I parked my car in the public lot, and rummaged through my glove compartment for an old screwdriver I kept there in case of an auto emergency. I don’t know what I thought I was going to fix with a screwdriver, since I had trouble figuring out how to open the hood of my car, but I kept it there anyway.

Now I was glad I had it. Thinking it would make a good self-defense weapon in case the killer was following me, I put it in my pocket and headed out onto the sand.

The usual fitness freaks were there, doing their daily runs, working off every possible ounce of fat from their bodies.

I set out on a brisk walk. The cold air felt good against my face.

I’d gone to bed last night convinced that I should take Lt. Webb’s advice and lay off the case. But as I walked along the shoreline, the sand crunching beneath my feet, yesterday’s panic gradually turned to anger. Someone was trying to intimidate me. And I didn’t like it.

Then I thought of Daddy and his stubborn refusal to give up his ridiculous toupee. I guess I must have inherited his stubborn genes. Because I knew then and there that I wasn’t going to give in. I wasn’t going to go crawling back to my computer, my tail between my legs, and start churning out Toiletmasters brochures. No, I’d started this case, and I’d damn well finish it. The fact that I hadn’t the faintest clue who the killer was was a tad unsettling, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I was strong! I was invincible! I was—

Damn. I was covered with sand.

A Kamikaze runner with a dog the size of a Chrysler Cruiser had just zoomed past me, kicking up wet globs of sand onto my sweats.

“Get tendonitis!” I shouted after him.

I wiped myself off and continued walking.

I thought back to the hair dryer floating in my tub last night, and wondered who put it there.

The first person who sprung to mind was Brad. The very act of filling my tub with water and tossing in a hair dryer seemed like a prank, something a high school kid would do. But it couldn’t have been Brad. The neighbor across the street said the person he saw was a blonde.

So I was back to the blondes. Had Larkspur realized that she’d made a slip when she told me about her sleep-inducing tea? Frightened that I’d go to the cops, did she sneak back to my apartment to leave me a little warning note? Or had Hal sent Denise to do the dirty deed? And of course, there was Ginny. As much as I didn’t want to believe it, it was possible she’d killed SueEllen to get her old boyfriend back, and then dropped the hair dryer in my tub when I was getting close to figuring out what she’d done.