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“At home.”
“I’ll come pick up BooBoo now.”
“Thanks,” Jaine said, relieved that worry was taken off her hands.
Next she called Luna and T.J. at work, and did the three-way calling thing. They fussed over her, too, and she could hear the underlying knowledge in their voices that it could have happened to them. As Jaine had expected, they loved the idea of a wake for Marci. Luna immediately volunteered her apartment, and the time was set. She gave them her cell phone number, too.
“I have something to tell both of you,” T.J. said, keeping her voice low. “But not while I’m here.”
“Come by when you get off work,” Jaine said. “Luna, can you make it?”
“Sure. Shamal called again, but I’m not in the mood to go out with him, not with Marci—” She stopped, and audibly swallowed.
“You shouldn’t go out with him anyway,” Jaine said. “Remember what Sam said: family only. That means no dates.”
“But Shamal isn’t—” Luna stopped hersel
f again. “This is awful. I can’t be certain, can I? I can’t take the chance.”
“No, you can’t,” T.J. said. “None of us can.”
No sooner had Jaine hung up from talking with her friends than the phone rang. Al’s name and number popped up in the little window. She picked up the phone and said, “Hi, Shelley.”
“You finally got Caller ID,” Shelley said. “Listen, I think we should call Mom and Dad.”
“If you want to tell them I’m getting married, fine, though I’d rather do it myself. But don’t even think about telling them to come home because of this crazy guy.”
“This crazy guy is a killer, and he’s after you! You don’t think they would want to be here?”
“What could they do? And I don’t intend to let him get me. I’m having an alarm system installed, and I’m staying with Sam. Mom and Dad would just be worried, and you know how Mom has looked forward to this vacation.”
“They should be here,” Shelley insisted.
“No, they shouldn’t. Let them enjoy this. You think I’d let a crazy guy stand between me and my wedding? This one is going to go through if I have to hog-tie him and drag him to the altar. Or whatever,” she added, remembering that it wasn’t going to be a church wedding.
“You’re trying to distract me, and it isn’t working. I want to call Mom and Dad.”
“I don’t, and it’s my situation, so what I say goes.”
“I’m going to tell David.”
“You may tell David, but no one, absolutely no one, is to tell Mom and Dad. Promise me, Shel. No one in your family, no one in David’s family, neither friend nor foe, is to tell Mom and Dad about this. Or send them an express letter. Or a telegram, E-mail, or any other form of communication, including skywriting. Have I covered all the bases?”
“I’m afraid so,” Shelley said.
“Good. Let them enjoy their vacation. I promise I’ll be careful.”
Sam got a call from Laurence Strawn early in the afternoon. “I’m leaving myself wide open for a lawsuit for invasion of privacy,” he said. “But a court order would take time and might alert the guy, so to hell with it. If this gives you an edge, then it’s worth a hundred lawsuits.”
Sam definitely liked this guy.
“Check your E-mail,” Strawn continued. “It’s a hell of an attachment, it will probably take quite a while to download.”
“That was fast.”
“Ms. Yother has incentive,” said Strawn, and hung up.
Sam turned to his computer and downloaded his E-mail. When he saw how many Ks of RAM the attached file took, he winced. “I hope I have the memory,” he muttered, then clicked on the attachment and opened the file.
