Just Me - M J Marlow (reading strategies book .txt) 📗

trust Maxine, Miss Mason?” “Of course I do,” I nodded firmly. “Then you need to trust me,” James said calmly. “I am staying here. We will work on the case I asked you to research for me only as your health permits. A young woman’s life depends on our finding out all we can about what happened to Henry and Fiona Grady.” “Would a complete copy of the police files and subsequent investigations help?” I asked him, a strange excitement filling me at the thought. He might actually be able to help me find out why my parents had been murdered. A surge of energy shot through me at the thought that someone needed me. I tried to get up and my legs would not hold me. “Maxie, please bring my laptop up here. Let’s get started.” Maxine went down into my office and got the laptop and the power cord. She made certain it had the wireless modem and brought it upstairs. James had gone out to get his suitcase and his laptop. When he came back, he handed me a program disk and I loaded it. I was astounded when the program found several spy programs and open back doors into my laptop. Once they had been located, the program shut them down and set up a firewall to keep further spies from getting through. “Someone was busy while you were in the hospital, Miss Mason,” James told me bluntly. “I’m beginning to think someone does not want you to look into this matter.” “I’ve spent seventeen years not knowing what happened to my parents; why should I let them stop me now that I have a chance to find out why they were killed?” I asked him bluntly. I started typing as I mused aloud and did not see the look James exchanged with Maxine over my bent head. “Grady, Henry and Fiona.” I brought up the police files I had transposed from the paper records. “This is curious,” I said as I read through the file. “Daughter Kerrigan Margaret Grady missing from scene. Preliminary investigation suggests child was taken by assailant and feared dead.” I frowned at that. “Why would they think that?” I fingered the locket at my throat nervously and frowned. “I was taken away long before my parents were murdered. I remember them kissing me goodbye.” I was lost in my own special world now. I pulled up photographs of the family and current information on the Grady’s family. Every member was now deceased except for the missing daughter. Curiously, there were no photographs of the girl or her parents anywhere in the file, but I didn’t need them. I got up and found the photo album Uncle Craig had given me. I could feel tears pricking my eyelids as I scrolled through the children, uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents I had lost contact with for my own protection. There were an awful lot of sudden deaths in the family and that raised red flags. I compiled a list of the physicians involved and one name kept appearing: Doctor Robert Norman. I pulled up a photo and background and it was indeed the Administrator at Methodist. “I thought he looked familiar,” I said softly as I shoved the laptop away. I looked over at James. “I don’t understand. Why was my family targeted like this?” I put my arms around my body and shuddered. “The number of sudden deaths defies statistics.” I needed air. I needed to pace. I felt so restless now that I was like a caged animal. I slid the laptop aside and tried to get on my feet. My legs were still too weak to hold me but I refused to let that stop me. I stumbled over the wall and waved James and Maxine off as they tried to help me. I opened the balcony doors and stepped out to draw in deep breaths of air and saw Ruth over in her yard. She waved at me then pulled out her cell phone and made a call. Fifteen minutes later, the Sheriff was pulling up in front of the house. Maxine let him in and he came right up the stairs to my room. He frowned as he saw evidence of my working. “Maggie,” he said as he carried me back to bed, “you shouldn’t be working. You know what Doctor Abrams said. You need to rest.” “I’m not used to being sedentary, Joseph,” I complained. “I need to keep my mind active if my body can’t be moving.” I saw him frown and was suddenly glad I had closed down the search before I got out of bed. Then I realized James and his things were gone from my room. I watched Joseph get the vial and frown as he saw it empty. “They made me groggy,” I defended James’ action; “so I threw them out.” I laid back and closed my eyes. I heard him moving around the bed. “Please leave the laptop, Joseph. I can’t ignore my work.” I could almost feel him hesitating. “I still have to earn my living.” “I’m certain Maxine can give you a few weeks off, Maggie,” Joseph started to argue; “just until you’re feeling better?” “A few weeks?” Maxine shrieked from the doorway. I was too tired to interact. “Do you know what you’re asking, Sheriff? The English and History Departments would come to a standstill if Maggie wasn’t working.” She pushed Joseph out. “I promise you I will try to keep her load to a minimum, but a vacation at this time of the semester is completely out of the question.” She got him out the door and out of the house and locked the doors before coming back upstairs. “There is something going on here, Maggie. We need to find out what that is.” I dozed off soon after that and did not see the people who showed up to wish me well. Maxine accepted their flowers and gifts for me and I woke up to see them lining the shelves and resting on the furniture. I smiled briefly and went back to sleep. When I woke up again, I saw Maxine sitting over by the windows again. The sound of footsteps coming up the stairs reminded me we were not alone. He knocked on the door and waited for me to invite him in. “That transformer at the edge of the property is pretty old, Miss Mason,” he said as he came in. “I made a temporary repair, but you might want to think about asking the city to replace that antique before it causes a fire.” “You didn’t come here to play handyman, Mr. Kellogg,” I said weakly. “Everything you need is right in there,” I nodded to the laptop. “In the file marked Grady. The password is lost ones.” I looked at James as he put his belongings back on my desk. He was a dangerous man, was my first impression. He had been in the military from the way he moved. His dark brown eyes and golden skin and his deep green hair made me think of forests and hunting. Yes, I thought to myself; I could see him stalking through the trees with a bow, clad in a jerkin and hose. His strong, lean legs practically cried out for hose. I blushed as I realized his eyes were on me and he had been watching me. There was humor in those eyes now and warmth. “Only right to wonder,” he said as he came over to sit next to me on the bed. He held out his hand. “Let me introduce myself to you properly, Miss Mason,” he said as we shook. “My name is James Kerrigan Kellogg. I am a senior field agent for the FBI.” “Kerrigan was Mama’s maiden name, and my first name,” I said softly. I looked at him in confusion. “You’re related to me?” “Fiona Kerrigan Grady was a very distant cousin quite a few times removed,” James replied. “We met at a Kerrigan family association meeting my mother took me to when I was twelve and I was fascinated by her. I was fifteen when she and her husband were murdered and I vowed I would find out why.” He paused a moment and I nodded for him to continue. “I went to college after two tours of duty in the Marines and got a degree in Criminal Science. I was recruited by the FBI and began to investigate in my own time. It was harder then,” he smiled briefly. “Computers weren’t as efficient as they are now and I was working on my own.” “Someone tried to stop you,” I said as I saw the scar on his neck. Without thinking, my fingers moved up to his neck. “Even then, no one wanted this case reopened.” “I didn’t let them stop me,” James said as he caught my hand and held it down. He looked at me sternly. “Are you going to help me, knowing it could put you in danger?” “They were my parents,” I said as I was held by those deep mysterious eyes, “and I need to know why they were murdered, Agent Kellogg.” I looked down as I felt myself falling into those beautiful hazel eyes and felt like I’d lost something important by breaking contact. I nodded. “Let’s find out.” “That’s my girl!” James smiled and leaned over to plant a gentle kiss on my lips. I blushed scarlet and his smile widened. “How refreshing, a woman who can honestly blush.” He grew serious as he pulled away. “I need to ask you not to tell anyone who I really am, Maggie; or what we are working on. Can you do that?” “I’ll have to take the folder out of my In Box then,” I said softly as I pulled my eyes away from his. He must work out to have a body that hard, my errant thoughts sounded. I caught his knowing expression on me and I lowered my head in shame. “I’ll go get it,” Maxine nodded, smiling over at James and shaking her head. “Try to keep your hands off each other while I’m gone?” “Maxie!” I exclaimed, shocked at her forthrightness. “I would never…” I saw she was laughing and me and I got angry. “It’s not like he’d ever…” I saw his curious expression and I was mortified. I got up and stumbled my way to the bathroom where I wet a washcloth and wiped my flaming face. Then I bit down on it to quiet my scream. How could Maxine think that man would ever think of me that way? The amusement in his expression when the older woman had mentioned it had told me plainly he was not in the least interested in me as anything but a research assistant. I caught sight of one of the pills James had thrown out floating in the toilet water and I got a dosing spoon out of the drawer in the sink cabinet and fished it out. I had an empty contact lens case in there, so I put the pill in that and slid it into my pocket. He seemed to think the pills were responsible for my feeling so ill. I had a friend in the Science Department. Brad Coleman was a graduate student for the Chemistry Professor and we had gone to high school together; I would ask him to analyze it for me. “I need to call my friend,” I said as I came out of the bathroom. I went out to the phone as James nodded absently from where he was reading the police file. I dialed the number and Brad Coleman answered on the seventeenth ring. “Working hard, Rocket?” I teased as his weary voice sounded over the line. “Sweetness!” Brad crowed; all trace of weariness erased from his voice. I could see him straightening his tie and finger