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one—possibly two—of the women in attendance were dealing with unwanted attention. Amanda had made note of their names and would give them a call before the end of the week to see if she could offer some more personal advice.
    The flashing red light on the answering machine caught her eye, and she absently hit the play button while she sorted through the mail. The first call was a hang-up, nothing too out of the ordinary. She glanced at the caller ID window. Unknown number.
    One of those telemarketing thingies that dial your number by computer, most likely. She waited for the second message to begin. More of the same. She really needed to get on the National Do Not Call Registry.
    The third began to play. Not an immediate hang-up—heavy breathing this time.
    Her hands began to shake.
    She placed the mail in a neat stack on the table next to the machine and backed slowly to the stairs, where she sat on the bottom step and forced herself to take a long deep breath.
    Of course it’s a telemarketer. Or a prankster. A kid’s idea of a stupid joke. Not funny. Definitely not funny. But it’s not what it had been before. Archer Lowell is in prison and does not have this number. He knows that if he tries to contact me in any way, additional charges will be brought against him, his sentence extended. He agreed to that. This isn’t him.
    Don’t blow this out of proportion, she cautioned herself. It could be nothing more than a mistake. A misdial. Someone’s probably annoyed as hell that he—or she—has gotten the same wrong number three times in a row.
    Amanda stood and started for the kitchen, nearly jumping out of her skin when the phone began to ring again. She leaned against the doorway, holding her breath, waiting for the machine to pick up the call.
    “Manda, it’s me, Der—”
    She grabbed the phone. “Where are you?” she barked into the receiver.
    “I’m home. I told you I’d be home on—”
    “We need to talk, Derek.”
    “I know, I know. How about breakfast in the morning? We could meet at that little B and B you love out on the river road, and we could—”
    “ Now, Derek.”
    “Manda, it’s almost eleven, I just got in from an ungodly flight, and—”
    “I don’t care if you swam home. We have a serious problem. I’ve had it with this crap, Derek. It’s no way to run a respectable business. It’s irresponsible, it’s—”
    His sigh whispered against her ear. “Okay. You’re right. Let’s get it over with tonight so that we can move on tomorrow.” Derek’s voice was cheerless and held more than a trace of resignation. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
    “I’ll be waiting.” Her nerves already on edge from the hang-up calls, Amanda resisted the urge to slam the receiver onto its base.
    She went into the kitchen and turned on the light, eyes darting around the room. Nothing amiss.
    Tea would soothe, she told herself, and went about the process of filling the teakettle and hunting for the box of Morning Thunder that Derek preferred. Setting out two cups. Slicing lemon. Anything to avoid thinking about what she was going to say to Derek and how she was going to say it.
    She still wasn’t certain that she wasn’t going to tell him it was time to dissolve the partnership. That maybe they both needed to move on. A last resort, to be sure, but exactly what she’d threatened the last time he’d done something stupid that had cost them a lot of money and cast a shadow on their reputation.
    The kettle whistled and she turned it off, then looked out the window on the driveway side of the house, expecting Derek’s Lexus to pull in at any minute. She glanced at the clock.
    11:27. He’d called at 10:42.
    She went back to the foyer and separated the junk mail from the bills, read through two department store circulars, and thumbed through a magazine. Gathering the junk pile, she returned to the kitchen and looked up at the clock.
    11:43. It had been an hour since Derek called. For