I strode into the bathroom, threw back the curtain and found Heather there, a pair of nail scissors clasped in one hand.

I guess I was too outraged to be scared.

“How did you get in here?” I demanded.

“I have my ways,” she said.

“I’m calling the cops,” I told her. “If you get out before they arrive, so much the better, because I totally intend to press charges.”

“Don’t turn your back on her,” Nick warned quietly, from the doorway.

I had forgotten the nail scissors.

“Stay out of this,” I said, but I kept my eyes on Heather as I backed out of the bathroom.

Heather stepped daintily over the side of the tub. She was dressed for stealth—black jeans and turtleneck, black shoes. She even had the stretchy stocking cap. “How did you know I was in here?” she asked conversationally, as though she and I were friends and this was just some harmless practical joke.

“A ghost told me,” I said.

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” she replied.

“There you go,” I replied, backing down the hallway toward the living room. “I answered your question. You answer mine. How did you get into my apartment?”

“A man let me in,” Heather replied.

My blood froze. I glanced at Nick, but he shook his head.

“What man, Heather?”

“Just a man,” she said.

“Describe him.”

“He was just a man,” Heather insisted, as though put upon. “He said if I killed you, he wouldn’t have to get his hands all bloody.”

My stomach turned over.

Geoff?

Where would he have gotten a key to my apartment, assuming that was how he’d opened the door?

Actually, there were several disturbing possibilities. Bert, being my landlord, probably kept a set in the bar. Geoff could have stolen them—he might even have been the one to attack Sheila the night before. The building was old, and so were the locks. It was certainly conceivable that there was a skeleton key out there somewhere, or he could have used a burglar’s tool of some sort, and Heather, obviously a few votes short of a majority, had mistaken it for a key.

I eased toward the telephone.

Russell crawled under the coffee table and whimpered.

Nick was right. He’d never make a watchdog.

Heather sat down on the couch, and I actually felt a flash of pity, because she seemed oddly limp and jangly at the same time. She still held the scissors in a white-knuckled grasp, though, so I gave her a wide berth.

“I’m so tired,” she said.

“Poor baby,” said Nick.

I ignored him and nipped into the kitchen. The tea kettle was boiling over, making a screaming sound, and I shoved it off the burner as I passed, headed for the phone.