LITMIR.BIZ

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was eager to see Brooke again. Her personality—an impossible combination of fire and ice—fascinated him.

      Not that their relationship could be anything but professional. She was a witness, possibly a victim, and he had to keep his distance. His reason for being here and talking to her was to determine his starting point in this widely disparate investigation. In addition to the anonymous phone calls to Franny, threats had been made to the other women. He needed Brooke’s sensible approach to sort the real from the unreal, ultimately making sense of the situation. And, first and foremost, he needed to locate Layla.

      As soon as he rang the bell, Franny yanked the door open and dived into his arms. After a giant hug—so much for professional distance—she bounced away from him. This young woman was as energetic and enthusiastic as a puppy looking for a pat on the head.

      “Hey there,” she said brightly. “You did a pretty great job of contacting everybody. They all called me, except for Layla.”

      “You said Brooke would know how to find her.”

      Franny grabbed his hand and pulled him into a two-story foyer with a terra-cotta floor and a curved staircase on the right. Compared to the hot weather outside, the house was cool and serene. He felt like he’d walked into a shaded glen in a perfectly organized forest.

      “Those two, Brooke and Layla, are birdies of a feather,” Franny said. “Both really smart and focused and, you know, tidy.”

      He grinned. Franny’s casual description matched Gimbel’s more technical analysis of OCD tendencies brought on by post-traumatic stress. “They like to keep things orderly.”

      “And I make them crazy,” she confided.

      An alarm shrieked, and Franny ran to a keypad near the door, where she punched random numbers. “I forgot to turn it off. Oh my God, that’s loud. Can you help me?”

      Brooke charged into the foyer. “Step away from the keypad.”

      Franny leaped backward as Brooke plugged in the numbers to turn off the alarm. She placed a cell phone in Franny’s hand. “The security people are going to call and ask if we need help. Do you remember what you’re supposed to tell them?”

      “The code words,” she said. “Happy trails to you.”

      “And then?”

      “They’ll tell me to repeat, but this time I’ll say, ‘Hi-ho, Silver, and away.’”

      When Franny left to handle the call from the security service, Brooke turned toward him. “Good afternoon, Special Agent Sloan. You didn’t mention that you were coming over when you called earlier.”

      “I was afraid you’d bar the door.”

      A hint of a smile twitched the corner of her rosebud mouth. If she ever actually laughed, he suspected she’d have dimples. “Given our previous encounter,” she said, “I understand.”

      This was the cool version of Brooke Josephson. Her raging tension was gone, and she appeared to be completely in control, probably because she was at home. Safely tucked away in her lair, Brooke could relax and be comfortable. She was shoeless and bare-legged, wearing an untucked dark blue shirt and knee-length white shorts. Her black hair tumbled loosely to her shoulders.

      Though he could have spent an enjoyable few moments studying her features—the classic nose, sculpted brow, wide forehead and pointed chin—Sloan went straight to business. He reached into the inner pocket of his navy blue blazer and extracted a small spiral notebook. “I know you don’t like to waste time, so I made a list.”

      “Efficient.” She gave a small nod of approval. “Would you like something to drink? Water? Juice?”

      “A glass of water would be fine.”

      Franny bounded back into the foyer and returned the phone to Brooke. “I handled the security call. This is the third time, so I think I’m getting the hang of it.”

      He gave her a smile. “Mind if I ask you a question?”

      “Shoot.” She mimicked a gunslinger doing a fast draw—an image this little pixie couldn’t really pull off.

      “You answered the doorbell as soon as it rang. Were you watching from a window?”

      “We’re way more techie than that.” With a giggle, she picked up a computer tablet that was sitting on a rectangular wooden side table below the staircase. Franny tapped in a code and showed him a screen divided into four separate video feeds. “These are live pictures from the three cameras outside the house and the one in the office. I saw you park and watched you walk to the door.”

      “Impressive,” he murmured.

      “The cameras might seem excessive,” Brooke said, “but I work from home, and I have a lot of very expensive electronic equipment to protect.”

      “No need to explain. I like all this tech stuff.”

      “And yet you carry a spiral notebook.”

      Not exactly a subtle put-down. His attempt to bond with her by pretending they shared an interest in electronics had fallen flat. She wasn’t buying it. He stifled an urge to explain his lousy relationship with computers. Giving her too much information gave her an edge, and he needed to stay in charge. An uncomfortable silence filled the entryway.

      “Wow,” Franny said. “There’s some real chemistry between you two. I mean, it’s combustible. And that’s my cue to leave you alone. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”

      He watched her scamper up the stairs to the second floor. “I understand that she’s marching to her own drummer, but I don’t know this tune.”

      “Franny has decided that you and I are some kind of match, and we should start dating. I told her it wasn’t acceptable, not according to the rules.”

      “And I’ll bet she doesn’t care.”

      “Not a whit.”

      He followed Brooke as she bypassed the pristine living room, decorated in earthy Southwestern colors, and went down a corridor to the kitchen. The sleek black cabinets and polished marble countertops were clean and organized. Brooke had her life choreographed down to the smallest detail. “I have a question that isn’t written down in my spiral notebook,” he said. “You and Franny are very different in habit and temperament. How do you put up with her when she stays with you?”

      “We have an agreement,” she said. “No cats are allowed in the house. And her clutter is confined to the upstairs guest bedroom and attached bathroom.”

      “Does she follow those rules?”

      “Not always, but I can’t blame her for living her life the way she wants. Like the clown at the end of the circus procession, it’s my job to follow the Franny parade and sweep up the mess after she rides past on a bejeweled elephant.”

      Her comparison surprised him. In no way did he think of Brooke as a clown. Playing the fool might hint at low self-esteem issues, but he was more interested in her willingness to set aside her own requirements for neatness when it came to someone she loved. She liked order but wasn’t rigid about it.

      She took two blue glasses from the shelf above the sink and filled them with purified water from a pitcher in the fridge. “What’s first on your list?”

      He made a point of consulting his notebook. “When we talked on the phone, you mentioned that your car alarm went off while it was parked in the garage. Now that I’ve seen your security precautions, I’m even more curious about how that could happen.”

      “I don’t know.” She stood behind the center island and slid the glass toward him. “I checked at the time. Nothing had fallen and bumped the SUV. All locks were secure.”

      “Did your cameras pick up any sign of an intruder?”

      She shook her head. “The only explanation I’ve

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