Nova frowned. “Yes. That describes her exactly. Do you know her?”
“We’ve met. Where is she?”
“I put her in your office.”
Diesel went to see his unexpected visitor, but he was not happy about it. Stopping at his open office door, he saw Miss Penny seemingly mesmerized by the picture of a celestial, star-strewn rendering of his home galaxy, Caldera Forte.
The moment he opened the door wider, she shot away from the picture faster than he would have expected from someone as elderly and frail as she seemed to be. Perhaps she was not as delicate as she let on.
“Miss Penny? What brings you here tonight?”
She turned slowly to face him as if it pained her to do so. Her fragile smile was at war with the steely, unwavering gaze she sent his way. “I thought Juliana was here with you. She’s really the one I need to speak to. Is she close by?” The old woman’s gaze darted from the doorway back to his face with expectancy.
Diesel wondered how Miss Penny had arrived from almost an hour away when on Friday she’d needed Juliana’s help to do her shopping, as well as what was so important to compel her to do so. “She’s at my house—”
“Alone?!” Miss Penny stepped forward and her shriveled height seemed to grow astoundingly taller in the moment.
“My brother may still be with her.” Diesel glanced at his watch. “Why? Is there a problem?”
Miss Penny seemed to realize the fragility she typically expressed was nowhere in sight. She inhaled deeply as if trying to calm herself.
“It’s possible. But I truly need to ask her something.”
“Must be important if you came all this way for a question,” Diesel said. “Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on.”
Miss Penny looked at him for a long while, her gaze uncertain, staring first at him and then drifting to the wall behind him before returning. She finally leaned forward and opened her mouth. Diesel thought she was going to confide in him. “Better not. Just take me to Juliana, please,” she said with a polite smile.
Diesel grabbed his communicator and texted Axel.
Are you still at my house with Juliana?
He expected a quick response. Nothing came. He waited for a couple more beats, but still nothing. He changed the communicator for speaking and called him. No answer. He left a message. “Call me as soon as you get this.”
“Take me to your home.” Miss Penny said. “I’m afraid Juliana might be in trouble.”
“Don’t open the door,” Juliana whispered urgently to Axel.
He turned, eyes squinting with curiosity. “Why? Do you know who’s out there?”
“No. But what if it’s, you know, a boogieman.”
A half laugh, half grunt came from him. “A boogieman? Where’d you hear about that?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Well, trust me when I say the Boogieman doesn’t knock,” he said rather ominously. “Hold your horses!” Axel said loud enough for the outside knocker to hear, then added, “And stop pounding. I’m not opening this door!”
The pounding suddenly stopped. The abrupt silence was disquieting. Her ears rang from the previous loud banging. They both looked at the door. They looked at each other, shrugging as if recognizing it was truly strange.
Juliana wondered what had made the mad knocker stop. When they’d arrived, the door had been unlocked. Perhaps the pounder expected the door to be open and then become enraged when it wasn’t. Maybe it was the apple menace ready to drop a barrel of half-eaten apples on the foyer floor.
Axel reached for the cell phone or whatever it was on his belt. It looked like the one Diesel had.
“Who is it?”
“Diesel sent me a text asking if I was still here with you, then he called and left a message when I didn’t pick up.”
