Under Threat by Robin Stevenson Page A

energy!” It was like listening to the soundtrack of my childhood. Leah turned
to me and said, “I love the sound of horses eating.”
    I love you, I thought. I love you.
    We hadn’t said those words yet, but I thought them the whole time I was with her—and
most of the time I wasn’t with her too.
    The machine beeps and picks up. “You’ve reached the home of Heather, Hugh and Franny
Green. Leave a message and one of us will get back to you.”
    I stop chewing for a second, listening, in case it’s for me. But it’s a man’s voice,
deep and oddly muffled. “Baby killers,” he says. “You’re going to burn in hell for
what you do.” Click.
    My heart flip-flops in my chest, and my cheeks flare hot.
    Mom sighs. “So much for changing the number and having it unlisted,” she says. “How
long did it take for them to get the new one?”
    Dad runs his hands over his bald head. “Not nearly long enough.”
    The phone starts to ring again.
    “Unplug it, would you, Franny?” Mom says. Her voice is calm, as always. She’s the
most level-headed, unflappable person I’ve ever met.
    “We’ll have to change the number again,” Dad says.
    “We should just get rid of the landline,” I say. Hardly anyone uses it anyway, mainly
because we’ve changed the number so many times that no one can keep track of it.
Except, apparently, the anti-abortion psychos. I stand up and walk toward the phone,
and I’m just about to yank the cord from the phone jack when the next message starts.
    It’s the same voice. “Hello again, baby killers,” he says. “I just left a little
surprise for you in the mailbox.” Click.
    I freeze.
    “Don’t unplug it,” Dad says. “Pass me the phone. I’m calling the police.”
    My heart is beating fast and my hand is slippery with sweat as I hand him the phone.
“It’ll be okay,” Mom says. “We’ve been here before, right?”
    I nod. Last time we had a bomb threat, someone actually left a package on the front
steps and we had to evacuate the house. The bomb squad came and everything, but it
turned out to be just a cardboard box full of phone books and cans of hairspray.
    That was over a year ago, but I still have nightmares about it.
    Dad is talking to Detective Bowerbank, AKA Rich—balding, beer-bellied and solid
as a rock. Over the last few years, we’ve seen so much of him that he’s become kind
of a family friend.
    I pull my cell out of my pocket. Mom grabs my arm. “Wait.”
    “Can’t I call Leah?”
    “Turn off your cell,” she says. “Remember?”
    Bomb threat protocol: don’t touch the light switches, turn off your cell phone. I
swallow and shut down my phone.
    Mom tucks a wiry curl behind her ear. Her hair is a mass of tightly coiled silver
springs. Like hundreds of tiny Slinkys. “Just to be on the safe side,” she says.
“I’m sure it’ll turn out to be nothing.”
    Dad hangs up the phone. “He says to sit tight and they’ll have someone here within
a few minutes.”
    “Shouldn’t we get out?” I ask.
    “He doesn’t want us opening the doors until they’ve made sure it’s safe for us to
do so.”
    I imagine a sniper hiding behind a tree. Picture wires trailing from the mailbox
to the door hinge. My breathing is fast and shallow, and I have to remind myself
to push aside the scary images. Don’t make this worse than it is, Franny. I count
silently to ten, trying to slow my breathing.
    But I can’t stop my thoughts. What if it’s starting all over again?

Chapter Two
    Half an hour later, I’m sitting with my parents in the living room, and the cops
have taken away an envelope of white powder to be analyzed.
    “Almost certainly not anthrax,” Rich Bowerbank tells us. “Obviously, we can’t take
any chances, but I can tell you that out of many hundreds of similar threats to abortion
clinics, none have contained actual anthrax.”
    “This isn’t a clinic though,” Mom says. “It’s our house.”
    She is sitting on the couch beside me, her