Page 32 of The Me I Left Behind (Tuckaway Bay #4)
Seventeen
The locksmith made quick work of the lockbox, popping open the lid within a few minutes. “That was easy,” he said, handing the box back to Julia.
Maggie watched her hold the box, staring down at it. She wondered if she had a premonition, of sorts, of something good or bad that would emerge from the dusty thing. Julia held onto it for a few seconds longer before looking at Maggie. “Let’s open it in the kitchen.”
“Sure.” She looked at the locksmith. “Please add that to my bill.”
He waved her off. “Didn’t take any time. That one’s on the house.”
“Well, I thank you.”
He handed her the paper invoice. Maggie gave it a quick peek, noticing the amount. “I have cash upstairs. I’ll be right back.”
She could hear Julia and the guy talking as she took the stairs.
Getting the locks changed was a priority, she knew that, but the cost was going to deplete her meager savings.
Still, she counted out three one-hundred-dollar bills, stuffed two more back in the jewelry box, and headed back downstairs.
She paid him. He left, and Maggie and Julia stood staring at each other.
“Let’s do this before I have to leave for kid pickup.”
They headed into the kitchen. Julia set the box on the island. “I don’t know why I feel kind of anxious about this.”
Maggie exhaled, deep and long. “I know. Me, too. It’s probably nothing. Right?”
“And it could be everything.”
“It could be the thing that I’ve been looking for—to get something damning on Max. Do you think?” That thought gripped her heart a little.
“We’ll never know if we don’t open it.”
“All right.” She grasped the box and flipped back the lid.
Both women peered over the meager contents.
“That’s a marriage license,” Julia said, picking it up to look closer.
Maggie plucked up the paper underneath it. “And this is a death certificate.”
“And those,” Julia added, pointing back into the box, “are wedding rings.”
They locked gazes.
“You first,” Maggie said. “Whose names are on the marriage certificate?” Like, she didn’t know Max was one of them already.
Julia gripped the paper. “Maxwell David Oliver and Caroline Susan McDowell, married May 22, 2001.” She quickly met Maggie’s gaze. “Well, that’s official. At least we know the woman’s name now. And the death certificate?”
Maggie took a sharp breath. “Same. Caroline Susan McDowell Oliver. Date of death, June 18, 2002.”
“Shit. That’s just a little over a year later.”
Why does that date, June 18, sound familiar? It would come to her, eventually.
Maggie felt a little dizzy and braced herself against a chair.
“So, Max was married before he married me, and her name was Caroline? That motherfucker!” Maggie pushed away from the island and paced a few steps away, and back again.
“He never told me. He never once said he’d ever been married before.
I mean, it’s not like it would have mattered to me, or anything.
People get married. People die. People remarry. Why did he keep it a secret?”
“Million-dollar question.” Julia took a beat, then moved closer to Maggie. “People usually keep secrets when they don’t want other people to know things. What I want to know is, what is that thing about this marriage that Max didn’t want you to know?”
“There has to be more.”
“Yes. I agree.”
Maggie headed into the family room and grabbed her tablet from the coffee table. “I’m going to do a search. I need to know how she died.”
“Are you sure you want to dig into that now?” Julia followed her and sat beside her on the sofa. “We have to pick up the kids in an hour.”
Maggie pulled up the browser on her tablet.
“Yes. I’m tired of being in the dark. I’m tired of a lot of things, actually—a dead wife here, a lover, and bonus kid there—and I want to get it all behind me.
But right now, I need to know what happened to this woman.
” She typed her name into the browser, then scanned the results. “Shit.”
“What?”
“There’s a lot of stuff here.”
Julia took the tablet. “Let me look at it first.”
Maggie grabbed it back. “No. You’ve been taking care of me for way too long. I will not fall apart by whatever I find.” She softened her voice then. “Sorry, not trying to be bossy, but I need to do this. Why don’t you look in that tote?”
Julia gave her a grin. “Perfect. I’ll go do that.”
Maggie watched her head into Max’s old office, where they had stashed the “miscellaneous” tote, and she returned her attention to the tablet.
There were pages of information about a Caroline McDowell from Decatur, Georgia—her family, her life, and her death—and the more she read, the more Maggie felt like she was stepping into a crime novel.
About twenty minutes later, Julia headed back into the family room. Maggie looked up.
“I think we need to go back to the storage unit before we pick up the kids. It’s close to the schools, isn’t it?”
“Not far.” Maggie glanced at the time. “We have time. What’s up?”
“Going through that tote of Caroline’s personal things… I don’t know why but it just felt too…odd, I think is the word. I can’t get past why Max kept all these things.”
Maggie agreed. Something had been niggling at her, as well. “What strikes me is the organization of the totes, the labeling, and so forth. That wasn’t Max. He wouldn’t sort through clothes and label the boxes like that, just to store them away.”
Julia stared off. “It’s kind of like she had already packed them up before she died. Right?”
“Exactly.” Maggie bit her lip. “Like, perhaps, she was packing things up to move?”
“Or leave him?” Julia added. “Shit. I don’t want to read too much into this because we are just speculating here… But maybe Caroline wasn’t so happy in the marriage and was preparing to divorce him?”
Maggie forced out a breath. “Perhaps. Which only adds to the other reason it feels so odd.”
“What is that?”
She locked gazes with Julia. “I’ve read enough about Caroline’s death to know that Max wasn’t an innocent bystander.”
Julia’s eyes widened. “You think Max killed her?”
Maggie shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe. But not intentionally.”
“But if he knew she was planning to leave him….”
“I don’t know, Julia. I think he was at fault, and it was all covered up. Caroline died in a boating accident. Max was driving the boat, it was just the two of them, and he was drunk. Some people at the lake saw them arguing before they left the marina.”
“Sounds like a lawsuit to me.”
“That’s what I thought. It appears her family in Georgia challenged the decision that Max was not negligent, and has sued for pain and suffering, and so on. Then I found an article where Caroline’s parents abruptly dropped everything against him.”
“They settled.”
“Sounds like.”
“Max’s family has money. Right?”
“They are a very established North Carolina family, old money for sure. His grandfather was a Duke board trustee for years. His father is the CEO of the university medical center.”
“Ah,” Julia said. “Generational wealth and the southern good ol’ boy network can get you everywhere.”
“Exactly. And since the accident happened here, in North Carolina, with North Carolina judges presiding, and all that, well… The Olivers definitely had the upper hand. The McDowell charges were dropped after a few years, right before they were headed into trial. That was 2005, about the time Max and I got married—also the same time Max and his father had a major falling out.”
Julia stared. It was almost like Maggie could see the cogs clicking in her head. “So, family upheaval, a lawsuit settlement, plus a marriage with a baby on the way—all at once. Triple threat, some might say.”
“Yes. Seems so.”
“The plot thickens.”
Julia moved across the room to grab her purse and keys. “Let’s talk more on the way to the storage facility.”
“Right.”
They hashed and rehashed what they knew for the twenty-minute drive back to Two Gals Storage. Julia drove straight to the unit. They both jumped out of her SUV and Maggie unlocked the door, flinging it open.
It rolled back with a bang and then rocked back to settle into place. The thud it made echoed loudly in the storage unit.
Empty.
Both women stood there, staring into the void.
“Son-of-a-bitch,” Maggie murmured. “He has eyes everywhere.”
They didn’t discuss the empty storage unit until much later in the evening.
After picking the kids up from school, they ordered Chinese takeout, compliments of Julia, and then started moving things out of the office while Chloe finished her selfie art project.
Every time Maggie looked at Carol, she thought about the woman Max had married.
He was the one who had mentioned the name Caroline when they’d discussed baby names.
He’d told her then that it reminded him of “the Carolinas,” meaning the state where they lived—and subsequently, a Carolina state of mind, easy and laid back.
Now, she knew differently.
And fuck him, their daughter possessed nothing close to an easygoing, laid back, state of mind. That backfired, didn’t it, Max?
While Max’s previous marriage was a bit of a shocker, she was more concerned about what came after—and wondered how all that had affected Max over the years.
Could the death of this woman have been the reason for his detachment?
His desire for control? His anger? His inability to care about people? To love?
Or was he simply built that way?
She might never know.
She was glad for the pause in the action, so to speak, and to spend a little time with the kids. While they were doing mindless tasks, filling boxes with books and dragging items to the garage, her mind wandered aimlessly over all she’d learned the past few hours.
“You know, earlier,” Maggie said to Julia, “when we found the death certificate and marriage license, I had a strange feeling about the date of Caroline’s death. There’s something familiar about it, but I can’t put my finger on it.”
“Oh? Tell me more.” Julia moved a box of books to a corner of the room.