Anita frowned. “Are you looking after yourself?”
“I am,” she said.
“Hmm. I wonder.” She seemed to will herself to turn and to walk away.
When she finally got Anita to leave, Cayce headed back to her home office to do more work. The whole apartment seemed surprisingly empty.
Her phone rang, and she reached for it, realizing how many times she’d been expecting Richard to call. This time it was him. She smiled at the phone and said, “Hello?”
“Now that sounds much better. A little more life, girl, than I’ve heard in the last few days.”
“Girl?” she said with asperity.
“Right. I hate to insult you. Woman, then.”
“Why did you call?”
“And just as bright as ever,” he said with a laugh.
“Absolutely. Any progress?”
“No, nothing. Liana had just moved in with a special partner. I wonder if you had any insight as to who that might be.”
“No. I haven’t had anything to do with her in eight months.”
“We’re working on the forensics. They were all drugged first,” he said. “Liana’s body is the anomaly, having been frozen for several months.”
“Now we’re assuming that she was the first victim?”
“I really like that theory,” he said. “We’re working on the time line right now. The problem is, that’s a lot of months between the first and second victims, and then no time at all between the second and third victims.”
“On the police shows,” she said quietly, “they would say he was escalating.”
“And that’s quite possible. We just don’t know that for sure.” He cleared his voice. “How are you feeling now?”
“Fine,” she said. “I’m not sure why or how, but I slept beautifully, woke up well, and it’s been a good day.”
“Good.” There was such a note of satisfaction in his voice that she became immediately suspicious. “Are you claiming that as a success for anything that you did?”
“No clue,” he said. “Don’t know what I could have done, except maybe that I stayed with you.” As he checked his watch, he groaned. “I’ll be back when the day is done,” he said, “but that could be late, depending on work.”
“I understand,” she said. “However, it’d be nice if we could have a nice steak dinner together when this nightmare is over.” Seemed now that she would be alone while eating the steak and scalloped potatoes sitting in her fridge, ready to be cooked.
“I’m not sure,” he said in a teasing note. “Does that make it an actual date?”
“I’m not sure it does,” she said, laughing, “but I think we’re past that point.”
“We’re never past the point of having a date,” he said. “And I don’t want to skip any steps in our relationship.”
“Yeah, it’s probably also not very wise of you to get involved with somebody until this case is over with.”
“Oh, don’t worry. You can bet I’ve been warned about that,” he said.
“Oh? I’m so sorry,” she said. “That sounds terrible.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It is what it is. Anyway, I’ll be there soon.” And he hung up.
She smiled and put her phone down.
As soon as she did, she heard a knock on her door. As she walked over, she said out loud, “Being at home is almost as busy as being at work.” She checked her peephole and opened her door.
The guard stood there with a box in his hand.
She looked at it and recoiled. “You need to tell Richard about that,” she said, “because absolutely nothing in me wants to open that box.”
“Is it that bad?”
“The last one had body parts in it.” She immediately backed away and closed the door, locking it. She ran over to her desk, picked up the phone, and called the detective, but only got his voicemail. “Shit, shit, shit,” she said. She curled up in a ball on the couch and kept trying Richard’s phone over and over again.
Finally, after about the fifth time, he answered. “What’s the matter?”
“Another package,” she said.
He swore. “Be there soon.”
“The guard has it,” she said.
“It should never have gone upstairs,” he said. “Dammit.”
“Don’t talk to me about it,” she said. “I just slammed the door in his face.”
“Good enough,” he said. “Stay calm. I’ll be there soon.”
“Yeah, will do,” she said.
But she wasn’t calm at all. Frustrated, uneasy, and hating that this evil was once again infiltrating into her world, she hopped up, poured herself a glass of wine, and turned on the fireplace, even though it was only two o’clock in the afternoon. She could feel everything inside herself tense into this tight little ball, until finally she heard voices outside her door.
She huddled behind the couch, until she heard Richard’s voice. Suddenly her front door opened, and he stepped inside. She popped her head up over the couch, saw him, put the glass of wine down on the coffee table, and raced into his arms, throwing herself against him, her arms wrapping tight around him.
He held her close and whispered, “It’ll be okay. Shh, it’ll be okay.”
“No,” she said. “It’ll never be okay at this rate.”
“I have to take this to the station, okay?”
She took a deep breath. “That’s fine,” she said. “Go. Take that nasty thing with you.”
“It does look like the other one,” he admitted, “and we’ll do more testing this time.”
“It was tested last time, right?”
“Of course,” he said. “I’m just hoping that maybe this time there will be a fingerprint.”
She nodded. “Just take it.” She took several deep breaths. “I’ll be fine. Just go.”
“You’re obviously not fine,” he said, frowning at her.
“I’ll be much better when you get that thing away from me.”
He nodded, stepped out the door, turned, and said, “Lock the door behind me.”
She immediately threw the bolt and then collapsed back down on the couch in tears.
*
“How did you get this?” Richard asked the guard.
“The front desk called me,” the guard said, “and then they sent it up.”
“This is the second such delivery. I should have briefed you on that, but I don’t think I had a chance to,” he said, as he studied the box. “I’ll be back in a
