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detecting intruders. He would never behave so calmly if a stranger were near. Walking first slowly, then quickly, and finally running, bare feet squelching through the mud, Clara made it across the road and lawn and up the steps. Puff watched her galloping approach slit-eyed, then stalked down the steps as she leapt past him. His dignity was unimpeached by what had happened. Hers was nonexistent.
    Once in the house, Clara quickly slammed and locked the door. Not that it would do any good if that man—any of them—came back, she thought. The second man—the good man, she labeled him for want of a better tag, though he was “good” only in comparison with the first, who had been brutal—had advised her to take a vacation, and that was precisely what she intended to do. As soon as she called Mitch. Damn it, he was the sheriff, it was his job to protect innocent citizens like herself. She had even voted for him in the last election. So where was he when she needed him?
    Picking up the phone, she started punching out the number before she even had the receiver to her ear. It was all she could do to stand there and calmly make a phone call. Her every nerve ending wanted to send her screaming into the night.
    The phone was dead. That information filtered through slowly, and when it did she wasted a precious few seconds staring blankly at the receiver. Then, as the horrifying implications of how alone and helpless she really was came over her, she dropped the phone as if it had suddenly turned into a warty toad. Oh Lord, she had to get out of the house, now, before Rostov and his men returned!
    Running through to her bedroom, Clara shed her robe, snatching some jeans and a shirt out of the drawer and throwing them on over her mud-smeared body and the lacey white teddy that she was wearing for steep. She was filthy, covered with mud from her head to her feet, but she didn’t care. She didn’t even care that her full breasts jiggled indecently beneath the shirt without the support of a bra. She could change into a proper bra and panties later, when she was safe. She tossed them into a small case. Dragging a pair of battered boat shoes and a rain jacket from her closet, she pulled them on and headed for the door. All she wanted to do was get out of the house. Immediately.
    She needed her purse. Her car keys were in there. Looking wildly around, she had to bite back a terrified sob. She could never find her purse when she needed it … Thank God, there it was on the floor. The thugs had apparently searched it and thrown it aside. Its contents were spilling out onto the rug. Scooping them back inside with a single sweep of her hands, she grabbed her keys and purse and headed for the front door. Not for anything would she go through the kitchen door again. Just the memory of a black-gloved hand coming through the pane was enough to give her the shakes.
    The cats. She couldn’t leave the cats. Swearing under her breath, she ran back into the kitchen. Amy and Iris were under the table. She called them, and they came to her, hesitant but obedient. Snatching them up, she hurried out the door. Puff was outside. She called him as she ran down the steps. But of course he didn’t appear. Clara whistled for him—he usually came to a whistle just like a dog—but got no response.
    “Come on, Puff!” she muttered as she dropped Iris and Amy onto the back seat of her Honda Civic. Stowing thesuitcase in the trunk, she kept a wary eye out as she tried another whistle. “On your head be it, then,” she muttered, and got into the car. Not even for Puff would she risk another encounter with Rostov and his hooligans. She could send Mitch back for Puff, because Mitch was the first person she expected to see. Not that Mitch, for all he was the sheriff and carried a gun, was a match for the thugs who had just left. But she would feel a thousand times safer with him than on her own.
    Just as she started the car Puff came sauntering into view.