on contradicting, he would raise it till she got the message.
“I—”
She didn’t get to finish her objection this time, as her office door burst open. It was Julie Alberts.
“I thought you were going to help me with my homework, Dianna,” she complained. “Instead, I had to sit in my dad’s office after my ride dropped me off from school and meet some of his business friends, like always.” She made a face.
“Didn’t your dad tell you I had to…” Dianna faltered, obviously unwilling to tell the girl that she’d had to show a cop, the man Julie believed was a juggler, where Dianna had seen a bad guy.
“He said you had some ‘business to attend to.’” The singsong tone of her voice made it clear she repeated her father’s words exactly.
“That’s right. But I can look at your homework now, and then I’ll take you home.” She stared defiantly over Julie’s head toward Travis, as if challenging him to contradict her.
He would have, if Jeremy Alberts hadn’t come in just then. “We can all leave together,” he said, looking at Dianna. But Travis knew the comment was intended for his ears as well.
The cop was dismissed. He wasn’t needed by the civilians.
That was all right for tonight. After all, one of his men was under orders to follow Dianna home and surveil her home till she returned to work the next day.
But these citizens, and especially Dianna Englander, were going to learn that this particular cop wasn’t about to be dismissed by them.
Not when one of them was probably in mortal danger.
Chapter Three
There were no messages on Dianna’s answering machine when she got home that evening. Of course she hadn’t expected any.
The machine, which sat on the vast, carved antique walnut desk in her office, was turned off.
It wasn’t that she had received any threatening messages. It was all the damned hang-ups.
Which was why, after she dropped her purse onto a kitchen chair, she checked the ringer on the white wall phone near the refrigerator. It was turned off, too. The caller didn’t seem to discriminate about calling when she was home or when she was gone. Or maybe he was checking her schedule.
All the more reason not to answer. Or even allow her machine to do it.
And hardly anyone had her cell phone number. She kept it off most of the time anyway, except when she was at work.
She glanced at the digital clock on the microwave oven mounted beside her stove. Dinnertime. The rumbling of her stomach had already told her that.
Her kitchen was certainly well-enough equipped for her to prepare herself a feast. It had been the one room she had remodeled when she had bought this place.
While married to Brad, she had loved to entertain and had cooked most of their party food herself, though they could well have afforded caterers. Brad had been so proud of her that sometimes it hadn’t even mattered that her life had become his.
“Don’t go there,” she demanded, almost startling herself by the sound of her voice in a room silent except for the refrigerator motor and muffled traffic noises from a distant freeway.
She had bought this home almost a year ago. It was located in a nice section of the San Fernando Valley— Sherman Oaks, a community next to Van Nuys, where she worked. She hadn’t realized, when she bought it, that houses like this one, south of Ventura Boulevard, were considered more prestigious, and were therefore more pricey. But she had been surprised to find a Tudor-style house in this area where mock-Spanish adobes reigned. And to find one with a Valley view… She had fallen in love with it, and, fortunately, the seller had been motivated to lower his price to one she could agree to.
She opened the freezer and extracted a frozen dinner extolled in TV ads as delicious yet healthy. The picture on its carton didn’t excite her. The idea of eating yet another dinner alone, even in the home she loved, didn’t excite her, either.
Maybe she should have bought a hot dog from the pushcart from that damned good-looking undercover cop….
“Shoot,” she muttered aloud. She didn’t want to think of Lt. Travis Bronson now. Her thoughts were turning to him much too often.
She wondered what he was doing for dinner that night…
“Shoot,” she repeated, even louder.
She was always as comfortable with her own company as she was with a crowd of people. Why did she feel so lonely tonight?
Well, she didn’t need to eat alone.
She called her next-door neighbor Astrid, a lawyer and single mom raising two young children alone. But Dianna knew the answer when she heard wailing in the background. “Sorry,” Astrid said, “but both kids are coming down with something. I don’t know which to blame for bringing it home, but I can’t consider even fast food tonight.” She turned down Dianna’s offer of help. “I’ll probably catch whatever it is, too. No need for us both to, but thanks.”
Disappointed, Dianna hung up. She considered who else to call, realized why this was a bad night for each of them, then gave up. She could always stick an old movie into her DVD player and watch while she ate.
Except— “Julie,” she said aloud. She’d promised the child she could call for further input on the essay she was writing for her English class.
Dianna hadn’t considered before that, if she encouraged the child to call, she had to turn her phone ringer back on. She decided to call the Alberts preemptively. If they hadn’t grabbed dinner on their way home, she’d suggest that she join them.
But their phone kept ringing. And their answering machine was not disconnected.
Dianna left a message, then resignedly turned the ringer back on her kitchen phone. She’d be able to hear it from elsewhere in her house, too.
She unwrapped the frozen dinner, stuck it into the microwave, then headed toward the stairway to the second floor. The meal should be ready by the time she changed her clothes.
She had barely reached the stairs when she heard the phone ring. The closest extension was in the antique-laden living room. She hurried in there.
“Hello?” she said, expecting to hear Julie’s breathy, childish voice on the other end, babbling about what they’d done for dinner, asking questions about her essay.
Instead, she heard only silence.
Until a click signified that the person on the other end had hung up.
A chill inched up Dianna’s spine. She forced herself to walk slowly back into the kitchen, where she again turned off the phone ringer. She would call the Alberts later.
TRAVIS CHECKED IN first thing the next morning at the Van Nuys LAPD station. He had already called the undercover guy outside Dianna’s house the night before. All had been quiet.
After
