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to my ears. I let my arms float and worked on slowing down my heart rate.
    After a few minutes I reached out with my foot and turned the hot water off. I stared up at the chandelier over the tub. The dangling crystals broke the light into a million colors that bounced against the walls. Did I mention that I love my bathroom? Dennis had had a fit when I said I wanted to put the old dining room chandelier up here, but I just waited until after the county inspection and did it myself. The county frowns on having hanging lights over open water. Huh. I wonder why?
    Using my towel and my one good hand, I managed to twist off the cap on my Yuengling and have a nice, long gulp. That’s what I needed, although sex would have been nice, too. If only I could close my eyes and forget about the last twenty-four hours. But when I closed my eyes, all I could see is Alan’s busted lip.
    How could I have lost it like that? And before that, I’d had no drugs in my system, no injuries, and yet I passed out for hours. My head hurt from thinking.
    I dunked under the water, using my good hand to push my hair back and massage my head. Ow—shit. Why was my head sore? I prodded my scalp with my fingertips and then
    I remembered the red wig. That bastard! He must have torn the wig right from my head, taking small clumps of hair and skin with it.
    Why can’t I remember what happened? Tomorrow I’ll call the guys at the lab and see if they have any ideas about what could have been used to knock me out.
    I washed my hair, soaked, buffed, and polished the rest of my body. My feet were nasty since I’d been running around without shoes all day; definitely time for a pedicure. Eventually my fingers and toes were so prune-y I had to get out.
    After drying off, I wiped off a section of mirror to look at my scalp. My birthmark caught my attention first; it was a darker pink than normal.
    My hair’s a little long in front, so my bangs hide the little pink patch on my forehead. Plus, it’s usually really light. I hadn’t noticed the patch in years; maybe it was getting darker with age. Or maybe I was just over heated. Oh well. I’d live.
    Alan was snoring, poor guy—he really was tired. Hum… I should take a little afternoon nap myself. But I felt restless, not sleepy. Nothing made any sense today.
    I quietly slipped on a t-shirt and some old sweats and headed downstairs. Grabbing my laptop and another Yuengling from the kitchen, I settled into my favorite chair in our sunroom. A feeling of peace always surrounds me in this room. Added on for my great-grandmother, Evangeline, who liked to grow her own herbs, it’s sort of like a greenhouse and sunroom put together. I checked my email and then surfed the web, hoping to find some explanations for my blackout.
    Then I remembered the name the strange man had called me. It sounded like “Kadesh goddess.” I typed it into the search engine and got a zillion hits on “Qadesh, an Egyptian Goddess.” Could his accent have been Egyptian?
    According to most of the web sites, Qadesh was indeed a female goddess in ancient Egypt . One site had a picture of a nude female standing on a lioness, holding a snake and a dagger. Cool.
    But then I froze as I read, “symbolizing sexual pleasure, sacred ecstasy, and fertility” and then, skimming, I saw, “form of worship—sacred sex....” Crap! How did I get mixed up with this whack job who thinks I’m some sort of Egyptian goddess?
    Disgusted and oddly anxious, I turned off the computer and decided to check in with Ottie and see how the Janeck case was going. I looked for my phone on the table beside me and then remembered that I didn’t have a phone anymore, so I headed to the kitchen to get the old portable. Ottie picked up on the third ring.
    “It’s your dime,” Ottie broke the silence with his odd greeting.
    “Ya know it costs fifty cents to make a phone call now, right? That’s if you can find a pay phone.”
    “Hey, Lexie. How you