course we did, you naughty, naughty girl.” Dalton wagged a finger at her. “And here Bill and I thought we knew you.”
“She’s an open book,” Bill murmured, moving across the threshold. “That’s what we thought. Then we got your note about the show today.”
Dalton closed the door behind them. “Cute, Anna. But you could have just told us.”
Anna couldn’t speak. She couldn’t form the words for the fear choking her. The despair.
She turned her back to her friends and brought her shaking hands to her mouth. Whoever had done this not only knew where she lived but who all the important people in her life were. Dear God, who could know so much about her?
“Anna?” Dalton murmured. “What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t send you that note,” she managed to say, voice choked with tears. “I wish I had.”
“I don’t understand. If not you, who?”
“I don’t know.” She turned to face her friends once more. “But I think…I’m afraid—”
Kurt. He’d found her.
“I think I’d better sit down.”
She turned and crossed to the couch, then sank onto it. They followed her, each taking a seat beside her, Dalton on her right, Bill on her left. Neither pressed her to speak, which she appreciated. She hated losing control in front of others and struggled to regain it.
When she had, she told them about her past—her parents and her idyllic, star-kissed childhood, then about the kidnapping, the horror of Timmy’s murder and her last-minute escape.
She rubbed her arms, at the gooseflesh that raced up them. “After the kidnapping my life changed,” she murmured, looking back, aching at the memories. “I changed. I didn’t feel safe anymore. I wasn’t so…open as I had been. I didn’t trust. I was…afraid.”
Her friends were silent, no doubt digesting all that she had told them. After a moment, Dalton cleared his throat. “You mean he killed that little boy…in front of you?”
Her eyes filled with tears even as her head flooded with images—of Timmy struggling while Kurt held the pillow over his face, his arms flailing and body jerking. Then of him going deathly still.
A sound rose in her throat, and she choked it back. One of remembered horror. And pain. It still hurt, almost more than she could bear.
She found her voice. “And then he came after me.”
“Your finger.”
She nodded and Bill curled his hand around hers. “No wonder you’re frightened, Anna. How awful.”
“You two weren’t the only ones who received a note about the E! program.” She drew in a deep, fortifying breath, acknowledging that she was afraid. “Nearly everyone in my life got one, my mother and father, friends, agent and editor.” She explained about coming home to find the package containing the tape of her mother’s interview, the same one that had been incorporated into the story about the Hollywood mysteries. “The tape ended with a message urging me to watch the E! program.”
“You don’t think your mother—”
“No.” Anna shook her head, acknowledging hurt at her mother’s part in this. Acknowledging a feeling of betrayal. The truth was, neither her mother nor father fully understood her fear of exposure.
“About a year ago, my mother was contacted by an independent videographer. He was putting together a series he called Screen Goddesses of the Fifties. He wanted to include her. She gave the interview and never heard from him again. Until indirectly, today.”
Dalton bristled. “That doesn’t explain how she could have revealed so much about you during that interview. Really!”
Anna glanced down at her hands, then back at her friends. “It’s done now. And she’s not the enemy. She’s not the one who wishes me—”
She bit the word back, but it hung in the air between them.
Harm. Someone wished her harm.
For several moments they were silent, then Dalton hugged her. “My poor sweet Anna. You’re being forced out.”
Bill drew his eyebrows together. “By any chance, does your mother remember the videographer’s name?”
Anna shook her head. “But she took his card. She’s going to look for it.”
“I tell you what,” Bill murmured. “I have a couple of friends in television production. How about I give them a call, see if one of them can find out who E! acquired the piece from. With a little luck, I can track down where they got the footage of your mother.”
“Thank you,” she said, reaching a hand across to his. “That would be so…it would really help.”
“Do you have any idea who could be behind this?”
“No, I—” Anna shifted her gaze to Dalton, struggling to form the words, knowing how ludicrous they would sound. “As you know, Kurt was never caught. But the FBI insisted he wasn’t a threat—”
“You think that Kurt person is behind this, don’t you?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I…do you think it could be?”
Dalton pulled her closer, shooting a narrow-eyed glance at the other man. “It’s highly improbable, I should think.”
“That’s right,” Bill agreed. “Why would Kurt come after you now? So much time has passed.”
“Unfinished business,” she whispered. “To get even with me for screwing up his plans.”
Again her friends fell silent. This time, Bill spoke first. “Let’s think this through, Anna. I understand your fears and why you would feel threatened by this man. But why would he want to force you out?”
“That’s right,” Dalton spoke up. “If Kurt wanted some sort of revenge, why not just have it? Kidnap you again? Kill you?”
“Thanks a lot, Dalton.” She forced a weak smile. “Remind me to have burglar bars installed.”
Bill frowned. “Kurt coming after you simply doesn’t make sense, Anna. Look at the facts. Twenty-three years have passed. This Kurt has no doubt gone on to other crimes. He may be imprisoned. Or dead.”
She rubbed her fingers over her deformed hand. “I want to believe it, but…I have this awful feeling he’s found me.”
“You have to go to the police.” Dalton looked at Bill for affirmation. He got it and returned his gaze to Anna’s. “The sooner the better.”
“The police,” she repeated. “And what do I tell them? That someone is sending cryptic notes and copies of my novels to my friends? Come on, I’d be laughed out of the place.”
“No,
