his share of mojo, had walked through her door.
The thought made her laugh as she turned off the stove, then pulled a clump of paper towels off the stand near the sink to clean up the mess on the floor. It really had been too long since she’d been on a date. At this rate, she’d be attacking the UPS man the next time he came over with a delivery. A disturbing image popped into her head of herself dressed in Saran Wrap, draping herself across poor Leonard Hobbes in his brown shorts and knee socks while she told him how much she loved a man in uni-foh-am.
She made a mental note to do a few extra miles on the treadmill that night.
The sound of the doorbell brought her out of her thoughts. With a hurried swipe, she picked up most of the bacon on the floor with her paper towels and deposited it in the stainless-steel trash can. After quickly washing her hands, she yanked the sunflower-patterned towel off the oven-door handle, drying her hands as she went to the door. One glance through the peephole told her Adriana had arrived.
When she pulled the door open, Adriana Torres practically skidded inside, the panels of her red tartan miniskirt swirling around legs encased in black tights that were cut off at the ankles. She quickly dropped the groceries, snapping her gum nervously as she ran a hand through her caramel-brown hair, which was streaked with fire-engine-red highlights—temporary, Maggie hoped. Adriana owned a clothing resale boutique—Maggie knew better than to call it a thrift store—on Cannery Row in Monterey, and she had a tendency to look as though she’d just stepped out of a punk-rock musical.
“What’s up?” Maggie asked, not yet sure whether to laugh at Addy’s drama-queen tendencies or to sit her down and force her to spill whatever was bothering her.
With a whimper, Adriana lurched forward and enveloped Maggie in a surprisingly strong embrace for someone who couldn’t have weighed more than 110 pounds wet. True confessions time it was, then. “What’s going on?” Maggie asked, her hands curling upward as she adjusted to Addy’s strong embrace. “You sound like you just sprinted down all of Seventeen Mile Drive.”
“Ay, I’m just glad you’re okay.” Adriana leaned back and stared at her for a moment, then hugged her tightly again, cracking her gum with a vengeance.
“Of course I am,” Maggie said, her voice calm and strong as she assumed the once-familiar role of caretaker in a crisis. “Why wouldn’t I be? Girlfriend, you’re scaring me.”
Adriana put her hands briefly on Maggie’s cheeks, a “poor shut-in Magdalena” look on her face. Then she backed off, twisting the silver bangles on one wrist and muttering to herself in Spanish. One thing about Adriana—she’d been an American citizen for eighteen years, but her English, which was perfect in most circumstances, almost completely deserted her under stress. And if Maggie knew her correctly, she would mutter for a few more moments and then…après muttering, le déluge.
Addy didn’t disappoint. She took a deep gulp of air and then let it rip. “Okay. First thing we have to do is call James. He’ll know what to do. Then we have to get you over to my house somehow without your flipping over. Maybe with good drugs you can leave the state, even—”
“Flipping out,” Maggie corrected her automatically. “Addy, breathe.” She was dying to know what had gotten Adriana so spun up, but she knew she’d never find out if the woman passed out in her entryway.
“But—”
“Breathe.”
Adriana threw her slender hands in the air, her rings sparkling under the skylight, and cursed rapidly in Spanish. “Por el amor de Dios, Magdalena Luz, I’m a yoga instructor. I know how to breathe.” The yoga was a new thing. Addy taught classes after hours in the upstairs rooms of her shop in an effort to share her latest obsession with the world.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Maggie responded. But when a film of water grew over Adriana’s large green eyes, Maggie knew it was serious. “Addy, tell me what’s going on,” she said softly.
Adriana shook her head, a thin line of worry forming between her eyebrows.
Tension coiled like a tightly wound snake between Maggie’s shoulders, and she felt the cold wrapping around her body once more. “Tell me.”
“Go stand over there.” Biting her lip, Adriana turned her slender body and swept a graceful arm toward the living room to her right. Maggie stepped around her and walked into the room, bracing herself for whatever was coming.
But you know what’s coming, Maggie. You’ve known all along.
Grasping the brass handle, Adriana pulled the heavy wooden door open. From her vantage point, Maggie could see the door clearly, but her view outside was completely obscured. Then Adriana stepped back, and she could see only the door.
Someone had stabbed a long, serrated hunting knife in the center of the wood.
Chapter Four
Not a ghost, or a vision. Just a too-vivid memory that echoed in the stark halls of his empty home. He would have thought that the months would have eased the pain of Jenna’s death, but every day, every damn day, Billy could see her and hear her as clearly as if she were actually standing before him. Everything but touch her.
“Jenna,” he said again. And then his sister was gone.
This one had been from three years ago—her high-school prom. Biggest night of her life, up to that point, and she’d come down with food poisoning. She’d met him at the door, wrapped in an old quilt with a weak smile on her face. He’d helped her into bed, held her long, sand-colored hair while she was sick. He’d called her boyfriend Tom and apologized for her, then convinced her to stay in bed when she’d wanted to crawl to the Mission High School gym, bad breath and gray complexion be damned.
He’d thought there’d be a hundred more dates. A thousand more dances.
He shook his head with a sharp jerk, half wishing the violent movement would clear the images once and for all. But they were still there. They’d always be there. At least he could be thankful that the brutal slide-show memories of the crime-scene photos only assaulted him on special occasions.
Billy strode through the house he and Jenna had shared before she’d gone off to college. He went into the living room, tearing off his T-shirt and shedding the rest of his clothes as he went. Empty picture frames hung on the pale-green walls, the contents torn out and the glass long since swept away. As usual, he paid them no mind. Stripped down to his boxers, he picked up a pair of gray sweatpants that had been carelessly tossed over the back of a battered blue recliner and put them on. Some white athletic tape lay in the chair’s seat cushion, and he scooped it up to wrap his hands. His slender hacker’s hands with their wiry tendons and fingertip calluses from rapid typing. His good-for-nothing hands.
He’d destroyed most of the living room furniture long ago, other than the recliner and the TV set. The other half of the room was bare, except for the Everlast punching bag hanging from the ceiling by a thick metal chain. Billy figured it was probably the only thing standing between him and the deep well of insanity Maggie Reyes had fallen into.
Beautiful, crazy Maggie.
He punched with his right hand, then followed with a quick jab from his left. Right. Left. Uppercut. Jab. Right. Left. Uppercut. Jab. He would not think of Maggie.
Controlling his breathing, he fell into the familiar rhythm
