The light on her answering machine blinked incessantly. Dayne decided to listen to the messages before she made her popcorn. Five messages instead of the four that had been there when she got home. Somebody must have called while she was in the shower.
<beep> "Hey, Dayno. It's Greg. Lucy and I are going to be in town next weekend—I've got a project down your way and the company is flying us in. If you're going to be there, we'd love to stop by and see you. Give me a call back when you can."
Her oldest brother and his wife rarely made it down from Minnesota. Dayne was scheduled to work the entire next weekend, but might be able to swap some time with a couple of her colleagues; they owed her since she'd covered for them while they had the flu. She made a note to herself to call the hospital first thing the next morning to start lining things up.
<beep> . . . <click>
She hated hangups.
<beep> . . . <click>
Another one.
<beep> "I hate talking to these things. Geez, Dayne—are you ever going to get home? When you get off work, come over. Mike got a great deal on steaks and we need to use them up. Call before you come and we'll have yours ready when you get here. Any time will be fine. We're going to be up late."
That was Paige, who never identified herself on the answering machine, and usually refused to leave messages. Most likely the two previous hang-ups had been hers. Dayne paused the machine and considered. Paige called when she wanted Dayne's company; she also called when she'd just met a single man she thought Dayne would like and had decided it was time to try matchmaking again. There was absolutely no way to tell which kind of call this was.
"So how much do I want a grilled steak?" she asked the cats.
They sat on the floor in the kitchen, watching her with inscrutable expressions.
"I don't know either."
She pushed the pause button.
<beep> . . . . <inhale> . . . . <exhale> . . . . <inhale> . . . . <exhale> . . . . <inhale> . . . . <exhale> . . . . "I'm watching you" . . . . <inhale> . . . . <exhale> . . . . <click>.
Her stomach twisted. The call had come while she was in the shower. Was it a coincidence? No one could see her in the shower, though maybe someone might have been able to see her in her spare bedroom working out. Had she left the blinds up? She'd been really angry when she was up there.
She shivered and stared at the goosebumps on her arms.
Most of the time, being alone was better than being married had been—but when she'd been married, she'd never gotten phone calls like that. As it was, she didn't get them often. They still felt ugly though.
The procedure the police had for dealing with such calls was complicated, and the phone company's was about equally so. She'd called both when she'd had a similar problem over a year earlier. She frowned and stared at her answering machine. There had to be something she could do to get rid of the caller . . . something she could say.
She sat down with a pencil and paper and made a few notes—things that would convince whoever was doing this to go away. She juggled her ideas back and forth, and finally came up with a message she liked. She practiced it a few times, letting her anger work through into her voice, then began recording.
"You have reached a number that is currently under surveillance," she said, pitching her voice low and mean. "Under FCC regulations and state and federal wiretapping and recording guidelines, I am required to inform you that all calls to this number are being recorded, and will be admissible as evidence in police procedures and in a court of law. Leaving a message implies informed consent. If you still wish to leave a message, do so after the beep."
She stopped the recording and grinned. Let the jerk think about that for a while.
The phone call decided her, though. She felt like having steak for dinner on somebody else's nickel, and more importantly, she felt like getting out of the house and going someplace where there were people. If Paige was trying to fix her up, maybe the guy would be someone interesting. If Paige was not trying to matchmake, Dayne would have the pleasure of visiting with friends for an evening instead of watching reruns.
And if the jerk called back, he'd get the machine.
She dialed Paige's number. "Paige . . . I'm on my way over—but don't let Mike throw the steak on the grill just yet. I think this time I want it still kicking a bit."
When she hung up, the thought that the person leaving the messages might actually be watching her recurred. She considered options; she had the apartment about as burglar-proof as she could make it. There were deadbolts on both doors and all the windows were pinned—but she might need some security measures available to her when she answered the door. She was strong for her size, and fast—but she was also five-feet-nothing and she weighed ninety-seven pounds. She couldn't rely on strength. Instead, she'd have to rely on leverage—just like in nursing. Her eyes narrowed. Just like in everything, really.
She ran upstairs and rummaged around until she found both of her old baseball bats. She'd been on the hospital softball team for a couple of years, and had spent more than a little time practicing.
She rested one bat behind each door. That would do for a start.
She pulled a couple of spare canisters of pepper gas out of her kitchen junk drawer and put one of those near each door, too. Pepper gas was nasty stuff, better than mace or tear gas or ammonia-water or anything else she knew of for stopping attackers, either two- or four-legged. With her apartment armed, she found some jeans and a rugby shirt and her presentable sneakers, and jogged out the door with a third canister of pepper gas tucked inconspicuously into her front jeans pocket. She looked at her watch as she got into the car—nine P.M. already. Pretty late for dinner, she thought. She hoped Paige and Mike had been serious about staying up.
She was halfway to her destination when something big and red dashed across the road in front of her headlights. It was only where she could see it for an instant—far too short a time for her to identify whatever it had been. She slammed on the brakes, hoping to get a second glimpse . . . the thing had almost looked like someone in a costume, though it had had an animal's shambling, loose-limbed gait . . . but then the eerie feeling that she was being watched made her decide to hurry on.
She arrived at Paige's house still frowning, convinced that what she had seen was wrong somehow.
She wished she'd gotten a better look.