The Damsel in This Dress (2 page)

Betsy had planned to attend the four-day-long Northwest Crime and Punishment Writer’s Conference starting on Thursday in Seattle. She’d have to take the Pidster with her since she couldn’t afford to hire a dog-sitter for that amount of time, and a kennel was out of the question. God knew she needed the time away from work. With or without her mother’s dog in tow, Betsy intended to shove her job firmly into the recesses of her brain for four lovely days.

She loved her job, adored it, but lately things seemed strained, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on why. People were talking about
something
, but they hushed up whenever she got within earshot. Since she’d never done anything out of the ordinary or weird in her life, her coworkers couldn’t possibly be whispering about her. Still, it gave her an uncomfortable feeling, and she was looking forward to a little breather.

Quickly stripping off her clothes, Betsy tossed her lightweight flannel gown over her head then went into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth.

She turned on the faucet then quickly turned it off. Was that a noise? She waited. Nothing. She twisted the faucet a second time, then quickly turned it off again. Yes, there had been a noise, but what was it and where had it come from?

Wiping her hands on a towel, she padded down the stairs. Throughout the house, her drapes were pulled. Nobody could see in. Reaching the kitchen, she snapped off the light, then stood in the gloom and silence, listening. . . .

There!
A high-pitched yelp and then nothing.
Piddle
?

The kitchen door screeched on its hinges as Betsy flung it open and snapped on the back porch light. She wrapped her arms around her waist against the chill and searched the landscape with narrowed eyes.

Beyond the meager reach of the porch light, her quest was useless. Night fell quickly and completely this time of year, turning the lovely yard into unknown territory filled with shifting black shapes and foreboding shadows.

Though she couldn’t see much at the moment, Betsy knew the yard itself was deep and wide, graced here and there with trees. An ancient willow filled the back corner, its long leaves turned yellow by an early frost. A few tall firs, dark and pungent, stood sentry around the perimeter. Several rhodies marched in a line against the back fence, and old roses—pink, cream, gold, their blooms fading as they succumbed to the change of seasons—hugged the back of the house near where she stood.

Now, the atrium lay in shadows. All was still. Not so much as a leaf fluttered, and yet Betsy had the distinct feeling she could hear, or feel, the pulse of movement. Breathing.

She sensed that eyes were fixed on her, but from where, she couldn’t tell.

A mournful whine rose from the area of her feet, and she gasped and instinctively took a step back.

Piddle? What the—

The Chihuahua lay on his side on the porch, all four legs thrust stiffly away from his body. His chest heaved with labored breaths and his huge eyes stared helplessly into hers. He looked like a large paralyzed rat with a red collar.

Betsy quickly stooped and picked him up, then slammed and locked the back door.

Snapping the kitchen light back on, she examined every inch of him. He appeared unhurt, but something was definitely wrong. He seemed more shaky than usual. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he’d been traumatized.

Whimpering, he thrust his face under her arm and tried to burrow as far in as he could get, a featherless, bonsai ostrich hiding his head in the sand.

It was then she saw what was bothering him.

She reached out and warily touched the piece of paper tucked tightly under his collar. Pulling it out, she absently set Piddle on the floor and unfolded the paper.

HEY DIDDLE-DIDDLE,

I COULD HAVE NAILED PIDDLE

BUT I DIDN’T DO SUCH

’CAUSE I LOVE YOU SO MUCH

OR DO I?

Betsy’s heart skipped a beat while her breath caught in her throat. She lay the paper on the kitchen counter, and fumbling for a chair, sat down and stared at the scrap.

Her gaze moved warily to the back door. Should she open it to see who was out there?

Immediately her common sense shouted,
Hell no! What a stupid idea!

The more she stared at the paper, the faster her heart raced. A lonely woman in a lonely house living a lonely life should be thrilled that somebody loved her. Except it was plain he didn’t love her.

Quite the contrary.

Officer Sam Winslow looked like a million bucks: tall, an all-American type with brown eyes, dark blond hair, a cleft in his chin, the works. Betsy held Piddle close to her chest as Officer Winslow completed his paperwork.

He grinned. Straight, white, perfect teeth. Inwardly, Betsy sighed with longing. It was a pleasure just to look at the man.

“Now, Ms. Tremaine—” he began.

“That’s
Miss
,” she corrected, trying not to appear too obvious.

“Ah, yes, then
Miss Tremaine
. You’re certain, ma’am, that you have no idea who could have written this note?” The note in question now resided in a small plastic evidence bag he held in his large clean hand.

Betsy shook her head. “No, sir.”

Winslow grinned again. “You don’t have to call me sir.”

“You called me ma’am.”

“Yes,” he said through a sheepish grin. How charming. “We’re supposed to do that. As a courtesy. Ma’am.” He grinned again as he tossed the evidence bag into his leather case. Betsy slid a glance to his left hand as he snapped the lock shut.

No wedding ring. Should she tell him now that she wanted to have his baby, or should she wait until she knew him better?

She wiped the silly grin off her face before he turned back to her. All he would see now was a serious young woman of medium height, with a plain face but rather good complexion, hazel eyes, short, chunky-cut blond hair, shoulders that were too square, a bust just a tad too full, a slim waist, and her grandmother’s thighs.

Like a mental ticker tape, her mother’s sad-but-true appraisal of her deficiencies ran yet again through her head.

You’ve got an hourglass figure, dear. Men hate hourglass figures. Look at movies and TV if you don’t believe me. Sleek and toned, lots of muscle, small breasts, long legs, trim hips. You do have good teeth, though.

Good teeth? Who did her mother think she was, Trigger?

Officer Winslow stood. Betsy rose, too, subtly pulling her pink sweater down over her hips. She’d changed back into her jeans and a top after phoning the police, and now wished she’d stayed in her nightgown. At least it covered her body, including those damned hips, from neck to toe.

“It looks like our guys have finished in your backyard,” he said. “I’ll get in touch with you if anything turns up on the note. I doubt we’ll find any prints on it besides yours, but you never know.”

“You never know. Right.” Betsy smiled. She absently wound a short curl around her finger then let it go and shoved her hand into her pocket when she realized she had come very close to being coy. “Do you think I’m in danger, Officer Winslow?”

The lawman stopped in the doorway. His shoulders were so broad, she couldn’t see past him to the street. He looked . . . heroic. Or was it just that she was . . . desperate.

“Read the literature I left for you. It’ll give you some tips on keeping yourself safe. Also,” he said, granting her another perfect smile, “we’ll increase the neighborhood patrols for a while. Oftentimes, a visible police presence is enough of a deterrent, but, well, we’ll see. I don’t want to scare you, but I do want you to be aware.”

He reached down to pat Piddle on the nose, but the dog took offense and growled. Officer Winslow’s smile stayed frozen in place. “Uh, nice dog.”

“No he isn’t.”

Piddle sneezed.

As one of Port Henry’s finest walked back to his patrol car, Betsy couldn’t help but notice the man’s empyrean body.

Empyrean!
What a stupid word. It meant ideal, sublime. She knew because she’d been forced to look it up. J. Soldier McKennitt had used it to refer to somebody in his book, and now she couldn’t get the damn word out of her head.

Empyrean
. Well, if it meant perfect, Winslow surely was that all right. He slid behind the wheel, gave Betsy a smile and wave, then drove down her quiet, tree-lined street and out of sight.

“He works out,” she confided to Piddle. “He wouldn’t want a woman who doesn’t work out, I’ll bet.” With a man like Winslow, hourglass figures wouldn’t do. He was buff; he would want buff.

Against the now late evening chill, Betsy closed and locked her front door. In the Olden Days, she thought as she meandered toward the kitchen, men courted women for their ability to cook a good meal, keep a clean house, raise healthy kids, plow a straight furrow, milk a cow single-handed. Nowadays, you could cure cancer on Monday, climb Everest on Tuesday, solve world hunger on Wednesday, but unless you had a perfect body, a sexy guy like Sam Winslow would never give you a second glance.

The hunky cop had instructed her to keep her doors and windows bolted, her drapes closed, and her eyes and ears open. Whether he found her interesting or not was the least of her problems.

She was being stalked. Maybe. She wanted to go deeply into denial, but that wouldn’t make the situation go away. As much as she hated the very idea, she was going to have to behave like a crime victim, because the simple fact of the matter was, she
was
a crime victim. Well, maybe.

In the blink of an eye her orderly life had changed, and she had to respond accordingly. To ignore the warnings could mean her life. Or not. Only if she really
was
being stalked.

The urge to dismiss the whole thing was overwhelming. Gosh, she thought, maybe she was just turning this little molehill into a mountain. Perhaps the note was intended for Mrs. Banes next door. Sure, Mrs. Banes was an eighty-five-year-old widow, but you never knew who had the hots for whom. Maybe some old gent at the Port Henry Senior Activity Center had designs on her.

Besty nibbled on her lip. She didn’t know who, she didn’t know why. But someone had come secretly into her backyard and terrorized her dog. By mistake? Well, the note he’d left her was now being analyzed at the county crime lab.

She shuddered when she recalled pulling the back door open without turning on a light or even checking to see if someone was out there. As a woman living alone, she should have known better than that.

Betsy looked down at Piddle. “As my Canine in Shining Armor, I trust you will protect me if and when the time comes?”

The dog’s luminous eyes stared into hers. He looked guilty. But then, he always looked guilty. His long lashes fluttered nervously, his wet nose twitched.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Betsy went into the kitchen and opened the pantry door. The brass knob felt cool and smooth in her fingers.

“Hm,” she said, leaning down to pick up the dog. “Just like Old Mother Hubbard who went to her cupboard to fetch her poor dog a bone . . . although why she kept bones in the cupboard, we have no way of knowing.” Piddle burrowed deep under Betsy’s armpit and began quaking hard enough to register on the Richter scale.

“A little something to settle the nerves, I think,” she mumbled as she pulled a dust-covered bottle of Jack Daniel’s from the depths of her spice shelf. “My nerves, not yours.”

It took concentration to keep her fingers from trembling as she unscrewed the cap with one hand, but she managed it.

For a moment she considered calling her best friend just to hear a reassuring voice, but after checking the time, Betsy realized Claire would still be at the hospital. And, after all, what was happening to her wasn’t exactly an emergency, so interrupting her doctor friend’s rounds would be a selfish thing to do.

Splashing an ounce or two or three into a tumbler, she added Coke and a few ice cubes.

“It’s probably not a good idea to drink too much of this stuff on an empty stomach,” she said to her companion, “but I’m too freaked out to stay totally sober.”

Fortifying herself with a gulp from her glass, she went through the house to her desk once again and plopped into the vintage chair. Setting Piddle on the floor, she straightened and took another swallow of the fizzy drink.

Who had written her the note? And for God’s sake,
why
?

Visions of some sicko with gnarled, hairy knuckles scratching out those horrible words made a chill creep up Betsy’s spine. She had to leave in four days for the conference. Would her house be okay while she was gone? Perhaps she could get Carla or Dave from work to keep an eye on the place for her over the long weekend?

Did
he
know her routine? Would
he
follow her into Seattle? Maybe she should buy a gun.