Dear Maggie

by Brenda Novak

  “Nick doesn’t mind if you do that occasionally?”

  “I think he spends more time with you than he does with me.”

  She was testing Mendez, but aside from a fleeting glance at her face, he kept his comment neutral. “He’s a busy man.”

  “How would you know?” she pressed.

  This time Mendez studied her for several seconds. “You’d know better than I would,” he said at last.

  “If you say so,” she grumbled.

  Sinking ponderously onto the couch, he snagged the remote control and started flipping through stations.

  Maggie wrenched it out of his grip when he settled on a karate movie with subtitles.

  “Hey, what’re you doing?” he complained. “I like a good fight show.”

  “We’re not watching that. You’re supposed to be keeping your mind on your work, remember?”

  “But it’s early yet. Dr. Dan won’t be showing up for some time.”

  “Close your legs,” Maggie told him. “A woman doesn’t sit like that.”

  Mendez scowled but obeyed.

  “How long are we going to give him before you take off that ridiculous costume and go home?” she asked, flipping the channels herself.

  “I don’t know. It’s not up to me when we pull the plug.”

  “Then who’s it up to?”

  He didn’t answer. His attention was on the TV. “Wait, what was that?” he cried when she flashed through a channel that had a car chase going on.

  “It’s a rerun of ‘Magnum P.I.’ Don’t tell me you want to watch it.”

  “Don’t you like Tom Selleck?”

  Maggie shook her head. She’d been worried about tonight for nothing. Mendez looked like an idiot and was more interested in watching television than catching bad guys. “Aren’t you supposed to check the perimeter of the house or something?” she asked.

  “I can’t do that. It would tip our hand. We want our man to come to us. And he will,” he said with certainty. Despite that, four long hours passed without a hint of trouble, and just after midnight Maggie’s eyelids became so heavy she couldn’t stay awake.

  “I’m going to turn in,” she announced at the end of their second HBO movie. “I don’t think we’ll be having any visitors.”

  Mendez nodded and swallowed a mouthful of Doritos before responding. “Go ahead and get some sleep. I think I should turn off the television and the lights, anyway. A little darkness might encourage our boy.”

  She watched Mendez finger the bra cup that held his gun and wondered if she should get her knife. The hallway to her bedroom was looking awfully long and dark, as was the yard outside her windows….

  She knew Mendez would protest if she carried a knife to bed, but Maggie didn’t intend to let that stop her. Circling around to the kitchen, she retrieved the butcher knife and concealed it in the waistband of her shorts before passing him again on the way to her room.

  “Good night,” she said.

  “Good night,” he replied, snapping off the television. “Leave the music on. Covering sound makes an intruder feel safe. But hit the lights, will ya?”

  Hit the lights. Maggie swallowed hard. She’d nearly convinced herself that Dr. Dan wasn’t going to fall for this little ruse, but the thought of turning off all the lights was still a scary one. “Darkness makes an intruder feel safe, too, right?”

  The wicker couch Mendez was sitting on creaked as he lay down. “You got it.”

  “You’re looking pretty comfortable there. You’re not going to fall asleep, are you?”

  “Hmm?” he said, adjusting a throw pillow beneath his head.

  “You’re not really going to sleep, right?”

  “What do you think?”

  What Maggie thought was that he sounded tired. She turned off the living-room lights, wrapped her fingers around the handle of her knife and made her way slowly down the hall. Irrational as it was, she half expected Dr. Dan to be waiting under her bed, or in her closet, or behind the door….

  Swallowing to relieve the dryness of her throat, Maggie listened for movement or breathing or anything that shouldn’t be there. She heard nothing but still couldn’t bring herself to sleep in her own room. Going past it, she used the bathroom in the hall, then turned off the rest of the lights and climbed into Zach’s toddler bed with her clothes on.

  Lying on her back, now wide awake, she stared at the patterns shifting on the ceiling, her knife still clutched in one hand.

  In the living room, she heard Mendez get up and move around—possibly checking the windows? A few minutes later, he returned to his place on the couch, judging by the creaks. Except for the soft strains of “Classics from the 80s” still coming from her CD player, everything fell silent.

  MAGGIE WASN’T SURE how much time had passed. She must have fallen asleep—although she hadn’t thought she ever would—because when she awoke, the color of the night had changed to purple. A glance at the Pokémon clock on Zach’s nightstand confirmed the approach of morning. It was after five o’clock.

  What had awakened her? Momentarily disoriented, Maggie blinked at the glimmer of metal on the pillow beside her and realized it was the butcher knife she’d brought to bed. Then the night’s plan came tumbling back with frightening clarity: She was in Zach’s bed, and Mendez was in the living room, waiting for Dr. Dan to make his move.

  Had the detective fallen asleep? Maggie strained to hear any sign of him breathing or snoring or moving around. But the house was silent except for the CDs she’d set on continuous play hours ago.

  Slipping out of bed, she considered taking her knife with her. But she decided that creeping up on a cop while carrying a butcher knife probably wasn’t a good idea. Especially when he was expecting a murderer—a murderer who’d never showed. Evidently Mendez and Hurley had been wrong about him. Daniel Murrill was smarter than they’d known and had probably found his way into someone else’s bedroom while the police were watching her.

  Maggie shuddered at the thought as she crept, barefoot, into the living room. But there she stopped cold. Something was wrong. One of the windows Mendez had cracked was now open wide. She could see the outline of its wooden pane in silhouette, could hear the rhythmic slap of the blind as the wind gently stirred it.

  Refusing to turn her back on the room, she slid sideways until she could reach Mendez and shake his arm, but he didn’t move.

  “Mendez,” she whispered, her eyes still roving over the dark living room in case Dr. Dan came at her. She wanted to turn on the light but was afraid to cross the room to get to the switch, afraid her footsteps might alert an intruder. “Wake up. I think we might have company.”

  No answer. Confused, Maggie risked a glance at the detective’s face and thought he was still sleeping. Then she lowered her gaze far enough to see something dark and wet covering much of his dress.

  Blood! She felt its warm, sticky wetness and thought she might be sick. Dr. Dan had killed Mendez, a trained police officer, right in her living room and with scarcely a sound. Which meant she didn’t stand a chance against him. And now she was alone.

  A creak down the hall drew her attention. Dr. Dan was looking for her, most likely in her own bedroom, but now he seemed to be coming back. Had her timing been slightly different, she might have run into him on her way to the living room.

  Terror turned Maggie’s blood to ice as her eyes flicked toward the back door. Could she reach it before Dr. Dan reached her? Both the front and back doors had old-fashioned bolts that required a key. The key was on the counter. But with her hands shaking so badly, Maggie doubted her fingers would be nimble enough to fit it into the lock. And her legs felt almost too weak to stand, let alone run.

  Dr. Dan would catch her before she could unlock the door, she thought, panic nearly overwhelming her. She couldn’t even reach the window.

  If she flashed the lights, would the police arrive in time? She briefly considered the knife she’d left in Zach’s room, but retrieving it or another one
was hopeless now. She doubted she’d have the upper body strength or the nerve to use it, anyway.

  The gun! What about Mendez’s gun? Judging by the way he was lying, he’d never even drawn it. Which meant it was still there, in his bra.

  Summoning every ounce of courage she possessed, Maggie crouched low and slipped her hand down the dress to search through the wads of toilet paper. Much of it was soggy with blood.

  Where was it, where? The left cup? Maggie was so frightened, she couldn’t remember. Dr. Dan’s tread was nearly in the living room now, and everything in her mind was turned around. Her hands were cold and unwieldy and shaking uncontrollably. Her heart was hammering so hard it was difficult to breathe….

  Finally, her fingers closed around the warm steel of a small handgun. Mumbling a silent prayer of thanksgiving, Maggie took it and launched herself away from the bleeding Mendez toward the back door—and the light switch—just as a dark-clad figure flew at her from the hall. It was too late! She wasn’t going to make it, she realized, as a hand grabbed hold of her hair and pulled her down to the ground.

  “Maaggiiee,” Dr. Dan crooned above her. “What’s the matter, Maggie? Didn’t I tell you I’d be paying you a little visit? Nice trick with the drag queen, by the way, not that it fooled me. You must think I’m an idiot, Maggie.”

  He smelled of cheap cologne and body odor. Swallowing hard, Maggie tried to shift so she could free the hand that held the gun, but he had a knee to her back, and she couldn’t move. “The police are watching,” she said, stalling. “You’ll never get away from here.”

  He laughed. “I got in, didn’t I?”

  The CDs Mendez had told Maggie to put on before she went to bed started over at the beginning. Dimly Maggie recognized Janice Joplin’s voice singing that she had nothing left to lose and felt exactly the opposite. She had everything to lose—Zach, possibly Nick, and a thriving career. She wasn’t going to die now. She wasn’t going to let Dr. Dan cheat her out of her future.

  He’d turn her over eventually. And when he did…

  “You’re pathetic,” she told him. “You like to pretend you’re smarter than the police and everyone else, but when it comes right down to it, you’re just a rejected little boy throwing a violent tantrum. And it can’t last forever, you know that, don’t you? Someday you’re going to jail and from there to the electric chair.”

  Pain exploded in Maggie’s head as he struck her. The blow hurt so badly, she wasn’t sure he hadn’t used his knife. But then he turned her, as she’d expected, and there was no time to worry about pain or anything else, only survival. Her hand now free, Maggie fired the gun.

  The noise seemed deafening and the weapon’s recoil surprised her. It jerked her arm back and smashed her elbow into the hardwood floor, sending shards of pain shooting down to her fingertips. At the same time, she felt Dr. Dan’s hold give way.

  No longer able to grasp the gun, she dropped it and cradled her throbbing arm as she scrambled to the far wall, where she flashed the lights several times, finally leaving them on before realizing that she’d fired and missed. The shot had merely surprised Dr. Dan, and now he had the gun.

  Pressing herself flat to the wall, as if she could somehow make herself less of a target, Maggie closed her eyes, expecting him to squeeze the trigger. It was over. There was nothing more she could do to save herself.

  But when the explosion came, she felt no pain. Opening her eyes, she saw Daniel Murrill crumple, instead. Nick was half-inside the open window and held the gun that had shot him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  IT WAS AS SHE’D SUSPECTED. Numb, Maggie sat on the couch as the last of the police and EMT people who’d been tramping through her house for over an hour finally headed for the front door. Dr. Dan was dead and on his way to the morgue. There’d be no long, expensive trial for him, no chance of his escaping and hurting other women. Nick’s bullet had killed him instantly. Mendez, though, was still alive. Unconscious and losing a lot of blood, he was in critical condition, but the paramedics had been optimistic about his chances for survival. The knife wounds in his chest were deep, but the gun in the left cup of his bra had deflected Dr. Dan’s blade away from his heart.

  Nick and the paramedics had wanted Maggie to go to the hospital along with Mendez, just to be checked out, but she’d refused. She had a bump on the head and a sore elbow; that was all. The only part of her that had been truly injured was her heart, and she knew there was nothing anyone could do for that. Experience had taught her it would eventually heal. Only this time, she feared it would take years. Long, long years…

  Closing her eyes, she shook her head. She’d come face to face with a man who’d raped and killed eight women. She’d fired a gun, something she’d never done before. She’d watched Nick kill Daniel Murrill after her shot had missed him. And she’d believed Mendez was dead, too. So much in one night. So much terror and violence.

  And now she had to face the truth that Nick wasn’t the man she’d thought he was. Everything he’d told her, everything they’d done together, was a lie. He was more than a cop. He was an FBI agent, for God’s sake, and he’d used her as a…a pawn, a prop in his investigation.

  She heard Hurley ask him how much longer he’d be staying in Sacramento and wondered the same thing. Would he pack up and move back to Connecticut, or wherever he was from, tomorrow? The next day? She didn’t know. He spoke to someone else and never answered Hurley.

  “You okay?” Nick said, coming to sit beside her after shutting the front door behind everyone else.

  Maggie nodded.

  “How did you come so fast when I flashed the lights?”

  “I’d just discovered a downed cop and knew something was wrong. I wasn’t taking any chances. I called for backup, then raced over here.”

  “How did he get in?” Maggie asked. “Why wasn’t Mendez watching the windows?”

  “He probably was,” Nick said. “Dr. Dan used a glass-cutter and came through the kitchen. He took Mendez by surprise.”

  “But the living-room window was open wider than when I went to bed.”

  “Mendez probably did that, hoping to entice him.”

  Nick tried to put his arm around her and draw her close, but she pulled away. “Don’t touch me,” she said. “I feel like enough of a fool already. I knew something was going on. I just didn’t want to face it—”

  “Maggie, you’re no fool. I—”

  “You what?” she demanded, her scrambled emotions giving a rare edge to her anger. “You didn’t lie to me? You didn’t use me?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean for us to get so…close. One thing led to another, and I simply couldn’t help myself.”

  “Tell me something. Why did you first ask me out?”

  “You know why.”

  “I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you speak the truth for a change.”

  He stared down at his hands, loosely clasped between his knees. “For the most part, I did what I had to do, Maggie.”

  Ignoring his answer, Maggie went on, “The last time I asked why you were interested in me, you said it was because I’m beautiful and driven and a little shy, and you liked that combination. Isn’t that what you said? But that wasn’t it at all, was it? Somehow you knew Dr. Dan would contact me because of my job and because of what happened to Lola, am I right?”

  He looked at her before responding. Finally, “It was a hunch.”

  “And if you could get in my pants, too, well, that would be a bonus, right?”

  “Don’t even think it, Maggie. That’s not how it was,” he growled.

  “Funny, I’d swear I’m finally seeing things clearly,” she replied. “You were determined to bag your perp any way you could, and if you bagged me at the same time…” She couldn’t finish.

  “I know you’re hurt,” he said, obviously trying to rein in his own emotions. “I was afraid it would come to this. I knew it would. But I can only say one thing, Maggie. I loved you when we m
ade love for the first time. I love you now. My job doesn’t change that.”

  Maggie squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could believe him. But the trust was gone. She’d closed her eyes to the truth, but now it was staring her right in the face, and she knew, even if Nick stayed for a while, he’d eventually leave. He had a whole separate life wherever he lived, family, friends—maybe even a wife!

  “Just tell me you’re not married,” she said. “Or is that where Shelley comes into the picture?”

  He scowled. “I’m not that much of a lowlife, Maggie. There is no Shelley. I made her up so you’d let me move in with you.”

  Maggie shook her head. What could she believe about him? About them? What was real? “I think you’d better pack your things and go,” she said at last.

  “You don’t mean that, Maggie. Take a few days to think about it. We’ll talk when you’re ready. I don’t want to let go of what we have—”

  “What we have?” she echoed. “We have nothing. I’m going to bed. When I get up, I want you gone.” The words, even as she spoke them, sliced through Maggie. But she knew it was better to end their relationship quickly and move on. She refused to drag things out for months, living in constant fear that today was the day Nick would decide he didn’t love her enough to give up the life he lived elsewhere. She had Zach to think about. Somehow, she’d lost sight of what was best for her son. She’d let her own needs take over and felt a terrible guilt about that, on top of everything else. Remember f.p.? she thought sadly. She’d just started to believe that Nick had all she could ever want of good fatherhood traits. But now? She didn’t even know who he was.

  “Goodbye, Nick,” she said, standing. “I mean it when I say I don’t want to hear from you again.”

  GOD, THAT HURT. Nick sat on Maggie’s couch, feeling as though she’d just slugged him in the stomach. He’d been so frightened when he’d found that cop on the ground and realized Maggie was in trouble. His emotions had run from anger and fear to complete relief when he arrived in time, and now he just felt spent.