At the Stroke of Madness

CHAPTER 69

Luc searched every room of the house and still hadn’t found Maggie. Where in the world was she? Sheriff Watermeier seemed convinced Simon Shelby had taken her with him. His deputies searched the surrounding woods while the State Patrol were said to be setting up roadblocks.

Luc could still hear the ambulance’s siren as it whined up Whippoorwill Drive. One of the paramedics said it looked like the woman named Joan had been poisoned. What if Simon had poisoned Maggie?

He fidgeted, wringing his hands, then raced back up the stairs to check closets and corners he knew he had already checked. The whole time he kept thinking that she had saved him once. He couldn’t possibly let her down. He didn’t even know how long it had been since she left him in the car. Simon could have taken her hours ago.

“Luc?” Adam was in the hall between the kitchen and the stairwell. “Any sign of her?”

“No. I’ve looked everywhere.”

“Henry’s put out an APB on Simon. If he has her with him, they’ll find and stop him.”

“I just don’t have a good feeling about this.”

“She’s a tough woman. She can take care of herself.”

But as he said it Luc could tell Adam hadn’t convinced himself.

“What kind of madman does this?” Luc hated that the panic was still caught like a lump in his throat, making his voice crack. “Out back in the trees there’s a bunch of white packages of frozen meat or something. He just threw it all out there to rot. What kind of a crazy man does something like that?”

“Wait a minute.” Adam started searching again. “You say he threw out stuff from a freezer?”

“Yeah, piles of it. It was back—” But he saw it at the same time Adam did. They raced to the chest freezer in the kitchen corner, both of them hesitating and looking at each other almost as if they were as afraid to open it as they were hopeful.