Sight Unseen(30)

“I hear her, Agent Nelson. Sorry about that. She can come in.”

Kendra got up and paused to glance at herself in the mirror as she threw on a robe.

Damn, she looked like hell. The bruises had swollen, and the cuts made it look like she’d been in a knife fight. Maybe if she threw on a long-sleeved shirt to help hide the damage …

Too late. Her mother had let herself into the condo with her key, and she would be charging into her bedroom in a matter of seconds.

Oh, well. Face the music.

Kendra swung open her bedroom door.

Diane Michaels stopped dead in her tracks. She was speechless for once, gaping at Kendra’s cuts and bruises.

“Morning, Mom. Pancakes or waffles?”

“What the hell happened to you?”

“I had a little problem.” Kendra moved past her and walked toward the kitchen. “I’m sure you know, or else you wouldn’t be here.”

“No, I came here because I heard about that police officer who was murdered. The news said that the killer is copying your old cases.”

Kendra froze in the act of reaching for the coffee cups. “I should have known. No way this could stay a secret.”

“And no way this should have ever stayed a secret from me.”

Kendra turned back around. She didn’t like that tension in her mother’s voice. She was accustomed to her mother’s exasperation, but this was something else. The woman was truly frightened for her.

“Mom, I’m fine.”

“Don’t tell me that. I rushed over here, and the first thing I see is that … thug standing in front of your door. I didn’t know what to think. Then I come in here and see you looking like this.”

“It looks worse than it is.”

“It looks pretty damned bad.”

“I won’t argue with that.”

“So tell me what happened. Now.”

“I will. Calm down.” She put on the coffee. “But I might as well make you breakfast while I do it. If you ran over here this early, I doubt if you had it. How about omelets?”

“I don’t want a damn—” She gazed at Kendra’s expression, and said, “Fine. Anything.” She dropped down in a kitchen chair. “Now stop trying to soothe me and tell me who beat you up.”

“No one. I did it myself.” She opened the refrigerator door and started searching for the eggs. In the next few minutes, she told her mother everything, from her experience on the bridge all the way to Shell Beach early that morning. Her weak attempts to minimize the danger sounded as ludicrous to her as it probably did to her mother. There was no way to hide it. No two ways about it, she thought. It was one hell of a scary night.

When she was finished, her mother got to her feet and stabbed her finger toward a chair. “You sit down. I’ll make breakfast.”

“You’re forgetting something. You can’t cook.”

“Do you have frozen waffles in the freezer?”

“Yes.”

“Then I can make breakfast. Sit down.”

Kendra took the seat she’d indicated at the table while her mother rummaged around in the freezer. “I wanted to save that cop, Mom,” Kendra said quietly. “But he was probably facedown in the tide pool before we even knew what was happening.”

“You were lucky to save yourself.” She pulled out a box of Eggo frozen waffles, tore into the packaging, and loaded them into the four-slice toaster. “By the way, Dean told me all about your adventure on the bridge the other night.”

“I guess he’s running for the hills about now.”

“Just the opposite. You turned him on. I never thought your gifts of observation were good for anything but getting you into trouble. Apparently, they can also be an aphrodisiac.”

“Trust me, they’re not.”

“Tell that to Dean. He can’t wait to see you again. He said he’d called you but had gotten your voice mail and you hadn’t returned the call. He was quizzing me about ideas for your second date. It was sweet, really.”

“He’s a good guy. But I really can’t think about him right now. Not until this case is over.”

Her mother slowly turned back toward her. “You’re not seriously thinking of continuing?”

Here it comes. “I have to.”

“No. The FBI has to, you don’t.”

“No one knows those cases better than I do. For all the PowerPoint presentations and bulletin boards the FBI studies, no one else has actually lived and breathed each and every one of those cases.”

“One person has, Kendra.”

She stared at her mother while she grasped her meaning. “Yes, you’re right. The killer has. All the more reason why I need to be a part of this.”