Buried Evidence by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg Page B

months. Didn’t I tell you he’d come looking for me? I should have told Dad to buy me a gun. What am I going to use to protect myself?”
    “You know how I feel about guns, Shana,” Lily said. “The majority of people who buy firearms either shoot themselves or one of their family members. And when someone does break into their home, nine times out of ten the perpetrator uses the gun against them.”
    “Please, Mom,” the girl said, “don’t lecture me now. I’m really scared. I wish I still had Princess. At least she barked when people came around.”
    “I know, sweetheart,” her mother answered, realizing she was referring to the Italian greyhound dog she had given to her just after the rape. Sadly, the delicate little dog had died the same year Shana had graduated from high school. Her daughter had been so devastated, she had refused to let her mother buy her another pet. “I’m going to call the police from the other line,” Lily told her. “Don’t hang up.”
    “Hurry,” her daughter pleaded.
    Lily rushed to the kitchen, where she had a separate phone line installed. As soon as she got the dispatcher on the speaker phone, she reported a suspicious individual lurking around her daughter’s residence. “Did you hear, Shana?” she said into the portable phone. “The police are on the way.”
    “What if they don’t get here in time?”
    “We’ve been through all of this before,” her mother said. “You’re getting hysterical.”
    “How could they release him after what he did to us?” Shanasaid, incensed. “Explain that to me, okay? What’s he going to have to do before they lock him up for good? Kill me or something?”
    “Take a few deep breaths,” her mother said. “Is the man still there?”
    Shana jerked her head around. “I can’t tell,” she said. “Someone just pulled up in front of the house across the street. He must be hiding behind the car now.”
    “A sidewalk is a public place,” Lily told her. “Of course you’re going to see people walking around outside at night, especially in an area as heavily populated as North Hollywood. You can’t let your imagination run wild. Where’s your father?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Lily was pacing back and forth in the living room of her cottage. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
    “He went out for ice cream,” the girl said, yanking the rubber band out of her hair. “He never came back. For all I know he’s sitting in a bar somewhere.”
    Lily was more disturbed by the fact that her ex-husband was drinking than her daughter’s belief that someone was going to harm her. This wasn’t the first time the girl had panicked since she’d learned Curazon had been released on parole. According to his parole agent, the man didn’t even own a car. Time was the key. Shana would eventually feel safe again, but it wasn’t going to happen overnight. Lily only wished she’d been able to convince her to attend school in Santa Barbara. How could she protect her child from such a great distance? “Wasn’t your father ordered to attend A.A. meetings after the DWI conviction?”
    “I guess.” Shana turned her attention back to the window. “I see him…I’m certain it’s Curazon! He just walked under a streetlight. His head is shaped the same, even his nose. He’s not wearing the same jacket as he was the other day. Still, I’m certain it’s him.”
    “The police will be there any minute.” Lily knew she had to keep her daughter talking. “How could he possibly know where you live? Try to be rational, Shana.”
    “Maybe he found me through the Internet or something,” she said. “They say you can find anyone these days.”
    “That’s ludicrous,” her mother told her. “Don’t you see how childish you sound?”
    “Now you’re calling me childish!” Shana shouted, ready to hang up the phone.
    “Curazon could never afford a computer,” Lily continued, “let alone learn how to use the Internet. Your address