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I splashed out of the tub, threw on a robe—I don’t know whose it was—and hurried to let them in. With everything that had happened, I knew they must be thinking the worst.

10

Taylor was carrying an outsize pizza. Once he saw that all was well, he began to ride Cliff for the makeshift barricade at the front door.

“Stop picking on him,” Annabeth said. “Building a fortress sounds like a damn good idea to me. Let’s get some plates, Sandy. I hate cold pizza.”

But I didn’t move toward the cabinet.

“What’s wrong? Why do you look like that?”

“Somebody was in here,” I said.

Taylor set the pizza carton down carefully, eyes on me.

“Somebody was in here. Tonight. He jumped me.”

Annabeth stared hard at me. “What are you talking about? Cliff, what’s she talking about?”

“I was jumped. After I left you at the store. He—tied me up.”

She moaned.

While I explained, she was taking it all in, but at the same time she was shaking her head, denying the words even as I spoke them.

Taylor stepped across the hall and opened the door on the devastation in Wilt and Mia’s room. “Wow,” he said slowly. “This is so fucked up.”

Beth pulled herself together enough to ask, “What’s taking the police so long? Where’s Norris?”

I flicked my eyes over at Cliff, who walked away from me.

“I didn’t tell the police. I’m not calling them.”

And I thought Cliff’s move on me in the bathroom had been sudden. Beth was on me faster than I could blink, not a bit interested in my theories about the intruder, why I was so certain he wouldn’t return. She grabbed the collar of my robe and shook me like I was a free bubblegum machine. “Call them now. Call them now, or I’ll do it myself.”

“The hell you will, Beth. It didn’t happen to you, did it? What are you going to say to them? How are you going to prove it?”

She broke away and snatched the kitchen telephone off the hook. I wrestled it from her hand.

“You’re fucking crazy!” she shrieked. “You want to get us all killed.”

I don’t think she meant for her nails to dig into my cheek that way. But it took that sharp pain to kick me into action. I shoved her, and she stumbled on a chair leg. Then she righted herself and immediately came at me again. “Asshole!” she was shouting. “You arrogant cow.” There was a lot of muscle behind all that slinkiness.

I’m no brawler. I may be kind of hefty, but I still fight like a girl. I went for her hair. Then we commenced to slapping each other. Oh, it was tawdry.

Taylor and Cliff handled us the way the refs on the Roller Derby treat those big women. I huffed and puffed from my corner of the room, all my goods hanging out of the torn bathrobe.

“The two of you,” Annabeth said in disgust to the men, “can’t you do anything with her?”

But they seemed to know better than to interfere. They only watched us, ready to break up the melee should it start again.

Finally, Annabeth was calm again. “Sandy,” she said quietly, “you have crossed the line, hon. You’re out there in space. You hear me? They took Wilton away from you, and it’s made you insane. It’s not your fault, okay? But you need help.”

I knew I needed help. And I knew what I needed help with.

“Is that how your mom talks to her maid out there in Kenilworth?” I said.

She threw up her hands then. “Fine. Be like that. But I’m not ready to die. If I don’t get murdered in my sleep, I’m going home tomorrow.”

“Oh, really? What’s your friend Norris going to say about that? He told us—”

She gave me a toss of rich-girl hair. “I don’t give a shit what Norris says. He’s got a problem with that, let him take it up with my father.”

We watched her as she slammed into her room and banged the door behind her.

Not even in my lurid imagination could I have dreamed up a scene like the one that had just taken place. Me and Beth Riegel fighting like cave women in a B movie. Another friend struck from the list.

And how was I going to make it right with Owen after what happened earlier? I couldn’t imagine facing him again, but the loss of him as a friend would be the final blow.

As I slumped in the kitchen chair,