He climbed them quickly. The first door on his left opened into a spare bedroom, which she obviously planned on using as an office. The computer setup on the trestle table appeared to have been left undisturbed, but, as in the entryway below, pages of her book had been made into confetti and strewn everywhere. He checked the closet, but there was nothing in it except boxes packed with basic office supplies.
Midway down the hall, a quaint pair of doors with glass panes stood open. He walked through them into Bellamy’s bedroom. Here, he drew up short. The room had been vandalized, but not with confetti.
Hastily he checked the closet, where he found clothes and shoes, several unpacked boxes, and a lingering floral scent. The bathroom was likewise empty except for the cream-colored fixtures, fluffy towels, and feminine accoutrements on the dressing table.
He returned to the bedroom’s double doors and called down to her. “Coast is clear, but you’d better come up.”
Moments later she joined him, doing exactly as he’d done when he walked in. She stopped dead in her tracks and stared.
“I take it that’s not part of the decor.”
“No,” she said huskily.
Scrawled in red paint on the wall was:
The paint had run, leaving rivulets at the bottom of each letter that looked like dripping blood. In lieu of a paintbrush, a pair of her underwear had been used to write the letters.
The significance of that escaped neither of them.
Dent motioned toward the paint-soaked wad of silk lying on the carpet. “Yours?” When she nodded, he said, “Sick bastard. Police on their way?”
She roused herself, pulled her gaze away from the message on the wall, and looked up at him. “I didn’t call them.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I don’t want a big deal made of this.”
He thought surely he had heard her wrong, and his expression must have conveyed that.
“It was a prank,” she said. “When I moved in, a neighbor warned of things like this happening in the area. There’s been a rash of it. Teenagers with not enough to do. Maybe an initiation of some kind. They scatter trash across lawns. Knock over mailboxes. I’m told they hit a whole block one night last month.”
He looked at the vandalized wall, the garment on the floor, then came back to her. “Your panties were used to paint a threatening message on your bedroom wall, and you put that on par with scattered trash and banged-up mailboxes?”
“I’m not calling the police. Nothing was taken. Not that I can tell, anyway. It was just… just mischief.”
She turned quickly and left the room. Dent went after her, clumping down the stairs on her heels. “When I got here you were shaking like a leaf. Now you’re passing this off as a prank?”
“I’m certain that’s all it was.”
She rounded the newel post and headed for the kitchen, Dent only half a step behind her. “Uh-uh. I ain’t buying it. What are you going to be sorry for?”
“I have no idea.”
“I think you do.”
“It’s none of your business. What are you doing here, anyway?” She dragged a chair from the kitchen dining table into the utility room and pushed it against the door to keep it closed. “The neighbor’s cat comes to visit uninvited.”
When she turned back, Dent was there, blocking her. “I’ve a good mind to call the police myself.”
“Don’t you dare. The media would get wind of it, and then I’d have that to deal with, too.”
“
“Nothing. Just… just please let it go. I’m waiting for the call that my father has died. I can’t take on any more right now. Can’t you understand that?”
He understood that the woman was on the verge of a meltdown. Her eyes were stark with something. Fear? Her voice was unsteady, like it was about to crack. She was holding on to the ledge by her fingernails, but she was holding on, and he had to give her credit for that.
He softened his approach. “Look, thanks to your family, I’m no fan of cops, either. But I still think you should report this.”
“They’ll show up with lights flashing.”
“Probably.”
“No thank you. I could do without the circus. I’m not calling them.”
“Okay, then a neighbor.”
“What for?”
“Ask if you can crash on their sofa.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“A friend? Someone who could come—”
“No.”
“Then call the police.”
“You want to call them, you call. You can deal with them. I won’t be here.” She pushed him aside and made her way back into the hall. “I’ll be at my parents’ house.”
“That idea gets my vote. You’d be crazy to stay here alone. But wait an hour. Let the police come—”
“No. I want to make the drive before the storm gets here.”
“It’s not coming here.”
She glanced toward the window. “It may.” She leaned down to retrieve her shoulder bag from the floor, where she’d apparently dropped it when she came in. She hauled the strap onto her shoulder. “You still haven’t told me why you followed me home.”
“To return your lousy book.” He pointed toward the console table where he’d left it. Then he moved his boot through a heap of torn pages. “Seems somebody else likes it even less than I do.”
She was about to speak, but faltered and looked away from him, then turned abruptly and opened the front door.
Dent reached beyond her shoulder and pushed the door shut. She came around angrily, but he was the first to speak. “This
She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. Her expression said it all.
“You’re good and truly spooked, aren’t you?”
“I—”
“Because you know as well as I do that this wasn’t a teenager’s prank.”
“I know nothing of the kind.”
“What else would you have to be sorry for? You wrote that book, and it made somebody real unhappy.”
“I never said—”
“Unhappy enough to threaten you, and you’re taking that threat seriously. I know that because you’re scared. Don’t deny it. I can tell. So what’s going on? What gives?”
“What do you care?”
“Call me a nice guy.”
“But you’re not!”
There was no arguing that. For seconds they glared at each other, then her head dropped forward and she kept it bowed for several moments. When she raised it, she brushed back a strand of hair that had shaken loose from her ponytail.
“Dent, I’ve had a perfectly rotten day. First I had to encounter you, when you were so obviously hostile and rejecting of any olive branch. I had to stand by, uselessly, in that cancer ward and watch my dad, whom I love more than anyone in the world, suffer untold pain and indignity.
“I didn’t want to leave him, but he invented a business matter that needs to be dealt with tomorrow morning as soon as the offices open. But the real reason he sent me back was to spare me having to see him like that.
“Then, during the flight home, I had to talk myself out of having a full-blown panic attack, which was not only terrifying, but humiliating because you were there to see it. I got home to find my house wrecked, and then you
