After parting ways with Loomis, she’d taken a roundabout route home, her thoughts queuing up and insisting to be dealt with. Like running, driving helped her zone out, to think things through without interference. She’d thought about the ongoing effort to locate Tyler and now Kristen, trying and failing to reconcile the two. It had been twilight by the time she had arrived at the house on Wineberry, a full moon rising behind scattered cloud.
After all the Halloween hubbub during the weekend, the cul-de-sac had been quiet. No leftover pumpkins going moldy on the doorsteps. No nosy neighbors peeping through their blinds, wondering if she ever brought her work home with her.
Maggie had parked the Tahoe alongside her Mustang in the driveway and come inside, switching on lights and heading straight to the kitchen. She’d found a bottle of Advil in a drawer and washed two down with cool water from the fridge dispenser. Then she’d made herself a cup of herbal tea, sitting at the firepit on her backyard patio, the flickering flames hypnotizing as her mind crawled over the cinders of the last forty-eight hours.
Had somebody told her, Saturday morning, that she’d be where she was now—emotionally and mentally—she would never have believed them.
For starters, she couldn’t believe that Rita’s first fiery death had been faked by the US Marshals Service. She couldn’t believe that Rita had been alive all these years, only to die for real during the weekend, her body burned in the exact same place where she’d spoken her last ever word to Maggie.
Bitch.
She couldn’t believe that Kristen had stolen her father’s revolver when they were seventeen, and that she had entered the arena again after all these years, with the end result being Dana’s death. She couldn’t believe that Kristen had then gone on to frame Cullen for Dana’s murder, and that it had all happened in her jurisdiction.
In a short span of time, her world had been upended, righted, flipped upside down again.
The readout on the clock switched to 3:01 a.m.
Maggie sensed a weight pressing down on the mattress behind her.
Is that why she’d woken?
She rolled over, thinking Steve had come back to her house instead of his, crept into the bed with her. It took her a second to realize his shape was all wrong. Stocky instead of streamlined. A clunky outline, picked out by the stray beams of streetlight leaking in around the curtains.
And Steve never smelled like a mechanic.
Tyler!
The realization hit her like a sledgehammer, punching hot adrenaline through her system.
She felt something hard and metallic press against the soft skin under her chin.
“Don’t move,” he said from out of the darkness, his stale breath on her cheek and in her mouth. “In fact,” he said, “don’t even breathe. Or I’ll blow your brains out all over your nice clean sheets. You and me are going to have some fun.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
BAIT AND TACKLE
Maggie froze.
Despite the superheated adrenaline burning through her veins, she didn’t even twitch. She clung to the fiery breath in her lungs, every sense straining and on high alert. Thoughts coming thick and fast. Instinct pleaded with her to physically react, to lash out, to fight for her life, to leap out of bed, to run, to do something, but any one of those knee-jerk reactions would be a deadly mistake.
Lose it, and she’d pay with her life.
Police training had programmed the panic out of her.
At first, when Maggie was a bright-eyed rookie, she’d labored to get the balance right. Putting herself in thought experiments, testing which options were likely to produce favorable results.
Controlling the genetic compulsion wasn’t easy.
Instinct came as a fundamental requirement of her job. It helped save lives, enabled her to sniff out danger better than any bloodhound could. Right from the start, she’d been taught to listen to her gut, to trust it, to nurture it.
But some instinct was detrimental to an officer’s own safety. This was the kind that resulted in poor decision-making and ultimately put the life of the officer and maybe others in jeopardy.
In real life-or-death situations, the natural human instinct was to fight or take flight. But police training had taught her that the choice wasn’t limited to an either-or. A third option existed. One that could ensure an officer in the crosshairs survived long enough to pass beyond the panic stage and potentially come through the situation alive and in control.
The keyword here was compliance.
And the secret was knowing when to apply it.
Maggie didn’t even breathe.
The hardness prodding under her chin was the unmistakable muzzle of a gun. Although she couldn’t see it in the dark, she had no doubt about what it was. The cool metal, the taint of grease. One wrong move, one sudden shift in her position, and the gun might discharge, either on purpose or unintentionally.
Then what?
If she wanted to get through the next few minutes alive, she had to comply with Tyler’s command.
But relinquishing control rubbed against her grain.
Right now, the dominant thought crashing through her mind was that, no matter how compliant she was, Tyler was here to kill her anyway.
She had to ignore it, move beyond it.
Trust her training.
Slowly, Tyler backed himself off the bed and to his feet, keeping the muzzle pressed against her throat the whole time.
Maggie’s heartbeat was so loud she was sure he could hear it.
She sensed him reach out with his other hand, heard his fingers fumble at the bedside lamp. It came on, saturating the room in light.
Maggie didn’t even blink.
Tyler loomed over her, clothed completely in black. A sweatshirt hoodie and cargo pants with big baggy saddlebag pockets on the sides. The same outfit she’d seen on her attacker at the Cullen residence yesterday.
Fire raged inside her, but she kept her cool.
The fact that he was here now, in her bedroom, armed and dangerous, was proof positive that he had played a key role in Dana’s murder.
“Get up,” he said. “Slowly.” He gestured with the gun. It looked like an antique Luger. His knuckles on both hands looked raw, dried blood caked in the skin.
Maggie forced the tension from her frame.
In high-stress situations, the adrenal glands flooded the bloodstream with epinephrine. A hormone, stimulating a spike in energy production that contracted blood vessels and increased heart rate. Consequently, it was an effort to get muscles to perform at any speed less than full throttle.
No choice.
Keeping her hands where he could see them, she slowly pulled the sheet back and then sat upright. The last thing she wanted was for him to mistake any of her actions as aggressive—until they were.
He waggled the pistol. “Good. Now. Toward me.”
Maggie swung her legs around on the mattress and slid her feet to the floor. Then she stood with her arms dangling loosely at her sides, breathing deeply, heart blazing.
A smug smile creased Tyler’s mouth as his gaze moved up and down her body.
Maggie slept in the nude. She always had, and it was nothing to do with the muggy Florida nights. She found any kind of nightwear restrictive.
She saw his hand move toward his crotch. “Don’t even think about it,” she said quietly.
His gaze shot up to hers. “No talking.” He retreated a few steps, opening up a space between them. “Get dressed.”
He had plans to kill her all right, but not here.
“Where are we going?”
He grabbed a handful of garments from the back of a chair and slung them at her. “I said get dressed.”
Maggie pulled on a green OCSO T-shirt and jogging pants.
On the outside she must have looked completely calm, the epitome of placid. On the inside her mind was in overdrive, her senses stretching out to fill her environment, like sonar, returning billions of bits of informa
tion for analysis.
He gestured toward the doorway. “Move.”
“I need footwear.”
“No.”
“If we’re walking any kind of distance—”
“You don’t need shoes at the lake.” He snapped the words, as though stringing a sentence together was an imposition.
Devil’s Landing.
Suddenly, Maggie’s dream came hurtling back to her, the chants of “Bully! Bully! Bully!” igniting the flammable liquid, turning her into a human inferno. In the dream, Maggie was screaming as the firestorm vaporized her skin, bits of her rising on a swirling column of smoke.
Razor-edged fear sliced at her heart.
“Tyler,” she said softly, “you need to think carefully about what you’re doing right now. Just by being here you’re opening up a whole world of trouble for yourself. Trust me. You don’t want this. Please stop and think before you go too far. Killing a police officer comes with a mandatory death sentence.” She sat down on the edge of the bed.
He waggled the Luger. “Move.”
“No, Tyler. I won’t let you do this.”
She saw his jaw muscles clench. “I said move!”
“And I said no. What would your grandfather say if he saw you right now, behaving like this in a woman’s bedroom? I think you need to reassess what your aim is here, Tyler.”
“I said no talking!”
Maggie patted the mattress next to her. “Come. Let’s you and me both sit down and talk. Work something out before it’s too late. Those anger issues of yours, they’ll be the death of you. Come on. I won’t bite. And I know you won’t. Let’s face it, Tyler, when it comes to women, you’re not exactly the smartest chimp in the zoo, are you? You attacked Lindy and then you attacked me. I’ve got to wonder, is your temper trying to cover up the fact you’re not particularly well endowed in the manhood department?” She pointed a finger at his crotch and curled her lip with disgust. “I mean, come on, who are we trying to kid here? No wonder Lindy gave you the cold shoulder. You’re just a little boy.”
He charged at her, suddenly, like a tormented bull. Head down, a low growl leaking from his lips.
And that was his first mistake—biting her bait.
Maggie had calculated it wouldn’t take much to make Tyler explode; his fuse was short and his temper volatile. And physical interaction seemed to be his reaction of choice. She figured she stood a better chance of disarming him here, on her own turf and on her own terms, than in the dark at the lake, where any number of variables could cause her efforts to go disastrously wrong.
He came at her, snarling.
But Maggie was trained in hand-to-hand combat. Enough of a skill set at least to defend herself when she was given a fighting chance.
She saw him rush toward her, his free hand molding into a fist. If his intention was to cuff her on the mouth again, then drag her kicking and screaming to his car, he was sorely mistaken.
As he came within striking distance, Maggie tipped backward on the bed, raising her feet together in one fluid movement and planting her heels in the boy’s stomach.
It was like something out of a high school gym routine.
Maggie’s reverse motion coupled with his forward momentum lifted him cleanly off his feet. And the top-heavy teenager was too committed to do anything about it. Maggie straightened her legs, lifting them over her as she flattened herself to the mattress, the action hurling Tyler over the bed.
It seemed as though it all happened in slow motion.
Tyler flew over her, coming down heavily, headfirst in the gap between the bed frame and the window. Crashing against the wall and emitting a muffled yowl as he took a mouthful of carpet.
Maggie kept moving, twisting as she rolled, coming up on her knees on the mattress, ready to pounce.
Tyler was upturned, jammed in the tight space between the bed and the wall, hands scratching at the floor, trying to right himself. The red soles of his sneakers flashing like danger signals. The Luger on the carpet near the bathroom doorway.
Maggie jumped to her feet on the bed. With both hands, she grabbed hold of Tyler’s ankles and pushed his legs higher into the air, straighter, preventing him from extricating himself from the predicament he’d landed in.
“Stop!” he cried.
Maggie didn’t. She twisted his feet, feeling sinews straining. “Do not resist.” She heard his ankles pop, gristle crunching.
Tyler howled.
“Stop!” he cried again. “Or she’ll kill your dad!”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
TRIGGER
Maggie kept Tyler’s feet hoisted in the air, the pressure on, repeating the move she’d used on him during the assault at Cullen’s place. “What did you say?”
“I swear to God,” he said, his voice muffled against the carpet. “They’re together at the lake. That’s why I’m taking you there. She said to tell you she’ll kill him if we don’t show up.”
All at once, it felt like Maggie had been punched in the gut, the wind knocked out of her.
Kristen had her dad at the lake?
It didn’t make any sense!
The shock of Tyler’s statement relaxed her grip, just enough for him to take advantage.
He kicked out, and suddenly he was squirming out of her grasp and to his feet.
Maggie snapped out of her shock, realizing her error a second late. She saw him spot the Luger, and launched herself off the bed in the same moment that Tyler made a mad dash for the gun. She hit him from behind, allowing her full weight to bring him down, and they hit the carpet together, heavily, their hands scrabbling for the Luger. Tyler tried to land an elbow in her face. Maggie dodged it, finger punching him in his exposed armpit. Tyler yelped. Maggie pushed to her knees and scrambled over him, her hands reaching out, her fingers inches from the Luger. But just before she could snap it up, Tyler heaved to one side, throwing her off and into the wall. Pain crackled through her ribs, and suddenly the gun was in Tyler’s hand.
“Stop!” he cried, waving it at her. “You’re killing him.”
Maggie’s pulse was thumping hard enough to make her vision pulsate.
Tyler got to his feet.
“Don’t do this,” she said.
He gestured with the pistol. “Get up.”
Maggie got to her feet. “You’re making things worse for yourself, Tyler. Just give me the gun, and we can work something out.”
“Go,” he said, motioning her toward the bedroom doorway. “Or your dad dies.”
Maggie moved through the darkened house, Tyler following a couple of yards behind.
Kristen had given the boy instructions to fetch Maggie to the lake, using her dad as bait.
For what reason? A final showdown?
Where was the logic in that?
When Maggie had run into Kristen a few years back, Kristen had given no indication of still being annoyed with Maggie for ending their friendship. In fact, it hadn’t even come up in conversation. Instead, she’d been interested in catching up on Maggie’s life, asking about Bryan and Nora, surprised to learn that her parents had divorced, and fascinated with the fact that Maggie had shunned the Novak family tradition of teaching in favor of law enforcement.
No longer had Kristen seemed to be the same manipulative and prejudicial person that Maggie remembered.
She’d come across as affable and genuinely nice.
Kristen had changed.
Yet, Maggie knew that one reliable constant in life was that people never truly changed. For good or bad they may try. Behavior could be adjusted, attitudes tweaked, and people might actually believe that positive change had occurred. Pragmatic psychiatrists like Steve believed that therapy could work wonders. And doctors the world over trusted medical intervention to neutralize rogue chemicals in the brain, preventing Mr. Hyde from taking over the asylum.
But when everything was stripped back, when a person was alone with their thoughts, change was an inconvenience, required to function in a s
ociety that would otherwise impose penalties.
According to Steve, everybody had triggers: a neighbor’s dog continually barking, somebody cutting you off on the highway, a work colleague who stole your promotion.
Was Kristen’s trigger her encountering Dana, a chance meeting that had unlocked repressed emotions, thrusting her back to a past of hatred and homophobia?
Is that why Kristen had killed Dana?
Did she have the same plan in mind for Maggie?
Outside, a dirt bike was parked at the head of the driveway, a red cycle helmet hooked on the handlebar.
Tyler pushed a bunch of keys in her hand. They were hers, taken from the dish in the hall. “The Mustang,” he said. “You drive.”
It was a warm night, insects chirruping. Bright moonlight peeping through cracks in the clouds. All she could think about was her father’s welfare, and what she would do to both Tyler and Kristen if he got hurt because of them.
They got into Maggie’s car, Tyler insisting they drive with the top down as he monitored her from the passenger seat.
Maggie started the engine and backed the Mustang slowly out of the driveway, reversing into the cul-de-sac. Then she hesitated before putting the car in drive.
“I need you to be honest with me here, Tyler,” she said, “before we go any farther. Your knuckles are mashed up. Clearly, you’ve beaten somebody to a pulp tonight. I need to know my dad’s okay.” She stared at him. “Because I swear, Tyler, if you’ve so much as harmed a single hair on his head . . .”
“I didn’t hurt him,” he said. “Now drive.”
Maggie switched on the headlights, pulling forward, then hitting the brake, sharply.
Nick Stavanger had appeared in the bright beams, standing in the middle of the street, both hands shielding his eyes. He had on a black Bruce Springsteen tour tee and plaid pajama pants. In flip-flops, he approached the driver’s door.
Maggie heard Tyler release a quiet cuss. “Get rid of him.” He let her see his finger on the trigger before hiding the Luger out of sight behind his thigh.
Nick leaned a hand on the doorframe, eyeing Tyler. “Everything aboveboard here, Detective?”
“Right as rain.” Maggie flashed a broad grin to show that the opposite was true. “This is Tyler, by the way. Say hello, Tyler.”
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