Her discussion group went as expected. A healthy two-thirds of the group actually attended, and out of that number, only three appeared to be sleeping, which wasn’t bad, statistically speaking. They had quite a spirited discussion about Emily Dickinson’s love poetry. One serious young man with stringy hair said earnestly, “Like, how do you know Emily Dickinson never had, you know, sex? Maybe she, like, had secret lovers! Some of those poems are totally scorching! I can’t believe that she could feel like that if she never, you know, got any!”

“Believe it,” Nell said without thinking. Fifteen faces gave her speculative looks. She noticed that the young blond man and she had the same type of glasses, and felt a sudden, desperate urge to change her style. “Let’s wrap it up for tonight,” she said. “I expect a five-to-ten page paper from everyone by Wednesday.”

“But I have a physics midterm to study for!” one student whined.

“And I have to write a philosophy paper by Monday!” another lamented. “Can’t we have till Friday?”

“Wednesday,” she said firmly to a chorus of groans.

Nell trudged through the bustling, congested city campus to the English department offices. The office door opened as she approached, and Maria, a fellow grad student, came out holding a fax. “Hey, Nell. Take a look. I was about to post it. It might be just up your alley.”

Nell looked it over.

WANTED

Writer-Editor-Proofreader for interactive fantasy game project

EXPERT IN POETRY

Good Pay Flexible Hours

Call 555–439-8218 Ask for Duncan

“Weird, huh?” Maria commented.

Nell looked up at her. “Interesting.”

“Thought you might think so. Good night, Nell.”

Nell said good night absently. What on earth would a software outfit want with poetry? She scribbled the number, wondering exactly what “good pay” meant to this Duncan. She often picked up temp legal secretary jobs at night, when she was broke. They paid well but exhausted her. She was always alert for a job that would pay enough so she could quit working at the Sunset and live a life that resembled normal, if such a thing existed. Though she’d begun to doubt it, with the bizarre things that had been happening since Lucia’s death.

And she wasn’t going to think about Lucia, or she’d cry again. She fingered the pendant Lucia had given her. The golden rectangle with its halo of swirling, white gold lacework was warm from her body’s heat. A talisman of love, but a shadow of fear clung to it. Her fingers tightened around the thing in a possessive spasm. The Fiend had taken Nancy’s pendant. It was stupid for Nell to wear hers around. A blatant provocation, even. But she felt naked and defenseless without it.

She’d compromised by lengthening the chain and tucking the pendant inside her dress, where it usually got wedged between her boobs. She had pepper spray in her bag. And she was going to sign up for self-defense. Maybe she’d even learn to use a gun.

She shivered. Then again, maybe not. Just knowing how to use a gun meant nothing. She had to be willing to point it at someone and pull the trigger. And that tasty, cheerful reflection propelled her straight to her broom closet–sized office, to call Vivi’s cell phone. For comfort.

Since Nancy’s adventures, she’d secretly begun to consider getting a cell phone, but she was still hesitating, after having made such a big fat deal of how much she hated them to her sisters all these years. After all her pompous tirades on the risk of brain tumors, how sinister it was that a person couldn’t have privacy, how aggravating it was that one was constantly on call, etc., etc. She’d feel like a fool with her tail between her legs if she caved now.

But pride and privacy had so lost their charm lately. When evil stalkers with unknown agendas lurked in the shadows, looking foolish didn’t seem so bad. It was comforting, when things got weird, to be an electromagnetic frequency away from the people you cared about.

Vivi picked up promptly. “Hey, baby. All’s well?”

“Nobody’s abducted me lately,” Nell said. “How about yourself?”

“Still working. Busy day. I’ll wrap it up in about an hour. Then my breakdown, and I take off tonight straight for Wilmington after I grab a bite. I feel weird staying in one place for too long. I want to be a moving target. Sound stupid?”

“Hell no. Drive carefully. Did you talk to Nancy?”

“Yeah, she’s with Liam. Still in Denver, with his dad. They’re coming back tomorrow, I think. Thank God we don’t have to worry about her, at least. That guy of hers is like a Doberman lunging at the chain. Got a customer, darling. Gotta go.”

“Okay, later.” Nell hung up, stared at the flyer again, and dialed.

“Burke Solutions, Inc., can I help you?”

“Yes. May I speak to, um”—she consulted the tag—“Duncan?”

“May I ask what it’s regarding?”

“It’s regarding the writing job.”

“Oh. Just a sec. Hold on.”

Nell drummed her fingers and fretted until a deep, resonant, oddly familiar voice came on the line. “This is Duncan.”

“Hello. My name is Nell D’Onofrio, and I’m a grad student at NYU. I’m interested in the writing job.”

“Do you have writing and editing experience? Do you know anything about poetry?”

She was taken aback by his brusque tone. “Of course. I’m writing my thesis on nineteenth-century women poets. I lead a discussion section for a summer poetry lecture course, and my graduate seminar focused on Christina Rossetti.”

“Ah.” There was a thoughtful pause. “I’m supervising the creation of a computer game,” he went on. “A mystery quest, with clues encoded in maps, books, poems, etc. I need a writer for the texts.”

“Sounds good,” Nell said. “The flyer says flexible hours. How flexible?”

“I don’t know yet.” He sounded irritated. “I’ve never done this before. It’s actually my brother’s project. I have meetings all afternoon, so come to the office tomorrow at six, and I’ll interview you.”

His master-and-commander tone pissed her off. “I’m free at seven-thirty,” she said crisply, although she could have probably done six, with a little switching and trading of shift hours. But phooey on him.

“That’ll work. Tomorrow, then. My receptionist will give you directions.”

Nell wrote down the directions. Strange, but interesting, even if Duncan seemed bossy and arrogant. And tomorrow was Friday. She had nothing better to do after her shift than to go home and jump at the shadows. She shoved a pile of midterm essays into her bag. That’d keep her too busy to work herself into a paranoid frenzy over every sound. Or climb the walls with futile lust, which was almost as bad. No, worse.

Nell armed the infrared alarm as soon as she went into her apartment. Any breach of the door or window would be instantly reported to the police. It made her feel safer as she heated and ate a dinner of leftovers. She cooked when Vivi was there, but didn’t bother when she was alone.

She was nibbling a stale Oreo that she’d found in the cookie stash when the ringing phone made her practically bounce off the ceiling. She had to concentrate hard to slow her breathing and control the shake in her voice as she picked it up. “Hello?”

“It’s just me,” said her sister Nancy.

Nell sank onto the futon couch, knees trembling. “Oh. Great. How are things? Viv told me you guys were still in Denver.”

“We are, with Liam’s dad, and his dad’s lady friend. I have news. Remember when Liam’s friend Charlie Witt told me about that eighty-year-old guy with the designer clothes? The one they found in Jamaica, with his throat snapped?”

“The one they called the clotheshorse? That was just after Lucia died, right?”

“Right. The time of death they determined was roughly the same time that Lucia died.”

Nell doubled over, pressing her hand against the nervous twisting in her stomach. “So? What about him?”