Tracy Montoya - Maximum Security

“You expected Mary Smythe.” She looked down at where he had touched her. It was just a gesture, she told herself. Just meant to inspire trust now that there was a tenuous connection between them. “The crazy woman on Mermaid Point.”

He searched her face, probably trying to ascertain her craziness for himself. “I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Maggie hitched her shoulder abruptly, shrugging his hand off her, surprised when she missed the warmth of his touch once she was free.

“You’re not crazy.” His low voice wrapped around her, making her feel almost safe for the first time in two years. “I don’t know what made those cops think so, but I know your work. You have one of the best research minds out there. I saw you at Quantico.”

Where she’d given several guest lectures. She turned to look out the window at the waves, tugging on the end of her braid. Oh, God, make him stop.

“You blew my mind.”

Bringing her hand up to her forehead, Maggie pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to harden herself to his words.

As if sensing how close she was to her breaking point, he asked, “Case in point, how’d you know I wasn’t James Brentwood? Liz said no one at the station has ever met you.”

She took a moment before responding, praying her voice would come out strong and steady, even though she didn’t feel that way. “Detective James Brentwood is a fidgeter.” He flinched at her emphasis on detective, since he’d answered to officer. She gave him a small smile of sympathy and continued. “On the phone you can hear him clicking pens or drumming his fingers while he talks. You’ve barely moved since you came in. And you didn’t know who Adriana was. I took a chance.”

She turned and met his gaze. He raised a questioning eyebrow at her.

“James’s girlfriend of five months,” she said. “She’s a friend of mine, which is why I asked specifically for him.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.” They stared at each other for a long moment, the silence stretching between them.

“Why do they—?” He stopped, obviously aware that the question he was about to ask was too familiar, too much of a breach of civility. She finished it for him.

“Think I’m crazy? Try whisking me out of the house for a wild night on the town. You’ll find out in about two seconds.”

“Tempting offer.”

She whirled on him, not in the mood to flirt no matter what her sarcastic comment had implied. “Get out,” she said with more venom than she’d meant to deliver. Her vision blurred, and she closed her eyes to stop the sudden tears from spilling out of them. She rubbed a hand against her cheekbone. “I’ve got something in my contact lens,” she lied.

“Maggie—”

She flinched when he took a step toward her, his hand outstretched as if to comfort her. Heaven help her, she was so far beyond comforting. “Get out of my house, Agent Corrigan. You lost any amount of trust I had in you when you brought two weapons into my home and lied to me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

She wrapped her arms around herself and dropped her gaze to the floor, all of her tough-girl pretenses gone. She figured they’d been transparent enough anyway. “Just go.”

Corrigan grabbed his wallet and pulled a card out of it, pressing the small piece of paper onto the bleached wood of the table. “If anything—” He paused. “If anything happens, if you need anything, call me. My cell phone number is at the bottom.”

She snorted in response.

He stepped close, so close, until leaning forward just an inch would have brought their bodies into contact. “I’ll be there,” he said, and she could feel his breath on her cheek.

“Why is this so important to you?” she asked, focusing her gaze on his elbow.

The almost gentle air he’d had abruptly vanished as tension simmered through his frame. He spun around and stalked away, pausing only to pick up his weapons before he headed for the door. Despite the fact that she knew she shouldn’t, Maggie followed, careful to stand to the side when he wrenched it open. “Remember the Riverwalk?” he asked suddenly, his back to her. “The one he took in broad daylight?”

“Jenna—” she paused, almost choking over the next word as understanding dawned “—Corrigan.”

His head turned so she could see a glimpse of his profile in the blinding ray of light streaming in from the outside. “My sister.”

And then he vanished behind the door, to a place where she couldn’t follow.

Billy floored the accelerator of his FBI-issue Crown Victoria sedan, zipping down Highway 101 as he headed toward San Francisco. Parker was going to have his ass if he didn’t submit that electronic search affadavit for the DigiSystems case. But first, he had one more stop to make. Those computer files weren’t going anywhere.

As he approached the city and his exit, he brought the pale tan car to a slow crawl behind the stalled traffic, his thoughts returning once more to Maggie Reyes. Beautiful, crazy Maggie Reyes. The only woman to survive the Surgeon’s lethal obsession. But had her brilliant, analytical mind survived?

With everything he’d read about the attack, he couldn’t exactly blame her if she wasn’t the same afterward. The newspapers had bled all the terror out of her story, leaving only the ugly, sensational words guaranteed to sell papers—phrases like severe head trauma and blitz attack, coupled with entire paragraphs about how the Surgeon had carried her into the Atchafalaya and sliced off her dark business suit with a sharp knife, leaving shallow cuts marring her once-perfect skin. He’d seen the photos. Nightmare didn’t even begin to describe it. That she’d managed to escape said a lot about how strong she was.

But then there were the rumors he’d heard—whispers of paralyzing fear and even agoraphobia echoed in the classrooms and auditoriums where she’d conducted her famous lectures. For two years, there had been no more books from Maggie Reyes. No more talks. She’d simply disappeared without a trace.

Until now.

Although he’d been deliberately vague about how he’d found her, to avoid freaking her out any more than he already had, he’d actually been looking for Maggie Reyes for some time.

Billy could find just about anyone, as long as the person used a computer hooked up to the outside world. Most people, he’d learned, simply trusted that no one was watching when they logged on. A few months ago, he’d released some specially modified search bots into the Internet, where they’d floated out in the ether, just waiting for one Maggie Reyes to log on anytime, anyplace, and enter her name and address. A few weeks ago, she’d purchased a copy of Through the Looking Glass from an online bookstore, and the bots had come running back to daddy with the news. Child’s play.

And now that he’d found her, practically in his backyard all this time, could he get her to trust him? Her assumption that he was Monterey PD had bought him an invitation inside her home and enough time to assess her state of mind, but it probably hadn’t been such a great idea if he wanted her to warm up to him. Truth was, he wasn’t supposed to be poking his nose in cases that had nothing to do with Computer Crimes, and he needed someone outside the system to help him get the man who’d attacked his sister. He needed Maggie Reyes.

But he hadn’t expect her to be so—

The cars ahead of him suddenly lurched forward, and he abruptly shoved aside thoughts of the woman he’d left behind. Jenna was all that mattered. The image of his sister, her pale, crumpled body covered in blood and grime, came to him in mercilessly clear focus, just as it always did whenever he said or thought her name. Jenna. Jenna. Jenna.