Bump in the Night

by Lara Zielinsky
© 2008

Prologue

Clunk. Thwap. Dukka-dukka-thump.

The lone occupant of the four-poster bed on the small rental home's second floor sat bolt upright in bed, scrabbling for the bedside lamp to illuminate the room.

The low lumens bulb cast the blonde woman in half-light as she stared at the ceiling, trying to imagine what on the third floor above she had neglected to secure against the Colorado winter winds. This was the fourth time she had been disturbed, and after the third time up the stairs, she was certain she had latched every last window and door tightly, using either the built-in catches, or, in one case of a warped shutter, twine.

She hadn't thought the winds up here would be so strong to break it, but perhaps she had been wrong.

Reaching for her robe laying across the foot of the bed, Annabelle decided to check one last time. Turning to the edge and stuffing her toes into the bunny slippers along the bedside, she finally slid from the bed and padded across the woven Native American rug to the bedroom door.

The door handle jiggled before she could touch it. Abruptly more thumps sounded as if someone was running away from the very same door.

With a scream, and a gasp, Annabelle grabbed the fireplace poker and snatched open the door. At the top of her lungs she yelled, "Who's there?"

More thumps and bumps, as if on the steps, followed her call. Then there was a tinkling, and the slam of a door.

Had her intruder just run out the front door into the night? Annabelle darted back into her room, slammed the door shut and grabbed the bedside telephone, dialing 9-1-1. "Help!"

Chapter 1

Stepping out of Darters, a centrally located eatery on High Street near the center of town, a petite figure looked around once and tucked the prized Thermos under her left arm. The heat from the fresh coffee within warmed her even through her heavy blue-black lined windbreaker jacket. Each shoulder bore the decal of the City of Lyons Police Department. A thin-boned hand pulled a policeman's cap tightly down over dark locks illuminated with mahogany by the flashing neon sign of the establishment.

A voice suddenly barked through the still open doorway. "Clare!" Thinking that it was going to be followed by a demand that all the heat not be let out, the aforementioned Clare -- "Kinkead" to be giving surnames, stepped away and let the door slam shut as she started toward her car.

Just as she was reaching for the door handle of her black-n-white Crown Vic, Darters door slammed open again, a breathless curly-headed blonde with a dark green apron over a stout figure shouted, "Clare!"

"Yeah, Sophie?"

"Call from the office. A disturbance has been reported at the Brinker place."

Clare sighed. "What sort of disturbance?"

Sophie shrugged. "What's a 10-12?"

A break-in? Clare threw her Thermos onto the passenger seat and bolted into the driver seat. In a flash her sirens and engine were on as she turned westward on High Street, driving to the lonely road on the outskirts. She was certain Bobby Brinker, a retiree, was down in Florida with his wife and grandkids. Who was up there to report a break-in?

Turning onto Palmer Drive, she noticed two lights in the distance, and as she drew nearer, she quickly flipped off the siren. They were both on inside the Brinker house.

As she pulled her squad car to a stop in the driveway, the light on the third floor went out, the one on the first floor remained on, suddenly backlighting a woman standing in the flung open front doorway.

Clare took stock of the situation. The young woman before her looked to be in bedclothes, slippers on her feet and a fleecy robe squeezed tightly against her person. This must be her caller. "Did you call in a disturbance, ma'am?"

She didn't recognize the woman, noting quickly blonde hair she tugged out of her eyes as the cold wind snapped around the house and caught her off guard. She ducked quickly back into the doorway. "My name's Annabelle."

Clare approached cautiously but quickly. As she attained the top of the front porch steps, she asked, "Are you the resident here?" Clare looked for signs of lying as the woman answered.

"I'm the renter here until March. Mr. Brinker is in Miami."

Nodding at the straightforward and easily verifiable answer, Clare took her caution down another notch. "Is your husband inside? I presume he ran off the intruder?"

"I'm not married."

"So you ran the intruder off? Can you tell me anything about what you saw?" Clare reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out her PDA and stylus.

"I didn't see him, her or whatever. I have been through the house top to bottom, but I think they ran off about 10 minutes ago. The door handle to my bedroom jiggled just before I heard running away and out the door."

Clare pulled her flashlight off the clip on the right side of her belt and flashed its illumination around the grounds. "He came right out the front door?" She saw no signs of passage. Her own footsteps were the only things visible back to the cruiser. No snow was presently falling to obscure tracks. She briefly scanned the ground outside the front windows. No marks there either.

She looked past Annabelle into the home. "Can you take me to your bedroom and I will check for other evidence?"

"Of course." Annabelle sighed gratefully as Clare entered and she was able to close the front door firmly against the winter wind. The door chime tinkled as the door was closed. "This way."

Clare paused in following, taking in a quick survey of the front rooms, and the general layout of the home. The first floor's central space was a wide living room going front to back of the house, about two hundred square feet.

On every surface, from the mantle over the handhewn stone fireplace on the west wall, to the matching rustic brown leather sofa, loveseat and recliner, to the polished oak-frame glass coffee table and two sets of floor-to-ceiling inset bookshelves had their contents strewn haphazardly as though a blizzard of paper rather than snow had blown through the house.

Candlesticks had been knocked over on the mantle and the pictures and rug wall hangings, some handmade by Mrs. Brinker herself, were on the floor, or hung by a single askew nail, pulled half-out of the wall.

"What the hell?"

"This is the way I found it when I came down."

"Has anything been taken that you know of?" Even so, how would she be certain in all this mess? Clare thought. She turned to examine the fireplace, noting the poker on the floor, and other tools strewn as the bucket for them had been upended. There was a second poker in the collection. The ashes didn't even glow, but the whole smelled fresh, as if it had only recently been burning.

"Wind blew the fire out around ten p.m. I went to bed rather than restart it."

"So you are alone in the house."

"Yes," Annabelle replied again.

"What makes you sure this wasn't done by wind?"

"I've had every door, every window down here latched tightly since eight p.m. You can check them. Except for the front door, which I opened for obvious reasons, the rest of the house is sealed tight."

Clare detected the defensiveness in Annabelle's voice and could not decide if it was cover for forgetfulness, or simple fear that her privacy had been invaded.

The likelihood it was wind that had strayed, albeit wildly, through the house was reinforced by the fact that there were no footprints among the soot in front of the fireplace.

"Did you hear or see a car?" Annabelle shook her head. "What rooms appear to be disturbed like this?"

"All of them," Annabelle exclaimed. She started toward the back of the house. Clare glanced up the staircase as they passed it, searching the shadows above for inspiration, or clues, whichever it was willing to provide.

Entering the kitchen behind Annabelle, Clare had to agree this was as much a disaster as the living room.

Whether there were personal items missing or not, Clare felt certain now, someone or something had been through the home. The heavy flour and sugar tins had been knocked off the countertop and their contents lay strewn next to the caved in tins.

She started looking at the destruction for a pattern, a path that she might backtrack to figure out where the intruder had entered.

"Any idea where the intruder came in?"

"I locked up everything."

Clare, who was scanning the windowsill overlooking the small kitchen table in the breakfast nook, angled her flashlight up and saw that the latch on that window, indeed all the windows and the chain lock on the door to the rear yard, were still secured.

There were also no missing panes of glass or broken glass among the debris on the floor.

She turned to see Annabelle reaching into a closet. "Hold it!" The young woman froze. "I want to dust for prints."

Annabelle's response was a look of frustration. Clearly she took her caretaking of the home seriously. "All right. What should I do?"

Clare looked around for an uncovered surface where the other woman might sit down. Surprised she had not seen it before, Clare gestured toward a single miraculously clear stool, right next to the wall-mounted telephone. "Over there," she said. "I'll get the squad here ASAP and we'll work quickly to get out of your hair."

Annabelle sat down, crossing her legs at the ankles and folding her arms across her chest, pinning the robe to the low bodice of her nightgown. Her expression was resigned as she looked over the destruction.

Clare felt bad for her but there was little she could do until they recorded the scene. She started for the front door to get out to the radio in her cruiser. As she passed the bottom of the staircase she heard what sounded like footsteps across the floor above her head.

Sonofabitch! The perp hadn't left yet! Too late she remembered the third floor light which had gone out as she pulled up. Obviously he was on the third floor while the young woman had come down to the first to meet her.

Clare pulled her gun and heard a gasp behind her. A glance showed her Annabelle leaning on the kitchen doorway. She waved the woman to stay back but said nothing.

She gestured with the gun barrel toward the ceiling and started up the stairs, careful to balance her weight and keep her movements silent. She trained the flashlight at the top step, careful not to let the glow go above to the landing.

Her heart pounding in her chest, she tried to remember on which side of the home she had seen the third floor light go out. To the right, she recalled turning that way now that she had attained the second floor landing. She was along on that floor. A door stood partially open at the end of the corridor to the right.

A study of the corridor showed three more doorways, doors fully closed. She had not heard the sound of a latch and while that did not mean the intruder was not in one of the closed rooms, Clare felt it limited the odds.

Another bump on the floor ahead set Clare in motion. Gun leading, she pinned the flashlight along the barrel with both hands. She kicked out forward and jumped back against the wall as she stared into the pitch black darkness beyond.

This room too, with slight moonlight filtering in from the window, was in considerable disarray. She swept the room with gun up, checking the shadowed crevices. She flipped on the wall switch located to the right of the door and went to check the window.

Puzzlement mounted as she found the window firmly latched and again, none of the panes missing or broken.

What the hell is going on here?

The sound of running again sent Clare to the bedroom door. Thankfully she had not led with her gun as she went down in a tumble of legs and arms with Annabelle.

The blond woman was suddenly on top of Clare pawing her. Clare might have been aroused if the woman wasn't also screaming at the top of her lungs, making her ears ring.

"Quiet!" Muscling herself out from beneath the frantic woman, Clare finally clamped her hand over the open mouth, bringing blessed silence.

Annabelle froze again. This time however the adrenaline turned her into a puddle of tears. The floorboards creaked as Clare reoriented herself and pulled the crying woman awkwardly into her arms. She leaned against the bed and spent the next several minutes simply running her hands over the younger woman's back, shoulders and hair. At long last, the crying subsided to quieter sniffles.

Spotting the bedside phone with a clock's luminescent face beside it reporting four-thirty a.m., Clare lifted the phone handset and punched in the station house number.

"Martin, bring yourself, Clar and Boulder CSI out to the Brinker place ASAP," she ordered the gruff smoker's voice that answered.

She returned the phone handset to its cradler and wrapped both arms around the shoulders still shivering against her. "What's your last name, Annabelle?"

"Mellish," came the quiet answer against Clare's chest, the woman's breath warming the skin just above the top of Clare's jacket where it lay open at her throat.

"Well, Annabelle Mellish, I'm not sure if this is a good impression or a bad one, but I'm Clare Kinkead, Lyons Chief of Police."

Chapter 2

"We've been room to room, attic to storm cellar in there, Clare. Not a soul. Helluva mess, but couldn't even find prints on any of the windows, coming or going."

Clare glanced away from Clayton Gerson, giving her his report on the house sweep, to Annabelle Mellish accepting a cup of coffee Clare had sent over herself, through one of the junior officers. Still only dressed in her nightgown and robe, she stood on the front porch of the house, shivering as she talked intensely with one of the CSI who shook his head when she gestured into the home.

"Hey, Lincoln?" Clare put a hand on Gerson's arm to quiet him.

"Yes, Chief?" Lincoln, a junior CSI from nearby Denver, Colorado, looked up at her call.

"Do you have that second floor bedroom bagged and tagged?"

"Done."

"Then I think we can let someone escort Ms. Mellish to at least get something warmer from her closets."

Annabelle looked at her with plain-as-day gratefulness.

"T'ain't no woman to take her up." Lincoln's reply put a frown back on that smooth face.

Clare's offer was out of her mouth before she could think. "I'll take her up." She nodded at the sensibility when it struck her. "You can let Driscoll know I took responsibility."

Clare snapped off her glove and held out her hand, already approaching Annabelle. When the other woman placed her hand into Clare's, the chilled flesh warmed against Clare's quickly. She squeezed it in light reassurance.

The sun was up now, dappling sunshine on the fresh thin layer of snowfall creating a glow in the drifts around the house as they reentered the front door.

Up the stairs, the second floor corridor was flooded with sunlight. Annabelle's breathing slowed noticeably when they reached the bedroom door.

"I'll be only a minute," she said, starting into her bedroom alone.

Clare followed. "I'm sorry," she said when Annabelle stared at her in question. "It's protocol. I have to document anything you move."

"Once you all leave, will I be allowed to clean the place up?"

"Yes."

"Then why, if the bedroom has been completed, can I not do so in there now?"

Clare was surprised by incisive blue eyes dissecting her. That she hadn't thought of that surprised her. She realized she hadn't wanted to let the young woman out of her sight. Protectiveness filled her. But this room was indeed "done." "All right, I'll wait for you right here."

She planted herself in the middle of the corridor. After a brief nod, Annabelle entered her bedroom and shut the door.

From outside the room, Clare listened to the sounds as Annabelle moved around her bedroom. There was a closet's creaky hinge, and the sound of metal sliding against metal as she pushed around clothes on the rack.

The sounds of footsteps followed then there was an abrupt thump. Clare burst into the door.

"Are you all right?"

Annabelle was looking up at her from the floor, having clearly fallen there instead of into the chair she had obviously been aiming for when she started pulling up on the leg of her jeans, which now were bunched at the ankles.

"I'm sorry," Clare said sheepishly. "I've done more to rattle than reassure today."

"It is sometimes hard to imagine you are police chief around here," Annabelle replied. Her partial nakedness apparently unaffecting, she finished pulling up her pants while Clare remained in the room. "That is what you said, right?"

Clare nodded. "I was selected last year."

"Selected? They didn't have elections?"

Clare exhaled. "The previous sheriff was killed in an avalanche last winter. The council decided a promotion rather than an election to fill the position."

Annabelle nodded. "When's the term up?"

"Thinking of campaigning against me?"

"I won't be here that long."

"But you would."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Find my housebreaker and we'll talk."

Clare nodded curtly. "You're pretty used to giving orders."

"Only way to get things done." Annabelle had come to her feet and now stood surprisingly tall over Clare, about half a foot.

"You seem to have recovered from your fright. I think I'll be going now." Clare backed up then turned on her heel headed for the door. She was quite affronted. Maybe she hadn't handled everything expertly, but she would not stand here and be put on the defensive. "Good day, Miss Mellish."

There was no response. Clare chanced a glance over her shoulder to see that Annabelle had returned to crouching on the floor, sweeping papers toward her from where they had scattered off a nearby table.

The long fingered hands hesitated. Clare exhaled. Maybe she could repair the poor first impression. Gingerly she asked, "Would you like a hand with any of this?"

Annabelle's gaze over her shoulder was wary. Clare made no further move, either toward or away from the younger woman. After a long breathless moment where their gazes dueled, Annabelle's chin dropped once then lifted and dropped again in a very tight nod.

Clare pulled off her coat, tossed it onto the bed and immediately went to Annabelle's side. "Tell me where to start."

"I need to get these papers sorted. It's my research. The whole reason I'm up here," Annabelle explained.

"Are they numbered?" Annabelle nodded. "All right then. Why don't you take care of your clothing and the knick knacks. I'll get these papers?"

Annabelle stood. "You know this mess came later than the rest."

Clare looked around. "It did?"

"It was neat when I first called you. It was only after you came in that I found it was like this."

Clare paused in her paper cleaning. "That would mean that someone had either gotten in or been in the house while you and I were downstairs. But no one came or went the entire time we were waiting for the department to show up."

Puzzlement back, Clare turned the problem over and over in her mind as she continued to work with Annabelle to clean the bedroom.

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

The air was crisply cold, barely 20 degrees, when Clare turned her police cruiser once again down the street leading to the Brinker home. It had been sixteen hours since she had left that morning, and in the intervening time, she had frequently considered having dispatch call the house and tell the enigmatic and entrancing Annabelle Mellish that Chief Kinkead was indisposed, caught up in police business to attend.

She wondered what it was about the blonde astronomer that had her thinking up descriptions like "entrancing" and "enigmatic", and trying to skip out on what was probably just a friendly invitation to some stargazing.

Clare pulled the cruiser to a stop at a lonely stop sign within a block of the house, clearly able to see it up on the gradual rise where the road ended. There was no traffic, but she sat for a long moment looking up at the structure, catching its outline against a sky full of crystal clear stars, soft like a blanket ready to enfold it in warmth.

Bonnie had loved stargazing. Out here, she had often said, it was easy to imagine you could touch them. The memory lodged a lump in Clare's throat. She swallowed against it, and lifted her foot from the brake.

Slowly rolling forward, she finished rest of the distance, no more than 300 yards, at a crawl, barely 10 mph. When she finally pulled up to a stop in the driveway and stepped out, she could make out the outline of a figure on the roof deck. The closing of her car door brought the figure to the railing.

"Hellooo!" The figure waved. "Thought you might not make it."

I still might not, Clare thought dazedly as the woman's voice washed over her, making her weak in the knees, a feeling gone from her life she realized for far too long.

"Welcome." Still looking up where the figure had vanished, Clare was startled at how quickly Annabelle had appeared at the front door. "I didn't think you were going to make it."

"I wasn't sure I would either." Clare reached back through the front window to the insulated bag on the center console.

"Did you have a bad day?" Annabelle's question blew warm breath against Clare's face as she stepped past the younger woman into the home's foyer.

"Not particularly." She followed Annabelle into the kitchen. The other woman picked up a steaming mug off the stove top. Clare recognized the smell of warmed milk chocolate.

"Can I get you something?"

"Just a mug. I brought my own." Clare pulled the Thermos out of the insulated bag.

Annabelle pulled a mug down from a nearby cabinet. "I could have made you coffee."

Clare shrugged. "I carry it with me everywhere I go. Never know when you'll get stuck somewhere."

"Do you get stuck often?"

"Not really. I've got the plow fitting for the cruiser's bumper, and just about anything needed to pull her out of anything else in the trunk." Clare finished filling the mug and set the Thermos on the counter. "How long have you been up there already tonight?"

"I haven't gone up yet. C-451 didn't rise until five minutes ago."

"Haven't gone up?" Clare's brow knitted in confusion. "Oh. Well. Let's go then."

"Let me get my jersey." Clare waited while Annabelle stopped at a small closet at the foot of the third floor steps and pulled on a long sleeve white sweatshirt emblazoned with the logo for the Arizona Cardinals football team. Pulling the ends of her hair free from the collar, she turned to Clare. Again the proximity as Clare had been clearly following too closely blew the woman's warm breath across Clare's face. "Oops. Sorry," Annabelle said as Clare quickly backed up.

"Are you going to be warm enough?" Clare herself was in a long sleeve uniform top, over a set of long johns, thick socks on her feet, and then covered in her wool uniform pants and her wool lined nylon police jacket.

"This is perfect weather."

"Where're you from, the north pole?"

Clare had meant the comment lightly. Annabelle's wide eyes however suggested that was not how she had taken it. And when she responded, coolly, Clare understood why. "I am from north of the Arctic Circle. I was born in Sitajaurestugan, Sweden." When Anna said the name of her hometown, Clare caught the faint Swedish accent.

"Oh."

"So it was not quite the north pole," Annabelle finished.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."

"You didn't. You just startled me."

"That's good." Clare smiled, hoping to get Annabelle to smile back, to break the awkward moment of her gaffe.

Annabelle turned away instead and Clare had to follow her up in silence to the rooftop. The wind was brisk on top of the home, but Annabelle was methodical and business-like as she went about her preparations on the telescope. Clare sipped her coffee, watching Annabelle all but abandon her own cocoa on a small table. She was bending down to the eyepiece after checking the data port to the laptop when Clare decided to bring her the cocoa.

"You should finish this," Clare said.

"Thank you." Annabelle lifted her face from the eyepiece and accepted the mug. Clare watched her long fingers wrap around the ceramic. Annabelle took a sip then tipped her head back and stared up at the sky directly overhead. "How many constellations can you find?" she asked.

Clare blinked, having been surprised to find her eyes traveling over the long throat instead of the sky. "Um, probably just the major ones. Big Dipper, North Star, Orion..." She looked up at the sky trying to pick one out. "Bonnie was the expert in our family."

"Bonnie is your sister?"

"Bonnie was..." Clare dropped her gaze from searching the sky, surprised she had mentioned the name aloud. Annabelle's gaze steadily met hers and Clare found herself speaking again, honestly. "Bonnie was my partner for fifteen years."

"Your police partner?"

Clare shook her head. "I guess it's all right now to just say it, half the states have legalized what we had anyway, though Colorado never did and we never did anything..." Clare shook herself. "Bonnie was my life partner, my wife, though we never talked about it like that."

"Ah." Annabelle nodded but said nothing else.

The two women, both bemused by revelations so far that evening, turned their faces back up to the stars, and Annabelle started pointing out the constellations, giving the scientific names for the component stars as she went along.

At long last she pointed out the object of her research, C-451, sitting just above a mountain silhouette. In reaching out together with their eyes to the same sections of sky, the two women had moved closer together, so that Clare could sight along Annabelle's fingers. With C-451 sitting just off the tip of Annabelle's left hand first finger, Clare found her head gently touching Annabelle's right shoulder, and her left fingers brushed Annabelle's right wrist. Desire suddenly started to uncoil in the pit of her stomach.

The sensation was startling in that she had just been thinking and talking about Bonnie. She missed her partner, she thought. Sometimes more than others. Clearly her comfort around Annabelle, and the ease with which she had revealed herself to the young stranger, had tripped Clare's thoughts of Bonnie, with whom Clare had also felt an instant meeting of the minds.

Clare turned her head away from the starry sky and straightened up from the knees, pulling her body away from the intoxicating presence of Miss Annabelle Mellish.

When she turned her head, to politely meet Annabelle's eyes as she spoke, Clare was startled by the Robin's egg even blueness looking back. Like pools of glass, she thought, catching her breath.

Inanely, Clare cast about for something to say, to skip over this moment of awkwardness. "So, it's always been out there. How come no one has documented C-451 before?"

Without missing a beat, clearly willing to talk at length about her research, Annabelle answered, "No one was looking for it."

"What made you look for it?" Clare asked.

"Curiosity," Annabelle answered. "A desire to see something no one else has."

Clare nodded her head. "Finding unique things. That appeals to you?"

"Doesn't it appeal to you?"

What should she say? Clare couldn't think with Annabelle's gaze on her like that. "I guess," she said weakly. Finding the power finally to look away from Annabelle's face, and her unconscious study of the slim refined bone structure and strong nose, Clare shook herself. "It's late. I need to get going if I'm going to be conscious for first shift."

Annabelle dropped her gaze at Clare's words, and nodded. "I... Thank you for coming to my... aid," she said. "And I... appreciated your visit this evening." She gestured toward the door to the interior of the house. "I'll es- show you out."

Clare moved swiftly for the indicated door, aware she needed to get away and clear her head, get some sleep.

Chapter 5

On the fourth step, Clare Kinkead went down in a heap, Annabelle's hands not fast enough this time to catch her. Clare tumbled down the remaining steps and looked up dazed as Annabelle knelt beside her.

"Are you all right?"

"Something hit my foot and turned my ankle," Clare muttered.

Annabelle's hands settled over Clare's, and pushed them aside as she bent to get a good look herself. "I'll help you to a chair and get some ice for that."

Preemptively, Annabelle pulled Clare to her feet, waiting as Clare adjusted her balance, wrapping an arm around the police chief's waist.

Despite the woman's reluctance to touch her, Annabelle found herself wanting to do exactly that. Annabelle knew she was affected by the police chief -- she had never invited someone to go stargazing with her, unless it had been a colleague, and then the dreamy quality in her voice would not have been anywhere present for the invitation.

The police chief was a small woman, but by no means light, obviously packed with muscle, Annabelle realized as she struggled with Clare's help, to get the woman into a chair at her bedroom vanity. It happened to be the nearest one, she assured herself of chaste intentions, surprised where they had ended up once again.

Clare had removed the heavy shoe and thick black sock from her right foot and was examining her ankle closely.

Annabelle had to look away to quell the sultry images clamoring for attention in her mind's eye, seeing herself far too easily replacing Clare's hands with her own. Damn, what is wrong with me?

She sat down on the only other surface, the bed, uneasily. When she looked up Clare was staring at her. Stop it, her mind said. I can't think with you looking at me like that. The auburn-haired woman's expression was rueful.

"I promise you I'm not really this clumsy."

"It was dark on the steps. I'll ask Mr. Brinker if I can have a light installed."

"Are you making excuses for me?"

"It isn't your fault that the stairs aren't well lit. You're only human."

"I'm a cop. We're always expected to be superhuman."

"Do you believe that?" Annabelle asked. "Or do other people say that?"

Clare stopped in her hurried effort to put her shoe back on, clearly drawn up by the comment. "You thought it when we met last night."

"I was scared. I'm sorry."

"I'm used to it."

"Are you?"

Clare exhaled and stopped at the doorway. "No. But it's not your problem; it's mine."

Annabelle stood and crossed the floor, not sure what she would do once she reached Clare Kinkead.

The officer however did not give her the chance. Kinkead was gone down the stairs to the first floor and out the front door before Annabelle reached the railing overlooking her foyer.

Chapter 6

Nearly a week passed without Annabelle hearing or seeing the Lyons police chief. Despite continued rattling and bumping in the home during the night, Annabelle did not call in again to the 911 dispatch. She pushed herself each night up to the third floor balcony and continued the documentation of her starry observations.

Annabelle awoke late each morning, after being up all night, and sipped her tea while reading the paper, remembering Clare and her coffee, and wondering what the police chief thought about the various news stories in the half-sheet community newspaper, Lyons Roar.

Articles about the various goings on in the small town were typical, she thought, noting a rundown of petty thieveries apparently finally solved by the Lyons Police detective unit. She enjoyed the simple pleasures implied by the neighbor-to-neighbor feature articles describing the habits, hobbies, and homes of various Lyons residents. Her own citified upbringing in Washington D.C. left her hungry for such intimate connections. The people here really seemed close. Even to exposing one another's warts. Her eye drifted down to a gossip column. Even the sharpened arrows to various public officials were slung with rueful affection.

The four members of the area's tourism board were zinged for their collective "boneheaded" plan to appropriate a tract long used by locals for the annual fair for a hotel and convention center complex. The lament about breaking up the downtown skyline for such an "eyesore" was followed by a nod to the same board's chairman for advocating that Lyons police department get a double appropriation for hiring four more officers. "If we're going to invite floods of people, Clare Kinkead is going to need all the help she can get."

Annabelle's heart skipped a beat over Clare's name. The columnist went on about Kinkead for another few sentences.

This writer has learned that Chief Kinkead has already had to press volunteers into security duties for the Lyons Holiday Party scheduled for Sunday afternoon.

Chapter 7

Clare stood just inside the ramshackle auditorium's entrance, one eye on the dance space where Clayton Gerson danced with Minnie Buckler, the wife of Lyons Justice of the Peace, Judge Barnaby Buckler. The stocky dark-haired career officer had always had a flair for the schmoozing side of the job hoping he would be the one selected to Chief when her father died.

Mayor Linville Johnson, a lifelong friend of Clare's father, had other ideas. He put Clare's name on the search committee's list. He had expressed to her that Gerson wanted the job "too much." She explained that she didn't want the job at all.

Johnson's reply had made Clare willing to undergo the rigorous public scrutiny, even to having her orientation outed and her every failed case examined:

"Doing this job is in your blood, Clare. If the position were elected you're right that Gerson's charm would win. But the position is appointed for a reason. Lyons' founders did not want a popularity contest to determine their protection. That would have been no better than the Old West when 'he who has the guns makes the rules' ruled the day."

Chapter 8

Time stopped. Clare wasn't even sure she continued to breathe. Lights danced in sparkles in front of her eyes at the moment of contact with Annabelle's lips. Startled, she squeezed a little tightly and heard Annabelle's groan. The huskiness, the pure sensuality, the way the sound shifted her guts and settled with a satisfying fullness in her chest, brought tears to Clare's eyes.

She blinked then. Between the refracting prisms of teardrops, she thought she caught sight, through the crowd surrounding her and Annabelle, of a familiar beloved face.

Bonnie nodded. Clare swallowed and nodded back.

Slowly she tilted her head back, breaking the contact between their lips, and met Annabelle's gaze, surprised, as moved as she was, to see a similar sheen of tears wetting Annabelle's pretty blues.

"Annabelle," she asked gingerly, "What if I told you that I knew who had 'broken in' your home?"

For all that she had been through, Annabelle lived her life firmly in the scientific, firmly rooted in earthly realities. "I want them arrested immediately."

"I can't," Clare shook her head. "That house used to belong to me and my partner, Bonnie Cliveden."

"Surely Bonnie realized when you broke up...?"

"We didn't break up. I moved out of that house... when she died."

Annabelle frowned. Clare nodded as she saw what she was saying was sinking in.

"I don't think Bonnie ever left the house."

THE END

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