01 Only Fear (5 page)

“You’re kidding.”

“Not at all.” He touched her shoulder, his fingertips brushing the flesh exposed there by her tank top. She felt it catch fire from his heat. “You do whatever you have to. Fight him. Your life could depend on it.”

She nodded.

His voice softened. “I know you’ve been through something like this before. I don’t know the details.” He hesitated, as if waiting for her to supply the story.

No way was she going there. Her feelings were too fragile after the past twenty-four hours.

“It could impact how you handle a crisis situation.” He paused again, but she didn’t take the bait. He shrugged and moved away, his hand gone from her skin. She felt cold where a moment ago it had been hot.

They moved into the living room, where the red-brown letters stared down at them as Ethan spent another hour showing her basic self-defense techniques. It was a review for her, but she was grateful. After Deborah’s brutal attack, she’d needed to feel in control again and the YMCA had offered a basic course that helped her regain some sense of security. In fact, she prided herself on how careful she was, both in public and at home. So she found her patience slipping as Ethan went over several home-safety issues yet again.

“Satisfied?” she asked, irritated when he’d pushed her through yet another round of questions about how often she changed her passwords, alarm code, and the light bulb on her porch.

His jaw slid to the side. “Cockiness can get you killed.”

She sobered. He was only doing his job, after all. She knew better than to bite the hand that was feeding her. “I’m all too aware of that, Mr. Townsend.”

“Call me Ethan. Can I call you Margaret?”

She laughed. “God, no. Call me Maggie.”

The husky waves of her laugh flowed over him like a stimulant and a balm all at once. It made him want to reach out and touch her again, even if only to brush back that stray wisp of hair from her forehead that kept escaping from her kerchief.

He opened his mouth to say something when the ringing of her telephone interrupted. As she turned to the kitchen to answer, he looked around the living room, his eyes tracing the harsh strokes that formed the letters over and over.

F. E. A. R.

She’d scrubbed about half the living room, but there was more to be done. The smell of bleach permeated the air, yet she didn’t risk opening a window. Did she find removing the message herself was cathartic? Or was she punishing herself for some unknown sin? Why would she put herself through it?

After seeing her level of privacy and security, he wondered if she just didn’t want anyone else crossing the threshold of her sanctuary. It was obvious she lived alone except for Sigmund, who’d stuck close during his tour of the home. Her bedroom had been decorated in shades that weren’t exactly feminine, but gave the impression of…softness. Comfort. The second bedroom was a home office. The third, which many people would have made into a guest room, stood completely empty.

He heard Maggie’s sigh and turned back to her. “No, Mom, really, I’m okay…Yes, I’m sure Agatha told you all about it.”

Unabashedly listening for clues as to her relationship with her family, Ethan stepped into the kitchen and leaned against the counter. Her slender fingers reached to tuck away the lock of hair he’d been tempted to touch back into her kerchief. A tiny furrow formed between her eyes. Then she looked up and crossed her eyes in a way that had him smothering a laugh.

“Yes, the police were here. I’ll tell you about it later. I’ve got company right now…No, he’s here about the break-in, so I have to go…Love you, too. Bye.” She crossed the kitchen to replace the receiver. “Sorry about that. My neighbor apparently observed the chaos this morning and couldn’t wait to inform my mother. They used to be bridge partners, when my parents lived in this house.”

“Why didn’t you tell her what happened?” Ethan asked, puzzled that she’d told her mother she loved her, but hadn’t called her when something of this magnitude had occurred. His own mother would crucify him if he’d left her out of the loop. Despite the overwhelming testosterone that he, his three brothers and his father had brought to the household, it was definitely a matriarchy.

Maggie hugged her middle as she shrugged. “She would have worried.”

“She’s a mom. She’s supposed to worry. It’s in the job description or something.”

She turned away, clearly wanting to end the discussion. “I’d like to get back to scrubbing the living room, if we’re done here.”

He didn’t answer for a moment, studying the rigidity of her spine, the stony set of her shoulders. The woman was holding it together. Barely. Dr. Levine struck him as an intensely private woman. It was obvious she wanted her privacy now.

“We’re done. For now. You’re not to go anywhere alone.”

She turned back to protest but seemed to think better of it and pressed her lips together instead. She nodded. “Okay. How am I supposed to get around?”

“Limit your activities to what you absolutely need to do.”

“And let him win?”

“And survive,” he corrected. “Your safety is my job, so listen to me and you’ll stay alive. Work, home, grocery store. That’s about it.”

“I could ask David to go with me, I suppose.” The furrow between her eyes was back.

He didn’t know who David was, and until he passed Ethan’s stringent security check, the guy wouldn’t be allowed alone with his client. “I’ll accompany you, or Becca will.”

“Becca? The woman who called earlier?”

“She’s new at SSAM, but she’s good.” He hoped. “She’ll pick you up for work tonight.”

Snapping her rubber gloves back in place, she muttered something under her breath and grabbed the sponge from the bucket.

“What was that?” he asked, perversely wanting to see the flare of heat in her eyes once more. He wasn’t disappointed.

“I hate being babysat.”

“But you like being alive.”

She looked as if she was about to object to that, and he raised an eyebrow expectantly, but she only turned back to the wall and began scrubbing. He strode to the door and stood with his hands on his hips, waiting for her attention, but she was engrossed in her work. Allowing himself the luxury of watching her for a moment, he took in the slim line of her body, the slight part of her lips as she blew out a breath. His body stirred in response.

“Maggie,” he said, frustration making her name sound like a growl.

She turned, her face flushed. That pesky tendril had escaped its confines again, curling across her cheek. “What? You can’t find the door? It’s right behind you.”

He shook his head in disappointment. “Did you listen to anything I said today?”

“What?”

“The alarm? You need to set it behind me. Immediately. And I hope you changed the code since this guy somehow knew it.”

Jesus.
If this Owen guy was Fearmonger, Maggie had to be more careful. Didn’t she know that? But then, he hadn’t told her yet about the possible serial killer connection. He hadn’t wanted to worry her until he had more evidence the break-in was linked to a murderer. As long as she was taking proper security measures, it wouldn’t matter anyway. A stalker could be just as dangerous.

Looking sheepish, she rose immediately, tossing the sponge in the bucket with a small splash. “Right. Sorry. I promise I’m usually very good about that, and I did change the code this morning. I just got mad and forgot.”

“And stirring your emotions to the point of distraction will be exactly what Owen is counting on.”

She whirled on him and before he could stop himself, Ethan took a surprised step back. “Right now
he’s
not the one pissing me off. I told you I forgot, but I promise you I would have remembered as soon as the door shut. I assure you, I don’t want to go through anything like I did before ever again.”

He stared, intrigued by the pulse pounding at her slender throat. She spun away and waited, her fingers poised on the keypad of the alarm. She cast a pointed look over her shoulder at him, as if to say, “Are you leaving or not?”

“Becca will be here to escort you to the station tonight. In the meantime, don’t go anywhere.” He left, pausing on the other side of the closed door until he heard a series of beeps, followed by a blast of music as Maggie apparently resumed her attack on the vandalized walls.

Good. Let her take her anger out on something other than him. She didn’t like feeling like a prisoner? Too bad. It was his job to keep her alive.

When the living room was restored and her anger had faded with the onset of fatigue, Maggie double-checked the alarm and the locks on the doors and windows for the tenth time. Satisfied that she was safe for the moment, she sank into an armchair with a glass of pinot and rested her head against the cushion. And tried not to look at the wall where Owen had left his gruesome message. Though the letters were gone, they were still a vivid image in her mind.

The phone rang. Sighing, she dragged herself up again. She didn’t have to look at caller ID to know who was calling. It was only a matter of time before Julia and Nancy Levine joined forces in the crusade to save Maggie from herself. It was a familiar, and tired, cause. “Hello, Julia. I guess Mom called you.”

“Well, she can’t very well talk to
you
, now can she?” Only because she knew her younger sibling so well did Maggie hear the concern beneath the irritation. Still, she winced. Direct hit.

“There’s nothing to tell.” She hoped. Why worry them when they had no leads on Owen yet? “Someone broke in, wrote a strange message on my wall, and that’s it.”

“
That’s it?
Are you that jaded?”

That was putting it mildly. “Maybe.”

“We just want you to be safe,” Julia said, her voice softer now. “And happy.”

“I am safe. Working on happy.” Not really, but Julia didn’t need to know that. “Safe” was taking up too much energy, anyway. After what she’d been through in the past year, Maggie would settle for normal and boring, if not happy.

“You need someone,” Julia continued. “If not us, then someone else. Someone to talk to.”

Maggie thought about Damian Manchester, perhaps the only person she knew who would understand her fear of monsters—because yes, they did walk the earth. And then there was Noah Crandall, who seemed a competent detective and had been so understanding after her brother’s murder.

But it was Ethan Townsend’s face, with its hard lines and strong jaw softened by his warm green eyes and lopsided smile, that hovered in her mind. “I do have people I can talk to. They’ll help me. They’ll find this person.”

“Come stay with me.”

She squeezed her eyes shut against a wave of emotion. “That’s sweet, but I have to be close to work. It’s the one stable thing I have right now.”

And it might be a way to find Owen. The idea had nested in her mind after Ethan had left that afternoon, and it had grown in strength as she’d scrubbed letter after bloody letter from her walls.

Her
walls.
Her
home. She wouldn’t let Owen scare her away.

“I’m sorry, sis, but I have to get ready for work.”

An exasperated sigh filled her ear. “Fine. But come see me sometime, okay? I miss you. And after yesterday, well…”

Yeah. The anniversary of Brad’s murder had surely hit them all hard. “Definitely. We’ll go shopping.” Keep it light, she told herself. Now wasn’t the time to break down. Besides, that might lead to another panic attack, and she was determined to avoid that at all costs.

There was a knock at the door, saving her from further pleas to reconnect with the family. Didn’t they see that she was responsible for the misery they were all in? Letting them in during this latest crisis would only lead to more hurt for everyone. “I have to go. Someone’s at the door.”

“Fine. But we’re going to talk soon.”

“Of course.”

“I mean it. I’ve had enough of your excuses.” Julia paused. “You’re not the only one hurting here.”

The knock came again. “I know. But I really have to go.” With a goodbye to her sister, she hung up and went to the door.

“Who is it?” she called, eyeing a short woman through the peephole. The blackness of night had fallen like a curtain but the porch light was bright against the woman’s platinum blond hair.

“Becca Haney, from SSAM.”

The sides of Becca’s short hair had been pulled back into barrettes, and delicate glasses perched on her slightly upturned nose. What both surprised and reassured Maggie was the hint of sparkle that glinted off a tiny stud in the woman’s nose. The piercing was so small as to be almost unnoticeable but it made Becca seem somehow more human. Quirky. Maggie was immediately comfortable with her. Disengaging the alarm, she swung the door open.

“Dr. Levine?”

“Please, call me Maggie.” She waved the agent into her house and locked the door behind them, arming the security system. Seeing Becca watching her, Maggie pulled a face. “If I wasn’t already cautious, Mr. Townsend hit me over the head with the lesson several times today.”

“Well, Ethan does know more than any of us about security,” Becca said, then smiled. “And about beating a lesson to death. But he’s my mentor at SSAM, so don’t tell him I said that.”

Maggie grinned. “My lips are sealed.”

“And I want you to know I know how to do my job. I’ve been trained by the best.”

“I’m sure of that.”

Becca looked around with curiosity. “I’m also not supposed to tell you that I’m a huge fan of your show.”

“Lots of rules at the Society, aren’t there?”

Becca’s sigh showed just how much the young woman was struggling to find her place there. “’Fraid so.” In an instant, her demeanor was cheerful again. “But I love it there.”

“Did security at the radio station check out?”

“Since it’s on the very edge of campus, the parking lot will be a nightmare after dark, but otherwise it looks safe enough.”

Safe enough. But not totally safe. Nothing was ever totally safe. “I’m all set to go when you are.” Maggie ran a quick hand over Sigmund’s back when he came to say goodbye. At Becca’s nod, Maggie grabbed her satchel and reengaged the alarm before pulling the front door shut behind her.