Low Pressure

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“A friend? Someone who could come—”

“No.”

“Then call the police.”

“You want to call them, you call. You can deal with them. I won’t be here.” She pushed him aside and made her way back into the hall. “I’ll be at my parents’ house.”

“That idea gets my vote. You’d be crazy to stay here alone. But wait an hour. Let the police come—”

“No. I want to make the drive before the storm gets here.”

“It’s not coming here.”

She glanced toward the window. “It may.” She leaned down to retrieve her shoulder bag from the floor, where she’d apparently dropped it when she came in. She hauled the strap onto her shoulder. “You still haven’t told me why you followed me home.”

“To return your lousy book.” He pointed toward the console table where he’d left it. Then he moved his boot through a heap of torn pages. “Seems somebody else likes it even less than I do.”

She was about to speak, but faltered and looked away from him, then turned abruptly and opened the front door.

Dent reached beyond her shoulder and pushed the door shut. She came around angrily, but he was the first to speak. “This is about the book. Right?”

She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. Her expression said it all.

“You’re good and truly spooked, aren’t you?”

“I—”

“Because you know as well as I do that this wasn’t a teenager’s prank.”

“I know nothing of the kind.”

“What else would you have to be sorry for? You wrote that book, and it made somebody real unhappy.”

“I never said—”

“Unhappy enough to threaten you, and you’re taking that threat seriously. I know that because you’re scared. Don’t deny it. I can tell. So what’s going on? What gives?”

“What do you care?”

“Call me a nice guy.”

“But you’re not!”

There was no arguing that. For seconds they glared at each other, then her head dropped forward and she kept it bowed for several moments. When she raised it, she brushed back a strand of hair that had shaken loose from her ponytail.

“Dent, I’ve had a perfectly rotten day. First I had to encounter you, when you were so obviously hostile and rejecting of any olive branch. I had to stand by, uselessly, in that cancer ward and watch my dad, whom I love more than anyone in the world, suffer untold pain and indignity.

“I didn’t want to leave him, but he invented a business matter that needs to be dealt with tomorrow morning as soon as the offices open. But the real reason he sent me back was to spare me having to see him like that.

“Then, during the flight home, I had to talk myself out of having a full-blown panic attack, which was not only terrifying, but humiliating because you were there to see it. I got home to find my house wrecked, and then you showed up and started giving me grief. I’ve had it. I’m leaving. You can stay, or leave, or go to hell. It makes no difference to me.”

On her way out she flicked a master switch that turned off every light in the house, leaving Dent in the dark.

Ray Strickland was a man better avoided, and he worked at making himself appear so.

He had come by his mean countenance naturally, but he had developed mannerisms to match his appearance. A thick, low brow formed a perpetual scowl that kept his dee