The thought nearly caused Maggie to slide to the floor once more, but then she realized that there was no way the man on her doorstep could compare to the monsters inside her head, anyway. She’d never been afraid to face a threat head-on—it was living in constant fear of being watched, taken by surprise, attacked from behind that made her crazy. With a defiant snap of her wrist, she shot back the deadbolt and opened the door, careful to keep it between her body and the outside world. As soon as he’d stepped into the entryway, she pushed it shut again. And exhaled.
He didn’t say a word once they were face-to-face, almost scowling as he gave her a thorough scrutinizing with those pale gray eyes of his. Apparently, she’d surprised him by not being seventy-something, with rollers in her hair and twenty cats sweeping around her ankles. But he quickly got his face under control, shoving a hand through his thick brown hair so it spiked slightly.
“So. You must be James Brentwood, then,” she said a little too loudly, folding her arms and widening her eyes in an attempt to look as unhinged as possible. One good thing about being the crazy woman on Mermaid Point—no one expected you to waste time with social graces. And they usually were only too happy to leave you alone as soon as possible.
“That’s right.” He quickly flashed his badge once more, then folded up the wallet and jammed it into his back pocket. “Ma’am. I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m here about an anonymous phone call placed from this location at 4:37 p.m.”
A short silence stretched between them as they each pondered their next moves, like two grand masters over a chessboard. Maggie circled around him and took her time picking the cordless phone off the floor, placing it back in its cradle while her eyes darted ever so briefly to the panic button on her security system’s white keypad. “I thought the point of leaving an anonymous tip was that one remained anonymous,” she finally said.
“Usually,” he said. “But not with something like this, ma’am.”
“I’m not much older than you, so if you don’t stop ma’am-ing me, I might be forced to start screaming like a lunatic, right here, right now.” To her satisfaction, he blinked, apparently wondering whether or not she was serious. Good. Best to keep him on edge so she had the advantage. She so needed to remain in control of this conversation.
It didn’t take him long to recover. “I’ll call you Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, if it helps you answer my questions,” he said.
“Spare me your fantasies. Mary will do.” Well. Obviously she hadn’t made him that uncomfortable. “So you’re Brentwood, the one I talked to on the phone?”
At his nod, she motioned him ahead of her, into the spacious kitchen just beyond the entryway. “Come in. I was going to make coffee.”
“Nice place.” The man’s eyes skimmed over the room’s pale wood cabinets, ceramic tiles, and state-of-the-art steel appliances. A little too minimalist Pottery Barn for her taste, but she couldn’t be picky when Esme was willing to put a roof with an ocean view over her unproductive head.
The rest of Brentwood’s body remained almost preternaturally still. And despite the badge, the cop’s attention to detail, the standard issue semi-automatic Glock prominently displayed in the shoulder holster, Maggie felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle.
Maybe it was just the small gold hoop in his left ear, maybe it was the too-casual clothes, the too-relaxed stance, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was really, really wrong here.
He’s a cop, Reyes. Get a grip, she chided herself. However, the thought wasn’t enough to keep her from casually sidling to the left so the large kitchen island was between them. She gestured for him to sit down…in the chair farthest from her.
“Well, Mary, you mind if we get started?” he asked. The hoarse quality to his voice made the mundane phrase sound almost X-rated. And that was a little too much for a healthy woman in her early 30s who had been celibate for…way too long.
Even so, her overactive hormones weren’t quite enough to make her overlook the absence of an evidence-gathering notebook in his hands.
“So. Coffee, Officer Brentwood?” she asked, taking the glass pot out of the coffeemaker to her right and filling it up with water. “Adriana brought some Kona beans from her last trip to Hawaii. I haven’t tried it yet, but she says it’s wonderful.”
“Adriana’s your neighbor?” he asked.
Maggie glanced out the windows, past the patio she never used, and watched the waves break against the rocks for a moment. “A friend,” she murmured, biting her lower lip. The rush of cool water over the hand holding the pot brought her attention back to her task.
“Mary, I don’t want to be rude…”
Here it comes.
“…but you said on the phone you believe a serial killer called the Surgeon might have left his New Orleans territory and is on his way to Monterey. Since that’s all you felt like telling us, I’m here to find out what gave you that impression.”
Reaching for the blue ceramic sugar canister, Maggie undid the metal clasp and peeled the sealed lid back, stuffing her hand inside. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the man had stood and was leaning against the table, facing her. “I’m sorry, officer. I don’t mean to waste your time—”
With that, Maggie pulled her hand out of the canister and swung around. She switched off the safety of her Firestar M43 and aimed the small gun right for his mojo-covered heart. “But if you’re James Brentwood, then I really am Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.”
Chapter Two
“So we’re even.” With that disturbingly cryptic statement, the man’s voice seemed to go a couple of octaves deeper than it had been, sending goosebumps down her arms for all the wrong reasons. He slowly raised his hands, keeping his elbows close in by his sides.
“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response, Stalker Boy.” She kept the Firestar aimed at his chest, adrenaline making her peripheral vision narrow until all she could see was him over the sights of her gun. “Just put your weapon on the floor and keep your hands where I can see them, because I will not hesitate to shoot you if you even breathe too hard in my direction.”
“How did you—?”
“Drop. The. Gun.” She gestured impatiently with her own weapon. “Now.”
He complied, stretching his arm out to drop his Glock as close to her as possible. “Okay, it’s on the floor. I’m not here to hurt you,” he said, never taking those still, gray eyes off her.
“Whatever. Now the one on your ankle.”
He shook his head. “I don’t have—”
“Spare me. Your leg drags when you walk.”
With a hiss of breath, he bent over and pushed up the frayed hem of his faded jeans, unstrapping the small .38 from the ankle holster she’d known was there. He casually tossed the gun aside, sending it skittering across the ceramic tiles and through the arched doorway into the formal dining room. Then, raising his palms, he opened his eyes wide with what she was fast beginning to realize was his “trust me” look—which really wasn’t working. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he repeated.
“Great,” Maggie responded calmly, trying not to think about what was going to happen to her nerves once the adrenaline high wore off. “Then why don’t you sit down in that chair and tell me who the hell you are?”
“Billy Corrigan, FBI Computer Crimes Division.”
“Get your hand back up where I can see it,” Maggie snapped as Billy’s hand froze on its way to his back pocket. “Back up in the air, there we go.” Making a wide circle around the table, she stopped directly behind the chair