Love Can Be Murder

her heart pounding, she moved toward the TV room, her weapon poised, her muscles twitching in case she had to unleash a few well-placed kickboxing moves: kneecap, groin, nose. She suddenly regretted missing class the last two weeks.
    Motives swirled through her mind. Burglary? If so, the perp would have been mightily disappointed. Apart from a broken strand of pearls, she had little worth stealing. In the living room, cushions were turned and books scattered. The TV had been tumbled, probably because the thief had been irritated to find an unimpressive nineteen-inch model with a garbage bag twistie for a knob.
    Had the person been looking for something in particular? She gingerly rounded the corner to Elise's former bedroom, which sat empty except for a box of clothes for Goodwill, now thrown helter-skelter.
    The sight of her own bedroom made her ill, the Terra-cotta Summer wall paint notwithstanding. Her closet door stood open, and clothes had been dumped on her bed. Bureau drawers hung open, the rug was upturned. From her desk, the blue monitor of the aged computer glared at her, and her initial relief that it hadn't been stolen was replaced by apprehension when she saw from the doorway that words had been typed on the screen. Only after she checked the bathroom and under the bed did she concede she was alone, and made her way back to the computer.
    I'VE GOT YOUR NUMBER, YOU FAKE.
    The blinking cursor was a silent exclamation point. She stumbled backward and fell hard on her tailbone. Warm blood oozed around her teeth from having bitten her tongue, and her mouth sang with pain. She scrambled to her feet, still staring at the screen. The words were personal, not the mischief of a random intruder.
    I've got your number.
    Was the message literal, meaning the person knew her unlisted information? Or figurative, meaning they had damning information about her? Her mind raced, sifting through the list of people who could have broken in and taken the time to leave an enigmatic calling card.
    Frank Cape? He might have tracked down her address hoping to scare her into revealing Melissa's whereabouts. In the newspaper exposé, the thwarted husband had used the word fake a half-dozen times. Those Rescue people are a bunch of fakes. Frank could have simply borrowed the wording.
    Richard Funderburk? When she and a few of his friends had confronted him about his drinking, his reaction had stunned her—ugly, vengeful, and defensive. I'll get you back, you self-righteous fake.
    Elise? Roxann had asked for the key when she moved out, but Elise could've had a spare. During their argument following Elise's shocking announcement, hadn't Elise used the word fake? You led me on with your fake friendship.
    Detective Capistrano? He hadn't bothered to hide his disdain for her and the program. Unless you're a fake. Maybe he was desperate enough to search her place for clues about Melissa Cape and make it look like a break-in.
    Or—she swallowed hard—was the past catching up with her? A dirty little secret that sometimes jolted her awake from a deep sleep to remind her that the venerable life she'd built had been the fruit of a poisonous tree. But no one knew about those circumstances except Angora, and it didn't seem likely she'd be terrorizing Roxann when she was on the verge of getting married. Besides, Angora had just as much to lose if the truth were revealed...maybe more.
    She shook away the useless train of thought, forcing herself to deal with the immediate situation: call the police and report the break-in. But halfway to the phone she stopped. And tell them what?
    That a man might be after her because she helped his ex-wife disappear, oh, and by the way, the woman is a material witness to a crime in which a cop was shot, but no, she can't reveal the woman's whereabouts.
    And did she mention that her former roommate might be out for revenge because she had rebuked the woman's advances?
    Or that her former lover had threatened to teach her a lesson for embarrassing him with an intervention?
    Plus she'd talked just this morning with one of their detectives who might have taken the law into his own hands to get the answers she wouldn't give him?
    The police would show up all right—with a net.
    She performed a cursory search to see if anything was missing, although it was hard to tell. Her scant costume jewelry had been rifled, but her broken pearls were safe in the glue-bound teacup she'd kept all these years. Her personal files