Hotline to Murder

was panting freely as she turned the corner onto the street where Jane lived. As she approached Jane’s house, she didn’t see any lights on inside, and it was now quite dark outside. She ran along the driveway, which sloped downhill, and then up several steps to the front door. She rang the bell. She heard the chime, but no other sound came from within the house.
    Then she remembered. Jane and her father had taken an overnight trip. They had been going to leave soon after Shahla left the house. There was no help here. She started shaking again. What could she do? She turned and faced the street. Nothing was moving. But she wasn’t safe here. The driver of any passing car would spot her.
    The house sat on a hillside lot that slanted down toward the ocean. It had a lower floor with an entrance in the back of the house. The rest of the floor was underground. Shahla quickly walked around the house toward the back. She felt minor relief when she was no longer visible from the street.
    He must be lurking nearby. He would be looking for her. She had to stay out of sight. The entrance to the lower floor of the house was a sliding glass door. She gripped the door handle and tried to slide the door open. It didn’t budge. What now? There was a window beside the door. A screen covered it. Shahla looked through the screen and saw that the window was open. Thank Mother Nature for warm weather.
    First she had to get the screen off. It was set into grooves on either side of the window, but it could be slid horizontally out of one groove at a time. If only she had something to hold onto. The screen was smooth on this side. She had to slide it by putting pressure on the screen and her shaking hands had trouble applying any pressure.
    She put her body weight behind her hands to exert more pressure. Just when the screen started to move, her weight caused its mesh to pull away from the frame. Now she owed Jane’s father a new screen. Since the screen was ruined anyway, she pulled out enough of the mesh so that she could stick her hand through the gap. Then she was able to grip a tab on the inside of the screen and pull the screen out of one of the grooves. And then the other.
    Shahla opened the window wide enough to admit her body, dropped her pack inside, and then crawled through. Her feet found the floor, and she stood up. She reached back through the open window and picked up the screen, which she had left leaning against the house. She replaced it in the grooves and flattened the damaged mesh as much as she could. At a glance, nobody could tell it had been tampered with, especially at night, which was fast approaching. She closed the window and locked it. She also closed the curtains.
    She felt momentarily safe. She pulled a sweatshirt out of her pack and put it on. Now she had to call her mother. Drapes covered the sliding door, so it was dark inside the room. She wasn’t about to open the drapes. She tried to picture the layout of the room. Jane had brought her down here from the upstairs once. This floor was used primarily for storage of furniture. There was a bathroom at the other end. The bathroom had a light. She needed to use the bathroom anyway.
    She started walking gingerly toward the bathroom. Not gingerly enough. Her toe hit something hard. “Shit.” Trying to ignore the pain, she continued, using her hands to help her locate pieces of furniture she had to navigate around.
    After what seemed like a cross-country trip, during which she was careful not to look behind her because something might be following her in the dark, she reached the bathroom and found the light switch by feel. Being able to see again calmed her a little. After using the toilet, she retrieved the phone from her pocket.
    One glance convinced her that it was damaged beyond repair. What had been an intelligent electronic device was now an inanimate mixture of scrap plastic and metal. She threw it savagely into a wastebasket. What alternatives did she have? She was sure there wasn’t a house phone on this floor, but to make sure, she opened the bathroom door wide and used the light that came into the main room to scan it for a phone.
    The piled-up furniture blocked her view of all the corners, but she didn’t see a phone in any of the logical places. She did see the stairs to the upper floor and those gave her an idea. She would use the phone upstairs. She found another switch that operated a light that lit up the stairs. She padded up the