Secure Location - By Beverly Long Page 0,54

I got back he told me that some old lady had come by. He said she seemed sort of nervous and that she asked to see Margaret Mae.”

“Margaret Mae?”

“That’s what everyone called me when I was a kid.”

Detective Myers nodded. “When you lived in Maiter?”

“Yes. And before that, when I lived in Houston. I didn’t go by Meg until college.”

“What did Tim tell her?”

“He told her the office was Meg Montoya’s and she said that’s who she wanted. Tim said that he asked the woman for her name, to check it against the list and that she got real pale. He thought she might fall over. She never did give him her name. Just walked away.”

“And you have no idea who she was?”

“No. I asked Tim what she looked like and he said that she wasn’t much over five feet. Kind of round. Pretty old, too. Maybe sixty.”

Detective Myers smiled. “Tim evidently hasn’t heard that sixty is the new forty.” He closed his notebook. “But you don’t know that this person had anything to do with what happened twenty years ago in Maiter. Maybe it was somebody who lived across the street from you when you were five and you lived in Houston?”

Maybe. But she had a horrible feeling that it had something to do with a secret that she’d managed to hide for half her lifetime.

She needed Cruz to go back to Chicago before all her lies started to unravel. Getting him to agree was going to be difficult, almost impossible.

There was probably only one way. It went against everything she believed in but she was desperate.

“You might be right,” she said. She stood up and he did the same. She walked around her desk, across her office, and opened the door. Charlotte was at her desk, her hands on her computer keyboard. The woman looked up but didn’t say anything.

Meg shook the detective’s hand. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”

Detective Myers nodded and left.

Charlotte was staring at her. Meg just shook her head. “No calls for a little while, please,” she said. She went into her office, shutting the door behind her. Then she picked up the telephone and put her plan in motion.

* * *

WHEN CRUZ GOT BACK to the hotel, he went to Meg’s hotel room and was disappointed when it was empty. She had always worked hard and it didn’t look as if she changed her pattern. He took the elevator down to the first floor.

There was no security guard outside her office. He started running. When he grabbed the door handle and realized the office was locked, he felt marginally better. Meg had probably ended her day and sent the security guard on his way.

But where the hell was she? She’d promised that she wouldn’t leave the hotel. He pulled out his cell phone and punched up her number. It rang three times before she answered it.

“Hello,” she said.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I...uh...yes, I’m fine,” she said. “Just a little busy.”

She sounded as if she was out of breath. Maybe she’d gone to the hotel gym. “Where are you?”

“With Scott,” she said.

Cruz’s chest got tight when his mind immediately conjured up the kind of exercise that the two of them could be getting. Get a grip, Montoya. “Working late?” he forced himself to ask.

“Not so much,” she said. “Look, Cruz. Scott and I have been talking.”

Okay. Talking wasn’t bad.

“And I...I am moving into his suite.”

Worse than bad. Going over a cliff bad. The first time she’d left, he’d been left to wonder. Now she was painting a real clear picture. He was speechless.

“Cruz?” she prompted.

“You couldn’t tell me this in person?” he asked.

“Uh...no. But Scott said he’d like to talk to you.”

He wanted to break the man’s neck, not talk to him. But before he could hang up, Slater was on the line.

“Cruz, it’s not that Meg and I aren’t grateful for your help. But we’ve got this covered. We really think it would better for all of us if you went back to Chicago tonight.”

Cruz’s legs felt weak. He leaned back against the wall and sank until he was sitting on the floor. He didn’t even care if he was on some security camera. What did it matter if he looked pathetic? He was.

He hung up. He had nothing to say to Slater. Damn them both. He sat on the cool tile floor, feeling nothing. He was numb. He had been so stupid, had actually believed that Meg coming to his bed meant