Page 89 of Nash Falls

“She was angry. I was angry. I stormed off. I… I didn’t see her after that. And I didn’t check on her because I thought she would be… I just didn’t.”

“Did she threaten to tell me the truth?”

“No, no, she never said that.” She shot him a glance. “Wait, what are you implying?”

Nash said, “I’m implying nothing. But I need you to answer the next question truthfully. Did you call Rhett and tell him that Maggie knew about you two?”

“No, never. I… hold on. You think Rhett might have done this?”

“I have no idea. That’s why I asked.”

“What would be his motive to… to take Maggie?”

“Rhett wants to keep me happy and at the firm. If I found out he was bedding my wife? That might disrupt our business relationship just a tad, don’t you think?”

“Rhett is not like that. You don’t know him like I do,” replied Judith.

He said stonily, “Well, granted I’ve never slept with the man, but there are things about him that you don’t know.”

“Like what?”

Nash came close to answering her but, in the end, couldn’t bring himself to do it. His trust in his wife was shattered, perhaps irreversibly. And he couldn’t be certain that whatever he told her would not end up known to Rhett. And then to Victoria Steers.

He rose. “Do you need anything?”

“Just my daughter back.”

“Right. Me too.” Nash walked out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

CHAPTER

44

NASH SLEPT FITFULLY FOR ANhour and then awoke. He checked his watch, had a sudden idea, and left the house in his Range Rover.

“Hey, Billy?” said Nash as he drove up to the little guardhouse.

Billy Adams was a stout young man in his early twenties who dearly wanted to be a real police officer or at least a mall cop, or so he had once confided to Nash. He covered the graveyard shift at the neighborhood’s security gate.

Adams came out of the guardhouse and said, “Mr. Nash, I talked to the cops. I’m so sorry. Have they found out anything about Maggie?”

“No, not yet.”

“She’s gotta be okay. I mean, she’s so beautiful and everything. And nice. When she’d come in late she’d bring me a burger and fries or a Red Bull, stuff like that. And sit here in her car and talk to me. She didn’t have to do that. Nice, like I said.”

“Look, Billy, I wanted to ask you some questions.”

“Sure, Mr. Nash. What do you want to know?”

“Well, the previous night, did anything unusual happen?”

Adams squinted at him. “Unusual like what?”

“Out of the ordinary. People coming and going? If someone came and took Maggie, I would imagine they probably came through this gate.”

“Do you know what time we’re talking?”

“Say around one to around five, when it would start getting light. So you would have been on duty, right?”