The girls who, if Alex had ever thought to look their way, would have been much more of an age to attract him. "Fine."
Timmie heard the snap in her voice and almost apologized. But if Alex heard it, he didn't interpret it. He only nodded and smiled, a handsome man wearing his regulation-gray tailored suit and blue-and-red-patterned tie, in his perfectly nice car. Putting the car in Park, he yanked on the brake, and turned to her. "I'm glad you're back, Timmie."
Timmie smiled back at him. "Me, too, Alex. Thanks for dinner."
Murphy would be waiting to hear that she'd finagled a confession out of Alex. He'd want something more than Alex's admission that his own first marriage had failed because of his commitment to his work and that he was troubled by people... graduating in his unit. Timmie couldn't pry any deeper, and not because she'd dreamed of Alex since she'd been seven.
"I'll probably see you at Restcrest tomorrow," she said, fiddling with the tiny bells that dangled from her earrings.
His smile grew. "You're a good daughter."
Timmie damn near laughed. Just the testimonial she wanted in a darkened driveway from the man of her dreams.
"He's quite a dad," she said, as she always did, and unhanded the bells to grab her purse. Definitely time to go.
"He's a lion of the hills."
That almost did it. Timmie nodded and struggled to get the door open. "He is that. Good night, Alex."
She made it all the way up to her front porch before it dawned on her that she hadn't even waited to be kissed. Or that Alex hadn't pressed the point. Definitely out of stage three of divorce, then, she decided, pulling out her house key.
Trying hard not to giggle, Timmie turned to wave good-bye. After she put that key in, Alex would go home and she'd be faced with that house again. With all the crap that she kept hidden behind that door. Well, hell, she might as well get it over with.
Except that the door was already open.
Timmie realized it when she went to slide in the key. The door creaked with the pressure of her hand. It swung in a little, and for the first time Timmie saw that she was standing in a pool of shattered glass. Somebody had broken out the door window.
She froze for a second, staring. The door kept swinging and she got a good look at her living room. "Aw, hell."
She should have expected this. A lovely night out with a man, and she came home to find her house broken into.
Her first reaction was that somebody was going to be mighty disappointed. Her second was that only one person had ever broken into her house before, and that that person had started calling again.
He'd warned her. He'd served her with a notice. She'd ignored it, as she'd tried to before.
"Jason Michael Parker," she snarled, "if this is your work, I'll fry you like a hush puppy!"
Furious and frustrated and frightened, Timmie shoved the door all the way open and stormed inside.
"Timmie, don't go in there!"
Timmie hadn't even realized that Alex had gotten out of the car. But there he was, loping up the porch steps. Timmie didn't have any choice. Whirling to face him, she threw her arms wide to block his way in.
"Alex, no!"
But Alex didn't hear her. Before Timmie could get the door shut, Alex was pushing her out of the way. "Get in my car," he demanded. "I've called 911... Oh, my God," he gasped, stumbling to a sick halt. "You've been vandalized!"
And Timmie, more ashamed than she'd been since her father had thrown up on her at the father-daughter dance, had to stand there next to Alex as he took in the sight of the living room she'd been rooting through for two days and admit the truth. "No one's touched anything, Alex. This is the way it looks."
He hit his head on the Nerf ball as she ushered him in.
* * *
The police came five minutes later to dust the door and peer at the broken glass and gape at the sight of Dr. Alex Raymond calmly seated on a pile of Life magazines in the middle of the floor. Waiting until Timmie had made sure Meghan was still safe at Mattie's, they reluctantly asked Timmie if anything was missing, and agreed too quickly when she said no.
When they left, Timmie ushered a still-protesting Alex out right after them. And then, only bothering to board up her front door and take off the stiletto heels she'd pulled out for her famous date, Timmie spent close to an hour with the bat in her hand trying to knock that Nerf ball back off its line.
She was forty minutes into her therapy, her red dress hiked to her thighs and her stockings torn, when she saw the blinking light on her answering machine.
Nope. She didn't want to check it. After all, it was probably Jason calling to see if she'd checked his handiwork.
Nothing had been taken. Nothing moved. To Timmie's mind, that meant Jason. After all, if somebody'd broken in to rob her, they would have at least tried. She did have a few valuables tucked in her freezer. If it had been another one of those amateur threats, the perps wouldn't have settled for the front door.
No, it was Jason, which meant he was getting started again. He wouldn't hurt her. Jason considered violent men weaklings. His torture dujour was the subpoena, his chosen calling card the simple hit-and-run attack.
And he wanted to stay in touch with Meghan. Timmie had to get the hell to a lawyer and stop him.
When she had finished working off her rage.
Smack! A three-bagger at least, with Willie McGee trundling along the bases ahead of her.
After a while she ran out of energy. Barb called at one, and Ellen shortly thereafter, evidently having been contacted by the Mattie express. Then, finally, Cindy, who didn't understand when Timmie declined her offer to come over and sit.
"But I'm still at work," Cindy objected. "I can be right over there. I mean, my God, Timmie, you're there all alone. What if something else happens tonight?"
Timmie wasn't sure whether Cindy meant that she could help or that she didn't want to miss it. Either way, Timmie's answer was the same.
"Cindy, I lived in North Hollywood and worked in Central L.A. for almost ten years. I don't think the homeys here are quite so tough. So if everybody will stop calling, I'm going to bed."
She wasn't making Cindy happy. "I'm trying to be a good friend."
Timmie sighed, chagrined. "You are a good friend."
"I'll go right home. Call me if you need me."
"I promise." She'd made the same promise to Ellen and Barb. Maybe three promises like that was critical mass. By the time she shut off the phone Timmie had had it with just about everybody in this town. She was going to shut off the lights and go to bed and the hell with all of them.
She was halfway across the living room when she heard the creak.
The porch. The first board after the steps. It always creaked when people tried to walk too carefully on it. She knew. She'd tried to sneak past that board herself too many nights.
Her heart shouldn't thump like that. She shouldn't suddenly want to call Cindy.
It was nothing. Nobody. All those careful friends had succeeded in making her afraid, which was stupid. She'd survived more than a stupid B&E artist in a one-horse town.
Creak. Scrape.
How could silence be so loud? It seemed to roar in her ears, with only the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen to encroach on it. It was so quiet Timmie could almost hear herself sweat.