Free Just Take My Heart by Mary Higgins Clark

something to quell her suspicions, however. He scouted around the neighborhood and found a high school kid who wanted some kind of after-school job. Then Friday evening of the second week of the trial, he watched for Emily coming home and stopped her as she was getting out of the car.
    "Emily, I'm so sorry, I've been switched to working the four-to-eleven shift in the warehouse for awhile," he lied. "That doesn't do you much good with Bess."
    He really resented seeing that this time the expression in Emily's eyes was one of pure relief. Then he told her about the kid down the block who was willing to take over walking and feeding Bess at least until Thanksgiving, when she'd start rehearsals for the school play.
    "Zach, that is very sweet of you," Emily told him. "Actually, I'll be keeping more reasonable hours, so I won't need any help."
    She might as well have added the word "ever." Zach could tell that Emily wouldn't be letting anyone in and out of her house again.
    "Well, here's her number, just in case, and here's your key," Zach said, then not looking at her, his tone shy, added, "I watch that Courtside program every night. You're doing a great job. I can't wait to see how you treat that guy Aldrich when he gets on the stand. He must be a terrible person."
    Emily smiled her thanks and tucked the key in her pocket. That's a happy ending, she thought as she walked up the steps to the front door. I was trying to figure out how to cut off this situation and the poor guy did it for me.
    Zach watched her go with narrowed eyes. As surely as Charlotte had put him out of his house, Emily had put him out of her life. It wouldn't be the way he had hoped, that she'd let the kid down the block help out with that dog of hers, then be glad to have him take over again. That wasn't going to happen.
    The fury that had washed over him at other times in his life en-gulfed him again. He made his decision. You're next, Emily, he thought. I don't take rejection. I never have and I never will.
    When she was in the house, for some inexplicable reason, Emily felt uneasy and double-locked the door behind her. Then, when she was on the back porch, letting Bess out of her crate, the thought crossed her mind that it wouldn't be a bad idea to get a bolt for the porch door.
    Why am I getting all these feelings of apprehension? she asked herself. It has to be the trial.
    I've talked so much about Natalie that I feel as though I've be-come her.

17
    Since the trial began it had become a pattern for Gregg Aldrich to go directly to his lawyer's office from the courthouse and spend a couple of hours going over the testimony of the prosecutor's witnesses who had been on the stand that day. Then a car would drive him home. Katie, adamant in her need to be with him in the courtroom, had agreed that she would go home when the court recessed around four p.m. and meet her tutor there.
    She had also agreed, at her father's insistence, that at least some evenings would be spent with friends who attended school with her in Manhattan before she became a boarder at Choate in Connecticut.
    The nights she was home they watched Courtside together. The inevitable result was that seeing the highlights of the trial and hearing the panel discussion brought Katie to a state of anger and tears.
    "Daddy, why doesn't Michael ever stand up for you?" she would demand. "He was so nice when we used to go skiing with him, and he was always saying how much you helped Natalie's career. Why doesn't he say it now, when he could do you some good?"
    "We'll show him," was typical of Gregg's replies to his daughter. "We'll never go skiing with him again." He would shake his fist at the television in mock indignation.
    "Oh, Daddy!" Katie would laugh. "I mean it."
    "So do I," Gregg would say, quietly now.
    Gregg admitted to himself that the evenings Katie went out for a few hours with friends gave him a needed break. During the day, the love he felt emanating from her as she sat a few rows