to fill the opening.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Kincaid,” she said. “I tried to tell him—”
“We need to talk.”
The intruder offered no apology for the interruption. The curt sentence had been more of a command than a request. Whatever his problem—and Jenna wasn’t using that terminology in the sense of something that needed treatment—she didn’t have the time or the inclination to deal with it today.
“I’m sorry. You’ll need to make an appointment—”
“How much?”
“I beg your pardon.”
“How much is it going to cost to talk to you? What I have to say won’t take an hour, but I’m willing to pay for one if that’s what it will take to get you to listen.”
As if to prove his point, he took his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans. Behind him, Sheila pantomimed dialing and then bringing a phone to her ear, brows raised in inquiry.
Jenna shook her head, the movement slight enough that she hoped it wouldn’t be noticed by the man now in the process of opening his billfold. She was unwilling to call the police until she knew more about what was going on.
The guy didn’t look deranged. Actually…
Actually he looked pretty normal, if you thought normal was six-foot-something of solid muscle enclosed in black chamois and denim. He was carrying nothing in his hands, and the worn jeans hugged his narrow hips too tightly to conceal a weapon. He was also clean-shaven, although there was a hint of a five o’clock shadow on the lean cheeks.
The black hair was so closely cropped it couldn’t possibly become disarranged, which might have given her some indication of his mental state. The fact that it had so recently been trimmed seemed a point in his favor. People who had really “lost it” weren’t usually concerned with personal grooming.
His eyes, however, were the most compelling argument that there was nothing seriously out of whack in his psyche. They were a clear, piercing blue, the color startling against his tanned skin and ebony hair.
And right now they were focused on her face as he calmly waited for her answer, wallet open, long, dark fingers poised to pluck from it whatever amount she named. Still evaluating him, as she would any patient, Jenna noticed that his nails were neatly trimmed, the hands themselves completely masculine, fingers square despite their length.
“Hundred and fifty?” he asked. “That do it?”
She blinked, breaking the spell he had cast. “I’m sorry. I’m completely booked this afternoon, as I’m sure my secretary told you. If this is an emergency, I can try to work you in early tomorrow—”
“Lady, I’m here in an attempt to save your life. And I’m even willing to pay for the opportunity. All you have to do is tell me how much.”
He strode across the room, stopping when he reached her desk. Her gaze had followed him, her chin automatically lifting as he approached, until she was looking up into those ice-blue eyes.
Above the right, a dark brow arched. “One seventy-five? Two hundred? Obviously I’m not up on the going rate for…therapy.”
Jenna’s lips were still parted from her uncompleted sentence. Despite the obvious sarcasm, she closed them, glancing back at Sheila with a slight shake of her head to indicate she was willing to see him.
The secretary’s mouth opened, probably to protest the decision, but then she snapped it shut. She reached for the knob of the door, pulling it closed behind her as she returned to her office.
Jenna wasn’t sure Sheila still wouldn’t place that call to the police, despite the fact it had been vetoed. She also wasn’t sure she wouldn’t be relieved if she did.
She looked back at the man who had invaded her office and now seemed to fill it. He, too, had watched the secretary’s departure. He turned back as Jenna refocused on his face. There was something in his gaze that looked like approval.
Because she’d been crazy enough to let him stay?
Or maybe he was pleased at the ease with which he’d gotten his way. Something he seemed far too accustomed to doing.
“You can put your money away, Mr….?”
“Murphy. Sean Murphy.”
Although she waited, he didn’t offer to elaborate on the information, so she went back to the salient part of what he’d told her. “You said you’re here in an attempt to ‘save my life.’ I’m not sure what that means, but given how serious it sounds, I’m willing to listen. You have…” She glanced at her watch to make her point. “Exactly ten minutes before my next appointment.”
He held her eyes, maybe assessing how serious she was about the timeframe she’d just given him. After a few seconds, he closed his wallet. He struggled to push it back into his pocket, verifying her initial assessment about the tightness of his jeans.
Now, if only she’d been equally correct in gauging his mental state…
“I saw your interview yesterday.”
Something shifted in the bottom of Jenna’s stomach, cold and hard and a little frightening. She swallowed, determined not to display any outward sign of that sudden anxiety.
“The one on holiday stress?”
“Must have missed that part. What I saw was you giving your professional opinion about the man who killed three women here.”
“I tried to make it clear to the reporter that serial killers don’t fall within my area of expertise—” she began, choosing her words with care.
“What you made clear, Dr. Kincaid, was that you thought the poor, mistreated son of a bitch just couldn’t help himself.”
The apprehension Jenna had felt was suddenly replaced by anger, most of it self-directed. She had known she should have cut the reporter off when he’d started that line of questioning. Instead, she’d been too conscious of the public-relations aspect of the interview. If she’d seemed uncooperative, that might well have been the only part of the segment to be aired.
And what if it were?
Of course, it was easy to sit here now, without the red light of the camera focused on her face, and know what she should have done. She’d made a mistake, but she didn’t deserve to be chastised for it by someone who obviously had his own agenda.
“I never said that. I never said anything like that.”
“Close enough. And as a psychologist, you had to know he’d feed off your remarks.”
She had thought something similar yesterday. Not that the killer would “feed off” her comment about sociopaths being the products of abuse, but that he would delight in hearing anyone talk about the murders. Just as he would relish the increased terror that kind of interview would bring within the community.
“He’s already feeding off the media frenzy,” she said, refusing to allow this jackass to intimidate her.
