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danger.” He gestured to the basement door. “These are all good locks. Take advantage of them. Stay inside and I’ll call you tomorrow.”
    â€œWell…” Her pointed face was so confused under all that dead black hair that suddenly Zack’s annoyance faded and he felt protective again. She seemed so helpless, so soft and round and absolutely clueless about reality.
    â€œPlease,” he said. “Just for tonight.”
    â€œAll right.” Lucy swallowed at his earnestness. “But I still think you’re wrong. Anyway, if you give me a couple of minutes, I’ll print out the lesson plans. This is very nice of you. Thank you, Detective Warren.”
    â€œZack.” He grinned at her in relief. “Detective Warren is for people who haven’t hit me with a purse.”
    Lucy smiled back uncertainly. “Zack.” She hesitated. “I’m Lucy.” Then she turned and went back inside.
    Cute. A little snippy but very cute. Even with the hair. Very, very cute. And she thought he was sexy.
    Maybe he could convince her that he really had saved her life, and she’d be grateful.
    He tried to picture Lucy, naked and grateful, but all he could see was Lucy, blinking at him, surrounded by dogs.
    That could be a bad sign. He was losing his ability to fantasize.
    Maturity.
    Death.
    â€œSir?”
    Zack turned back to the patrolman who had joined him again.
    â€œYou’re cleared,” the patrolman said. “What’s going on here, anyway?”
    â€œI’m not sure,” Zack said. “I need you to question the neighbor.”
    â€œThe old lady?”
    â€œYeah. I don’t think she’s going to talk to me.”
    â€œI don’t think so, either. She wanted me to shoot you. So what do you want me to ask her?”
    â€œShe said she’d seen somebody hanging around here, possibly trying to break in. And the locks have been tampered with.” Zack frowned back at the house. “Find out what she saw, and when she saw it, and get it to me as fast as you can, okay?”
    â€œYou got it. Anything else?”
    â€œYeah. Keep a close eye on this place for the next couple of days. I think she might really have trouble.”
    â€œWith neighbors like she’s got, that’s no big deduction,” the patrolman said.
    â€œYou should see her sister,” Zack said.

    â€œI ALMOST INVITED HIM back in,” Lucy told the dogs when Zack had driven away with the lesson plans. “That would have been stupid.” She pulled back the lace curtain at the front window and looked out at the empty street. “He was just so different, you know? I just didn’t want him to go. So much for my new life. I make these big plans to be independent, and then I cling to the first man I meet an hour after my divorce. Still, you should have been there when he told the other policeman to shoot Phoebe. You would have loved it.”
    She dropped the curtain and turned to the living room.
    Her room.
    Her house.
    She remembered the first time she’d seen it. She’d passed it one day when she’d taken a wrong turn near the university. A big old cream brick house on a hill with a porch and a cracked old driveway and big beautiful beveled-glass windows.
    And a For Sale sign in front.
    And she’d wanted that house with a passion that she’d never in her life felt for a man. A big, safe, warm house she could fill with dogs and books and comfortable things. Beautiful things. A house with a big kitchen where she could make cookies and bread and soup. A house with a huge fenced-in backyard where Einstein could run. And maybe another dog. Or two. She didn’t want Einstein to be an only child.
    A house. A house instead of her cold, tiny little apartment where Einstein took up half the floor space, and the oven didn’t work right, and she never felt safe. A house.
    Her house.
    After that, for three months, even after she