Drop Dead Gorgeous Read online

  “I don’t care what it doesn’t make!” I whispered frantically. “It’s her! She’s the stalker! And the power has gone out. What if she’s here, what if she’s in the house—”

  “I’m coming back,” he said after the merest hesitation. “And I’m calling in for the nearest patrol car. If you think she’s in the house then you get out of it, any way you can. You got that? You’ve been right too many times, and you’ve had too many close calls. If you have to go out a window again, do it.”

  “Okay,” I said, but he’d hung up and there was only dead air.

  He was coming back. He’d been gone about fifteen minutes, so it should take him about that to get back here, unless he drove like a bat out of Hell. There might be a patrol car that was closer.

  Oddly, his assurance that he trusted my instincts calmed me down. Maybe it was because I didn’t feel so alone, because help was on the way.

  I set my cell phone on silent mode, and slipped it in my pocket. At least this time I wasn’t caught wearing flimsy pajamas and no shoes. A long-sleeved T-shirt and a pair of cargo sweatpants offered much more protection. Well, I still didn’t have on shoes, but at least I was wearing socks—and even if I’d had on shoes I would have pulled them off, in the interest of silence.

  I was probably letting my nerves get to me, I thought, but the last time I’d reassured myself of something like this, she’d burned down my home. I seemed to have some sixth sense for her that let me know when she was near, and I intended to trust it.

  At least I no longer had to wonder why, what I’d done that someone would try to kill me. I knew now. It was Wyatt. Wyatt loved me, and we were getting married. She couldn’t stand that.

  Roberta had told me how, when Megan filed for divorce, Wyatt had simply walked away. He hadn’t cared enough to try to make their marriage work, or enough to rethink his decision to become a cop. She hadn’t been important enough to him. How that must have eaten at her through the years, that she hadn’t been enough for the man she loved. I knew something of how she’d felt, not that I was sympathetic toward her or anything stupid like that. Please. The psycho bitch had tried to kill me.

  She’d gotten remarried within the year, Roberta had said. The second marriage must not have worked out either, because how could it, when she was in love with Wyatt? But she’d held on, because Wyatt hadn’t married anyone else, and she could cling to the thought that deep down he still loved her and maybe one day they’d get back together—until I came along. Our engagement announcement had been in the newspaper. Had she made a habit of going online and reading the local newspaper, or Googling his name every so often? Maybe someone local knew her, and had told her. How she’d found out didn’t matter, but her reaction to the news very much mattered.

  I tried to think of any weapons that were available. Knives, of course, down in the kitchen. I’d felt safe going down for a knife while I was in my condo, with the alarm system to tell me if anyone broke in, but Wyatt didn’t have an alarm system. He had locks, dead-bolt locks, and triple-pane windows that only someone very determined could get through. Unfortunately, she was very determined.

  I had nothing up here to protect myself with, except the big, heavy flashlight on Wyatt’s bedside table. I slowly eased out of the bathroom, fully expecting to come face-to-face with an ax-wielding lunatic, but the bedroom was silent and empty. I got the flashlight, gripping it in my right hand. Maybe I’d have the chance to conk her on the head. One good concussion deserved another.

  Cautiously I moved into the hallway. It, too, was empty. I stood for a moment listening, but there was no sound within the house. Outside, I heard a car’s tires on the wet pavement as it passed by, the sound mundane and comforting, but not as comforting as it would have been if the car had slowed and turned in. Wyatt hadn’t had time to get here yet, but a patrol car would be welcome, too.

  All of the doors in the hallway were closed, except for the door to the master bedroom, behind me. I couldn’t remember if I’d closed the door when I’d come out of the guest room where I’d been trying on shoes. That just isn’t something you normally remember. But no one jerked any of those doors open and leaped into the hallway to charge me with an ax, so I eased forward, toward the stairs.

  I know, I know. In every horror movie, at least once the dumb-ass blonde goes down the stairs after hearing a noise, or down into the dark basement. Something. Well, you know what? If you’re upstairs, you’re usually trapped. Not many houses have dual staircases, one on each end of the house. At least if you’re on the ground floor there’s more than one way out. I’d just been caught on the second floor in a fire, and I didn’t want to repeat the experience. I wanted to be on that ground floor.

  I took another step. I could see part of the den now, and the doorway to the kitchen. No maniac. One more step. A flash of blue at the bottom of the stairs caught my eye. The blue whatever wasn’t moving, it was just there. And there hadn’t been anything blue down there when I came up these stairs.

  It looked familiar, though. Whatever it was, I’d seen it before. But, I swear, it looked like two blue pipes sticking up, with odd designs—

  My boots. My blue boots, the ones that hadn’t been delivered before my condo was burned.

  She’d gotten them. She had picked up my package. And now she was really here, in this house, it wasn’t my imagination any longer.

  No way in Hell was I going down those stairs. I was going to take Wyatt’s advice and bail out the window—

  She stepped out of the kitchen, a pistol held in a steady, two-handed grip, aimed right at me. She was wearing soft-soled shoes that wouldn’t make any more noise than my socks. Without letting the aim waver, she tilted her head at the boots. “What were you thinking? That you’d join the rodeo, or something?”

  “Hello, Megan,” I said.

  Surprise flared in her eyes. She hadn’t expected that. She’d expected to kill me and walk right out, because who would ever suspect her? She didn’t live here, hadn’t been here in years and years, hadn’t contacted anyone she knew here. No one should ever have been able to connect her to this.

  “I’ve already told Wyatt,” I said.

  A derisive look crossed her face. “Yeah, right. The power’s off. None of these cordless phones will work.”

  “No, but the cell phone in my pocket does.” I indicated the bulge. “There’s a shoe box full of pictures up here. I was going through them, and came across this snapshot of you and Wyatt and two other couples. Some guy named Sandy and his latest bimbo.” I added that so she’d know I wasn’t making it up. Getting away with murder was a big part of her plan, I suspected. Knowing that she wouldn’t, no matter what, might make her rethink this whole killing-me thing.

  I saw the pain flicker in her expression as she recalled the photograph. “He kept that?”

  “I don’t know that he kept it so much as he never got around to throwing it away. As soon as I recognized you, I called him.” I shrugged. “They were already working the rental car angle anyway. He’d have spotted your name.”

  “I doubt he even knows my last name,” she said bitterly.

  “Well, look, that isn’t my fault,” I pointed out.

  “I don’t care what is or isn’t your fault. This isn’t about you. It’s about him. It’s about him finding out what it’s like to love someone so much you hurt, and not be able to have them. It’s about living with pain for the rest of your life, a pain you can’t walk away from.”

  “Huh. Sounds like you should put yourself out of your misery.” I just hate whiny people, don’t you? Bad things happen to everyone. A busted relationship isn’t the same as someone dying, so get over it.

  “Shut up!” She moved closer to the foot of the stairs, that two-handed grip still as steady as ever. “You don’t know what it’s like. When we got married I knew he didn’t love me as much as I loved him, but at least I had a chance, I thought. But I never got to build on it. A pro athlete is gone a lot. I had to share him with the t