I didn't have to answer. He was out of the car, his hand reaching around to his side and unbuttoning his holster. By the time I reached him, he was standing on the deck, his gun drawn and waiting for me to unlock the door.

I must've stared at the gun, because he smiled slightly. "Don't worry," he said, "if someone's in there, I'll just shoot'em."

I tried to smile back, but the sight of that big black gun rattled me. "You do that," I answered, but I heard the tiny quaver in my voice.

He went in first. He was a large presence in my little bungalow. His footsteps echoed as he moved across the hardwood floors. I closed the door behind us and followed him from room to room. He made a big show of looking in the closets, moving the clothes aside and peering behind everything. He looked under my bed. He looked behind the shower curtain. Nothing.

"Well, you're clear," he said, putting the gun away and moving toward the back door.

"Would you like a cup of coffee?" I asked. This time the squeaky tension in my voice was evident to both of us. I tried to laugh it off, but that only made me sound hysterical.

"I'm kinda coffee'd out," he said. "You'll be fine, Maggie. You got my card and my pager number. If anything happens, if you get worried, you call nine-one-one. If you need me, they'll reach me at home. But you call them first so they can get a car out here."

"Oh, I'll be fine," I said.

"Did you fix that lock on the front door?" he asked, his face suddenly concerned.

"Not exactly, but I have a chain latch I use when I'm here, so I'd know if someone was trying to break in."

He didn't look so certain now, and I was feeling even more anxious. He walked back into the living room, over to the door, where he lifted the chain and held it in his hand.

"Why don't you see to getting the lock switched out and repaired tomorrow morning?"

"I'll get on it," I said. I was seriously doubting my decision to leave Jack's and return home. But I had to do it sometime and if someone wanted to get to me, Jack's was just as easily broken into as my house.

"Go on home now," I said. "I'm fine. Really."

"I know you are," he said. "Just take normal precautions." The closer he moved to my back door, the slower he seemed to walk.

"Thanks for checking around for me," I said. "Go home and get some rest." I yawned loudly and stretched. "That's what I'll be doing," I lied. "I'll be getting a good night's rest."

We were inches apart at my back door. Mama used to say it was a sure thing that if you were feeling a certain way about a person, then they were probably feeling that same way toward you. Well, I knew how I felt. I felt like kissing Marshall Weathers again.

I looked up at him and saw him watching me.

Mama was right, all right. But he didn't do it. Instead he reached out and touched my arm. My heart started pounding and my mouth went dry.

"Enjoy church, did you?" he asked. I could feel my face turning scarlet. "Mama always likes to welcome a new face. She was right taken with you." I was speechless. "Of course, visitors don't usually leave by the bathroom window. That's a first for us."

"I was just…"

He let me hang there for a second, enjoying my discomfort. "Wondering?" he said finally;

"No, taking care of myself. If my life is on the line, then I want to know everything I can about the people around me. You're supposed to be in charge of clearing Jimmy's murder. How do I know I can trust you?"

The muscle in his jaw twitched, but he forced a smile. He wasn't liking this one little bit. "Well, I hope Mama was helpful."

"I didn't know you were divorced," I lied. No sense in beating around the bush. "Like me."

"Not exactly," he said.

"Not exactly like you or not exactly divorced?"

Weathers leaned against the back door and looked at me. "Both, I guess. Won't be final until she signs the papers."

"When Vernell left me for the damn Dish Girl, I nearly lost my mind. I went to bed for days and ate myself silly. But I had to go on. Guess that's why I'm singing now."

"You think?" he asked.

"Yeah. I mean, I guess it turned out to be for the best, although it stung at the time. Isn't that how you felt?"

I knew better. I believed his mom and her friends, and the pain that briefly crossed his face confirmed it. He hadn't quite figured out how to wrap his mind around the fact that his best friend and his wife had both betrayed him.

"Yeah, I guess." He sighed. "You go on. She's happy and I'm glad for it." He was a bad liar.

"Makes it hard to trust someone ever again, doesn't it?" I said softly.

He looked at me for a long moment, looked right through my heart and into my soul, and then found he could do it no longer. "Aw, I guess looking back I could have seen it coming. I was working long hours. She needed more than I could give. I learned from it."

He looked down at me again, but not into my eyes. Instead he seemed to search my entire face, as if wanting to say something, but holding back, not willing to trust himself or me.

I took one tiny step closer, still waiting for him to meet my eyes. When he did, finally, he pulled me into his arms and kissed me. We stayed like that, in each other's arms, for only a few minutes, and then he pulled back.

"I need to go," he said, and in a brief instant was gone.

I closed the back door, turned the dead bolt, and leaned against it. Then, when I thought he wouldn't see, I peeked through the little cut-out windowpane at the top of the door. He was sitting in his car, staring up at the house.

"All right," I said, turning away from the door. "Let's show him we're serious. We can take care of ourselves." My voice echoed through the empty house.

I forced myself to march back into the living room. An antique sideboard sat against one wall. If I pushed it in front of the door and loaded it with books, no one could come through the front door. I grabbed at it and tried to pull, but it wouldn't budge. I pushed and it moved slowly, its heavy wooden legs groaning and leaving deep gouges in the floor. I didn't care. I pushed as hard as I could until at last it rested across the front door.

I rewarded myself by walking through the house to the back and peeping out my back window. He was gone.

"I'm fine," I said loudly. That's when I began hearing things.

At first it was a thud on my front porch. Then something hit the side of the house. I froze, listening. I hit the light switch by the back door and plunged the bedroom into total darkness. I didn't want anyone to see me moving around, a silhouette against the shades, a moving target. My skin was crawling. Someone was out there. I knew someone was out there, watching, waiting.

I moved across the room and picked up the cordless phone on my bedstand. I clicked it on and listened to the reassuring dial tone. I peeked through the curtains. Still nothing. It was all my imagination.

"You're being ridiculous," I said. "You need sleep." I fumbled through my dresser drawers, hunting for the blue-and-white-striped flannel pajamas that I'd inherited from my brother Larry one Christmas. Every year Mama gave him new pajamas and every year he tossed them to me when she wasn't looking. Larry was too manly to wear pajamas.

I started to undress, but stopped, listening, my heart pounding in my throat. The bedroom was too exposed, too open to prying eyes peering in through little chinks in the curtains. I went into the bathroom, but left the door open, just in case. I took the phone with me, too. As quickly as I could, I undressed and put on the pajamas, carefully rolling up the too-long sleeves and leg cuffs.

I darted from the bathroom, through the brightly lit kitchen and back into my darkened bedroom. I couldn't make myself turn out the lights in the rest of the house. They could stay on all night. I listened, my ears straining to catch every sound. A car door swung shut outside and I jumped. Was it next door? Down the street?