Maggie's Man: A Family Secrets Read online

  Dear Reader:

  Before there was Lisa Gardner, there was Alicia Scott. It’s true. I started my publishing career in the 1990s, writing thirteen really fun romantic suspense novels under the pseudonym Alicia Scott. Even back then, I was drawn to twisted plots and complex characters. I liked to take ordinary people, totally mess up their lives, then see if they could both save the day and find true love.

  The Family Secrets trilogy—Maggie’s Man, MacNamara’s Woman, and Brandon’s Bride—represent three of my Alicia Scott titles. Written around the same time I was writing The Perfect Husband, these books include many of the traits I like to think I’m still known for today: great characters, shocking plot twists, and really fun research. For example, I attended a high-performance driving school for MacNamara’s Woman, learning how to turn at the apex, and, even more important, recover from a spin. For Brandon’s Bride, I spent an afternoon interviewing a Hot Shot, a wildland firefighter. He was sitting in a watchtower in Oregon at the time, while I was calling from a small apartment in Boston, which made it even more interesting.

  How do these books differ from Lisa Gardner? For starters, they were written pre–September 11 and pre–cell phone. So from a suspense point of view, you have to remember you didn’t need photo ID to purchase plane tickets, which made life on the run easier, but you also couldn’t immediately call for help, which made life running from a serial killer harder. Also, these books definitely have more sex. Yep, sex and violence. If that’s not your idea of a fun reading experience, then these books are not for you.

  But for readers interested in meeting three half siblings Maggie, C.J., and Brandon and following their quest to find love while solving the mystery of what happened to their enigmatic father, I hope you enjoy some of the best books my predecessor, Alicia Scott, has to offer.

  Happy reading!

  PRAISE FOR

  CATCH ME

  “Catch Me is the best thriller [Gardner] has written to date. It is full of twists and turns, but best of all it is filled with fascinating characters who come to life on her pages.”

  —The Huffington Post

  “The compelling characters, the shocking plot, and the realistic atmosphere of how police operate make this a ‘must read’ for any suspense aficionado.”

  —The Associated Press

  “Irresistible high-wire melodrama.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “A page-turner . . . will definitely appeal to the lovers of psychological thrillers.”

  —Mystery Tribune

  “Lisa Gardner is one of the best thriller writers around, and this latest . . . really ratchets up the tension.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Gardner always plays in the big leagues, but this scare-your-socks-off thriller is a grand slam. . . . Fans of Michael Connelly and Harlan Coben will delight in Gardner’s scare fest.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “The creepy meter is off the charts. . . . And, somehow, miraculously without any contrivance, Gardner’s conclusion delivers a welcome glimmer of hope.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “Well-wrought suspense.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A pulse-pounding, earth-shattering thriller that will take you on the ride of your life. . . . This is, without a doubt, Lisa Gardner at her finest.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “A great, twisting psychological thriller. Fans will immensely enjoy this taut, strong suspense tale.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Gripping, exciting, thrilling. One of my favorites. I ripped through it in no time at all and enjoyed every page. Highly recommended.”

  —The Book Whisperer

  MORE PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF LISA GARDNER

  “No one owns this corner of the genre the way Lisa Gardner does.”

  —Lee Child

  “You can’t wait to see what happens next.”

  —People

  “Riveting, hold-your-breath suspense.”

  —Iris Johansen

  “Nerve-shattering suspense.”

  —Tami Hoag

  “Lisa Gardner is an amazing writer.”

  —Karin Slaughter

  “Emotionally true, harrowing, and unputdownable.”

  —Lisa Scottoline

  “Gardner keeps us guessing.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Gripping . . . the pages turn with speed.”

  —The Wall Street Journal

  “The Mozart of thriller writers.”

  —Tess Gerritson

  “Gardner continues to break ground no other writer dares to tread.”

  —The Providence Journal

  ALSO BY LISA GARDNER

  The Perfect Husband

  The Other Daughter

  The Third Victim

  The Next Addict

  The Survivor’s Club

  The Killing Hour

  Alone

  Gone

  Hide

  Say Goodbye

  The Neighbor

  Live to Tell

  Love You More

  Catch Me

  Touch & Go

  BY LISA GARDNER WRITING AS ALICIA SCOTT

  Maggie’s Man

  MacNamara’s Woman

  Brandon’s Bride

  LISA GARDNER

  WRITING AS

  ALICIA SCOTT

  MAGGIE’S MAN

  A FAMILY SECRETS NOVEL

  SIGNET

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  For more information about the Penguin Group visit penguin.com.

  Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a Silhouette edition.

  Copyright © Lisa Baumgartner, 1997

  Excerpt from MacNamara’s Woman copyright © Lisa Baumgartner, 1997

  Excerpt from Touch & Go copyright © Lisa Gardner, Inc., 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  ISBN 978-1-101-63350-2

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  Contents

  Cover

  Praise

  Also by Lisa Gardner

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from MACNAMARA’S WOMAN

  Excerpt from TOUCH & GO

  Excerpt from FEAR NOTHING

  Chapter 1

  “D
on’t move.”

  Maggie Ferringer looked up blankly from her seat on the wooden bench outside the second-floor courtroom. Eight fifty a.m. and she hadn’t had coffee yet. She was tired, disgruntled at being called for jury duty and still preoccupied with how she was going to rearrange all her appointments for the next five days. Plus, one of her cats was sick. She was thinking she’d better take him to the vet.

  “Don’t move,” the prison guard repeated, and this time his voice was very hard.

  She blinked rapidly, looking at the man with mild confusion. Strangers were always approaching her. There could be one hundred people on the street and the tourist would stop and ask Maggie for directions. She supposed it was because she was so unassuming. At five feet, she had a slight build and pale skin that only burned, never tanned. Her clothes ran toward the admittedly conservative—she had a weakness for low-slung sensible pumps. Today, she’d matched her favorite pair of beige heels with a brown plaid wool skirt and simple pink blouse that declared, I am an intelligent, professional woman with really boring taste in clothes.

  Last week, her mother—one of those tall, wildly beautiful women who could actually wear leopard-print jumpsuits—had flown into town, greeted Maggie with two fofooey cheek kisses and dramatically exclaimed, “My God, Maggie darling! How did I ever give birth to a creature who will probably marry an accountant?”

  And Maggie, who felt the same sting she always felt when trying to understand her exotic mother, had the sudden urge to toss back her red hair and retort fiercely, “At least an accountant would come home every night for dinner!” She hadn’t said any such thing, of course. She was still slightly surprised she’d bothered to think it. After twenty-seven years, she’d come to the realization that Stephanie would always be Stephanie. Getting angry with her self-centered, extremely un-Mom-like behavior was as productive as hating the sun for shining.

  “Lady,” the guard was now growling, “I said move!”

  “Move where?” she asked him politely. As far as she could tell, the second floor of the old courthouse was still deserted. Space should not be a problem for him.

  Then Maggie noticed the gun. The big gun. The big black gun pointed right at her, here, in the middle of the vast gray marble hallway of the Multnomah County Courthouse. The hallway was quiet, hushed as a courthouse should be hushed—particularly one that had opened its door just five minutes before. But just one floor beneath them, she could hear the reassuring hum of people entering and the parrotlike chirp of the metal detectors working as they helped protect the courthouse doors.

  She stared at the gun still held unwaveringly in front of her, blinked, then stared at it again.

  The prison guard abruptly jabbed her in the ribs with the barrel. Oh God, it was real. She was being attacked by a prison guard!

  Maggie stopped breathing.

  Hello, her mind whispered. Somebody come up here and do something. Somebody jump out and tell me I’m on Candid Camera.

  The only person who moved was the prison guard.

  “Do exactly what I say,” the light-haired man said, his gaze boring into hers. He shifted, positioning his solid body between her and the top of the stairs, where the first smartly dressed morning commuter was now appearing. That man was followed by a woman in a paisley-print dress, then another man in a suit.

  The guard in front of her shifted again and her universe was reduced to bulging biceps, a granite chest and a pair of chilling green eyes that told her he was bigger, better and badder than she would ever be in her whole entire life.

  She would grant him that. She was one of those people who could never even get the lid off a pickle jar. C.J., Brandon . . . help!

  “Listen up and don’t make a sound,” the “prison guard”commanded. His voice didn’t waver; the gun didn’t waver; his gaze didn’t waver. He exuded one-hundred-percent-focused, honed control. She was a dead woman.

  “Okay.” Maggie’s gaze flew from his face to his brown uniform, to the badge on his chest. Then her eyes fell lower and she realized the shirt was too tight across his chest, the pants unbuttoned at his waist, the hems ending a good two inches above his ankles. His feet were squashed awkwardly in the shiny black boots, as if he was forced to walk tiptoe by the constraining leather.

  “You’re not a prison guard!” she exclaimed softly.

  The left corner of his lips twisted up. “Very good, you win the double-jeopardy question. Next time, give your answer in the form of a question. Now stand up and do exactly as I say.”

  The gun dug into her ribs again and she jumped to her feet as if it had been a cattle prod. Her oversized beige purse promptly fell off her lap and vomited onto the floor.

  “Damn!” her prison guard/captor swore. With an impatient gesture, he planted one broad palm on her thin shoulder and shoved her down. “Grab it and let’s go.”

  “Okay,” she said again, her fingers trembling so hard, she scrambled lipstick tubes, a set of house keys, four throat lozenges, two cat rabies tags and her checkbook all over the floor.

  “Lady!”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing!” she cried out perilously loud. The ringing footsteps of one man’s dress heels against the marble floor came to a suspicious halt.

  The guard hunched down. One sweep of his broad hand and everything was back in her oversized leather purse. He leaned so close, she could feel his breath on her lips, as well as see the burning-green determination of his eyes.

  “One more stunt like that,” he told her quietly, “and you’re dead.”

  His fingers wrapped around her thin arm. He dragged her to her feet, her body pressed against him as if she were weightless. And all she could think was that her tax dollars had probably paid for the prison barbells that had made him so strong.

  Her captor yanked her toward the top of the stairs. Maggie caught the gaze of a startled man in a deep gray suit still watching her. Run, yell, do something, she thought. Fingers dug into her upper arm and she smiled at the halted man instead. He politely nodded, then walked away as Attila the Hun dragged her down the rapidly flooding staircase.

  They were going against the flow of traffic, but nobody seemed to mind. The stream of humanity split around them without a second glance. Executives in their suits passed so close, she could touch them with her fingertips. One judge already in his black robe ascended the broad steps just two feet away. Court clerks in professional, but not too professional, clothes chatted about the beautiful spring weather as they moved to one side so an escaped felon could pull her down to the front doors.

  Say something, do something, her mind whispered. Lydia always said your hair marked you as one of the legendary Hathaway Reds, and all the Hathaway Reds were women of great courage and passion. So do something! Just this once, actually do something!

  As if reading her thoughts, the man clamped her arm more tightly and quickened his pace. She had to half jog to keep up with his long strides. Obviously, the man not only lifted weights but ran on the prison treadmill machine. Did they give convicts StairMasters, as well, so they could climb skyscrapers as modern-day versions of King Kong? She was definitely writing a letter to her state congressman after this. Definitely, definitely, definitely.

  They made the turn of the sweeping staircase. The huge bay of glass doors loomed before them, guarded by the standing metal detectors. For a moment, Maggie felt hope soar in her chest. The second he dragged her through the detectors, his gun would set them off and she’d be home free!

  Then she realized the detectors were only for the people walking in. There were no such protective devices for the people walking out.

  His footsteps moved even faster and she was helpless to stop the momentum.

  The security desk was to her left. Three men sat there in uniform. Look over here, darn it! Hey, hey, someone set down your jelly doughnut and look at me!

  But they only watched the people entering the building.

  Maggie rolled her eyes frantically to the right. Phones, the
bank of phones. If she could twist away, make it to the phones. Her brother would help her. C.J. had joined the Marines when he’d turned eighteen and taken to it like a seal to water. He had more medals than their grandpa had gotten in World War II and Korea combined; no one messed with C.J. Or maybe her older brother, Brandon. Where was he these days? Since burying his young wife two years ago, he’d taken off and traveled the world in a manner frighteningly similar to their late, departed father.

  She made an instinctive lunge for the phone banks. At least she thought it was a lunge. Her captor glanced at her quizzically as if she’d hiccuped, then proceeded to drag her through the broad glass doors like his own personal Raggedy Ann.

  She blinked beneath the sudden glare of sunlight. A part of her was instantly relieved. It was daylight, after all, prime commute time on a bright spring day in downtown Portland, Oregon; everyone knew bad things only happened after midnight in dark alleyways where streetlights reflected off murky puddles.

  Attila, however, showed no signs of slowing down. He dragged her to the corner, then came to an abrupt halt. She was so unprepared for the stop, she tripped in her low heels and practically flung herself around him. He caught her hundred-pound body, not even swaying from the impact. Strong hands gripped her shoulders and righted her curtly. Again, she did her impression of a blinking owl.

  “Who taught you how to walk?” he muttered.

  The crossing signal’s green man lit up, indicating for pedestrians to proceed. Her captor dragged her briskly across the street. Drivers watched them politely; fellow commuters rushed by hurriedly. Abruptly, Attila pushed her into the park, ducking them both behind a four-foot-high hedge. Maggie had time for one gulping gasp of air; then he pinned her between the prickly hedge and his rock-hard frame.

  She blinked, then blinked again. No matter how many times she did, he remained standing before her, his steely thighs clamped around her legs.

  “P-p-please,” she begged weakly. Her body began to tremble, and her eyes squeezed shut; she had no pride. She was very scared and she would do anything if this man would just let her go. “D-d-don’t hurt me. . . .”