No Sanctuary

“I won’t.” Bay didn’t feel so much as a twinge of guilt at voicing the lie. “I’m sorry about Holly.”

Madeleine sighed. “Holly reminds me of a bird determined to fly straight into a window convinced that what it sees is continuing sky. We’ve paid for her therapy, made all sorts of compromises and adjustments so she could continue with us, but—” she shrugged “—I’m close to being out of ideas and, I fear, at the end of my patience.”

“Maybe if she could meet someone else, she could move on.”

“What’s the likelihood of that under the circumstances?”

To Bay’s relief Duncan returned, saving her from having to respond. “Thank you,” she said hoping they didn’t see the slight trembling of her hands as she accepted the folder, which somehow looked thinner than the one she’d seen Lyle Gessler page through at Gatesville.

“What’s your schedule like later in the week?” he replied.

She didn’t know what her expression looked like, and Madeleine’s wasn’t much better in that she’d now mastered her emotions. “I…well, I’ll be working, I suppose. I owe your mother the gate she’s been waiting for.”

“You can’t work around the clock and you have to eat. I’m out of town until Wednesday. How about if I call you Thursday and we’ll see about dinner? You haven’t committed me to something, have you, Mother?”

“Of course, not.” Madeleine embraced Bay. “You two work it out. I have some calls to return. Thank you for making my morning so enjoyable, my dear.”

As she retreated into her office, Bay frowned at Duncan. “She doesn’t approve.”

“She’s annoyed with me for forcing her hand and giving you the file.”

“Speaking of being upset…you don’t have to take up where she’s leaving off. I’m not in need of constant entertaining, never mind caretaking.”

“Good Lord, is that how you see this?” With a new gleam in his eye, he took hold of her upper arms. “I see I have my work cut out for me.”

A part of her, the ghost of the awkward schoolgirl, didn’t want to be having this conversation. The injured woman warmed with secret triumph and feminine curiosity.

“You’re staring at me as though I were under your microscope,” Duncan said, touching the tip of her nose. “This is where you make my day by giving me something refreshing to look forward to instead of another ghastly dinner meeting.”

“You’ll be disappointed.”

“Try me.”

8

The phone was ringing as Bay returned home and opened her front door. Not bothering to take the key out of the lock, she grabbed the receiver.

“Hello?” She placed her slim shoulder bag and the folder from the Ridgeways onto the kitchen counter. “Hello?”

Once again she heard subtle but indistinguishable background noises to assure her that someone was there.

“Not today, thanks,” she muttered hanging up.

She’d had enough, enough of people pushing her buttons, of those trying to play mind games and all of the manipulation. All she wanted to do now was slip out of what she would heretofore call her “torture slippers” and change into the loosest, skimpiest outfit she could find.

“Mercy, that air conditioner is cranking away,” she said carrying her things down the hall. At the register she found out why.

The temperature was set all the way to the coldest setting. How had she managed that? What an idiot, she thought quickly adjusting it back up to seventy-nine. She must have knocked it somehow as she was hurrying to leave and wobbling in those shoes. Dreading what this would do to her electricity bill, she continued to the bedroom…and froze in the doorway.

The window nearest the bathroom was open.

Sultry air was seeping into the room, offsetting the chill in the hall and yet goose bumps rose on her bare arms. Now that she knew she hadn’t done.

Her heart slamming against her breastbone, she retreated to the kitchen for some kind of weapon—the heavy-duty flashlight kept by the door for her left hand to deflect a blow, and a knife with the longest, sturdiest blade for her right. Once leaving Gatesville, she’d hoped she was putting this part of her life behind her. She should have known that was too good to be true.

This time Bay checked room by room, starting with the kitchen’s broom closet and the linen closet in the hallway. At the same time she looked for other signs that someone had left taunting clues of his visit. Once she got as far as the bathroom and determined she was the only one in the house, she closed the window, tested the lock and began checking drawers, her imagination in overdrive.