Page 28 of The Me I Left Behind

Snapping her fingers, Julia said, “Let’s look at those first. Planners next. Two places where people’s business happens and often gets recorded.”

Maggie wondered if they had time to do that. “What if we put stuff in boxes and take with us to the hotel? That way we are not wasting time. I have some plastic totes in the garage.”

She noted the half-worry expression on Julia’s face. “I don’t know if we should remove….”

“Geez, Julia. We’re already up to our necks in it.”

Nodding, Julia agreed. “True.” She paused, peering into Maggie’s eyes. “Alright, dammit.”

“Good. Because we don’t have time to really examine what’s here, and I really want to nail him with something.”

Smiling, Julia gave her a nudge. “I know. Let’s clear the desk of any papers, binders, and the like, and then we can search the nooks and crannies.”

They quickly tackled the desk, and the papers Maggie had scattered to the floor earlier that day, putting anything that looked even semi-important into the totes. While Maggie put the desk back together and arranged things on the top like Max had them—pen holder, a family picture taken years ago when Chloe was a baby, stack trays, a yellow legal pad, stapler and more—Julia removed items from the shelves behind Max’s desk, examined them, and put them back. Maggie joined her, putting books in place. After several minutes, they stepped back, looking around the space.

“Looks clean enough,” Julia said. “Let’s load these totes into the back of my SUV.”

“Okay.” Maggie nodded. “Back in up to the garage. I’ll open the door.” She knew Max’s Escalade was there, but there should be plenty of room to move around it, with her car gone.

“Good plan. I’ll do that.”

“I’ll start moving the totes to the garage.”

They busied themselves with that task for the next several minutes.

Julia closed the hatch door of her SUV. “Let’s rehang that door before we go.” She glanced at her cell phone. “We have time.”

Maggie stared at her. “Why? He has me on video, Julia. Breaking in.”

“I know. I just feel like if he calls the cops when he gets here—if he even comes—having the place look neat and tidy is a whole lot better than having it looked like it was ransacked.”

With a sigh, Maggie glanced about the room again and nodded. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

But rehanging the door turned out to be more of a struggle than they thought, so in the end, they left it leaning up against the wall. Maggie returned the tools to the garage where she found them. Julia made a final sweep of the room, looking for anything they might have missed.

Within the next hour, they woke Carol and told her the plan. She and Maggie packed clothes and other items for the littles and themselves and stowed them into the SUV. By two-forty-five, they had picked up Chloe, and then Jason at three. By four o’clock, they’d settled into a suite with an adjoining room at a Hilton-branded hotel just off I-95.

“Sorry I couldn’t finda place with an indoor pool, kids,” Julia said, “but this might be just as good. Two big bedrooms—one for you kids, and one for your mom and me—and a sitting room and kitchenette to share in the middle. We have TVs in every room with anything you want to watch available to stream. Oh, and the Wi-Fi code is over on the refrigerator door.”

The kids just stared at Julia.

Chloe was quiet the entire thirty-minute ride in the car. Maggie could hear Jason and Carol whispering in the back. She hoped to hell she wasn’t telling him about Max—although maybe she should give him a heads up about what was probably gettingready to go down. But she didn’t want Carol to tell him. She wanted to talk to Jason herself.

“Why can’t we stay at our house?” Chloe cocked her head.

“Because of…” Maggie caught Julia’s eye. “Bugs.” She heaved a sigh and sat on the side of the bed. “Because I saw some nasty bugs in the kitchen this morning and called the exterminator and they are fumigating the house, which means we can’t stay there. Fumes.”

“What are funes?”

Maggie grinned. “Fumes, sweetie. That’s the stuff that floats around in the air when people use chemicals, or like what comes out of the car. It’s not healthy to breathe it.”

“Oh.” Chloe thought for a moment. “Will it hurt Cymba?”

Shit. I forgot about the cat.She glanced at Carol. “Cymba will be fine.”

“Yeah,” Carol said. “Cats lungs are different.”

“Seriously?” Jason punched her arm. “You are so weird.”

---