and jerking hard enough to make her teeth chatter. Her hand loosened its grip on the knife and it clattered to the floor, but still she stood in the open doorway as if rooted to the spot. Staring at the trees.
Adriana gripped her shoulders and steered her toward the couch. She pushed a glass of water in Maggie’s hands before moving away to shut the door. She was saying something, or her mouth was moving anyway, but Maggie had no idea what was coming out. She barely managed to catch the words “—calling 911.”
He’d been at her doorstep. In the trees outside her home. And all she could do was stay holed up in her house like the proverbial sitting duck, practically inviting him to come inside and finish what he’d started. She glanced at the thin panes of glass that separated her from the Surgeon’s terrible hands. How had she ever thought this house, that glass, could keep her safe when it would shatter so easily?
“Little pig, little pig, let me come in…”
Oh, no.
She stood up and backed away from the window.
“…Maggie? Maggie, please.”
Maggie glanced down at the hand on her arm. Focused on the thin silver rings and graceful fingers. Focus. She had to focus.
“Maggie, James esta aqui. I have answered most of his questions but you have to talk to him, por favor.” Adriana’s voice brought her out of her thoughts. “Please?”
She shook her head, scrubbed her hand over her eyes. She’d obviously been in la-la land for some time, it didn’t seem like enough time had passed for the police to be here already. “Sure, Addy. Of course I’ll talk to him.” She tightened her mouth upward in what she hoped was a smile and looked around until she zeroed in on the real James Brentwood, a tall, brown-haired man in a rumpled shirt and tie, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. He wore a pair of trendy brown glasses, behind which were sparkling brown eyes, set deeply in a face that seemed to crinkle into a smile naturally. There was an almost frenetic energy about him—even his hair cowlicked wildly about his head, as if it, too, couldn’t stand still. “Hello, Detective Brentwood,” she said, putting on her best I’m-a-sane-productive-member-of-society voice.
He reached forward and clasped her hand in his in a brief handshake. “Maggie Reyes. A pleasure.” Brentwood introduced her to his partner, Detective Elizabeth Borkowski—Billy’s friend, she noted—who had gathered up the knife and the note in plastic bags. Borkowski was a petite brunette with short, curly hair, milk-white skin dotted with pale freckles, and a wedding ring on her left hand.
Borkowski quickly excused herself and headed outside to check the yard and exterior of the house. Maggie gestured for Brentwood to have a seat. He sank down into the overstuffed, sage-green sofa in the living room and had a brief battle of wills and elbows with the throw pillows piled up near the armrest. When they’d been beaten into submission, Brentwood leaned back and settled in. Adriana lowered herself next to him.
“So,” Brentwood began after they’d dispensed with the kind of pleasantries that usually made Maggie irritable. This time, however, they were a welcome delay of the inevitable. She really didn’t want to think about what that knife or that note meant just now.
But obviously, Brentwood wasn’t going to give her the reprieve she was craving. He placed the note, bagged in plastic, on the table and shoved it toward her. “Any idea what this means?” Sitting back, he batted his too-long brown hair out of his eyes.
She scanned the letter that had been impaled to her door moments before. Someone had scrawled Do you want to live forever? in heavy, uneven letters. Underneath was scribbled, S10 M0. Seemingly meaningless, but if she knew the Surgeon, the message was just as important as the words she knew well.
As soon as she saw the three men in black come through the door of the rotting cabin, she instinctively jerked against her bonds, the movement nearly exhausting what remained of her strength. A sharp pain shot through her wrists as the fishing line cut into her skin, and then she could feel something wet dripping down her arms. Her mind felt thick, ponderous, and it took her a few moments to comprehend that her wrists were bleeding.
She blinked, her eyelids closing and opening in the slowest of motions, and the three men before her coalesced into one. One man, with a neoprene ski mask on his face and a nylon stocking over his hair. One man with a starving, frenzied look in his too-bright eyes.
The springs of the rusty cot creaked as he climbed on top of her, and she heard the sound of metal sing against leather. Slowly, ponderously, she turned her head and saw the large hunting knife he held next to her cheek. With one hand, he looped a leather cord around her neck; the other brought the tip of the knife to the hollow in her throat.
“Do you wanna live forever, Maggie?” he whispered, and he trailed the knife down her breastbone, leaving a thin red line in its wake.
Lost in her thoughts, Maggie barely noticed as her hands jerked upward to clutch at her throat. At the sudden movement, Adriana sprang up from her perch on the sofa arm. “Maggie?” she said.
Maggie shook her head, coming fully back to the present. She waved her friend off with an apologetic smile. “That question—” She picked up the bagged note Brentwood had passed to her and tapped its shiny surface with a fingernail. “—was something the Surgeon asked me when—” She swallowed, trying desperately not to remember any more. “That night.” She trusted that Brentwood would know exactly what night she was referring to.
He did. He took off his tortoiseshell glasses and chewed on one of the bows while his right leg bobbed up and down like a sewing-machine needle. “You think he’s followed you from Louisiana to Monterey.” It was a statement, not a question, but she nodded anyway.
“I know how that sounds,” she said, handing the note back to him. It sounded crazy, that’s how it sounded. She knew it; he knew it.
James nodded grimly. “Serial killers don’t normally stalk across long distances. Especially not after a victim has gone into hiding.” His brow was furrowed in a look of concerned understanding laced with pity. He didn’t believe her.
“I’m no ordinary victim,” Maggie responded.
“You think he’s following you because of your books?” James asked.
Maggie had to admire the man. By now, most people would have passed into the “you flaming idiot” phase of the conversation. “In the criminal world, I’m something of a celebrity. You want to live forever? Just have Maggie Reyes write your story.” She got up and paced to the fireplace, focusing her attention on a photo of herself and her parents that rested on the mantle. She didn’t remember when it had been taken, but it must have been years ago; they were outdoors. Not to mention she hadn’t seen them for eighteen months.
“What you’re talking about is uncharted territory.” James said behind her. “According to the feds, the Surgeon is your basic organized lust killer. He’s smart enough to plan and cover his tracks, but he kills from compulsion.”
“No killer cannibalized his victims with the enthusiasm Jeffrey Dahmer had. No one put up a better guise of sanity than Ted Bundy. No one broke more of the profilers ‘rules’ than the DC snipers.” Maggie turned to face him. “They’re all uncharted territory, Detective Brentwood. And no one has ever tracked victims with the single-mindedness of the Surgeon.”
“So he’s communicating with you so you’ll write a book about him?”
Ah-ha.
