I was told to stay inside-no problem there-while the four cautiously went out into the darkness and rain to ask Nicole what the hell she was doing.

I was so very obedient-which shows how rattled I was-that I was still standing in exactly the same spot when Officer Vyskosigh came back inside and gave me a very sharp once-over. I was a bit taken aback. This just wasn’t the time for ogling, you know?

“Ma’am,” he said politely, “would you like to sit down?”

“Yes, I would,” I replied, just as politely, and sat down in one of the visitors’ chairs. I wondered what was going on outside. How much longer could this take?

After a few more minutes, more cars arrived outside, lights flashing. My parking lot was beginning to look like a cop convention. Good Lord, couldn’t four cops handle Nicole? They’d had to call in reinforcements? She must be even more psycho than I’d realized. I’ve heard that when people go nuts, they have superhuman strength. Nicole was definitely nuts. I had a mental picture of her tossing cops left and right as she strode toward me, and wondered if I should barricade myself inside my office.

Officer Vyskosigh didn’t look as if he would let me do the barricade thing. In fact, I was beginning to think Officer Vyskosigh wasn’t so much protecting me-as I’d originally thought-as guarding me. As in, making sure I didn’t do… something.

Uh-oh.

Various scenarios began racing through my mind. If he was here to prevent me from doing something, what could that something be? Peeing? Paperwork? Both of which I did actually need to do, which is why they were first on my mental list, but I doubted the police department was interested in either of them. At least I hoped Officer Vyskosigh wasn’t interested, particularly in the first item.