The rational, reasonable thing to do would be to get out of the car, approach him, and inquire what he wanted. But Sara wasn’t about to do that. Observing from her car felt safer, even if it was highly likely the man was selling magazines or offering religious flyers. Or he was a reporter.

That was likely her paranoia rearing its ugly head, but she didn’t want to risk it. She had nothing to say to the press. Other than an expletive that involved four letters followed by the word off.

Her cell phone ringing caused her to jump. “Shit.” Sara let out a breath and yanked the phone out of her purse, eyes still on the guy. He was pressing the doorbell again, lingering longer than was appropriate for a salesman.

Caller ID showed it was Gabriel. “Hello?”

“Hi. Where did you go?”

“Back to my place. Didn’t you get my note?” Gabriel sounded irritated with her, but she was too distracted by the man in front of her to bother to try and appease him.

“Yeah, but why? You just came over and then you left again.”

“You left too.” So there. “I went for coffee and you left.”

“But I came back.”

“So did I.”

“But then you left again.”

If she hadn’t been so distracted by her tenacious doorman, she would have laughed. “We’ve established that. We both left and came back and I left a second time and didn’t come back, because I didn’t know when you were coming back.”

“I wasn’t long,” he said, a little petulantly.

“Okay.” Now Mr. Nice Guy was actually trying the knob to her apartment, giving it a turn and a shove. It didn’t open, obviously, since she was neurotic when it came to locking her door. Maybe she should call the police. Though a guy aggressively knocking on her door wasn’t exactly threatening even if he had tried the knob. They would think she was a loon, and all it would do was call attention to her.

“Sara? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah . . .” Sara turned her car off, frustrated with herself and her fear. “Stay on the phone with me, okay? I’m in the parking lot and there’s a guy at my apartment door, and he won’t go away. I think I need to see what he wants.”

“Does he look dangerous?”

“No. He looks like a Little League coach actually. But he’s been hovering for a good five minutes so I think I need to just see what he wants and get rid of him.”

“Okay, I’ll be right here.”

It was ridiculous to think that having Gabriel on the phone with her, fifteen miles away, was going to prevent her from bodily harm, but for some reason it was extremely comforting.

“I think I found a birth certificate for Anne Donovan’s daughter,” he said.