Tall, Dark, and Deadly by Heather Graham

Author:Heather Graham [Graham, Heather]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781453233702
Publisher: Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller
Published: 2012-09-15T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

SHE LET IT GO, waiting for the answering machine to pick up.

It wouldn’t be him again, she told herself. Teddy had informed her once that hundreds of people received obscene and threatening phone calls every day. There was little the police could do about it, not unless they got persistent, not unless …

The machine picked up. She heard Rowan’s voice.

“Sam, are you all right? Did you just call here? Damn, Sam, answer me, are you all right? Hell, I’ll be going insane here all night worrying.”

It was the sound of his voice as well as the exaggerated quality of the last that caused her to pick up the phone.

“Hello!” She knew she was breathless.

“Sam?”

“Yes, yes, of course. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong. I had just thought that … did you just call here?”

“Did I just call there?” Sam said. “No! Did you just call me?”

“No. Yes. I mean, I just called now, and I’m talking to you, but I didn’t call before. Why? What’s wrong there?”

With him on the phone, she didn’t feel quite so scared. In fact, she felt her warmth coming back, and her anger. His voice could do that for her.

It had been a prank call. A call made just to scare her. Someone angry with her? A random number?

“Nothing. Nothing at all. Just a silly prank. Why were you so worried about me?”

“I don’t know. I just … I don’t know.” He was quiet for a minute. “Have you ever considered buying a German shepherd or a rottweiler?”

She laughed. “No. I like dogs—I just work a lot.”

“Really? Lacey made it sound like you were Ma Kettle, always at the good old homestead. Well, except for those wild nights when you’re at strip clubs.”

“How amusing. Well, Lacey is wrong. And she should have never said such a thing. It’s her mother who spends half her life dragging me from place to place,” she said before thinking. Then she winced. It was probably painfully clear that she didn’t lead a very exciting life, not by jet-setting, club-hopping standards, that was for sure.

“I think I should come over.”

“No! I don’t think that would be wise.”

“I’m not worried about being wise.”

“You’re really not far from me at all, you know.”

“Neither was Marnie.”

Neither of them chose to correct the grammatical tense.

“You can just think of me as a large rottweiler,” he said.

She hesitated. She wanted to hang up on him. She wanted to say thanks, that he’d been decent, but he was out of her life, she was moving forward, and she never wanted to see him again.

But it wasn’t true.

And if she hung up on him, she’d be awake all night. Awake, and afraid. And then she might find herself calling him back. That would be worse.

She sighed as deeply as she could without being overly dramatic. “All right, fine, but I don’t understand why you’re so worried.” She hesitated. “I mean, you really are worried. Not just …”

“Hungry?” he queried softly.

“Rowan—”

“I am worried.”

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you when I get there.”

“All right.

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