Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [245]
“I remember a Margaret O’Dell,” he said without looking up at her, and in a voice that sounded like a senile old man talking to himself. “O’Dell, O’Dell, the farmer and the dell.”
Maggie shifted in her chair, forcing herself to be patient, to be polite. Nothing had changed. Why was she surprised to find him treating patients the same way he had treated his students, playing silly word games, reducing names and identities to nursery rhymes? It was all part of his intimidation.
“Premed,” he continued while riffling through the list of porn sites. Several times he stopped, smacking his lips together or hissing out a “tis, tis.” “Sat in the back left corner of my classroom, taking very few notes. B student. Asked questions only about criminal behavior and hereditary traits.”
Maggie hid her surprise. These could easily be odd little facts he may have noted and kept in a student file. And of course, he would have reviewed her file before she arrived, so as to have an advantage. Not that he needed an advantage. She waited, forcing her hands to keep still when they wanted to grip the arms of her chair. She wanted to dig her fingernails into the leather to steady herself and prevent her from storming out of this ridiculous inquisition.
“Got a master’s in behavioral psychology,” he went on in his droll tone. “Managed to land a forensic fellowship at Quantico.” Finally he looked up at her, his pale blue eyes magnified and swimming behind the thick square glasses. Bushy white eyebrows stuck out in every direction. He rubbed his jaw and said, “Wonder what the hell you would have done if you’d been an A student.” Then he stared at her, waiting.
As usual, he caught her off guard. She didn’t know what to say. He had a talent for disarming people by making them feel invisible. Then suddenly he expected a response to what was never a question. Maggie remained silent and returned his steady gaze, vowing not to flinch. She hated that he could reduce her to an unsure, speechless teenager with only a few words and that goddamn look of his. This was certainly not her idea of therapy. Assistant Director Cunningham was way off base on this one. Sending her to see anyone was a waste of time. Sending her to see Kernan would only challenge her sanity further and would certainly not be a remedy.
“So, Margaret O’Dell, the quiet little bird in the corner, the B student who was so interested in criminals but didn’t think she belonged in my classroom, is now Special Agent Margaret O’Dell, who wears a gun and a shiny badge and now doesn’t think she belongs in my office.”
He stared at her again, waiting for a response, still not asking a question. His elbows leaned on the wobbly stacks of paper as he laced his fingers together.
“That’s true, isn’t it? You don’t think you should be here?”
“No, I don’t,” she answered, her voice strong and defiant despite the man’s ability to intimidate the hell out of her.
“So your superiors are wrong? All those years of training. All that experience, and they’re flat out wrong. Is that right?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Really? That wasn’t what you said?”
Word games, mind games, confusion—Kernan was a master. Maggie needed to concentrate. She couldn’t let him twist her words. She wouldn’t let him trap her.
“You asked me if I thought I should be here,” she explained calmly. “I simply said no, I don’t think that I should be here.”
“Awwww,” he said, drawing it out into a sigh as he sank back in his chair. He rested his hands on his thick chest, letting his wrinkled jacket fall open. “I’m so glad you clarified that for me, Margaret O’Dell.”
She remembered that her one-on-one encounters with the man had always felt like an interrogation. It was disconcerting that this befuddled, little old man who looked as if he slept in his clothes, still possessed that same power. She refused to let him unnerve her. Instead, she stared at him and waited.
“So, tell me, Margaret O’Dell, who doesn