Page 66 of Deserving Maisy
But she wouldn’t be able to do any of that if she didn’t do the right thing. Do what she should’ve done long before now.
“I need to talk to the police. Tell them what I told you,” she blurted.
“We can arrange for you to do that here,” Brick told her.
Maisy shook her head. “No. I mean, that would be okay, but there’s an officer in Seattle…I think he’s always been suspicious of Jason. He checked in on me a few times after Martha died but could never talk to me alone.”
“We can get the detectives here to talk to him,” Brick reassured her.
But Maisy knew she’d eventually need to go back to Seattle. She needed to face her brother. Let him know that she was done being manipulated by him. But it wasn’t just that. “I have evidence,” she admitted in a whisper.
She immediately had the attention of everyone in the room.
“What evidence?” Jack barked.
Maisy swallowed hard. “I wrote it all down, just in case something happened to me. Put it in a diary and told Paige where I hid it, and told her to get it to the police.”
Jack’s shoulders relaxed a fraction. “Okay, but nothingdidhappen to you, so you can tell the detectives everything that you wrote down.”
“I also took pictures,” she said in a tone much calmer than she felt.
“What? When? Ofwhat?” Jack asked.
“That night when he came in covered in mud. I was suspicious about what he was doing. So when I went back upstairs, I snuck into the hall bathroom, which overlooks the backyard. I had an old-fashioned camera. You know, the kind with actual film? Jason went back into the yard, and I took pictures of him doing something in that hole. I don’t know if they’ll be any good, it might’ve been too dark, but that roll of film might prove there’s something there, under the court. If the cops dig up that stupid basketball court, they’ll find Martha. I just know it.”
“Holy shit,” Owl breathed.
“Where’s the film?” Spike asked.
“In the hole in my floor, with the diary. And that’s not all.”
“What else?” Jack asked.
“I have Martha’s wallet. I found it on the floor in Jason’s backseat. He was taking me to a doctor’s appointment, and he always made me sit in the back when we went because I threw up once and it made him gag. The wallet was on the floor and I picked it up. I didn’t understand why it was there, why it would be in Jason’s car if she supposedly left town with her purse and a suitcase full of her stuff.”
The men all exchanged glances, and Maisy wished she knew what they were thinking.
“We could get this Paige woman to grab that stuff, as Maisy asked her to,” Pipe suggested.
“If Jason catches her, she’d be as good as dead,” Jack said.
Maisy winced. She hadn’t meant to put her friend in danger when she’d told her about the hiding place, but now she realized it probably wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done. There was a chance Paige had already retrieved the diary, as she’d asked. But an even bigger chance that Jason had lied to the staff about where she and Jack had gone, to hide the fact they’d fled the house.
“Right, so we’ll tell the detective where the items are hidden andhecan go and get them,” Jack said.
“Not without a search warrant,” Spike said with a shake of his head.
“But after Maisy tells them what she knows, and what she saw in her yard, they should have probable cause,” Jack insisted.
“Hearsay,” Tiny said.
“Fuck.” Jack ran a hand through his hair.
“I can go. Iwantto go,” Maisy blurted. “I never intended to put anyone else in danger. Especially not Paige. And…I need to face Jason. Let him see that he hasn’t beaten me. That he didn’t win.”
“She wouldn’t be alone,” Brick suggested. “We’d go with her.”
“No,” Jack said.
