Vulnerable…
Hurrying to the antique secretary she’d inherited, along with the house, when her mother passed away a year earlier, she selected her Kel-Tec P-3AT semiautomatic handgun over her Sig P232—because it was lighter, thinner and easier to conceal. Carrying it with her, she ran to get a T-shirt from her bedroom. She wanted to cover the cle**age and stomach revealed by the jogging bra and Lycra shorts she wore while working out. She was self-conscious about her breast size, which drew more attention than she felt comfortable with.
A car door slammed and footsteps approached the house. Heavy footsteps. The footsteps of a man.
Pulling on a baggy T-shirt that said The Last Stand: Where Victims Fight Back, she went to peek through the wooden shutters of her front windows, then the peephole she’d drilled in the door. But the fog was too thick, the morning shadows too murky to make out more than a large, dark shape coming toward her.
Shit.
The metallic taste of fear rose in her throat and soured her stomach. This was probably just someone who was lost and needed directions. Sherman Island, which only had 175 residents, sat in the heart of the Sacramento River Delta. Few outsiders were familiar with the sloughs, natural waterways, drawbridges and levees that made the wetlands so unique. But she would no longer assume that strangers were safe. Not since she’d been startled awake in the middle of the night by a man wearing a hood and wielding a knife.
Burke was now in prison—thank God—but because of The Last Stand, the victim’s support organization she’d started with her friends Sheridan Kohl and Jasmine Stratford two years ago, she’d made a lot of enemies. This could easily be Tamara Lind’s husband, a wife-beater who blamed Skye for Tamara’s recent desertion. Last week, he’d threatened to bomb The Last Stand. Or it could be Kevin Sheppard. Kevin had appeared at their offices after a flurry of newspaper articles praising TLS for financially backing an investigator who’d uncovered new evidence on a high-profile murder. Kevin had wanted to help out as a volunteer, but Skye turned him away when a background check revealed accusations of stalking, at which point he’d grown unreasonably angry and stormed out. No one had seen him since.
The doorbell sounded, followed almost immediately by a sharp rap.
She imagined turning off the alarm and opening the door as far as the chain allowed, only to have it kicked wide—and felt her palm begin to sweat on the butt of her gun. Calm down.
She had damn good aim. But nerves could wreak havoc on the best marksman in the world. So she wouldn’t open the door. She’d pretend to be gone and hope he’d go on his way.
Holding her breath, she pressed her spine more firmly to the wall, wondering what the students from her various shooting classes would think if they could see her now—sweating and shaking over some fog and an unexpected visitor. Most viewed her as indestructible when she had a gun in her hand. They acted like their own guns made them invincible, too. But they didn’t understand what it was really like in a desperate standoff, didn’t fully grasp that a woman could own a million firearms and still be vulnerable. Unless she was prepared to pull the trigger.
Was she willing to kill Kevin Sheppard? Or Tamara’s estranged husband?
If she had to…
She hadn’t made a move or a sound, but her visitor didn’t seem to be buying that she wasn’t at home. He rang the doorbell again. Knocked. Then his body blocked the window as he tried to see in.
“Skye? Skye, are you there? It’s me, Detective Willis.”
Exhaling slowly, she consciously released the pressure of her fingers on the gun. David… She wasn’t in mortal danger. But knowing he was standing on her front step certainly didn’t slow her heart rate.
“Your car’s in the drive,” he yelled. “You gonna answer?”
Taking another steadying breath, she flipped the safety on her gun, dropped it in the pocket of her coat, which hung on the hall tree by the door, and dashed a hand across her moist upper lip.
“Skye?”
“Coming.” After shutting off the alarm system, she slid the chain aside, turned the dead bolt and opened the door.
He was wearing a green shirt and tie and looked good—too good. His tie was a little dressy for his shirt, but his style was as unique as it was appealing. Sort of James Dean “cool” mixed with Johnny Depp “different.” Briefly, she remembered the time, nearly a year ago, when he’d brushed his lips against hers, then kissed her more deeply, pushing her up against the wall. In that moment, their volatile attraction had overcome reason and common sense.
“Hi.” She smiled, hoping to appear unaffected, but their relationship was so complex, she couldn’t take any encounter with him in stride. Especially an unexpected encounter. “What brings you out to the delta?”
His manner suggested this wasn’t a social call. She almost wondered if he’d forgotten the night he’d come by to help her move and they’d nearly made love. “I need to talk to you. Can I come in for a minute?”
He was being so formal, so aloof. And he hadn’t called. He’d shown up at her door. What was going on?
Stepping aside, she beckoned him past her, telling herself there was no reason for the knot in her stomach. The worst was behind her. No matter what happened from here on, she’d never have to go through the same hell again. And that was all that mattered. “Can I get you a cup of green tea?”
“Green tea?” he echoed, arching a dark eyebrow.
“Sorry. I don’t have any coffee. I don’t drink it anymore.”
“I’ll pass on the tea. I’m afraid my body wouldn’t know what to do with something that healthy.” His light green eyes seemed to take in every detail of her face and figure—which, in turn, made her far too aware of him. But he didn’t indicate whether or not he liked what he saw. He kept whatever he was thinking locked behind an implacable expression. And a second later, he shifted his attention to his surroundings.
For the first time in a long while, Skye saw the inside of her house from someone else’s perspective. In the living room, she’d removed her mother’s dated “for company” couch, the walnut veneer side tables, the curio cabinets and vases filled with silk flowers—given them all to Jennifer and Brenna, her two stepsisters, who lived in southern California near their father. She’d replaced the furniture with free weights, an exercise bike, a treadmill, an aerobics step and a mat for yoga. Only a slice of kitchen could be seen from their vantage point, but it showed the small indoor garden where she grew herbs and wheat grass.