Until You

She thought again of Monsieur Delain. She could still go down and wake him. She had plenty of time to get out; she was barely inside the apartment and...

Get out? What for?

She was in her own home. She was completely safe. There had never been so much as a break-in here. Never. There was the bolted gate. The heavy, locked front door. There was Madame, standing guard like a short-tempered lioness.

But not at this hour.

So what? There was still the gate and the locked downstairs door. And this door, the one to her apartment, had not been tampered with. Surely, if someone had broken in...

"Stop it," Miranda said firmly, and she walked briskly through the inky shadows and reached for the lamp she knew stood a few feet away.

Light, soft and warming, flooded the foyer. In its glow, she could see that everything was just as it was supposed to be, even Mia, blinking her great sapphire eyes as she looked up from a corner of the white sofa.

Miranda laughed shakily and let out a gusty sigh. She dropped her cape and her purse on a chair and scooped the Siamese into her arms.

"Naughty girl," she crooned, rubbing her face against the cat's chocolate brown fur, "why didn't you come to say hello?"

The cat meowed and butted its head against Miranda's chin.

"Are you angry because I've been gone so long? Well, suppose I open a can of tuna, hmm? No cat food for you to—"

The Siamese hissed, dug its claws in hard, then leaped to the floor and took off running.

"Mia!" Miranda rolled her eyes. The only thing more temperamental than a woman, Jean-Phillipe had once said, was a cat—and he was right.

"Mia," she said sternly, "it's late and I've had a long day. The last thing I'm in the mood for is a game of Siamese hide-and-seek!"

Mia skidded down the parquet-floored hall towards the bedroom. Her sinuous, chocolate-tipped tail disappeared around the half-open door just as Miranda reached it.

"For heaven's sakes, cat, what's gotten into—"

Oh God!

The blood in her veins seemed to freeze. The faint light from the street cast an eerie illumination over a room that suddenly didn't seem to be hers.

What had happened here? The bed was rumpled. The closet was open and clothing lay strewn over the floor. The doors of the cherrywood armoire were open, too, and her silk and lace underwear was spilling out of the top drawers.

Someone had been here.

Here, in her apartment.

In her bedroom.

Someone had been here and whoever it was had lain on her bed, had taken her clothes from the hangers, had handled her panties and bras...

The doorbell rang.

She spun around, her skin icy with fear.

Who would come calling at this hour? No one had rung the courtyard bell. You had to ring the bell, unless you had a key to the gate. And no one had a key to that gate, except for her.

And Jean-Phillipe.

Yes. It could be him. Jean-Phillipe could have come back.

She'd told him to go home, that it was too late for a drink but so what? This wouldn't be the first time he'd decided to ignore her saying something like that.

The bell rang again.