I'VE NEVER BEEN SO HAPPY TO BE HOME. IT'S EARLY, only ten o'clock but I head right upstairs. I brush my teeth until my gums bleed, and then I rinse until I can no longer taste the blood. I strip off my clothes and climb into bed. I lie there, covers pulled up to my chin, trying to make sense out of the day. How could things have gotten so crazy? What happened to me at Avery's? How did Sandra make it happen?

I think about Frey's book. Maybe the answers I need are in that damned chapter seventeen-the one I haven't yet read. I start to get up, to get it, when I realize I've left it at the office. Damn. I don't have the energy to get out of bed and drive back to the office.

A car alarm shrieks. I jump at the noise, sitting straight up in bed. Has Sandra followed me here?

Then I collapse back into the pillows. Damn it. It's out on Mission, not the alley in back of my house, and it's certainly not my car, locked in the garage.

Locked.

Did I lock the doors downstairs? The windows?

Frantic drumming starts again in my chest.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I throw off the covers, no longer wanting to sleep. I grab my purse and dump the contents on the floor. Start shuffling through the contents.

There it is.

I snatch up my phone and dial the number printed on the card in my hand.

Please let him be home.

"Hello?"

"Lance. It's Anna. What are you doing right now?"

There's a lilting laugh. "Coming to see you?"

I release a pent-up sigh of relief. "How soon can you get here?"

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