Harold's blood froze as he listened carefully to what another one of Ellie's guests was saying about him.
"He wouldn't make a good actor. That voice doesn't sound too happy to me."
"Next!" another voice cried, and the whole group laughed heartily.
Luckily for Harold, the guests didn't stay much longer. I've got to get through this window before she shuts it for the night, he thought. He had heard her take the tape out of the machine after his message. It has to be right there.
Slowly starting to stand, he glanced into the apartment.
She had gone into the kitchen and was doing the dishes. Luckily she had turned on the radio. Now, he thought. I've got to get in there and hide.
Boosting himself up, he climbed in the window. Another damn cat was standing in his path!
He took three quick steps across the room and slipped into the closet just as Ellie came back and asked her cat, "Twister, what's the matter? Don't scratch the door, honey."
A few minutes later, Ellie got into bed with a sense of contentment. It always made her feel good to spend time with her friends. She sank into the pillow and turned to the news station on her radio.
"An unidentified woman was found in a wooded area a few hours ago by a group of hikers," a report began. "Apparently she had been left for dead. Someone had attempted to strangle her but she is still alive. She's in a coma and the doctors are not sure of her chances. They believe her to be about sixty. She has platinum-blond hair, was wearing a long skirt and a peasant-type blouse and a pair of unusual green boots."
Ellie bolted upright in bed. That sounds like Toni-Anne! she thought. Those crazy boots. Ellie hadn't seen her all day. That weird message on the tape. I've got to listen to it right now, she thought wildly.
Jumping out of bed, she darted into the hallway and put the tape in the machine and listened.
"I've got to play this for Frances!" she said aloud, pulling the cassette out of the machine and running to her front door. Suddenly she felt a hand go around her mouth.
"You don't have to play that for anyone."
It was the voice she had just heard on the tape!
Frances was relaxing in her bedroom, watching the eleven o'clock news, when Toni-Anne's cat jumped on the ledge out-side her window and scratched at the screen.
"What's the matter, baby?" Frances asked. "Where's your mama?" She opened the screen and let the cat jump in on her bed.
With that, the report came on about the unidentified woman with the green boots.
"Toni-Anne!" Frances gasped. She picked up the cat and her master key ring and hurried out of her apartment.
This can't be happening, Ellie thought as she tried to slide away from him. The audition for the shortbread cookie flashed into her mind. Jumping jacks. If only she could free her body. But in the safety video they'd said to go for the bridge of an attacker's nose. With all her might she jabbed her hand behind her but missed. They struggled to the floor and the television fell off the stand. She could hear Frances 's voice outside.
"What's going on in there?"
Her attacker was distracted for a moment and Ellie gave him a good whack across the nostrils. Blood started spurting as she managed to scream and Frances unlocked the door. Twister had jumped on Harold's legs and was scratching him when Frances hurried in. Toni-Anne's cat leapt from her arms and jumped on his face as he yelped in pain.
"Call the police!" Ellie yelled to Frances, standing up and grabbing the can of Mace she'd been given when she did the video. It was right in the drawer of the table next to the couch.
"Watch out, kitties," she ordered, dramatically spraying his face. "Mister, you're not going anywhere!"
Three weeks later, Frances and Ellie brought a paler Toni-Anne home from the hospital. Ellie made a pot of tea and they sat around her living room, rehashing everything.
"I tell you," Toni-Anne was saying as she petted her cat, whose purring motor was in overdrive as he cuddled in her lap. "I would have had a premonition if I were going to die. But I still shouldn't have gotten into that car with him. Hey, I never said I was the world's greatest psychic."
"Well, thank God you're okay," Ellie said as she poured her another cup of tea and broke off a piece of cookie for Twister.
Frances was drinking out of her ever-present Snoopy cup. "I always knew garage sales were exciting. I just never knew how exciting they could be."
The phone in the hallway began to ring. They all looked at each other and laughed.
"Uh-oh," Ellie said. "I think I'll just let the famous machine pick it up."
It was the owner of the car wash. "Ellie, those safety videos have been selling like hotcakes since you got all that publicity. I'd like to get a photo of you with Toni-Anne and Frances for a new cover. And guess what? A producer who bought the video thinks I have real talent. He's optioning my screenplay. I told him I'd sell it to him as long as there are parts for the three of you…"
That night, when Ellie got into bed and turned out the light, all was quiet. Then she heard Toni-Anne clomp into her bedroom directly above. Ahhhhh. That's the sweetest sound I've heard in a long time, Ellie thought as she drifted off to sleep.
Definitely, a Crime of Passion by MARY HIGGINS CLARK
"Beware of the fury of a patient man," Henry Parker Britland IV observed sadly as he studied the picture of his former Secretary of State who had just been indicted for the murder of his lover, Arabella Young.
"Then you think poor Tommy did it?" Sandra O'Brien Britland sighed as she delicately patted homemade jam onto a delightfully hot scone.
The couple was comfortably ensconced in their king-size bed at Drumdoe, their country estate in Peapack, New Jersey. Matching breakfast trays complete with a single rose in a narrow silver vase were in front of them. The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the London Times, and L'Observateur were scattered on the delicately flowered gossamer-soft quilt.
"I find it impossible to believe," Henry said slowly. "Tom always had such iron self-control. That's what made him such a fine Secretary of State. But ever since Constance died during my second administration, he's not been himself, and when he met Arabella there's no question that he fell madly in love with her. I'll never forget when in front of Lady Thatcher he slipped and called her Poopie."
"I do wish I'd known you when you were president," Sandra said ruefully. "Oh, well, nine years ago when you were sworn in for the first time you'd have found me boring, I'm sure. How interesting could a law student be to the President of the United States? At least when you met me as a member of Congress, you thought of me with respect."
Henry turned and looked benevolently at his bride of eight months. Her hair, the color of winter wheat, was tousled. The expression in her intensely blue eyes somehow managed to simultaneously convey intelligence, warmth, wit, and humor. And sometimes childlike wonder. At their first meeting Henry had asked her if she still believed in Santa Claus.
That was the evening before the inauguration of his successor. He'd thrown a cocktail party at the White House for the about to be sworn in members of Congress.
"I believe in what Santa Claus represents, sir," she'd replied. "Don't you?"
At seven o'clock when the guests were leaving, he'd invited her to stay for a quiet dinner.
"I'm so sorry. I'm meeting my parents. I can't disappoint them."
Henry had thought of all the women who at his invitation changed their plans in a fraction of a second and realized that at last he'd found the girl of his dreams. They were married six weeks later.