The last time I’d seen Marty, he was a cuddly teddy bear. Now, with his massive shoulders, short neck, and eyes narrowed into angry slits, he looked more like an attacking grizzly. I felt my palms turn clammy with sweat.

“Chester called to tell me my ‘new receptionist’ showed up,” he growled. “It’s building policy. The night guards always have to report anyone who shows up without a key.”

His stocky body cast an ominous shadow in the room. I wanted to run but was frozen to the spot.

“I figured it was you,” he said. “Cissy described ‘Officer Krupke’ to me and—what a coincidence—she sounded just like you, Jaine. Or should I call you Mildred?”

I finally managed to get to my feet, my knees trembling en route.

“I repeat,” he said, his jaws tight with rage. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Then suddenly I thought of poor Rochelle, discarded like a used Kleenex, and I was angry in spite of my terror.

“I’m just trying to save Rochelle’s neck.”

“You better think about saving your own neck, sweetheart.”

And, trust me, there was no affection in the word sweetheart.

By now he was a mere arm’s length away. Before he could get any farther, I did what I should have done in the first place. I picked up a heavy tome on Advanced Dental Abscesses and hurled it at him.

He ducked to miss it. I took advantage of the moment and ran past him out the door as fast as my legs could carry me, which—sad to say—was not fast enough. Somewhere between his office and the reception area, Marty grabbed me by the arm and locked me in a viselike grip. A searing pain shot up my arm.

I looked over at the patient cubicle behind him and saw a drill gleaming in the moonlight. Suddenly all I could think of was the movie Marathon Man, where Dustin Hoffman gets tortured by the evil Nazi dentist Laurence Olivier.

My anger had vanished; I was back to being terrified again. I had to do something quickly, before he had me strapped to a chair and begging for mercy.

“You should know,” I lied, “that I’ve told my friends everything about you—about your affairs, about Marybeth’s blackmail letters, and about the way you were molesting your patients.”

His ruddy face went pale, and I couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t try to contradict me. There was no outraged, What are you talking about?

He’d been molesting those patients, all right.

“Not only that, I wrote everything down and put it in my safe deposit box. If anything should happen to me, I’ve left instructions with my friends to take that information to the police.”