Danger on Her Doorstep. Rachelle McCalla

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      Maggie didn’t feel at all comfortable about his sudden change of subject, but she went ahead and answered his question. “Not that I know of, but I saw one in the garage earlier.” She stood, dusting her hands off, as well. “Here, you can go out through the cellar door.”

      They both moved toward the wooden double doors that closed off the outside cellar stairs from the inside. Maggie froze as she reached for the drop bar that secured the door. “Wait a second.”

      The door hung loosely on its hinges. The two-by-four that had been used to bar entry had been pushed in. Bolts protruded between the wooden door frame and the brick-and-mortar foundation, as though the door had been forced open from the outside.

      “Was the door like that before?” Gideon asked from behind her.

      “No.” Maggie didn’t have to think about her answer. She’d stood in that exact spot the day before and leaned on the drop bar while she wept for her father. Though her eyes had been blurry with tears, she had no doubt the door she’d seen and leaned on then had been securely attached it its frame. Now it was pulled ajar, dangling loosely, as if someone had rammed it open in order to gain entry.

      Gideon stepped past her and gave the frame a gentle tug. It gaped inward a good foot or more—plenty wide enough to allow a person to enter through the space. “Let’s get upstairs,” he whispered suddenly.

      “Do you think someone broke in?” Maggie asked.

      “Looks like it.” Gideon’s hand fell to her arm, encouraging her back toward the narrow staircase that led to the kitchen in the back of the house. “And for all we know, they could still be in here.”

      TWO

      Gideon didn’t want to frighten Maggie, but he needed first and foremost to ensure her safety. Obviously the basement wasn’t secure, not with the door hanging from its frame. And for that matter, neither was the rest of the house. If someone had broken in, they could be hiding anywhere in the sprawling dwelling. Gideon had his own theories on how Maggie’s father had died. If he was right, there was a killer on the loose.

      “Why don’t we head outside?” he asked as they stepped into the sunlit kitchen.

      “We can go out the back door and see what the cellar doors look like from out there,” Maggie said with only a faint tremor running through her words.

      Gideon’s heart clenched. Poor thing. She was holding together pretty well, considering. “Excellent idea,” he encouraged her as they stepped out onto the aged brick patio and turned toward where the triangular cellar doors let out from the basement. He groaned as they approached.

      The hinges had been pulled free of the aging wood. The break-in job probably hadn’t been very difficult—a crowbar would do it. But what disturbed him even more was the fact that whoever had made entry into the house hadn’t even tried to hide what they’d done.

      Why weren’t they more careful? Why weren’t they afraid?

      “Gideon?” Maggie’s voice came out too highpitched.

      He turned his attention back to her and realized the situation was catching up with her. This couldn’t be easy for her to see. “Let’s have a seat a second,” he suggested, taking her by the arm and guiding her toward an old double glider by the garage. The rusty old swing had obviously spent too many winters outside, but it looked sturdy enough to hold them.

      Gideon sat down beside her.

      “What was it?” she asked, the fear in her blue eyes magnified by the curvature of her thick-rimmed glasses. “Why was there a team investigating my father’s death? Do you think someone may have killed him?”

      So she’d put two and two together already, had she? Gideon recalled from their school days that she was pretty bright. She obviously hadn’t missed anything this time, either, though he wished he could go back in time and replay his first phone call to her. If he’d had to do it over again, he’d have told her from the beginning that there was some possibility her father had been murdered.

      Because if anything, it was worse having to tell her now.

      “We suspected he may have been murdered.” He watched her carefully as she absorbed the news. No screams, no crying, not even a gasp. She just kept staring at the broken cellar door.

      After a minute, she took a gulp and asked, “And the fact that somebody broke into the house?”

      “It’s hard to say at this point,” Gideon said, tempering his response, “but there’s a very good chance the two are related.”

      She nodded slowly. “Why would the murderer re turn?”

      “I don’t know.” Gideon didn’t want her getting any more worked up than she already was. Besides, they needed to call the sheriff’s office. If it had been his house, he’d have placed the call already. But then, his house, though only a couple of blocks from this one, was inside the city limits, and the Holyoake cops would have answered the call. The house on Shady Oak Lane was outside of town, and therefore in the sheriff’s territory.

      Since he wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with the ongoing sheriff’s investigations, he needed to leave well enough alone. The last thing he wanted to do was make it look as though he was trying to heavy-hand a case. If he ever wanted to be sheriff again, he needed to respect the boundaries that had been erected. Which meant Maggie would need to place the call.

      “Do you have your phone on you? Can you call the sheriff’s office to come investigate?”

      She looked up at him with wide eyes. Funny, he’d always thought her plain before. Mousy brown hair, dorky glasses, a little on the short side. But close-up, her thick, long eyelashes fluttered against her lightly freckled cheekbones. Maggie Arnold was pretty.

      Gideon shook off his thoughts, wondering what had gotten into him. Whoever had broken into the house could be getting away while he sat there thinking about how Maggie Arnold looked. Worse yet, whoever had murdered Glen Arnold could be plotting to kill someone else. “Do you have your phone?” he asked again.

      Maggie blushed and pulled a cell phone from her pocket. “Sorry. I’m still trying to sort this out.”

      “Leave that to the sheriff’s department,” he advised.

      Gideon paced the brick patio while Maggie placed the call. He couldn’t see any footprints, but the weed-filled backyard was an untamed mess. A crowd of people could have gone tromping through without leaving any discernible marks. When Gideon heard Maggie say goodbye, he returned and sat down by her again.

      “They’re on their way,” she reported, her expression now more drawn than frightened.

      “That’s good.”

      “Yes.” She looked away from the cellar door and met his eyes. “So tell me. What makes you think my father was murdered?”

      Gideon tried to state the facts as simply as possible. “About twenty minutes before I discovered his body, your father called the sheriff’s office. He asked to speak to me specifically. You know I used to work for him on the weekends and summers back in high school, correct?”

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