I trudged back to my bedroom, lit by three separate night-lights. I stretched out on my twin-size bed, dancing my fingers across the narrow width.

And I let myself imagine, for a moment, what it might be like if Bobby Dodge wasn't a detective and I wasn't a victim? suspect? witness? Maybe we were two ordinary people, meeting at a church social. I'd brought the three-bean salad. He'd brought that perennial bachelor favorite-a bag of tortilla chips. We could talk kickboxing, dogs, white picket fences. Afterwards, I'd let him walk me home. He would slide his arms around my waist. And instead of going rigid with distrust, I would let myself sink into him. The feel of a hard male body, the plane of his chest flattening out my breasts. The ticklish rasp of his whiskers in the instant before he kissed me.

We could have dinner, go out to the movies, spend entire weekends having sex. On the sofa, in the bedroom, on top of the kitchen counter. He was fit, athletic. I bet he'd be very good at sex.

We could even become boyfriend and girlfriend, the way other people did. And I would be normal and not search for his name or likeness in the sex offenders' database.

Except I wasn't normal. I lived with too many years of fear stamped into my psyche. And he lived with the weight of a man's death hanging around his neck. His job already had him lying and manipulating me. My past had me lying and manipulating him. Both of us thought we were right.

I wondered for the first time how well Bobby slept at night. And if we ever did get together, which one of us would be the first to wake up screaming. The thought should've sobered me. Instead, it made me smile. We were both twisted, he and I. Maybe, if given enough time, we could find out if our twistedness made us fit.

I sighed. Rolled over. Listened to the pitter-patter of Bella returning to the bedroom, taking up position next to my bed. I stroked her ears, told her I loved her. It made us both feel better.

Much to my surprise, I relaxed. My eyes drifted shut. I might have started to dream.

Then the buzzer came again. Loud, shrill, jolting. Again and again and again. A violent onslaught of sound, ricocheting through my tiny apartment.

I leapt from my bed, ran to the window. Streetlights bombarded the slick black space but gave up nothing. Into the kitchen now, skipping forward on the balls of my feet, muscles bunched, Taser ready, eyes glued to the strip beneath the door.

Spotting a telltale shadow.

I froze. Caught my breath. Stared.

Slowly I got down on my hands and knees. I peered beneath the door, desperately searching the framed view of a tiny slice of hall. Not feet. Not a man.

Something else. Something small, rectangular, and perfectly wrapped in bright colored paper, the Sunday comic strips…

I rocked back on my heels. Then I attacked my door, frantically working the half-dozen locks as my heart pounded with fear and my hands shook with rage. Bella was barking as the chain lock fell free. Together, we barreled out into the fifth-floor landing, where I stood, half-naked, wielding my Taser and roaring at the top of my lungs: "Where are you, motherfucker? Come out and fight like a man. You want apiece of me?"

I leapt over the wrapped package. Bella thundered downstairs. We careened into the downstairs lobby, fueled by pure adrenaline and ready to take on an entire army.

But the building was empty, the stairs deserted, the lobby vacant. I followed the sound of thumping to the front foyer, where I found the building's outer door open and banging in the wind.

I pushed the door wide. Felt the cold onslaught of rain slashing across my face. The night was storming. It was nothing compared to how I felt inside.

No sign of life out on the street. I secured the outer door, called Bella back up the stairs.

Outside my apartment it was still waiting for me. A flat, rectangular box. Snoopy, perched on his red doghouse, smiled on top.

And suddenly, I couldn't take it anymore. Twenty-five years had not been enough. My father's training had not been enough. The threat was back, but I still didn't know who to fight, how to attack, where to direct my rage.

Which left me with only the fear. Of every shadow in my darkened apartment. Of every sound in this old creaky building. Of every person who might randomly wander down the street.

I left the package on the landing. I grabbed Bella by the collar and dragged her into the bathroom, where I locked the door, climbed into the tub, and prayed for the night to end.

YOU'RE SURE YOU didn't see anything?" Bobby was asking. "A car, a person, the back of a coat disappearing down the street?"

I didn't answer. Just watched him pace back and forth in the three-foot expanse of my kitchen.

"What about a voice? Did he speak, make any kind of sound coming or going up and down the stairs?"

I still didn't say anything. Bobby had been asking the same questions for hours now. What little I'd had to offer was already on record. Now it was about him burning off steam and trying to come to terms with events I still refused to accept.

For example, twenty-five years later, the unidentified white male subject had found me again.

My phone had rung shortly after four a.m., another sharp and shrill noise that made my blood run cold. But the voice that came through my answering machine was not a taunting lunatic's. Just Bobby, demanding for me to pick up.

His voice grounded me, restored my sense of purpose. For him, I had to leave the tub, open the bathroom door, brave my darkened apartment. For him, I could lift the receiver, cradling the cordless phone against my ear as I grimly snapped on lights and reported the night's events.

Bobby hadn't needed me to say much. Two minutes later he was off the phone and on his way to my apartment.

He had arrived with a bunch of men in rumpled suits. Three detectives-Sinkus, McGahagin, Rock. In their wake came a troop of uniformed officers, quickly put to work canvassing my building.

The crime-scene techs arrived next, working the front doors, lobby, stairwell.

My neighbors hadn't been happy to be awakened before dawn, but they were intrigued enough to be out now watching the free show.

Bella had gone insane at the sight of so many strangers overrunning her home. Finally, I'd shut her up in Bobby's car; it was the only way the crime-scene techs were going to be able to get the job done. No one was terribly optimistic. Last night's showers had turned into a gray morning mist. Rain washed away evidence. Even I knew that.

The crime-scene techs had started in the foyer and were now working their way upstairs, black fingerprint powder flying everywhere. They were homing in on ground zero, a small, four-by-six-inch rectangular box, neatly wrapped in the comics, waiting outside my door.

No note. No bow. The package didn't require introductions. I already knew who'd sent it.

My apartment door opened again. This time, D.D. entered. Immediately, activity ground to a halt, all eyes on the sergeant. D.D. appeared pale but moved with her usual grim-faced efficiency. Not bad for a woman with a fat patch of gauze taped to the lower half of her cheek.

"You should not-" Bobby began.

"Oh please!" D.D. rolled her eyes. "What the fuck are you gonna do, handcuff me to the hospital bed?"

According to Bobby, D.D. had nearly been mauled to death by an attack dog merely hours ago. Leave it to her not to let a little thing like almost getting killed slow her down.

"When did the package arrive?" she asked crisply, clearly off the bench and back in the game.

"Around three twenty a.m.," Bobby said.

Her gaze flickered to me. "Same as you remember?"

"Yes," I said quietly "At least from the outside, the box reminds me of the gifts I received when I was young. He always wrapped them in the comic strips."