of her purse, and handed her bag to Maggie. She kept the gun pointed to the ground until she checked out the office.
“Stay behind me,” Emily directed in a soft voice.
Emily slinked through the front office, peeking into Lucas’s office through the six-inch crack in the door. Then she heard a woman’s voice and she slowly pushed the door open.
Gloria Wakefield sat in a club chair next to Lucas’s body. She had dialed nine-one-one and was asking for an ambulance and the police to help her son. Her breathing was hard and her face looked pasty and sweaty. She lifted her gaze to Emily.
“My son—someone’s killed my son!” the elderly woman cried. “I tried to help him, but I think it’s too late.”
Emily stuffed her gun in the back of her waistband, not wanting Gloria to see it and become even more distraught. The woman’s hands were covered in blood, as was the front of her dress. Emily crouched down beside her chair to see if she was all right, she appeared to be going into shock.
Maggie surveyed the brutal scene before her, then she ran in, throwing herself over Lucas. A flood of tears came spilling out and she sobbed uncontrollably.
“No!” She put her hand on his battered face, then laid her head down on the chest of his blood-soaked shirt. “Lucas! No!”
Emily was torn between tending to the murder victim’s elderly mother and helping her friend who was hysterically embracing her fiancé’s brutally murdered body. Then Emily had a sudden realization—could Josh have done this?
“Maggie.” Emily reached for her friend’s shoulders, pulling her gently back. “You can’t be touching the body. You’re compromising the evidence.”
Maggie turned and glared at Emily. “He isn’t evidence! He’s my world.”
“I know, I know, but the police are on their way and they can’t find you like this. Come on, sweetie, why don’t you sit down in this chair,” Emily urged, motioning to the club chair beside Gloria.
With some coaxing, Maggie took Emily’s hand to help her off the floor and into the chair. Lucas’s blood was smeared on Maggie’s pink blouse, and the side of her face and her hands were covered in it. Her mascara had run down her cheeks, but she didn’t seem to care as the tears continued to flow.
“You doing okay there, Mrs. Wakefield?” Emily glanced over her shoulder at Gloria.
She quietly shook her head and stared down blankly at the handbag clutched in her lap.
The scream of sirens split the night air and soon there were police and paramedics swarming the parking lot and pouring into the building. Emily went to the office door and motioned