Page 6 of Protecting Maggie
“I’m Preacher. Kevlar and Smiley are in the back,” the man next to her said in what almost sounded like a gentle tone. But Maggie wasn’t fooled. He was probably trying to get her to let down her guard before he called the cops. If he did that, she was going back to prison. She’d been told time and time again by her probation officer what would happen if she screwed up.
“How did you get the keys to Adina’s car?” Kevlar asked.
Maggie felt cold. Some of the horrible things she’d gone through behind bars flashed through her brain. The near assaults, the fights, the verbal abuse. She couldn’t go back. Shecouldn’t.
“Maggie?” Preacher asked.
They weren’t going to give up. Weren’t going to simply get out of her car and leave her alone. Overwhelmed with grief, the pressures of the last three months pressing in on her, Maggie broke.
“Adina’s my friend. She’s myonlyfriend. I met her…recently. I needed a place to go a few months ago, and she offered to let me stay with her. I took her up on it. When she was deployed, she said I could use her car, and she knows I’m using her Uber account. We talked about it. She agreed.” Her words were fast and succinct, and Maggie refused to look at any of the men in the small vehicle as she talked. She heard the rustle of their clothes as they shifted in their seats but didn’t take her gaze off the street in front of her.
“Why’d you need a place to stay? Do you not have another job?” Smiley asked.
Maggie had never heard a name so incongruent to a person’s countenance. The man hadn’t smiled once. He looked downright frightening.
And itdefinitelyseemed like they weren’t going to leave her alone until she told them everything.
Fine. They wanted to know? She didn’t have anything to hide. Not really.
She huffed out a long breath and turned her head to look at the man next to her. Preacher. He looked nothing like a man of the cloth. Not that she really knew what they were supposed to look like. But out of the three men in the car at the moment, he seemed the least…hostile.
“I was in jail. I served nearly two of my three years. Got out for good behavior and because there weren’t any more beds available for the more violent offenders. I met Adina before I went in. She wrote me every single week. Picked me up when I was released.
“I couldn’t get my old job back when I got out, and Ihad no money, no place to stay. It’s almost cruel how the system works…yes, you’re released, but the odds of going right back behind bars is huge because of how impossible it is to rebuild an honest life back in the real world. Lucky for me, I had Adina. The deployment was a surprise, but she generously said I could stay at her apartment while she was gone. Drive her car. And it was actuallyheridea for me to take over her Uber account. It’s given me a way to make a few bucks. To eat.
“I’m not stealing from Adina, I swear. Yes, I’m using her ride-share account, but I can’t get my own because of the felony on my record. Do you know how hard it is to find a decent job when you’ve been convicted of a crime?” She barked a harsh laugh. “No. Of course you don’t. Well, I can tell you, it’s nearly impossible. And for the record, I’m innocent. You won’t believe me, no one does, but it’s still true.”
She was practically panting by the time she ran out of words. She desperately wanted these men to believe her, but the odds of that were extremely low.
“You know we can get in touch with Adina and verify your story, right?” Kevlar asked.
Turning, Maggie looked at him. “Do it. Ask her. She’ll verify everything I just told you.”
“What’d you get put behind bars for?”
“Smiley,” Preacher said in a warning tone.
Maggie wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t as if Smiley hadn’t asked what all three men were thinking.
“I’m no threat to society,” she said tiredly. “I know youwon’t believe this either, but I was set up. I needed to go up to the LA area for my job, and my boyfriend asked if I would bring something to a friend for him. I had no problem with that, and the friend was going to meet me at the pharmacy where I was going to be for work. I got pulled over on the way up there, and for some reason the cop decided to search my car. The bag my boyfriend gave me had drugs in it. Alotof drugs. I got three years for transporting with the intent to sell. No one would believe that it wasn’t my bag, and that I wasn’t bringing drugs to LA to sell them.”
You could hear a pin drop in the car, it was that silent.
“Assuming the boyfriend is now yourex-boyfriend,” Kevlar said dryly.
Maggie couldn’t help it. She snorted. Loudly. “Obviously. Look, I don’t like using Adina’s credentials, but I have no other way of making money to feed myself. And I don’t have to pay rent, but I’m still trying to pay my share anyway. I would get out of Riverton altogether if I could, but I’m not allowed to leave the state until my probation is over. I’m literally stuck here. I’m trying to do my best but it’s just not enough. It’s never enough.” The last three words were whispered.
Maggie wanted to ask if they were going to turn her in. To Uber. To the cops. To her probation officer. But the words were stuck in her throat. Not for the first time, she wished she had never met her ex. But she had. She’d been swayed by his larger-than-life personality and impressed by the fact that he was a high-ranking naval officer. She’dlearned the hard way that not all military members were upstanding citizens.
She could only pray the ones sitting in her car at the moment were more compassionate than her snake of an ex.
“What’s wrong with the car?” Preacher asked.
She glanced at him, then shrugged. “I don’t know,” she admitted softly. “I’ve been saving up to take it to the shop. It’s been acting weird. Sputtering and turning off by itself when I stop.”
Preacher shared a look with the men in the backseat before he turned back to her. “Give me the keys.”
Maggie blinked. “No.”
