"She's not there," Paige said. "I'll have to go through the neighborhood putting up signs."

But he moved to the next bush and worked his way toward its base. He straightened with a wide smile on his face and kitty in his hand.

"You heard something all right."

Instantly relieved and grinning, Paige took kitty in her free hand and hugged her against Sami. She buried her face against the animal's neck, which was soft, warm, and blessedly intact. "I was so worried."

At that moment she couldn't imagine sleeping without kitty on her bed.

"Paige?" Norman called from the door. "Can't find any sign of forcible entry, but since the doors weren't locked, that's understandable.

Mickey's staying here to dust more while I go asking around the neighborhood. It's possible that whoever it was went in and out the back way through the trees so no one would see, but it's worth a try.

Do me a favor and don't move anything until Mickey's done?"

Paige nodded. She looked toward the house and swallowed hard. Her skin crawled when she thought of touching her own private things after a stranger had touched them.

"I'm calling the girls on your team," Noah said.

"They'll help neaten up when it's time."

"No, no," Paige said, though she was touched by the offer, "don't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because it'll upset them. They're too young."

"Not too young to help someone who has helped them out many a time.

It's a good lesson.

Besides, they like you, and they'll like being off campus."

But Paige hated the idea of the girls giving up their evening to clean up her house.

"I'll let them out of study hall for it," Noah coaxed.

At that, she couldn't resist a crooked smile.

Pushing off from the step, he said, Ulll be back."

A handful of long strides took him across the lawn to his car.

The van was packed with Paige's team and pizza.

By the time it pulled into her driveway, Mickey had left and the local locksmith was at work installing the dead bolts that Paige would never have bought if she were the only one involved. But there was Sami now, and Jill, Paige wouldn't be able to go to work with a free mind, knowing that they might be prey to a thief on the loose.

Then again, this thief may have deliberately waited until they left the house, may have sat in the bushes and watched. While it was reassuring to think that they hadn't been in danger, the thought that someone had been so calculatingly determined was terrifying.

She tried to think of who it might be and what he might have been after. She still couldn't find any thing missing. While the girls neatened the living room and kitchen. she tackled the bedroom.t l "This is the worst," Noah observed from the doorway.

Nearly every drawer had been opened and searched, leaving mounds of femininity stuffed haphazardly back in. The closet shelves had been rearranged none too neatly. Mara's knitting basket had been overturned, scattering skeins of yard hither and yon.

Paige tossed underthings into a laundry basket. She didn't care how many washes she had to run she would run them ah night if that was what it would take to restore a sense of purity to her life. u can't imagine why anyone would do this."

"The world is full of perverts."

Angrily, disgustedly, she tossed a nightgown into the pile. "I always thought Tucker was different."

"No place is different. Not that this had to be the work of a dangerous criminal. It could have been someone with a weird sense of humor.

Are you sure nothing's missing?"

She had checked her jewelry box, but nothing was gone. She had checked the closet file that held the official paper on her mortgage her insurance her IRA. Nothing was even out of piace, as it might have been if the papers had been photographed.

With a sudden pang, she thought of Mara's letters. Pushing aside dresses, blouses, and slacks, she pulled from the closet the apron that Mara had made for her several birthdays before. It had been a joke, Paige had never been much of a cook, despite Mara's attempts to humiliate her into it. The last of those attempts had been this apron.

It had no less than a dozen pockets on the front. Mara had claimed that they were deep enough to hold every ingredient Paige would need to bake a chocolate cake in an organized fashion.

Paige didn't know about that, since she still hadn't tried to make a chocolate cake, but the pockets were more than deep enough to hold packets of letters. They were intact, all four, each with its own bow neatly tied.

"Nothing's missing," she said, and wondered why she had thought of the letters with such a pang. Probably because they held great personal meaning. But for that same reason, a thief would be disinterested.

Which apparently he had been, since the letters hadn't been touched.

Unless he hadn't realized they were there.

But why would anyone want Mara's letters?

"What is it?" Noah asked.

She shook her head. "Nothing special."

"You sure went pale looking for those."

"They're personal."

"Letters from a lover?"

She shot him a droll look. "No, not letters from a lover. I've never had a lover who was that sentimental."

"Would you want one?" he asked, leaning against the bureau, "or would you consider sentimentality a sign of weakness?"

She began tossing T-shirts into a second laundry basket.

"Sentimentality isn't a sign of weakness. Nor, though, is it enough to make a lover top-rate."

"What else does it take?"