She stopped reading, feeling as though all of the air had been sucked out of her lungs, a sudden emptiness in the pit of her stomach. She looked at the letter again, but the words were blurry, liquid, running. Her eyes brimmed with tears. She was surprised by the vehemence of her reaction. She had never been an overly sensitive person about either herself or her cooking, had never really minded constructive criticism, but this type of cruel betrayal, particularly in regard to her family, particularly coming from a friend like Howard, hurt a lot. A hell of a lot. She wiped the tears from her eyes angrily, refolding the letter and putting it back in the envelope. Howard had obviously intended to send a letter to both her and Ellen Ronda and had unthinkingly placed the letters in the wrong envelopes.

Ellen was no doubt reading about the lovely time and dinner Howard had had.

She was not usually this emotional, this easily hurt, but dammit, she had been trying to help Howard through a difficult period, and this backhanded back-stabbing cut deep. She and Doug had always considered him a friend. Maybe not a close friend, but a friend nonetheless, a man whose company they both enjoyed. Why would he do something like this? And how could he be so two-faced? He had never been a deceitful or duplicitous man. Outspoken honesty had always been his greatest strength and greatest weakness. He had never hesitated to speak his mind, no matter what the consequences. It would be one thing if he had just come out and said he didn’t want to come over for dinner or didn’t enjoy their company or didn’t like the food they served him, but to sit there and lie to them, to—

The phone rang. Tritia dropped the letter on the small table, pushed herself out of the butterfly chair, and hurried across the porch into the house. She caught the phone on the fifth ring, clearing her throat to purge the emotion from her voice. “Hello?”

“He’s after me!” The whisper on the other end of the line was frantic and borderline hysterical, and Tritia did not at first recognize it. “He’s here now.”

“Excuse me?” Tritia said, puzzled.

“I think he’s in the house now,” the woman whispered.

Now she recognized the voice. Ellen Ronda. She was shocked at how different Bob’s wife sounded. Gone was the cool-as-ice voice Tritia had heard for as long as she could remember; gone, too, was the grief-stricken wildness she’d heard on the day of the funeral. In its place was fear. Terror.

“Who’s after you?” Tritia asked.

“He thinks he’s being tricky, but I can hear his footsteps.”

“Get out of the house,” Tritia said. “Now. Go someplace and call the police.”

“I already called the police. They refused to help me. They said—”