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looking around with an amiable smile, but coming straight toward her. “Think I could have a glass of water?”
    Nora almost sighed with relief, eager to believe that a drink of cold water was all that had brought him here. “Oh, yes, of course,” she said. She took a glass from the cupboard, ran the cold water.
    When she turned to hand it to him, he was standing close behind her, having crept up with catlike quiet. She gave an involuntary start. Water slopped out of the glass and splattered on the floor.
    She said, “You—”
    “Here,” he said, taking the glass from her hand.
    “—startled me.”
    “Me?” he said, smiling, fixing her with icy blue eyes. “Oh, I certainly didn’t mean to. I’m sorry. I’m harmless, Mrs. Devon. Really, I am. All I want is a drink of water. You didn’t think I wanted anything else—did you?”
    He was so damned bold. She couldn’t believe how bold he was, how smart-mouthed and cool and aggressive. She wanted to slap his face, but she was afraid of what would happen after that. Slapping him—in any way acknowledging his insulting double entendres or other offenses—seemed sure to encourage rather than deter him.
    He stared at her with unsettling intensity, voraciously. His smile was that of a predator.
    She sensed the best way to handle Streck was to pretend innocence and monumental thick headedness, to ignore his nasty sexual innuendos as if she had not understood them. She must, in short, deal with him as a mouse might deal with any threat from which it was unable to flee. Pretend you do not see the cat, pretend that it is not there, and perhaps the cat will be confused and disappointed by the lack of reaction and will seek more responsive prey elsewhere.
    To break away from his demanding gaze, Nora tore a couple of paper towels from the dispenser beside the sink and began to mop up the water she had spilled on the floor. But the moment she stooped before Streck, she realized she’d made a mistake, because he did not move out of her way but stood over her, loomed over her, while she squatted in front of him. The situation was full of erotic symbolism. When she realized the submissiveness implied by her position at his feet, she popped up again and saw that his smile had broadened.
    Flushed and flustered, Nora threw the damp towels into the waste can under the sink.
    Art Streck said, “Cooking, needlepoint . . . yeah, I think that’s real nice, real nice. What other things do you like to do?”
    “That’s it, I’m afraid,” she said. “I don’t have any unusual hobbies. I’m not a very interesting person. Low-key. Dull, even.”
    Damning herself for being unable to order the bastard out of her house, she slipped past him and went to the oven, ostensibly to check that it was finished preheating, but she was really just trying to get out of Streck’s reach.
    He followed her, staying close. “When I pulled up out front, I saw lots of flowers. You tend the flowers?”
    Staring at the oven dials, she said, “Yes . . . I like gardening.”
    “I approve of that,” he said, as if she ought to care whether he approved or not. “Flowers . . . that’s a good thing for a woman to have an interest in. Cooking, needlepoint, gardening—why you’re just full of womanly interests and talents. I’ll bet you do everything well, Mrs. Devon. I mean everything a woman should do. I’ll bet you’re a first-rate woman in every department.”
    If be touches me, I’ll scream, she thought.
    However, the walls of the old house were thick, and the neighbors were some distance away. No one would hear her or come to her rescue.
    I’ll kick him, she thought. I’ll fight back.
    But, in fact, she was not sure that she would fight, was not sure that she had the gumption to fight. Even if she did attempt to defend herself, he was bigger and stronger than she was.
    “Yeah, I’ll bet you’re a first-rate woman in every department,” he repeated, delivering the line more provocatively