Free Low Pressure by Sandra Brown Page B

unpacked. Dent, who had an ingrained aversion to cops, didn’t venture any farther into the room but propped his shoulder against the door frame, which was a good observation point.
    He had followed Bellamy home from Lyston Electronics, keeping one eye on the road and the other on his rearview mirror. He didn’t believe Van Durbin had followed them, but he probably didn’t need to. Surely
EyeSpy
had a battalion of underpaid Internet geeks doing research and electronic investigative work. Finding out Bellamy’s new home address would have been duck soup.
    When they reentered her house and saw again the evidence of last night’s intruder, Dent had said, “With Van Durbin in town, you’ve got more to worry about than media coverage of this. Call the police.”
    She’d capitulated without further discussion, apparently having seen the wisdom of having the break-in on record. Two uniformed officers had arrived a few minutes later. They’d questioned both of them, walked through every room of the house as well as the backyard, poking about. They’d called in another officer to dust for fingerprints. He’d already come and gone.
    The questions being put to Bellamy now were similar to those the sheriff’s deputy had asked of Dent earlier at the airfield, the implication being that the vandalism was retribution for something she had done.
    “Have you had any cross words with a neighbor? Maid? Yardman?”
    She shook her head no.
    “Co-worker?”
    “I don’t have co-workers.”
    One of the policemen looked over at Dent. “You said you followed her home last night?”
    “I flew her to Houston and back yesterday. She left something in my airplane. I was returning it to her.”
    He nodded and, with one eyebrow eloquently arched, exchanged a meaningful look with his partner. Going back to Bellamy, he said, “We, uh, took the pair of underwear for evidence. Using a personal garment like that to paint the words on the wall . . . Well, ma’am, it suggests the perpetrator has, uh, intimate knowledge of you.”
    “Or he’s read my book.”
    One’s face lit up and he snapped his fingers. “I thought you looked familiar. You’re that author.” To his partner, he said, “She’s famous.”
    She passed a copy of
Low Pressure
to the one who hadn’t recognized her. “It’s a murder mystery. Fact based. The victim was my sister. Her underpants became a key element of the investigation.”
    “Any idea what was meant by the warning?”
    “Isn’t the meaning obvious?” Dent said impatiently. “She’s in danger from this guy.”
    Neither officer acknowledged his remark, but one of them asked Bellamy if she’d received similar threats or warnings. She told them about the rat and the break-in of her car.
    “Did you report these incidents?”
    “No. They were dissimilar. Different states. I thought they were random. But after this, I believe they could all be related, and the common denominator is my book.”
    “Why do you think that?”
    “Timing, for one thing. Nothing like this happened to me before the book was published. Besides, I can’t think of anything I’ve done to elicit this kind of malice.”
    After a considerable pause, and another glance toward Dent, one of them said, “Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with your book. Could someone in your personal life bear you a grudge? An ex-husband? A boyfriend you’ve recently broken off with? Anybody like that?”
    Dent was interested to know the answers to those questions himself.
    “My ex lives in Dallas,” Bellamy told them. “Our divorce was amicable. He’s remarried. I just moved here from New York. I haven’t been seeing anyone.”
    “What about up there?”
    “No. Only in the most platonic sense.”
    The two exchanged another look and seemed to agree that they had covered everything. “We’ll put your house on a drive-by list. Our patrols will keep a close eye on it. Call us immediately if anything, even the smallest thing,