Game On. Nancy Warren

conversation. “Okay, darling,” she said, nice and loud so Stanley wouldn’t miss a word. “I’ll pick up the wine. You pick up the steaks.” She laughed softly. “Love you, too, Adam.” She ended the call.

      Adam? The name had popped out while having a pretend conversation with no one. Why, oh why, would she picture Adam when she imagined a lover?

      Stan looked so sad as she waved to him on the way out that she felt rotten.

      Well, she’d taken care of the Stan situation. Now she had to nip her own little crush in the bud. She worked with men all the time. CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, athletes who were household names, celebrities who suffered inexplicable stage fright. Sure, she’d experienced the odd thrill of being one-on-one with the rich, powerful and famous, but she never found herself fantasizing about them. Why should one rugged, uncooperative cop throw her off her stride?

      She shook her head. It was going to have to stop.

      When she arrived at her office, her assistant, Lisa, was already there. “What’s the matter?” Lisa asked. “You look so serious.”

      “I was nipping buds.”

      The younger woman nodded. “Oh.”

      A psych major, Lisa had taken the job of Serena’s personal assistant in order to gain job experience in the field of psychology. At twenty-three, Lisa was full of energy, keen to learn and packed with book knowledge that sometimes came in handy. Serena suspected she’d lose her PA in a couple of years, either so Lisa could pursue an advanced degree or so she could move to a more senior job, but for now the arrangement worked for both of them.

      Her big blue eyes and Cupid’s-bow mouth made her look as innocent as a milkmaid, but Lisa combined street smarts with school smarts. A scholarship student, she’d worked her butt off to get into college and to keep up her GPA while attending school and juggling part-time jobs. Nobody had more respect for the process than Serena, who’d done the same thing a decade earlier.

      “Anything interesting happen yet?”

      “Marcus Lemming asked to come in and see you. You had a slot at eleven, so I put him in for an hour.”

      She nodded. “Okay. I usually go to his office. I wonder why he’s coming here.”

      “He didn’t say. Also, I forwarded an email to you about speaking to an engineering company. I’m going through the rest of the mail now. I’ll forward anything good.”

      “Great. I’ll go check.”

      She took a couple of steps toward her office when Lisa’s voice stopped her. “Oh—” Her voice sounded as if it had been cut off.

      Serena turned. “What?”

      “A creepy email.”

      “Oh, yeah. I thought I deleted that. It came last night.” She shook her head. “You’d think perverts would have more imagination. Performance coaching. Ha, ha. I get it.”

      Lisa didn’t smile. “This isn’t one of those messages. It seems kind of threatening.”

      “What?” Serena didn’t waste time going to her own computer and firing it up. Instead she stepped behind the reception desk and peered over Lisa’s shoulder.

      Interesting post tonight, Serena. Negative thinking. Think about this. You think you’re better than fear? No one is. I can make you scared. I know you. I’m scaring you right now.

      Watch your back, bitch. I will teach you what real fear is.

      The message ended with a smiley-face emoticon, which, strangely, added to the nastiness.

      5

      SERENA STOOD THERE FROZEN, stuck in the moment as though she’d been superglued there.

      She forced herself to step back from Lisa’s computer. “Well, somebody’s got a strange sense of humor.”

      “I don’t think they’re being funny,” Lisa said. She rubbed her arms and Serena saw goose bumps there. “I don’t like it.”

      “I’m not thrilled, either, but it’s only somebody at a computer terminal sending an anonymous message.”

      “Have you pissed anybody off lately?”

      She could think of only one person, but Adam Shawnigan was in law enforcement and definitely not the kind of guy to send creepy messages. He was up-front about his frustration.

      “No. I don’t have enemies. I specialize in positive thinking, improved self-image. I pump people up. Who would threaten me?”

      “I think you should call the police.”

      “Why? Because some lonely weirdo tried to scare me? I won’t give in to fear. I won’t.”

      “Okay. But I’m keeping the email. If you get any more, I really think you should report the guy.”

      “So long as I ignore him, I’m sure there won’t be any more.”

      She tried to put the email out of her mind, but the vague threat had lodged and didn’t want to budge. She ignored her discomfort by getting busy with work. She called the engineering firm and accepted an invitation to speak at their yearly conference, which would be held in Chicago three months from now. Then she worked on a draft of the column she wrote for a business magazine every other month.

      Even as she wrote about the importance of holding positive messages in one’s mind, a very negative message whispered over and over: I will teach you what real fear is.

      When Marcus Lemming arrived at eleven, she was staring out of the window, something she never did.

      Irritated with herself for being unnerved by a childish prank, she forced herself to smile at Marcus and invite him to sit down at the round table she kept in her office for small meetings.

      “What can I do for you?” she asked.

      He didn’t meet her gaze, keeping it on the computer bag he carried around with him the way a child would carry a beloved teddy bear.

      “I need to talk to you about fear.”

      * * *

      ADAM RAN AROUND his neighborhood.

      He’d never been one to be cooped up in a gym. To him running on a treadmill was like trying to get somewhere in hell. He liked to feel the air on his skin, see what was going on around him. He often tried out different routes, so he had a pretty good sense of his neighborhood. He knew which roads had wide shoulders and thin traffic. He had learned which dogs always came out barking or sniffing and took a wide berth around the home of Rex, the Pomeranian who’d once taken a chunk out of his ankle.

      As he pounded out the miles, he pondered. Cases under investigation, usually, but this morning he was thinking about hockey. About negative thinking. And how the hell the two got mixed up in his mind only during play-offs.

      Didn’t make sense.

      He was a detective. Nothing drove him crazier than things that didn’t make sense. He ended his run at a public park with an outdoor gym and dropped to the ground for a hundred push-ups and the same of abdominal crunches.

      He was an early riser and finished his shower with a good half hour to spare before he was due at the office. So, as he did at least once a week, he dropped by his parents’ place, which was on the way to work.

      His dad had retired from the force at fifty-eight and now, in his early sixties, seemed to spend most of his time planning elaborate cross-country trips in an RV and doing community work. He was often at meetings of one community group or another.

      When Adam arrived at the back door, his mom hugged him, as she always did. “I had a feeling you’d come,” she said. “I baked muffins.”

      “You never bake muffins for me,” Dennis complained.