December 4
Since Rosalind had a lunch meeting downtown with one of her authors, she decided not to make the trip to her office. Instead, she took advantage of having extra time in the morning by reading a fashion magazine over a second cup of coffee and taking a hot, relaxing bubble bath instead of her usual quick shower. After she styled her hair, put on her makeup and dressed for the meeting, she went into the living room and turned on CNN to catch up with current events.
When the news coverage was interrupted for a commercial break, Rosalind's attention was drawn to the wooden advent calendar on her fireplace mantel. Inside the drawer marked with the number four, she found another piece of paper.
She unfolded it and read the printout of a poem: "O, never say that I was false of heart, though absence seemed my flame to qualify."
Rosalind, who had majored in English in college, recognized the poem from those first two lines. It was Shakespeare's Sonnet 109.
"I can't believe there are still men out there who send poetry to women."
Suddenly, she wished she knew the identity of her secret admirer. Too bad there was no return address on the package.
What about the tracking number? she wondered. Surely, you can't send a package without one.
She opened the garbage pail in her kitchen, took out the FedEx shipping box and ripped off the customer copy of the airbill. Then she went online and tried to trace the tracking number. Unfortunately, there was no record of such a number.
"Someone must have picked up a blank airbill at a FedEx drop-off box, filled in my name and address on the form and then delivered the package to my door himself."
That meant the sender had been at her house and stood on her threshold.
Am I in any danger? Could this be a Fatal Attraction situation?
She mentally retraced her steps during the past three days and could not recall having seen anyone lurking in the shadows. There had been no telephone calls either to her home or to her office. No messages had been sent to any of her email addresses, and no letters came in her regular mail.
As Rosalind tried to visualize all the faces she had seen during the past week, her grandfather's clock chimed the eleventh hour. Not wanting to be late for her lunch meeting, she turned off the television, grabbed her handbag and briefcase and ran out the door.
