Come and Find Me A Novel of Suspense - By Hallie Ephron Page 0,1

reminder.

“Shut up, all of you!” Diana screamed. She hit a button to silence the Klaxon. But there was no button to slow her heartbeat or erase the sick feeling that had invaded her gut.

She turned back to the video monitor. At the front door, the deliveryman peered up at the camera from under the brim of his cap. She recognized his face. Wally. She’d never caught a last name.

Through the speaker came his voice: “Package for ya.”

She knew that her house appeared to be empty; every shade was drawn and the car that she hadn’t driven for months, Daniel’s Hummer, was locked in the garage. Soundproofing kept what little noise she made inside from leaking out. If it had been anyone else, she wouldn’t have answered the ring. But Wally would know she was there. She never wasn’t.

Diana sighed and pulled over a microphone. “Hey, Wally. Whatever it is, can you just leave it for me in the bin?”

“Come on, Lady Di,” came his tinny voice. “This one needs you to sign.”

She hesitated. Glanced at the clock. She had a few minutes yet before her meeting. But time wasn’t really the issue.

“You can sign it for me, can’t you? I’ll never tell,” she said.

“I’m not going down for forgery just so’s you don’t have to take a breath of fresh air. It’s a beautiful day, trust me.”

But could she trust herself?

She watched Wally in the fish-eye lens. He was holding the package over his head, showing it to her. “Hey, you ordered it. Did you think it was going to transport itself inside? You just let me know when you’re ready.”

She stood, exasperated, knowing from past experience that he wasn’t going to give up. “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

She left her office, pulling the door shut behind her, and continued through the living room and on to the front hall. Heart pounding, she peered through the peephole in the door. Wally’s eyeball seemed to bulge back at her.

“Anyone else out there?” she asked.

“Uh, hang on, I’ll check . . .” He withdrew from the eyehole for a moment. Then returned. “Nope, just me. The duke and duchess send their regrets.”

A comedian. Diana swallowed a nervous laugh and patted her pocket, feeling for her Xanax, her magic tranquillity pills.

She threw two dead bolts, removed the security bar, and entered a twelve-digit pass code into the alarm. As she opened the door, she felt as if an abyss opened in front of her, like an elevator door sliding open into an empty shaft. She grasped the door frame with both hands.

Wally flashed her a crooked-toothed grin. He was well over six feet, and looked as if his arms and legs were made from the limbs of slender saplings. He touched a long index finger to his cap. “You’re lookin’ spruce.”

Diana looked down, taking in her matted furry slippers, sweatpants, and an oversize Smashing Pumpkins T-shirt, black with a silver ZERO printed across the chest. Her face grew warm, and she tried to run her fingers through the tangles in her long dark curls.

“Here you go,” he said. “For Nadia Varata.” He held the clipboard out like bait, just beyond her arm’s reach. “Russian?”

“Pardon?”

“Varata. Sounds like a Czech or Russian name.”

“I guess it does,” Diana said. What it was, was pure nonsense—Varata and avatar were anagrams, just like Nadia and Diana.

The air within the door frame seemed to quiver like the surface of a pond. She’d have to reach through in order to sign.

“Polish?” Wally said. She could almost see the word floating toward her, the P and the O round and buoyant. He waggled the clipboard and called past her. “Yoo-hoo, Nadia! You hiding her in there?”

Diana forced in a breath, leaned forward, and swiped the clipboard from him. It was warmer outside than in, unusually so for March. Another sign of global warming?

The screech of car tires on the street pushed her back. Relief washed away the panicky feeling as soon as she recognized the gold Mini Cooper that had come to a halt behind the UPS van.

Panic flared again—wasn’t Ashley in Los Angeles on business?

Wally turned to look. “Toy car.”

Diana drew back into the dark coolness of the doorway and scrawled a hasty signature on the form.

Ashley climbed out of the car and clattered up the walk on spike heels, bangle bracelets on each arm, heedless of any anxiety her unexpected appearance had generated. She hugged a grocery bag, and her enormous purse swung from her shoulder. In her other hand,