Page 17 of The Me I Left Behind

“I need permission to go into a room in my own house?”

Julia sighed. “Maggie, listen to me. You used force to get past the locks. It’s illegal. It’s breaking and entering.”

“It’s my own fucking house! Dammit!”

She pushed up and away from the desk, standing and whirling around, trying to find that damn elusive camera. Out of sheer frustration, she raked her arm over the desk and papers flew. Then twisting back, she set the phone aside and started pulling books off the shelf behind her.

“Maggie.Maggie!Listen to me.” Julia shouted into the phone.

Maggie knotted up her fist and shoved it into the air, rotating from one corner of the room to another. “Max Oliver! If you are listening to me right now, I hate your fucking guts more than you even know.”

“Maggie!”

She grabbed up the phone. “What!”

“Take a breath. I can’t help you if you are upset like this. Now, find a place to sit for a minute, maybe away from the office, and let’s talk this out while I drive.”

“Carol will be back soon.” Suddenly, she was exhausted. Leaning her backside against the desk, she glared at the shelf of books she’d just emptied. Almost. “Wait. Hold on a minute.”

“What are you doing?”

She set the phone down again and moved closer to the shelf. Wires were sticking out of the back of a book she hadn’t knocked over. She reached for it and realized it was tethered to some sort of an electrical box in the wall. She flipped the thing over in her hands.

“It’s not a goddamn book,” she murmured.

“What?” Julia questioned.

Maggie ran her hand over the spine. There. A small circle indentation. Black. Just like the book cover. The camera lens.Fucking bastard.She looked into it, peered into it with one eye, picturing in her head what Max was looking at, then drew backand stuck out her tongue. Ripping the cords from the book, she turned back to the phone and Julia.

“I found the other stupid camera,” she shouted, then switched to speaker phone. “And I’m about to destroy it like I did the other one.”

“How?”

“Crowbar.”

“Shit, Maggie.”

“Is that illegal too?”

“Probably.”

She didn’t care. The crowbar stood by the door, and she made quick work of obliterating the book thing with three solid jabs of the heavy tool. She snatched up the phone again. “Well, that’s done.”

“Great. Now listen to me.”

Maggie sat again. “Fine. I’m listening. But Carol should be back any minute, so say what you need to say now if it’s not something she should hear.”

Julia exhaled from the other end. “Alright. Look. I’m going to tell you something you might not have considered.”

“Besides the breaking and entering part?”

“Yes.”

“What is it, Julia?”

“Max has video. You showed me that earlier. That means he has recorded it all, from the time you broke through the door until you pulled that fake book camera from the shelf. He has everything. Even you talking to me.”

“I don’t really care. So?”