The Marine Next Door. Julie Miller

you being here for her.”

      “Maybe. This family has been through enough with Charlotte’s kidnapping, the murder of that worthless stepbrother of hers, and now this. I don’t know how much more she can handle.”

      The blonde psychologist reached for the door handle. “We’ll be gentle with her, I promise.”

      Spencer Montgomery caught the door and followed her in, with his partner right behind them. But when Maggie reached the open door, she stopped. “Wait a minute. We’re all going in there?”

      “We need to question the victim while the incident is still fresh in her mind.” Detective Montgomery looked faintly annoyed at having to stop and explain his actions when he faced her.

      Maggie shivered with the memory of when she’d been the woman lying in that hospital bed. “Her mind’s probably still in shock right now. And to see a crowd of armed police officers storm into her room—”

      “We’re hardly storming,” Spencer argued in a hushed tone.

      “We’re not the bad guys here,” Nick Fensom echoed.

      Maggie looked over her shoulder to share a rueful glance that included Trip, as well. “Right now, in her mind, pretty much everybody’s a bad guy.”

      A tremulous voice from the other side of the privacy curtain silenced the standoff. “Don’t touch me.”

      Maggie had never met Kansas City socialite Bailey Austin, but she recognized the tenor of a woman fighting to hold on to normalcy and civility, and failing miserably.

      A man’s voice shushed her. “Sweetie, I’m just so worried—”

      “I know.”

      “This doesn’t change how much I love you, how much I want to still marry you. Tell me what you need.” Frustration colored his voice. “Anything.”

      “Bailey, dear, Harper loves you.”

      “I’m sorry. I just can’t … I don’t want to talk about the wedding right now, okay?”

      “Loretta, dear.” That was an older gentleman’s voice. Probably Bailey’s stepfather.

      “No.” Loretta Austin-Mayweather’s shrill voice took care of any need to be secretive about KCPD’s arrival. “I’m going to make everything okay for my daughter. She’s going to get married. She’s going to have her happily ever after.”

      “Dear—”

      “I just want everything to be the way it was before this happened.”

      “They’re ganging up on her.” Maggie whispered the thought out loud.

      Nick Fensom’s blue eyes narrowed at the observation. “They’re family.”

      “Doesn’t matter. They’re not listening to what she needs right now.”

      Spencer was shaking his head as the conversation on the other side of the curtain escalated toward an argument. “We need to talk to her alone if we can. I don’t want anybody else’s well-intentioned comfort or defense of her to shut her down and keep her from talking, or taint whatever details she can recall.”

      Nick nodded his agreement. “She may not feel comfortable sharing some of the grittier details in front of her family, anyway.”

      “Divide and conquer, then.” Kate Kilpatrick adjusted her fingers around the strap of her bag and headed for the curtain. She pulled the curtain aside to announce their presence and reveal a tableau of startled friends and family gathered around the bed. “Mrs. Mayweather?” Kate extended her hand to the beautiful blonde woman with the red-rimmed eyes. “I’m Dr. Kilpatrick from KCPD. I’m so sorry this happened to Bailey. As a mother I understand the grief and rage and helplessness you feel at seeing your child harmed.” Dr. Kilpatrick had children? She’d never mentioned them. Maggie had never even seen a picture of any family in the psychologist’s office. But the moment of surprise passed as the psychologist smoothly manipulated the startled family members. “I have some experience counseling the families of victims. Why don’t you and I go out to the lobby and talk for a bit.”

      Loretta Austin-Mayweather latched on to the sleeve of her husband’s suit coat. “I want to be with my baby.”

      Jackson Mayweather turned his shrewd eyes to Dr. Kilpatrick. “You can calm her down?” The police psychologist nodded, then he patted his wife’s hand. “Loretta, I promise we won’t go that far. But I think we should talk to the doctor.”

      Wrapping his arm around his wife’s shoulders, the Mayweather patriarch guided her out the door behind the psychologist.

      Maggie stepped aside, marveling at the smooth teamwork of the task force members. Nick Fensom said something to Trip’s wife, Charlotte, about the red jacket of the certified therapy dog sitting at her feet, and soon the detective was escorting them out the door to join Trip.

      But a tall, golden-haired man in a suit maintained his position at Bailey Austin’s side. Her fiancé, Harper Pierce, according to an article she’d read in the Kansas City society pages, glared at Detective Montgomery. “You again? Didn’t you torment this family enough when you kept harassing us with questions about the Rich Girl Killer?”

      “I got the job done, didn’t I? We got our man.” Spencer’s gaze settled for a moment on the bruised face of the young woman in the bed. “We’ll get this guy, too.”

      The one blue eye that wasn’t swollen shut blinked open to meet the detective’s curiously blank expression. But just as quickly, Bailey closed her eye and turned onto her side, hiding her face toward the blinds at the window.

      “You see?” Harper Pierce taunted. “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

      With his focus squarely back on the hostile fiancé, Detective Montgomery pulled back the front of his jacket, subtly displaying his badge, his gun and his authority to the other man. “You’re with me, Pierce. If you truly want to help Miss Austin, that is. Because you were one of the last people to see her that night, I’d like to ask you some questions about the time and events leading up to your fiancée’s abduction.”

      “Bailey needs me here.”

      “Go.” Snatching her shoulder away from Harper’s outstretched fingers, Bailey curled into a ball, making it clear that his touch might be the last thing she needed right now. “Please, Harper.”

      Several moments of silence passed before it fully registered that Maggie was alone in the room with the victim. She shifted on her feet in the shadows beside the door, wondering if she should excuse herself to go observe the interviews or just slip quietly out of the room.

      But Bailey Austin’s soft voice called to her before Maggie could decide. “You can sit if you want.”

      Maggie glanced back at the door, then over to the chair and rolling stool beside Bailey’s bed. Maybe the young woman was one of those high-society trophy wives-to-be who’d been raised to have impeccable manners—under any circumstance.

      But no woman in Bailey Austin’s condition needed to be worrying about Maggie Wheeler’s feelings right now.

      “You need your rest.” Maggie thanked her and backed toward the door.

      “You don’t have to go.”

      The other woman’s voice sounded small, almost devoid of inflection, stopping Maggie’s retreat.

      She recognized the bleak sound of isolation, the belief that no one could ever truly understand what she’d been through. Maggie’s eyes burned with tears of empathy. But she blinked them away, refusing to let another victim feel the utter loneliness and drifting sense of loss she’d endured. Opening up her well-guarded heart, Maggie crossed the room and took a seat on the creaking vinyl stool.

      “Your family will be back soon. Or, if you don’t want them here, I’m sure your brother-in-law