Shattered by Donna Ball

multishaped windows that faced the beach. He watched her kick off her shoes and run her fingers through her hair. He watched the way her shirt tightened over her breasts when she lifted her arm and that made him smile. He watched the way she moved in those tight jeans, slim hips, small waist, tapered legs. Showing off. It was almost as though she knew he was there watching, wanted him to see, and the thought both irritated and excited him. When she moved toward the window, for a moment, he was convinced that she could see him, and then she stopped, and turned away.
    He realized a moment later that it was the telephone that had distracted her. She went to answer it, and he smiled, his mind made up.
    He waited until she had finished her telephone conversation and started up the stairs. He knew if he stayed where he was and waited long enough, he could watch her undress in front of the second-floor window, but he had more interesting plans.
    Tonight's the night, baby , he thought. Payback time . He moved, boldly and silently, toward the steps that led to her private boardwalk from the beach.
    ***
    The call was from a customer who was driving down from Atlanta over the weekend to look at property. Carol hung up the phone feeling disappointed and impatient. It wasn't outrageous of her to expect Kelly to call tonight—after all, she had called two days in a row—but she couldn't keep jumping every time the phone rang. She had to remain calm and clear-headed so that when Kelly did call again, she would know what to listen for, how to keep her talking long enough for the trace to work, or at least how to get Kelly to tell her where she was before she hung up.
    Before leaving the house that morning, Carol had activated Call Forwarding to send all her calls to her cell. She wanted to take no chance on missing Kelly's call, even though she might not always be able to activate the police's tracing device. She debated for a moment now whether to stay downstairs so that she would be close to the machine, but her back was killing her and the important thing was not tracing or recording the call, but talking to Kelly. She took the cordless phone with her as she went upstairs to change into her swimsuit, and from there to the rooftop hot tub.
    A widow's walk enclosed the deck, and a glass windbreak surrounded the hot tub on three sides, protecting it from the harsh sea winds, which were strong year-round, and in the winter and spring far too cold for comfort. Carol hugged her terry robe close around her until she reached the protection of the windbreak, then placed the phone on the bench next to the tub and tossed her robe beside it. Wincing a little at the twinge in her back as she bent over, she folded back the cover on the tub and stepped gratefully into the warm, bubbling water.
    The wind was loud, occasionally rattling the three-sided-glass partition or funneling around it to create a low-pitched roar, which effectively screened out even the sound of the whirlpool motor and the surge of the surf. Carol glanced at the telephone once again, making sure it was close enough for her to hear if it should ring. Then she sank back into the water, positioning a jet against the small of her back, and relaxed.
    The stars were brilliant, as they can only be in an absolutely black sky viewed miles from the nearest light source. Guy used to say that being up here was like being in a space capsule with the earth and all its troubles light-years away. For a moment that was how Carol allowed herself to feel—insulated by water and sound, isolated by height, protected by the sky and the sea from all that troubled her. But it was only for a moment.
    The first indication she had of anything unusual was a sound too vague to be identifiable, and so muffled by the wind that she couldn't be sure she had heard anything at all. A slamming door? Something bumping against the side of the house? She listened for a moment and was just about to decide she had