Matthews stepped back immediately to let her in. “Boy, are we glad to see you. We were about ready to drag the river.”

An older patrolman was on the phone, but he stopped and squinted when he saw Lucy. “Didn’t you use to be blond?”

“Don’t remind me,” Lucy said. “Do I know you?”

“Forget it. We’re done. She’s here,” the older man said into the phone and hung up. “I’m Falk. You sent us after Warren a couple days ago, remember?”

“Oh.” Lucy winced. “I’m sorry about that. What’s going on here?”

Falk grinned. “ Warren couldn’t find you. It upset him. So we only got most of the force looking for your body.”

“Oh, no,” Lucy wailed. “I left a note. Why doesn’t he read notes?”

“Go get Warren,” Falk said to Matthews. “Let’s put him out of his misery.”


ZACK WHISTLED TO BRING the dogs in and headed through the kitchen to the living room, trying not to think the worst. She could be anywhere. Except with Tina, who was making plans to have Riverbend dismantled brick by brick until she found her sister. Or at her parents, who were annoyed because he had bothered them without any concrete reason.

Or here.

He walked into the dining room with Einstein on his heels and found Junior practically drooling over a strange redhead. She was cute, Zack thought absently, her head haloed in short, bright, coppery curls, but she wasn’t Lucy, and Lucy was all he wanted right now.

Then she turned, and it was Lucy.

“Where in the hell have you been?” He surged toward her, relief supercharging his anger.

“I left a note.” Lucy glared at him. “And I told you before, you can’t just put me down someplace and tell me to stay. Why did you cause all this fuss?”

“Why did I cause all this fuss?” Zack threw up his hands, speechless for a moment. “Well, to begin with, there wasn’t any note. None. Trust me. We have been over this place inch by inch. Looking for your body, bloodstains, anything. There was no note.”

“Well, I left one.” Lucy folded her arms in front of her. “You know, Zack, you’ve got to stop overreacting like this.”

“Overreacting? Overreacting?” He stepped in front of her until they were nose-to-nose. “Lucy, somebody could be trying to kill you.”

She stepped back. “No. That’s not…”

“Then who blew up your car? Heisenberg?”

“There’s no need to be insulting,” Lucy said, and Anthony walked in.

“She’s not…” Anthony began and stopped. “Lucy?” He squinted his eyes at her. “Is that you?”

“Well, of course, it’s me,” Lucy said. Anthony let out a healthy sigh of relief. “Sony, the hair threw me. You look great, by the way.” He looked from her to Zack and back again and grinned. “So I guess this means we can assume you weren’t kidnapped?”

“Of course, I wasn’t kidnapped,” Lucy said and Zack said, “There’s no ‘of course’ about it, damn it.”

Falk shook his head and turned to go. “I already called off the search,” he said on his way out “Come on, Junior.”

Matthews scowled at him but went. Anthony turned back to Lucy. “We’re all going to go now. Glad to see you safe, Lucy. Don’t ever do that again. Zack, we’ll try that search tomorrow.”

He kissed Lucy on the cheek and walked out the door, visibly relieved.

“We need to talk,” Zack snarled, and Lucy threw her purse on the table and went into the kitchen.


I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS, Lucy thought as she banged the soup pot on the stove. I get my hair done, and he calls out the army. Honestly.

She flipped the burner on under the pot and turned to see Zack standing in the doorway, scowling at her.

“I was careful,” she said, tossing her potholders onto the counter. “I called a cab. I made sure I wasn’t followed. I didn’t go anyplace I’d ever been before. I left a note. I was careful.”

Zack jabbed a finger at her. “I told you not to leave. You gave the patrol car the slip on purpose. I was worried. Worried, hell. I was frantic.”

“Zack, I can’t spend the rest of my life in this house because you worry,” Lucy said, but she felt awful. He was looking at her like she’d come back from the dead, and there was a muscle twitching along his jaw. “I know you think this is serious. But you can’t keep me locked in this house forever…”

He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “It’s not forever, Luce. Just until I figure this out.”

“Well, what if you don’t?” Lucy folded her arms, determined to stand her ground. “Whether you like it or not, I’m going back to school on Monday. Are you going to frisk all my seniors? Pat down the custodians?”

“I’ll figure it out.” Zack rubbed his hand across the back of his head. “I will figure this out. I just can’t get hold of this one, for some reason. It just doesn’t make sense. My instincts just aren’t kicking in.”

“I can’t live my life waiting for permission from your instincts.” Lucy turned and lifted the lid on the soup pot to stir it.

“No, but you can stop taking such dumb chances,” Zack flared. “You went out today for no good reason…”

“I went out for an excellent reason.” Lucy slapped the lid down hard on the pot and turned to face him. “I’m an independent woman, and I wanted to go out. And my hair was driving me crazy.”

“You went out because of your hair?” Zack’s voice rose again, incredulous. “That’s what this is all about? Your damn hair?”

“Listen, if you’d been walking around under my hair, you’d have broken, too,” Lucy snapped. “You don’t know what it was like. I mean, everybody who saw me just stopped, amazed…”

“It wasn’t that bad, once you got used to it,” Zack said, taken aback by her fervor.

“Oh, that’s a real testimonial, Zack. That makes me feel so much better…”

“Will you take it easy?”

“Take it easy?” Lucy gritted her teeth, her anger fueled by her guilt at making him worry. “Take it easy? You know how awful it was. How many times when you were in bed with me last night did you look at me and think, ‘God, she has awful hair’?”

“Never,” Zack said flatly. “Not once. Are you kidding?”

“No, I’m not kidding.” Lucy’s anger surged. “Don’t you care what I look like? What is this? Once the lights are out, I’m just like any of your other women? We’re all alike in the dark, is that it?”

“Lucy,” Zack said through clenched teeth. “Shut up.” He took a deep breath. “You are absolutely unlike any woman I have ever met, thank God, and I don’t care what color your hair is, and if you ever scare me again like you did today, I will walk out of your life forever because I can’t take that kind of fear.” He shook his head and turned away from her to stare into the dining room. “You were right about us getting married. Dumb idea. I’m not ready for it.”

“Well, that’s what I thought,” Lucy said, but she felt herself go empty inside.

Zack turned back to face her. “I knew it would be like this. I told Tony it would be like this. You start caring for people, and your instincts go. Hell, your brains go. I don’t mind being scared for myself. I’m scared for myself all the time. That’s just part of being a cop.” He look a deep breath. “But the way I felt about you today…no. I was so damn scared I couldn’t think. I am never… never going to feel like that about anybody ever again.”

They both stood still for a moment, silenced by the emotion between them, and then Lucy turned back to the stove, unable to cope with the pain in his eyes.

“I’m sorry. But I think you’re overreacting.” She picked up the lid again and began to stir the soup. “You and Anthony both told me that this man is only trying to scare me out of the house. Nobody thinks I’m in danger anymore. Not even you.”

“I’m overreacting.”

“Yes.”

“Fine.” He turned and left the room, and fifteen minutes later he came down with his bag packed.

Lucy felt her breath go when she saw him, but she made herself sound calm. “Leaving?”

“This isn’t going to work, Lucy,” he said. “I’m too emotional about this to be doing you any good. And you’re probably right. I probably overreacted. If you want somebody here with you for a while, I’ll call Matthews.”

Lucy swallowed. “Junior.”

“I don’t think he likes being called Junior.” Zack seemed dimmed, as if a current had been switched off inside him. “You want me to call him?”

“No.” Lucy drew a deep breath. “Thank you for staying with me.”

“Oh, the pleasure was mine.” Zack smiled tightly, “I’ve already called a patrol car to watch this place. A different one. The first guy is still pretty upset with you. And Tony will call you tomorrow.”

“Fine,” Lucy said, and he nodded and was gone.


LUCY WALKED INTO THE living room and sank down on the love seat. “What happened?” she asked Einstein when he padded over. “He wanted to marry me this morning, and now he’s gone?” The ache in her chest swelled into her throat, and she bit her lip to keep from crying. “Boy, this has been a bad month. Good thing I’m independent now.”

The lump in her throat grew until she thought she’d choke, and she concentrated on not crying.

After all, nobody had died.

It was just the emptiness inside her that made her feel like somebody had.


“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU doing here?” Anthony asked Zack when he came in the squad room.

Zack sank heavily into his chair. “Lucy doesn’t need a bodyguard. We all know nobody’s trying to kill her. There’s a patrol car out in front. She’s okay.”

Anthony narrowed his eyes. “We knew all this yesterday. You stayed last night.”

“Well, that was a mistake.” Zack began to sort the mound of paperwork on his desk.

“But, Lucy-”

Zack looked up. “Forget it. You tried. It didn’t work out.”

Anthony looked as innocent as he possibly could. “I didn’t…”

“Forget it.”

Anthony shrugged. “All right. It’s probably just as well. We got an interesting conversation between Lucy and her sister on the phone tap.”

“Not interested,” Zack said.

“Okay,” Anthony said, “how about this? Mrs. Dover called again.”

Zack felt himself freeze and kicked himself for it “Maybe she’s just lonely.”

“I’m starting to wonder myself.” Anthony leaned back in his chair, watching Zack. “She saw prowlers again last night and this afternoon. She’s starting to see them everywhere.”

Zack squelched the beat of fear he felt. “She’s a crazy old lady with nobody to talk to except cops.”

Anthony was still watching him closely. “We still haven’t found what’s in Lucy’s house.”

“Fine,” Zack flared. “You go over and move in with her. I’m not going back there.”

“She looked beautiful today,” Anthony said. “I like her hair red.”

“Shut up, Tony.”

“Maybe I will drop by later, to check on her, make sure she’s all right.”

Zack swiveled his chair away, cranked a report form into the typewriter, and began to pound on the keys.

“Maybe I’ll have dinner with her.”

Zack hit the return carriage with enough force to send it across the room.

“Just a thought,” Anthony said and went back to his own report.


LATE THAT EVENING, Lucy went into the bathroom and startled herself pleasurably in the mirror with her new red hair. Then she took a long, hot bath and thought about Zack.

He’d rocked her earlier with that marriage thing. Zack, of all people, planning commitment. It was like Madonna becoming a nun. Interesting but not likely to last Especially since he seemed to be basing his decision on sex and food. He hadn’t even told her he loved her. Not that she expected it. Although something along those lines usually turned up in a marriage proposal.

And then he’d walked out. Because she’d scared him.

Well, he scared her, too. He scared her because she felt so lost without him. And so lonely. It was as if the world was Technicolor with Zack and black-and-white without him. She felt colder and paler and smaller without him, shriveling without his warmth.

Well, all that was immaterial now. He was gone. It was over.

She climbed out of the tub and wrapped herself in her big terry-cloth robe and headed for the bedroom. Inside the door, she flipped on the light and walked toward the bed, only to stop about a yard from it.

It didn’t look right.

She frowned at it, trying to figure out what was wrong. Nothing. Her bed, her quilt, her embroidered pillows. She put her hands on her hips and studied it again.

Maybe the problem was that Zack wasn’t in it. Maybe this was an honest-to-God instinct kicking in.