Page 29 of Holmes, Margaret and Poe

Sampson was standing there, looking at her. Willow was sitting on the stairs behind him, her back to the door.

“What is it, John?”

“Maggie Fontaine. The name sounded familiar. Itisfamiliar. I just checked to be sure.”

CHAPTER 28

I GOT HOME AROUNDeleven, almost twenty-seven hours after the shootdown and much less than that since the latest victim in the Dead Hours series had been discovered. Climbing up the stairs to our porch, I realized I hadn’t even called the Maryland detectives working that case to find out if there’d been an ID on the dead man.

When I got inside, I heard the television playing softly. I found Bree sitting on the couch in front of the TV, holding a pillow to her stomach. Tears streamed down her cheeks. I looked at the screen, which was showing a coral reef somewhere. “What’s going on?”

“She’s dying,” Bree said, her voice racked with emotion. “The octopus.”

“The octopus?”

She shot me a mournful look. “You have to watch it to understand.”

“I’m getting something to eat.”

“There’s leftovers in the fridge.”

I wandered into the kitchen and found a plate wrapped in foil in the fridge. Nana had put a stickie note on the foil telling me to remove it, put a paper towel over the dish, and microwave it for two minutes. I did, and the kitchen was quickly filled with the smells of garlic and onions and sausage and steamed broccoli with basil. After I took a few bites and drank half a beer, things started to become right in my world again, and I rehashed the day in my mind.

Ned Mahoney had stayed behind to oversee the search of Cameron Blades’s farm. He’d sent me home and told me to work the Dead Hours case in the morning and then rejoin the AA 839 investigation in the afternoon. I shut my eyes a moment, telling myself I could do it all, that I could bring equal attention to the people who’d died on the jet and all the men who’d had their eyes shot out in the early-morning hours.

But is that realistic? Both of these cases are all-consuming —

Bree walked into the kitchen, her eyes puffy and red. She sat in my lap, nuzzled my neck.

“Sad?” I asked.

She nodded.

“I’m sorry about the octopus.”

“Yeah, but it was beautiful somehow. You’ll have to watch it.”

“Next time I come up for air,” I said.

Bree pulled back and looked at me. I saw deep pain in her eyes.

“This is about more than the octopus,” I said.

She nodded. “I have to do something I don’t want to do.Something I have been putting off for the past few hours because it’s going to break someone’s heart.”

“What can you tell me?”

She swallowed. “Elena’s best friend has gone missing. That’s what she texted me about this morning. Her friend has been out of touch for three days. And John thinks he saw Elena’s friend’s name, or her former name — it’s complicated — on the manifest of the plane that crashed.”

“Which would explain why she’s been missing.”

Bree nodded. “It’s going to crush Elena.”

“Look, you don’t know for certain it’s her, correct? Is that what you’re saying?”

She puffed out her cheeks. “Not for certain, but Maggie Fontaine is not exactly a common name.”

“Then that’s what you tell Elena. She deserves to know.”

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