I, too, am reading and very much enjoying this story. You write with a beautiful, natural flow, Nan, and I the feminist am of course enjoying a story where I'm allowed to hate a rapist. All the more so since this man seems a lot more realistic, and also a lot more scary, than someone like, say, Tempus.
But you are making me feel that Norma isn't taking the threat to her person suffciently seriously. Shouldn't she have told her husband? Suppose she does get raped. Okay, I don't think that will really happen, but suppose it did. Wouldn't her husband be terribly upset when he found out that the rape might not have happened if he had been at home, which he would have been if Norma had only told him?
Then again... I think you are very right that many women don't
want to think that they could be a target for a rapist. I can easily imagine that Norma would tell herself that she isn't in that much danger, and she shouldn't have to act as if was hiding or asking for protection all the time. And maybe she finds it embarrassing to ask others to constantly protect her. I think many women feel that they don't want to be that kind of a burden, and as for Norma, she is a cop and should be able to take care of herself, right? I guess that may be what she is telling herself.
I'm so interested in seeing how you will wrap all this up, Nan!
Ann
Considerably less of one, in fact!