Sandra Brown - Low Pressure

She’d capitulated without further discussion, apparently having seen the wisdom of having the break-in on record. Two uniformed officers had arrived a few minutes later. They’d questioned both of them, walked through every room of the house as well as the backyard, poking about. They’d called in another officer to dust for fingerprints. He’d already come and gone.

The questions being put to Bellamy now were similar to those the sheriff’s deputy had asked of Dent earlier at the airfield, the implication being that the vandalism was retribution for something she had done.

“Have you had any cross words with a neighbor? Maid? Yardman?”

She shook her head no.

“Co-worker?”

“I don’t have co-workers.”

One of the policemen looked over at Dent. “You said you followed her home last night?”

“I flew her to Houston and back yesterday. She left something in my airplane. I was returning it to her.”

He nodded and, with one eyebrow eloquently arched, exchanged a meaningful look with his partner. Going back to Bellamy, he said, “We, uh, took the pair of underwear for evidence. Using a personal garment like that to paint the words on the wall… Well, ma’am, it suggests the perpetrator has, uh, intimate knowledge of you.”

“Or he’s read my book.”

One’s face lit up and he snapped his fingers. “I thought you looked familiar. You’re that author.” To his partner, he said, “She’s famous.”

She passed a copy of Low Pressure to the one who hadn’t recognized her. “It’s a murder mystery. Fact based. The victim was my sister. Her underpants became a key element of the investigation.”

“Any idea what was meant by the warning?”

“Isn’t the meaning obvious?” Dent said impatiently. “She’s in danger from this guy.”

Neither officer acknowledged his remark, but one of them asked Bellamy if she’d received similar threats or warnings. She told them about the rat and the break-in of her car.

“Did you report these incidents?”

“No. They were dissimilar. Different states. I thought they were random. But after this, I believe they could all be related, and the common denominator is my book.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Timing, for one thing. Nothing like this happened to me before the book was published. Besides, I can’t think of anything I’ve done to elicit this kind of malice.”

After a considerable pause, and another glance toward Dent, one of them said, “Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with your book. Could someone in your personal life bear you a grudge? An ex-husband? A boyfriend you’ve recently broken off with? Anybody like that?”

Dent was interested to know the answers to those questions himself.

“My ex lives in Dallas,” Bellamy told them. “Our divorce was amicable. He’s remarried. I just moved here from New York. I haven’t been seeing anyone.”

“What about up there?”

“No. Only in the most platonic sense.”

The two exchanged another look and seemed to agree that they had covered everything. “We’ll put your house on a drive-by list. Our patrols will keep a close eye on it. Call us immediately if anything, even the smallest thing, happens.”

“Thank you, I will.”

“You should look into getting an alarm system installed.”

Bellamy told them she would do that, then got up to walk them out. As the officers went past Dent, they tipped their hats, but their expressions didn’t leave him with a warm fuzzy. They left with a promise to report back to Bellamy if their investigation led to an arrest.

“Hell will freeze over first,” Dent said after she closed the door behind them. “But at least there’s a police record of the break-in, and they might’ve lifted his prints. Considering the mess they made, I hope something comes of it.”

He ran his finger through the smudge that had been left on the newel post, then wiped it on the leg of his jeans. “The deputy also dusted my airplane. If this piece of shit is ever arrested, they’ll be able to connect him to both crimes and maybe even to the delivered rat.”

“Maybe we should have told them about your airplane.”

“And get into all that history?” He shook his head.

“I didn’t want to, either.”

“Let them nail a suspect first. Then we can connect the remaining dots for them.”

She folded her arms across her middle and hugged her elbows as she looked up the stairwell in the direction of her bedroom. “I was really coming to like this house. Now it’s been tainted.”

“It’ll clean up. But what about your landlord? Should you notify him?”

“He’s absentee.”

“Out of town?”

“Afghanistan. When he was deployed, his wife went to stay with her folks in Arizona. I leased for a year. I see no need to worry them. I’ll cover the charges.”

He took a business card from his shirt pocket. “The locksmith’s brother-in-law does make-ready cleaning on houses and apartments. Painting included. For a fair price and a signed copy of your book, he’ll have the house looking like new. And I was told that for next to nothing he’ll install an alarm system.”

She took the card. “I’ll call him.”

“First, come into the kitchen.”

“What’s in there? More damage?”

“No. I’m hungry.”

Five minutes later they had assembled a lunch of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and glasses of iced tea. He ripped open a bag of Fritos he’d found in the pantry, and when she declined the chips, he dug in.

Around a bite, he asked, “Any word from Houston?”

“I called Olivia on the drive here. Daddy opted for another round of chemo. They’re clinging to the hope it will do some good.”

“Did you tell her about your house?”

“No, I didn’t want to add to her worry. I did tell her about Van Durbin, though. I hated to, but at least I prepared them. They won’t be caught off guard by his column tomorrow.”

“Tell her about my airplane?”

“No.”

“So, as far as she knows, we parted company after we landed last night.”

“Actually, when I told her about being accosted by Van Durbin, it slipped out that you were with me.”

“Hmm. I wonder which upset her most, knowing that you’d been bushwhacked, or that I was at your side.”

“Don’t be provoking, Dent.”

“I haven’t provoked anything. Yesterday I was completely professional, but your stepmother has always treated me like a turd in the punch bowl, a contaminant, and yesterday was no exception. Not that I fucking care.”

“That’s the very attitude that’s provoking.”

He could’ve said more on the subject of Olivia, but decided against it. The woman’s husband was dying, after all. Besides, he’d never lost sleep over what Olivia Lyston thought of him, and he didn’t intend to. “How’d she take the news about Van Durbin’s upcoming column?”

“Unhappily.” She pinched off a morsel of bread crust and rolled it between her thumb and finger, studying the forming ball of dough. “I can’t say that I blame her for being upset.”

“If you didn’t want to upset your family, you shouldn’t have published a book that aired their dirty laundry.”

She looked at him with asperity. “I told you why I wrote it.”

“Yeah, so you could make a bad period in your life tangible, then wad it up, throw it away, and forget it. Good therapy for you, maybe. But it sucks for everybody else involved. Why didn’t you pour your heart out in a journal, then lock it up and throw away the key, or bury it in the backyard, or drop it into the ocean? Why’d you have to turn your therapy into a best seller?”

Pushing his empty plate aside, he placed his forearms on the edge of the table and leaned across it toward her. “Those of us who lived the story are a bit vexed to find ourselves in your spotlight, A.k.a.”