In Self Defense by Susan Sloan (phonics books .TXT) 📕

calls in rapid succession, dutifully returning messages from friends and acquaintances she had been unable to get to sooner. At one-thirty, she went back into the house, made herself a cup of tea, and plucked a banana out of the fruit bowl that sat on the counter, carrying both back outside.

She had just finished both when Richard called, having first rung through to the house and gotten no answer.  They spoke for a couple of minutes, after which she dialed one more number, spoke for a moment, and then she called her sister-in-law’s home in Ravenna and chatted with each of the children.

“Are you having fun?” she asked Peter, who came on the line first.

“It’s cool here,” the ten-year-old replied.  “Aunt Elaine made peanut butter cookies.”  Peanut butter cookies, Clare well knew, were the boy’s favorite.

“It’s okay,” Julie conceded, when it was her turn to talk to her mother.  “But I’d rather be back home with you.  You know you can’t take care of yourself.”

“I know, but I promise to try,” her mother said, a gentle smile in her voice.

“You’d better.”

At five minutes to four, Clare went back up to the house.  As if on cue, a taxi pulled up and dropped Nina at the front door just as Clare was coming in the back.  Nina was a city girl, born and bred.  She had no use for a car.  Not when cabs could get her everywhere she needed to go.

“When I told Thorny why I was leaving early, he told me I could have taken the whole day off,” she reported.  “I guess you rate pretty high with him.”

As soon as they had deposited Nina’s overnight bag in the blue guest bedroom, which was several doors down the long hallway from Clare and Richard’s room, the two women went back downstairs and turned on the alarm.

“There’s a red light on a little keypad right outside the front door that should now be on,” Clare called out, carefully reading the instructions that were posted in the closet near the door where the alarm mechanism was installed.

“It’s on,” Nina announced, peering through one of the tall narrow windows that flanked the door.

“Good, then I think we’re safe,” Clare declared, coming out of the closet.  “Or as safe as electronic things can make us.  Now all we have to do is remember not to open a door or a window anywhere in the house, unless we disarm the whole thing first -- or all hell with break loose!”

“You know, I can’t think of a single reason in the world why we should need to go out this evening,” Nina declared.

Clare chuckled. “You’re a good sport,” she said.

Nina couldn’t help but see the device around Clare’s neck, but she didn’t want to ask what it is.

“It’s a panic device,” Clare said, following her friend’s gaze.  “Apparently, all I have to do is push the button, and the police will come running.”

“My God,” Nina murmured.  “This is for real, isn’t it?  I mean it’s all actually happening.”

“I’m afraid so,” Clare replied.

“Silly question then, I’m sure, but since, if it were me, I know I’d be ready for a padded cell and the men in white jackets by now, what are you doing to keep your mind off it all?”

“As a matter of fact,” Clare said, as she led the way into the library, “I’ve been reading a very interesting manuscript recommended by one of my authors.  I’ve had Anne-Marie send a copy of it over to Thorny, and I was going to ask you to read it, too.  I think this may turn out to be something.”

They spent the next couple of hours reading, Nina starting from the beginning, and Clare from where she had stopped, handing off pages as she finished them.

At six-thirty, Nina looked up.  “I wouldn’t have believed it,” she marveled.  “There’s a man out there who wants to do some pretty gruesome things to you, and here we are, reading this manuscript, as though we don’t have a care in the world.”

“Despite what my doctor may think, I’ve discovered that work really is the best medicine,” Clare told her friend and colleague.  “I find that the minute I can get involved in someone else’s world, I can forget all about the one I’m living in.”

Doreen had left dinner for them.  They took plates of lasagna from the oven and bowls of salad from the refrigerator, and a good bottle of Bordeaux from the wine cellar into the family room, and ate all the food and then finished off all the wine while they sat in front of the television set and watched two old Russell Crowe movies, back to back.  Before they knew it, the grandfather clock in the foyer was chiming eleven times, and they were yawning.

Right on schedule, a taxi pulled up to the front door, honked the horn a couple of times, and then waited.  While Clare disarmed the alarm, Nina walked out, clearly visible in the front light, opened and closed the taxi door.  Then, as Clare turned off the light, her friend quickly ducked back inside the house.  As instructed, the taxi drove off.  The charade, thought up by Erin, was just in case the stalker was watching.  The police wanted him to think that Nina was on her way home, and that Clare was now alone.

“I promise not to sleep a wink,” Nina said when they saw the taxi’s taillights disappear.

“Don’t be silly,” Clare chided, resetting the alarm, but maybe it was the wine speaking.  “I’m going to sleep like a baby, and I suggest you do the same.  The house is locked up tighter than a drum, the alarm is on, the police are waiting, Richard will be home tomorrow, and then everything will be all right.”

***

Fifteen minutes later, except for the soft light that was always left on in the upstairs hallway at night, the big house was dark and quiet.

The police, parked patiently in neighboring driveways, had been ready