Jude Deveraux by First Impressions

glad of every sit-up and leg lift. She was proud
of the fact that she was the same size as when she'd lived in Arundel so long
ago. Having a baby when she was so young and her skin so elastic meant that
she'd been able to regain her twenty-four-inch waist.
    Eden
parked her car under a tree, out of sight of the windows of the house, and
quietly made her way to the front door. She tried the old doorknob. It was
locked. Maybe he went in through the kitchen door, she thought as  she
used her key to silently unlock the door. She could call out to the person as
she set her things down, but she well knew how isolated the house was. No, it
would be better to be cautious. Above her head, a floorboard creaked then
stopped, as though the person making the sound didn't want to be heard. That
sneaking made her forget her good thoughts. Whoever was in the house shouldn't
be there — and knew it.
    Eden
stepped out on the porch and pulled her cell phone out of her handbag. She
didn't think about what she was doing when she called, not the sheriff, but
Braddon Granville. He answered on the first ring.
    'Eden!'
he said, his voice full of pleasure at her call. 'Did you change your mind
about tonight? We could have dinner at — '
    'Someone's
in my house,' she said.
    'I'm
sorry but I can't hear you.'
    Eden
tiptoed down the porch steps and went toward her car. 'Someone is in my house,'
she said louder so she could be heard above the frogs. 'He's upstairs with a
flashlight.'
    There
was a pause on the phone, then the voice of a man in charge. 'Get out of there
right now,' he said in a tone that was not to be disobeyed. 'Get in your car
and return to town. I'm going to call the sheriff, and he'll be there as fast
as possible, but I want you out of there. Understand me?'
    'Yes,'
she said, her heart pounding. She already had the door to the car open but then
realized that she'd left her car keys inside the house. She started to tell Mr.
Granville that, but he'd already hung up to call the sheriff.
    Now
what? Did she crouch in the bushes and wait in silence for the cavalry to come
and save her? Or did she go back into the house, get her car keys, then roar
away in a torrent of gravel?
    Turning
back to the house, Eden looked up at the windows and saw nothing. No moving
light. What if all she'd seen had been a reflection of the moon? Had she been
so spooked by Braddon Granville's story of Mrs. Farrington's evil son that
she'd made something ordinary into something sinister? She called Mr.
Granville's office again but got his machine. She was going to look really
stupid when half a dozen police cars arrived and the only intruder was a reflection
on the windows of a creaking old house.
    Okay,
better to face this on her own, she thought, or she was going to be the town's
source of laughter for years to come. Taking a deep breath, she went up the
stairs to the front porch and opened the door. She had intended to call out and
ask if anyone was there, but as soon as she was inside she again heard the
floorboards creak, only this time, the sound came from the living room.
    On
tiptoe, Eden crept toward the doorway. Thank heaven that most of the furniture
had been sold or she never would have been able to make her way in silence. If
the house were still as full of furniture as when Mrs. Farrington was alive,
Eden would have had to crawl over and under surfaces to get there.
    As it
was, when she got to the doorway, she crouched down low, then looked around the
doorframe. She could see a man's silhouette clearly outlined. He had a small
flashlight, just a penlight really. If he were on the up and up he'd have a
full-size flashlight, wouldn't he? Eden's intuition told her that this man was
looking for something. For the silverware that she and Mrs. Farrington had
hidden inside the walls? For that blasted necklace that had been in every Lost
Treasures book ever written?
    Suddenly,
from some primitive instinct, she knew he was aware that she was there. In
spite of