• • •
Driving home from the tennis club the next afternoon, Reva watched Grace and scowled. Grace huddled in the passenger seat, tense and wary.
Like a scared rabbit, Reva thought again, rolling her eyes. Or a mouse. Now that I think about it, she really is mousey, with that boring brown hair and those twitchy eyes.
“I’m sorry I lost the match for us,” Grace murmured, catching Reva’s annoyed glance.
“So am I,” Reva told her bluntly. “I kept thinking maybe you had a hole in your racket.”
“I’m sorry,” Grace repeated. “But I couldn’t help it. Not with Rory watching me like that!”
“And you’re sure it was him?”
“I’m almost positive. He came in at the beginning of the last game, and he stood way in the back, in the shadows.”
Reva raised her eyebrows skeptically. “Well, if he was in the shadows, how can you be so sure it was Rory?”
“Because the minute I noticed him, I felt this horrible chill,” Grace replied, nervously chewing on a fingernail.
And you hit the ball into the next court like a total klutz, Reva thought.
“He didn’t take his eyes off me for the whole time,” Grace continued. “I could practically feel the hate coming from him! I wanted to run, but I could hardly move!”
No kidding, Reva thought. Grace had stood there like a block of wood, letting almost every ball get by her. And the guy—who was gone when Grace finally mentioned what was bothering her—probably hadn’t been Rory at all.
Reva sighed. She’d been looking forward to this vacation so much, and now she was stuck with a total paranoid nut. She slipped a cassette into the player. She knew Grace wanted to talk more. So she turned the volume way up. Who needed Grace jabbering at her endlessly about Rory?
As Reva pulled her red Mazda Miata into the curved drive in front of her house, the music ended.
Almost immediately, Grace gasped loudly. “Look at that car!”
Reva eyed the beat-up VW parked in the drive and sniffed in distaste. “Why doesn’t the maid tell these delivery people to drive around back?” she complained.
“Don’t stop!” Grace cried, as Reva braked behind the ugly heap of junk. “We have to get out of here. Rory might have rented that car. He could be inside the house right now, waiting for me!”
In spite of herself, Reva glanced nervously at the tall front windows of the house. Could Rory really be inside, holding everyone hostage or something?
Then she noticed her father standing at the window of his upstairs office and waving to her. Even from down here, she could see his smile.
“Get a grip,” she told Grace. “See Daddy up there? He wouldn’t be smiling and waving like that if anything was wrong.”
“I . . . I guess not.” Grace climbed slowly out of the car and followed Reva up the steps and through the front door.
As Reva dropped her tennis racket in the front hall, the maid entered from the living room. “Oh, Miss, you’re home,” she said, bending to pick up the racket. “Your visitors will be glad. They’ve been waiting quite a while.” She waved the racket toward the living room and hurried off before Reva could ask who the visitors were.
Reva hadn’t been expecting anyone. She hoped it was someone fun, preferably a guy. Fluffing her red hair with her fingers, she strode toward the living room, with Grace following nervously behind.
In the arched doorway, Reva stopped and frowned in disappointment.
Her cousin Pam sat on the couch, paging through a magazine.
Reva forced a smile. “Pam! Hi!”
Pam slapped the magazine onto the coffee table and stood up. “Hi, Reva.” She gestured toward a girl sitting in one of the high-backed wing chairs. “This is my friend from work, Willow Sorenson.”
Reva faked a smile. Where did Pam find her? she wondered. That red glass nose-stud looked like a scab. And what did she use on her hair—rust remover?
Reva introduced Grace, then turned back to Pam. “You look great!” she gushed insincerely. Ha. Pam wore her usual torn jeans and sweatshirt. If she had any class, she’d do something with herself, Reva thought.
“Thanks, Reva. So do you.”
“Now tell me all about your job,” Reva demanded. “No, wait—don’t. If I hear how exciting it is, I’ll die of jealousy.”
Willow snorted.
“It’s not that exciting,” Pam said, twisting her ponytail around her finger. “It’s really kind of boring.”
“I don’t believe it,” Reva declared. Actually, she did believe it. She’d go nuts working in a dump like Acme Insurance. But that’s what happened when you didn’t have any money. “Talk about boring—you should try going to Smith.”