"Call me Jane."

"No! I want your real name. Tell me."

An icky feeling crawled up my spine. I put some steel in my voice. "Allen, take down this number: 555-2962. There's someone there who's trained in how to help you deal with your suicidal thoughts."

"What the h.e.l.l? You're trying to foist me off on someone else? All I want to know is who I'm dealing with."

My resolve wavered. It was against the rules of Heaven House to give out our names to the people who called the Helpline. For that matter, I shouldn't still be talking to this guy. Volunteers were armed with a long list of experts who dealt with all sorts of different problems, from teenaged runaways to unplanned pregnancy, depression to spousal abuse, alcoholism to... suicide. If Philip had been honest enough to list Heaven House as a Help Referral Line in the phone book, maybe this guy wouldn't be so angry about having to call someone else.

Still. There was something about him that gave me the creeps.

"No, Allen. I'm not going to tell you my real name. That's against the rules here. I'm here to help you find someone to talk to. Are you going to let me do that?"

"You stupid b.i.t.c.h! All I want to know is who-"

A finger came down on the disconnect b.u.t.ton. I went from staring stupidly at the phone to staring stupidly up at Philip. His cousin, Jude Carmichael, stood slightly behind him. I hadn't heard either of them come in.

"Should you have done that?" I finally managed.

"I could hear him yelling. He's a crank," Philip said.

I licked my lips, ambivalent about the intense relief I felt at the timely rescue. "But what if he really needed help?"

Jude, his coat collar still turned up around his ears, shuffled his feet and looked at the floor. In the brief time I'd known him, I'd noticed that he did that a lot. When he spoke, I leaned closer so I could hear his soft voice.

"Then he should have taken it. You don't have to put up with abuse, Sophie Mae. Philip should have told you. Sometimes people call in just to call in. They're lonely." He shuffled his feet again. I had the feeling he knew about lonely. "Or they're weirdos. Like this guy. His next call will probably be heavy breathing and obscene language. He's just bored"

"Well, he better not call back here, then."

Philip bent toward me. "Tell you what, babe. It's your first night. Your shift's almost over. Go ahead home."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. It's fine. My boy here can start his overnight shift early."

"That okay with you?" I asked Jude, since Philip hadn't bothered.

Jude shrugged and tried a smile. "Sure. I forward the calls to my cell and keep it on my nightstand. It hardly ever rings." He pulled a phone out of his pocket and started pushing b.u.t.tons.

"I hope that guy didn't scare you off," Philip said.

"No, I'll be back," I said. "Friday, right?"

"That'll be great. We'll need your help. Friday night'll be hoppin'!" He made it sound like great fun, taking all those desperate phone calls from people in horrible situations.

Woo hoo!

Just after nine I pulled to the curb in front of the house I shared with Meghan Bly and her eleven-year-old daughter, Erin. I jumped out of my little Toyota pickup and ran up the sidewalk. Rain spattered down for the twentieth day in a row, and the temperature hovered around forty-two degrees-typical weather in the Pacific Northwest in February. The damp air smelled of rotting leaves and wood smoke.

In the foyer I shook like a dog, scattering the stray drops I hadn't managed to avoid in my mad dash from the street. I waved at Meghan as I pa.s.sed the doorway to the kitchen on my way to the stairs, breathing in the scent of freshly baked bread.

"Back in a sec," I called over my shoulder and climbed to the second floor.

I poked my head into Erin's room. "How's it going?"

Meghan's daughter sat in bed, wedged in on one side by a stuffed platypus and on the other by a big purple hippo. Brodie, Erin's aging Pembroke Welsh corgi lay on his back, legs splayed open as he slept by her feet. His right eye cracked open so he could peer at me upside down, then squeezed shut again. A textbook lay open on Erin's lap, and she looked up from scribbling on looseleaf notepaper when I spoke. Her elfin features held pure disgust.

"I hate math. I hate algebra, I hate geometry, and I plan on hating trigonometry and calculus as well." She squinted blue-gray eyes at me and shook her head of dark curls for emphasis.

"Trig? When do you start that?" Could be next week for all I knew. She was in an advanced cla.s.s and last year had blown by everything I'd retained from my English major's admittedly pitiful math education. But trig? In the fifth grade?

"And proofs. I hate proofs, too"

I had no idea what proofs were. I went in and looked at what she was working on. Drawn on the wide-ruled paper was a y-axis. And an x-axis. Lines connected some of the points in the grid. I still had no idea what proofs were.

"Looks like a graph," I said. "What are you supposed to be proving?"

The look she gave me was full of pity.

"Okay. Well, I'm going to change my clothes and go talk to your mom. So, er, g'night."

She sighed. "Good night, Sophie Mae."

I smiled to myself as I went down the hallway to my room and changed into my flannel pjs. Erin was a drama queen. It would only get worse as she morphed from tween to teen, but at heart she was such a great kid I knew she'd make it through okay.

I just hoped Meghan and I made it through okay, too.

Cricket McRae is a full-time writer, living in the Pacific Northwest. This first book in her new Home Crafting Mystery series features soap making, a craft in which Cricket is experienced. Her other crafting skills include food preservation and spinning, which will be featured in future books in the series.

end.