“Ouch. Am I that boring?” He paused. “I guess you haven’t told her about my prison record?”

“Not yet. I thought that should come from you if it was pertinent to the situation.”

“Very generous of you.” He added softly, “I want it to be pertinent to our situation, Kendra. I want to be close enough to you that we’ll be as frank as old friends … who might be traveling toward another crossroad. I hope you’ll feel the same way given a little time.”

She felt a ripple of shock. “We barely know each other, Dean.”

“I’m trying to remedy that. Give me a little cooperation. I’ve never met another woman who sent my head spinning like you do.”

“No one put you through what I did on a first date,” she said dryly.

“I enjoyed every minute of it. I want more.”

“You’ve got to be a masochist.”

“I like you. Do you like me?”

“Yes.” She paused. “And not because I think you’re particularly safe. I like your sense of humor.” She added ruefully, “And your stamina in putting up with me.”

“I have a confession to make. Your mother was right. If I cared about someone, I’d work very hard to keep them safe.” He added hurriedly, “But I wouldn’t be boring about it. I wouldn’t interfere.”

She chuckled. “Yeah, sure.” The difference in his attitude and Lynch’s was like day and night. Lynch had no compunction about interfering in her life if he chose. Dean was civilized and intelligent, and she was finding it very refreshing. “It’s a common human characteristic to want to protect the people we care about. I’d feel the same way. It’s the way we respond to that instinct that’s important.”

“Okay, it’s settled. We have a very promising beginning. We just have to cement it. When can I see you?”

She said quickly, “Not for a while. I’m involved in a very nasty case.”

“All the more reason why you need light relief. I’m not going to demand that you devote any extended amount of time to me. I just want to see you occasionally to remind you that I’m here. I’m not going to let you walk away and forget me.”

“I don’t have time to—”

“What are you doing this morning? I only had one class, and now I’m free. What about meeting me for a cup of coffee? Give me one hour. You name the place and the time, and I’ll be there.”

“Dean, I’ll be busy most—”

“Look, I know that you probably think I’m weird being this persistent. Hell, maybe I am. But I wouldn’t have gone on that blind date if I hadn’t been interested in what I’d heard about you. And I wasn’t disappointed. I’m trying to grasp the moment.” He added coaxingly, “And think how happy it will make your mother. Won’t it put her mind at rest?”

“Yes.” It would most certainly do that, and Kendra was finding she wanted to see Dean again. What the hell. She had time before that lineup at two. “Okay. There’s a Starbucks on Broadway, just east of Kettner. Noon?”

“I’ll be there.” He laughed. “And I’ll work on being so damn charming that I won’t have to use your mother to get you to meet me next time. Bye, Kendra.” He hung up.

He was charming, Kendra thought. And she found she was looking forward to seeing him again. Dean was so wonderfully normal. It would be a break in the nonstop tension of wondering what horror Myatt would commit next.

But first she had to go back into her condo and let the evil that was Myatt possess her once again.

She braced herself and entered the hallway leading to her front door.

*   *   *

KENDRA’S HAND CLOSED ON THE DOORKNOB to her condo. It took her a long moment to turn it and let herself inside.

Damn. It didn’t even feel like home anymore.

There was now nothing safe or comforting about this place, where just twelve hours before that monster had invaded and made it his own.

No, he needed her permission to make her feel that way, and there was no way she was going to give it.

Fight him. Block out the fear that gave him his power to change her world.

She stood in her foyer and took a deep breath.

It didn’t feel like home to her now, but it would again. One day.

She glanced up at the painted message on her living-room wall:

NICE TRY, KENDRA. BUT YOU’RE BETTER THAN THAT.

—MYATT

She turned and strode to the utility closet in the kitchen and grabbed a gallon can of primer she’d used to paint the kitchen door six months ago. It was half-full, and that would do the job. The forensic team wouldn’t be pleased with her for doing this before they’d officially released the apartment. Too bad. A paint crew would be here in a couple of days, but she couldn’t stand the thought of that spray-painted scrawl in her living room for a minute longer.

She snatched a lid opener and brush from her kitchen utility drawer, then popped the top from the primer. She stood on the couch and slathered the primer on the wall above, covering the message one letter at time. She was sure the Bureau had already identified the brand and shade of the paint and was attempting to track down every can sold in the last few weeks. It was a long shot, but there was always the hope that Myatt might be dumb enough to get caught on a Walmart security camera while using a credit card to pay for his purchase.

Fat chance.

She suddenly froze.

She stopped applying the primer. She studied the spray-painted letters for another long moment. With outdoor graffiti, stray paint particles almost always told her at what vantage point the vandals were spraying from: up, down, right, or left.

Here on her wall, the paint seemed to be hitting dead-on. Did that mean he had stood on her couch, just as she was doing now? Or did he stand on something else?

She glanced around the room.

The coffee table perhaps, but a dinette chair would be easier to move. Kendra moved over to her dinette set and inspected the chairs.

Yes.

There, on the chair closest to her living room, were a few tiny white and green particles. Familiar particles. She had seen them before, but never in her condo.

She grabbed her keys, walked outside, and climbed the stairway to the rooftop pool, which was actually little more than a wading pool surrounded by a sundeck. Flower boxes and barbecue grills lined the area. There, on the building’s south side, tiny green and white fertilizer pellets had blown out of the flower boxes and scattered onto the deck.

Kendra knelt and picked up a few of the particles. It was the same as what she’d seen on her dinette chair.

She brushed them from her hands as she stood and looked at the building next door. She was still staring at it as she pulled out her mobile phone and punched Griffin’s number. He wasn’t available, so she had the call patched through to Metcalf.

“Don’t tell me,” he said. “You’re calling to bust my chops about Comic-Con some more.”

“There’s plenty of time for that later. Right now, I want to talk about fertilizer.”

“Oh, if there’s anything I find fascinating, it’s a discussion about plant nutrients.”

“I found some fertilizer particles on a chair in my condo. The same stuff they use in the flower boxes on my building’s rooftop pool deck. It’s all over the deck on the south side of the building, just six or seven feet from the building next door. That’s how I think Myatt was able to avoid being seen by security cameras and the agents who were watching this place last night. He was in the building next door. He stole the key from the management office earlier in the evening or maybe even the previous day. He jumped from the rooftop to this one, then came down to my condo. He left the same way.”

“Hmm. We’ve already obtained outdoor security camera videos from that neighboring building. We’ll see if they have any interior cams.” He chuckled. “Fertilizer, huh?”

“The particles probably got caught in his shoe treads, which then came off when he stood on a chair to spray paint his message on my living-room wall. There’s a chance that Myatt might not have been quite so careful of those video cameras in that other building. Even a glimpse might help.”