The Golden Girl. Erica Orloff

thanks. I have the police coming at six.”

      “Right. Okay. Well, you just call my cell phone if you need anything.”

      “Thanks, Charlie.” She smiled, remembering how he sometimes used to sneak her off after school to get ice cream if she’d had a bad day—a direct violation of her mother’s macrobiotic rules.

      A short time later, Charlie eased the limo into the parking garage. Maddie got out, leaning over the front seat to give him a peck on the cheek first. Once in the building, she pressed the elevator for up and took it to her floor.

      Glancing at her watch, Maddie saw she had an hour before the police arrived. She was dreading the interview. She unlocked the door to her place, and turned to her left to deactivate the alarm—only to be hit on the back of her head with something. She guessed the butt of a gun as she saw stars, but she had, through luck or training, “felt” the presence of someone for a split second before she’d fully even processed the thought in her brain. She’d turned just enough to deflect the blow, and though the pain through her neck and shoulder was severe, she hadn’t blacked out.

      Whirling, she saw a man with a black wool ski mask. He froze for a second, surprised, she guessed, that she was still standing. She immediately grabbed the seventeenth-century stone statue of a pagoda that rested atop the desk in her entranceway, and swung it for the head of her assailant. She missed but managed to land a solid hit to his shoulder.

      “Bitch!” came his muffled response. He reached out, trying to grab her by the throat, but Maddie ducked—always keep them off balance, her martial arts trainer had told her—and then landed a solid punch to his solar plexus.

      He doubled over, and she knew she’d knocked the wind out of him. He wheezed and coughed, then raised one fist and punched her in return, landing on her jaw. She flew backward against the wall. Still on her feet, she somehow managed to land a roundhouse kick into his thigh. Now he was really angry, she could tell.

      He bellowed, grabbing her by the hair, and rammed her head against the wall. She finally screamed—loud. She clawed at his mask. But using her hair for leverage of some sort, he spun her away from himself and then dashed out the door and down the hall to the stairwell.

      Maddie had fallen back against the sharp point of the corner of her dining-room table. Pain coursed through her back, but she willed herself to get to the keypad of her alarm system. She pressed the panic button, still puzzled as to how the assailant had outwitted her system. The button made the entire keypad light up with red lights. Maddie looked down the hall, the assailant now gone, and waited for the security company to dispatch a team.

      Someone, she decided, was up to no good at Pruitt & Pruitt. And she was more determined than ever to figure out who that was.