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that my visitor was Phil Logan, bringing the designer dresses he’d borrowed for me to wear to the Wednesday night gala, but this was a little early, even for Phil. And Tuffy never growled at Phil.
    So who was at the door?
    The bell rang again. Tuffy followed as I hurried, bare-footed, to the front door, struggling into a robe as I went.
    A glance through the front window revealed a young man I’d never seen before. He was in his early twenties, wore jeans and a T-shirt that advertised some rock group. Its name was partially obscured by the young man’s leather jacket. A bright green and yellow helmet was tucked beneath his right arm. A Barneys New York shopping bag dangled from his other hand.
    With my seventy-pound black standard poodle—an intimidating sight to strangers—beside me, I opened the front door a few inches. “Yes?”
    The young man raised the shopping bag. “Delivery.”
    “What is it?”
    “It’s a delivery,” he said. “For Eileen O’Hara.”
    I opened the door wider. “I’ll take it.”
    He handed it to me.
    “If you’ll wait just a moment—” I was going to say that I wanted to give him a tip, but he either didn’t listen or didn’t care because he was hurrying back down my front path to the street, where he’d parked a motorcycle.
    The Barneys shopping bag wasn’t fastened at the top. I saw that it contained a purse I recognized as Eileen’s.
    “Who was that?”
    I turned to see Eileen. She didn’t look as though she had slept much either.
    I took the purse out of the bag. “I think this is yours.”
    She didn’t reach for it, but instead stared at the closed front door. “Was that . . . ? Did . . . he bring it?”
    “A messenger,” I said.
    Eileen took the purse from my hand, opened it, and fingered the contents. “No note. I guess he’s too cautious to write something I might show to his fiancée.”
    “You wouldn’t do it,” I said.
    “He doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know me at all.” She clamped her lips together in an angry line.
    “Ingram knew you well enough to realize you’d never agree to being taped.” I folded the paper shopping bag into quarters.
    Eileen indicated the Barneys bag. “What are you going to do with that?”
    “Right into the trash. Keith Ingram touched it. This isn’t something I want to use again.”
    “I’m glad to see your passion for recycling things has a limit,” Eileen said.
    “Honey, let’s forget him for now. I’ll make us some breakfast.”
    She shook her head. “No thanks. I haven’t got any classes today so I’m going back to bed for a while.” Mumbling that she’d see me later, she went down the hall to her room.
    Going to bed sounded like a good idea to me, but when I turned around I discovered that Emma, my little calico cat, had joined Tuffy and that both of them were staring at me. The message in their eyes was unmistakable: They wanted breakfast.
    “Okay, guys,” I told them. “You win.”
    After letting Tuffy out for a quick trip to the backyard—the prelude to our usual long morning walk—I fed the two of them. I was now too thoroughly awake to return to bed, so I took a shower and put on a fresh T-shirt and pair of sweatpants.
    Lack of enough sleep tends to make me hungry. I tell myself that it’s my body compensating for loss of rest by craving food for energy. This morning I also told myself that cooking—working with my hands on an old, familiar dish like stuffed French toast—would clear my head to think about Eileen’s problem. The only thing about the situation that gave me any comfort at all was the fact that we had some time to come up with a solution. By his own stated timetable, Ingram wouldn’t be coming after Eileen for at least a month or two. Still, there was a huge threat hanging over Eileen’s head, and I wasn’t going to rest easy until it was removed.
    As the coffee brewed and I was whipping up the milk, vanilla extract, and egg mixture, I thought about Ingram. I didn’t