"He's hot for you, too," T.J. added. "That man wants to jump your bones. Take my word for it."
"Maybe," Jaine said vaguely. She didn't want to discuss how badly her bones wanted to be jumped by him, or how close they had already been to making love. "You don't have to be psychic to know that," Luna told T.J. her tone wry. "He came right out and said so." T.J. laughed. "So he did. He isn't shy, is he?" No, shy was one thing Sam Donovan definitely wasn't. Brash, cocky, arrogant, smart, sexy, sweet those words described him down to his bones. She doubted he had a single shy gene in his body, thank God.
T.J.'s cell phone rang. "It's probably Galan," she said, sighing as she fished it out of her purse. She flipped it open and punched the receive button. "Hello?" Jaine watched as her face turned red. "How did you get this number?" she snapped, and punched the off button. "Bastard," she muttered as she returned the phone to her purse.
"I take it that wasn't Galan," Jaine said.
"It was that creep." T.J.'s voice quivered with anger. "I'd like to know how he got my cell number, because I don't give it out a lot."
"Is there an information for cell numbers, maybe?" Luna asked.
"The account's in Galan's name, not mine, so how would he know I'm the one who carries the phone?"
"What did he say?" asked Jaine.
"The usual 'Which one are you?' crap. Then he said, 'Marci.' Just her name. Damn him, that's a sick thing to do."
Jaine put down her slice of pizza. She was suddenly cold all over, the fine hairs at the nape of her neck standing up. My God, what if those phone calls had something to do with Marci's murder? Maybe it was a stretch, but maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was some weirdo who really, really hated them because of the List, and now he was coming after them one by one She was hyperventilating. T.J. and Luna were both staring at her. "What's wrong?" Luna asked in alarm. "I just had the most horrible thought," Jaine whispered. "What if he's the one who killed Marci? What if he's after us all?"
Twin expressions of pure shock crossed their faces. "No way," Luna said in instant rejection.
"Why not?"
"Because! That's so crazy. Things like that don't happen. Well, maybe to celebrities, but not to normal people."
"Marci was murdered," Jaine said, still unable to get much volume to her voice. "Was that normal?" She shivered. "The phone calls at home I didn't think much about, but you're right, T.J. how did he get your cell phone number? I'm sure there are ways, but most people wouldn't know how. Are we being stalked?"
Both of them stared at her again.
"Now I'm scared," Luna said after a moment. "You live alone, I live alone, Galan doesn't get home until almost midnight, and Marci was alone."
"But how would he know that? I mean, Brick was living with her until just the day before," T.J. protested. Her intuition gave Jaine another lock in the gut. She thought she was going to be ill. "It was in the newspaper 'no sign of forced entry.' I heard Sam talking on the phone. They thought it was Brick because he was her boyfriend and he had a key, but it wasn't Brick, so they think it was someone else Marci knew. She let him in and he lulled her." She swallowed. "It's someone we all know."
"Oh, my God." Luna clapped both hands over her mouth, her eyes wide with horror.
T.J. dropped her slice of pizza. She looked sick, too, and suddenly afraid. She tried for a shaky laugh. "We're scaring ourselves, like little kids telling ghost stories around a campfire."
"Good. If we're scared, we'll be more careful. I'm going to call Sam as soon as I get back to the office " T.J. took her cell phone out of her purse and turned it on. "Here," she said, extending it across the table to Jaine. "Call him now."
Jaine dug in her purse for the scrap of paper on which he had written both of his numbers. Her hands were shaking as she tried his cell phone first. The connection was made and a ring sounded in her ear. Twice. Three times "Donovan."
She gripped the little phone hard with both hands. "This is Jaine. Sam we're scared. We've all been getting crank calls since the List came out, but I haven't mentioned it because they weren't threatening or anything, he just asks which one we are you know, A, B, C, or D but he just called T.J. on her cell phone and said Marci's name. How did he get T.J.'s number? The phone's in her husband's name, so how would he know T.J. is the one with the phone instead of Galan? I heard you say Marci probably knew her killer and let him in the house, and whoever called T.J. knows her because otherwise how would he have her number, and I know I sound hysterical, but I'm scared and I wish you would tell me I'm letting my imagination run away with me "
"Where are you?" he asked quietly.
"Railroad Pizza. Please tell me I'm letting my imagination run away with me."
"I think you need to get Caller ID," he said, his tone still too even. "If T.J. and Luna don't have it, tell them to get it. Today. Call the phone company from work to get it started, and stop on the way home to buy the units." She took a deep breath. "Okay. Caller ID."
"Do you have a cell phone? Or Luna?"
"No, just T.J."
"Both of you need to get one, and keep it with you, so you'll have a way to call for help if you can't get to a land line. And I mean with you, in a pocket, not in your purse or car."
"Cell phones. Check." They were going to have several stops on the way home, she thought.
"Did anything about his voice sound familiar?" "No, he whispers, but it's kind of a loud whisper. It sounds funny."
"Any background noise that you can identify?" She relayed the question to T.J. and Luna. They shook their heads. "No, nothing."
"Okay. Where do T.J. and Luna live?"
She gave him their addresses. T.J. lived in Mount Clemens, Luna in Royal Oak, all towns on the north side of Detroit.
Sam swore. "Royal Oak is in Oakland County. That's four different departments in two different counties who need to get a heads-up on this."
"You were supposed to tell me I'm crazy," she said in a shaky voice, though somehow she had known he wouldn't.
"Marci's dead," he said bluntly. "All four of you have gotten the same crank call. Do you want to trust your life to coincidence?"
Put in those terms, maybe she wasn't crazy after all. She took a deep breath. "What should we do?"
"Tell T.J. and Luna that, until we find out who's making these calls, not to let anyone in their houses except family, don't get in a car with anyone except family, not even if they have a breakdown and someone offers a ride. Keep their doors and windows locked, and if either of them has an automatic garage door, make sure no one gets inside when the door raises."
"How long will it take to find this creep?" "Depends. If he's just a dumb fuck making phone calls, the Caller ID may nab him, or the call return number. If not, we'll put a trace on your lines."
"But if he's a dumb f " She caught herself before she said the word. "If he's a dumb you-know-what, how did he get T.J.'s cell phone number?"
"Like you said. He knows her."
As T.J. parked in front of Hammerstead, they all looked out at the big brick building. "It's probably someone who works here," Jaine said.
"It would almost have to be," Luna said. "Some jerk who thinks it's funny to scare us."
"Sam said we shouldn't trust our lives to coincidence. Until we know better, we should assume that the guy who's making the phone calls is the same guy who killed Marci."
"I can't believe we work with a murderer," T.J. said faintly. "I just can't. It's too unbelievable. Jerks, yes. Just look at Bennett Trotter. Marci hated his guts."
"So do we all." Bennett Trotter was the resident slimeball. A twinge of memory made Jaine frown as she tried to nail it down. "The night we came up with the List... remember, Marci was telling us about Kellman grabbing her ass? Wasn't it Bennett who had something to say about it?"
"I think so," T.J. said, but doubtfully. "I don't really remember."
"I do," said Luna. "Bennett said something about taking Kellman's place if Marci was that hard up."
"He's a bottom feeder, but I can't see him killing anyone," T.J. said, shaking her head.
"The point is, we don't know, so we have to assume everyone is guilty. When Sam finds out who has been making the calls, if whoever it is has an alibi, then we can relax. Until then, we're on guard against everyone." Jaine wanted to shake T.J.; she just couldn't seem to grasp that they might be in danger, too. They probably weren't; she hoped they weren't. But the whole thing with the telephone call today took the crank calls to another level, and she was deeply uneasy. Part of her agreed with T.J.; the whole supposition was too fantastic, too unbelievable. She was simply letting her imagination run away with her. Another, more primal, part of her brain said that Marci was dead, murdered, and whoever killed her was still out there. That seemed even more unbelievable than the other, yet it was true.
She tried another tactic. "If Sam thinks we should be extra careful, that's good enough for me. He knows a lot more about these things than we do."
"That's true," T.J. said. "If he's worried, we should do what he said."
Jaine mentally rolled her eyes. After their first exposure to Sam, T.J. Luna, and even Shelley had all begun acting as if he were the Grand Pooh-Bah. Well, whatever worked; what mattered was that they were cautious.
They walked together into the building, then parted to go to their different departments. Mindful of Sam's instructions, she called the phone company to arrange for Caller ID and all the other bells and whistles, including call forwarding. It occurred to her that it might come in handy to be able to transfer her incoming calls to, say, Sam's house.
Sam called Detective Bernsen. "Roger, my gut tells me we have a bigger problem than we thought."
"How's that?"
"You know that Ms. Dean was one of the List Ladies, right?"
"Yeah, what about it, other than giving the reporters something to howl about?"
"Turns out all four of the ladies have been getting crank calls from the same guy. He asks them which one they are."
"Which one?"
"Yeah. Have you read the List?"
"I haven't had the pleasure. My wife has quoted parts of it to me, unfortunately."
"The four women are identified only as A, B, C, and D. So this guy asks them which one they are, like it's important to him. Today while they were at lunch, he called on T.J.'s cell phone and asked the usual question, then said Ms. Dean's name. No threats or anything like that, just her name."
"Huh," said Roger, which meant he was thinking. "T.J.'s cell phone is in her husband's name, so most people would think he's the one who carries it. This guy not only knew the number, he knew T.J. is the one with the phone."
"So he's either familiar with the ladies or he knows the husband."
"Why would a husband give his wife's cell phone number to another man?"
"Good point. Okay, the caller knows the ladies. Huh."
"The odds are Marci Dean knew the killer. She opened her door and let him in, right?"
"Right. She had a peephole in the door. She could see whoever came knocking."
"The crank caller disguises his voice, speaks only in a whisper."
"Meaning they might recognize his voice if he spoke normally. You think the killer and the crank caller are the same guy?"
"Either that or it's a big coincidence."
"Son of a bitch." Like most cops, Roger wasn't big on coincidence. "Where does this guy know all of them from? They work together or something?"
"Yeah, at Hammerstead Technology, just off I-696 at South-field. He probably works there, too."
"He's someone with access to their personal information. That should narrow it down."
"Hammerstead develops computer technology. A lot of people there would know how to access the personnel files."
"It couldn't be easy, could it?" Roger asked wearily. "My gut tells me something about the List set him off, and he's going to be coming after the other three."
"Jesus. You may be right. You got their names and addresses?"
"T.J. Yother, Mount Clemens, husband's name is Galan. Luna Scissum, Royal Oak, unmarried and lives alone." He gave Roger the street addresses. "Jaine Bright, the third one, is my next-door neighbor. She's single, too."
"Huh. Is she your lady friend?"
"Yeah."
"So you're dating one of the List Ladies? Man, that takes balls." Roger caught his own joke and laughed. "You have no idea." Sam grinned, thinking of Jaine and her stubborn chin with that cute little dent in it, and her almost-dimples and sparkling blue eyes. She attacked life, rather than simply letting it happen; he'd never before met anyone so annoying and funny and sharp. He had major plans for her, the most immediate of which was getting her under him. No way would he let anything happen to her, even if he had to quit his job and become her twenty-four- hour-a-day bodyguard.
"Okay, if you're right, at least we have a place to start," Roger said, briskly returning to the subject. "Hammerstead Technology. I'll get the ball rolling on getting access to their personnel files, see what shakes out of the tree, but if you're right about the computer geeks, this could take a while. Officially, I don't know what we can do to keep the ladies safe. You're talking four different towns "
"And two counties. I know." The administrative hassle would be a bitch. Sam got a headache just thinking about it.
"Unofficially, we'll work out something. We'll call in favors, maybe get some guys to volunteer for watchdog duty. The ladies do know to be cautious, right?"
"They're all supposed to get Caller ID and cell phones today. We might get lucky if he calls one of them again. I also told them not to let anyone in except family, not to accept rides from anyone. I don't want this son of a bitch to be able to get anywhere near them."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.
Jaine found herself studying every man she saw at work that day, wondering if he was the one. That one of them could be a killer was almost beyond belief. They all seemed so normal, or at least as normal as any other large group of men who worked in the computer industry. Some of them she knew and liked, some of them she knew and didn't like, but she couldn't see any of them as killers. A lot of guys, particularly the ones on the first two floors, she knew by sight but not by name. Had Marci known one of them well enough that she had let him into her house?
Jaine tried to think what she would do if someone she recognized knocked on her door at night, maybe claiming to have had car trouble. Until today, she probably would have opened her door without hesitation, wanting only to be helpful. The killer, even if he turned out to be some stranger, had forever robbed her of that trust, that inner sense of security. She had liked to think she was smart and aware, that she didn't take chances, but how often had she opened her door at a knock without asking who was on the other side? She shuddered now to think of it. Her front door didn't even have a peephole in it. She could see who was at the door only if she climbed on her sofa and pulled back the curtain, then leaned far to the right. And the upper half of her kitchen door was nothing but nine small panes of glass, easily smashed; then all any intruder would have to do was reach in and unlock it. She had no alarm system, no means of protecting herself nothing! The best she could hope to do if anyone broke into her house while she was there was escape out the window, assuming she could get it open.
She had a lot of work to do, she thought, before she would feel safe in her house again.
She worked half an hour later than usual, doing a little catch-up on the pile of paperwork that had accumulated during her absence. As she was crossing the parking lot, she noticed there were only a handful of cars remaining and, for the first time, realized how vulnerable she was leaving work late like this, alone. All three of them, she and Luna and T.J. should time their arrivals and departures with the crowd, to take advantage of the safety in numbers. She hadn't even told them she intended to work late.
There was so much she had to think about now, so much inherent danger in things she had never before had to consider.
"Jaine!"
As she crossed the parking lot, the sound of her name broke into her consciousness, leaving her aware that someone had called her at least twice, maybe more. She turned around, mildly surprised to see Leah Street hurrying after her.
"I'm sorry," she apologized, though she wondered what Leah wanted. "I was thinking and didn't hear you at first. Is something wrong?"
Leah stopped, her graceful hands fluttering, an uncomfortable expression on her face. "I just I wanted to say I'm sorry about Marci. When is the funeral?"
"I don't know yet." She didn't feel up to explaining again about the autopsy. "Marci's sister is making the arrangements."