Page 15 of The Me I Left Behind

Waiting to flip on a light, she stepped away from the door, and slowly scanned the room looking for anything that might show he’d installed a live camera for security. Her gaze fixed on a small green light coming from the corner.

Maggie promptly dragged a chair over and stepped up on it. She jerked the device away from the wall, hopped down, and smashed the sucker with the crowbar.

Strangely satisfying.

“There,” she mumbled. “Take that, Maxwell Oliver.”

Scanning the room again, she searched for more devices. She found nothing, but did it matter? If Max monitored the feed from his phone, he’d know soon enough that she’d broken into his office.

She had about a day—perhaps twenty-five to thirty hours before he could get home—to do what she needed to do. Max couldn’t get out of Brisbane for another four hours at the minimum, and the quickest route home once he was in the air was a twenty-five-hour-long trip. Lengthier, probably.

Too bad for him.

Time to get to work.

“Mom. Mom. Wake up.”

Someone poked at her shoulder.Carol?

“What?”

“Wake up, Mom. What in the world are you doing in here?”

Pushing away from the pile of papers on Max’s desk, Maggie swiped at her eyes and looked at Carol. Immediately, she panicked. “Shit! What time is it? I fell asleep.”

“Obvs, Mom. Dad will kill you.”

She glanced at her watch. Five-thirty. “The soonest he could even get here is around nine o’clock tonight—at the extreme earliest. I’ll be finished by then.”

“But what are you doing?”

Maggie studied her. “Why are you up at this hour?” Usually, their alarms went off at six.

“I went to sleep early and woke up early. I washed that pair of jeans you got me for Christmas so I could wear them today. They’re scratchy.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“You still haven’t answered my question.” She glanced at the desk. “What is all this stuff?”

Maggie gave a shrug. “Files. Contracts. Shit papers. I don’t know what half of it is or why he saved it.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Anything.” With a sigh, she sat back in Max’s big leather chair and stared at Carol. “He already knows I’m in here.”

Carol rounded the desk and leaned against it. “How?”

“Cameras. He has at least a couple. I found one but not the other one. Look.”

She opened her phone and scrolled to a text from Max. He’d sent a video of her sitting at the desk going through the drawers. Carol took the phone. “Shit. Did you find the camera?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I’ve looked everywhere.”

“He can see us right now?”

“Maybe, but I suspect he’s in the air. Read the message.”

Carol clicked off the video and scrolled, reading the text aloud. “Whatever you are looking for, you won’t find it. Get out of my fucking office or I’ll take your head off when I get home.”

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