Giving the leash a not-so-gentle tug this time, Jenny whirled around and ran back inside, locking the door with shaking fingers. Once unleashed, Peaches sat down in front of the closed door and stared at it.

Jenny took a deep breath, determined not to get nervous again. Brad had been drinking, she told herself. He wasn't thinking straight. He didn't mean what he said about hating Diana, and he didn't come here to scare me. He'll be embarrassed when he remembers what he said. // he remembers.

She went into the kitchen, got the popcorn, and poured it into the popper. She'd do what she planned -- make some popcorn, try to find something on television, read a httle. And forget about Brad.

As Jenny was dribbling melted butter over the popcorn, she caught a movement out of the comer of her eye. The kitchen windows were at the front of the house, and like all the others, they were still uncovered. That's where she'd seen something move.

Feeling extremely exposed, Jenny set the butter down, walked over to the doorway and turned off the light. Telling herself it was only an animal, not someone out roaming the foothills, and not Brad, she crept over to one of the windows and peered out. But it was pitch dark outside, and all she could see was the pale reflection of her white bathrobe.

Her reflection! That must have been what she'd seen before. She turned the light back on and

started pouring the butter again. Sure enough, when she circled her hand above the bowl, the reflected movement caught her eye.

She finished with the butter, and then realized that something was missing -- Peaches. The dog loved popcorn, but instead of coming in and begging for some, she'd stayed at her post by the door. Jenny tried to entice her with a few unbuttered pieces, but the dog didn't budge.

Her arms around the bowl of popcorn, Jenny closed her eyes and listened. Except for the sighing of the wind, everything was quiet. So why was her dog acting so strange?

Forget it, Jenny told herself. If you keep this up, pretty soon you'll be looking in every closet and then building booby traps in front of the doors. She'd done that once a few years before. After watching a grisly horror movie on television, she'd built a pyramid of soup cans topped with silverware against her bedroom door, so she'd at least be awake when the killer came to do her in. And when the pyramid had toppled, it was her mother, coming to wake her up the next morning.

Well, there wasn't going to be any horror movie tonight, she thought. And if Brad did come back, he couldn't get in.

Jenny picked up the bowl of popcorn, turned out the light, and started for the stairs. Peaches glanced at her, but didn't follow.

In the second-floor hall, Jenny rummaged in a box of books and found a copy of Rebecca^ which