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Chapter Three

“Courtney Baxter,” Dakota said. “The woman I know you were out with last night.” She looked as if she wanted to hit him again. Her eyes narrowed. “What did you do to her?”

He rubbed his jaw, feeling as if he was mentally two steps behind and had been since Courtney Baxter had knocked on his door not twenty-four hours before. “Courtney Baxter is your sister?”

“My half sister. Where is she?”

His head ached and now so did his jaw. Dakota had a pretty good right hook. “How do you know I was with her?”

“She called me sounding terrified. What did you do to her?”

Taking a step back, he raised both hands. “Hold on a minute. We can figure this out.”

“What is there to figure out?” she demanded.

He noticed something he hadn’t earlier. Dakota’s left hand. No wedding ring. No ring at all. The last time he’d seen her, she’d had a nice-size rock on her ring finger. He’d heard she was engaged to some investment manager down in New Mexico.

She saw him staring at her left hand and stuck her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, her look daring him to say anything about it.

No chance of that.

“We should put something on those knuckles,” he said, having noticed before that her right hand was swelling. Hitting him had hurt her more than it had him. Well, physically at least.

Dakota Lansing. He still couldn’t believe that the freckle-faced tomboy who used to stick her tongue out at him had grown into this amazing-looking woman.

“Why don’t you come into the house for a minute,” he said, and started for the front porch.

“Zane, I’m only interested in finding my sister.”

“So am I.” He left the door open, went into the kitchen and opened the freezer door. By the time he heard her come in he had a tray of ice cubes dumped into a clean dishcloth.

“What did you do to her?” Dakota demanded again from the kitchen doorway.

He motioned to a chair at the kitchen table. “Dakota, you know me. You know I wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

She didn’t look convinced, but she did sit down. He reached for her injured hand, but she quickly took the ice from him, pushing his hand away.

“Courtney said on the phone last night that she was in trouble. I heard something crash in the background. Just before the connection went dead she said your name.”

The whole time she’d been talking she was glaring at him, challenging him to come up with an explanation. He wished he could.

“Dakota, I have to be honest with you. I can’t remember anything about last night. I woke up this morning alone with these scratches on my face and—” he pushed up his sleeve “—my arm.”

Her eyes widened a little when she saw the scratches on his arm. He saw fear flicker in her expression, fear and anger. “How long have you been dating my sister?”

She sounded almost jealous. Which he thought just showed how hungover he was. “I had never laid eyes on her until she showed up at my door last night claiming we had a date,” he said. He saw she was having trouble believing it. “I swear it. And I certainly didn’t know she was your sister. So how is it I never knew you had a sister?”

“She’s my father’s love child.” Dakota sighed and shifted the ice pack on her swollen knuckles. “I only found out two weeks ago after my father died.”

He remembered seeing in the newspaper that her father had passed away. He’d thought about sending a card, but it had been so many years, he doubted Dakota would remember him.

“Are you sure she’s even—”

“I saw her birth certificate. It had my father’s signature and his name on it. Apparently Courtney’s mother and my father got together either when my mother was dying or right after.”

He could see how painful this was for her. Dakota had idolized her father, and to find out on his death that he’d been keeping a lover and a sister from her for years …

“So you’re claiming that Courtney just showed up at your door?” Dakota asked, clearly not wanting to talk about her father.

Zane told her about his call to Arlene at the dating service, the check someone had used to enroll him and that he was waiting to hear from Courtney, since he, too, was worried about what might have happened last night.

She studied him for a long moment. “So a woman you have never seen before shows up at your door claiming you have a date, and you just go out with her anyway?”

He guessed Dakota had probably heard about his reputation with women. “I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.”

Her chuckle had a distinct edge to it, and he remembered why he’d always liked her. Dakota had always been smart and sassy. She’d been a daredevil as a kid, always up for just about anything, from climbing the three-story structure that held the rodeo announcer’s booth at the fairgrounds, to trying to ride any animal that would hold still long enough for her to hop on. Since her father had raised rodeo stock, she’d had a lot of animals to choose from. He’d liked her a lot. Still did, he thought.

“How well do you know her?” Zane asked.

“Not as well as you know her, apparently,” Dakota said, and shoved the ice pack away as she reached for her phone.

“Who are you calling?” He hated to think.

“I’m trying Courtney’s cell.” She punched in the number and hit Send. “I’ve been trying to call her all day and—”

At the distant sound of a phone ringing they both froze for an instant. Then, getting to their feet, they followed the muffled ringing.

Zane hadn’t gone far when he realized the sound was coming from his bedroom. He pushed open the door and stepped in, Dakota on his heels.

The ringing seemed to be coming from the bed, but when he drew back the crumpled covers, it was empty. As the phone stopped ringing, no doubt going to voice mail, he knelt down and looked under the bed.

He could just make out the phone in the shadowy darkness under the bed—and what was left of the lamp that had been on the nightstand on the other side of the bed. The lamp lay shattered between the bed and the closet.

Refusing to think about that right now, he reached for Courtney’s phone.

It wasn’t until he pulled it out and heard Dakota gasp that he noticed the cell phone was smeared with something dark red. Blood.

He dropped the phone on the bed, realizing belatedly that he should never have touched it. He had a bad feeling it would be evidence—against him.

As he turned, Dakota took a step back from him. The frightened look in her eyes hit him like a blow. There were tears in her eyes; the look on her face was breaking his heart.

“I didn’t harm your sister. Dakota, you know me.”

“I knew you, Zane, but that was a long time ago.”

“Not so long. I haven’t changed. Drunk or sober, I would never hurt a woman. You have to believe me.” But how could he keep telling himself that nothing bad had happened last night when the evidence just kept stacking up?

They both turned toward the front of the house as they heard a vehicle pull up. Zane moved quickly to look out, hoping it would be Courtney and he could get this cleared up and relieve his mind.

But it wasn’t Courtney’s lime-green compact with the MSU plates.

It was a Whitehorse County Sheriff’s Department patrol SUV.

“MRS. CROWLEY,” EMMA cried when she saw the woman’s bandaged hand.

“It’s nothing.”

“Oh, here, let me see it.” She reached for the woman’s hand.

“I said it was nothing,” Mrs. Crowley said, taking a step back and drawing her hand behind her. Her face had closed up, her one good eye glinting as hard as the tone of her voice.

Emma fell silent. She’d held out hope that she would like the woman Hoyt had hired as her housekeeper-babysitter. Being close in age, she’d thought they might have things in common.

But every time she had reached out to Mrs. Crowley, offering her friendship, it had been quickly rebuffed.

“Just let me do my work,” the woman said now. Her wrecked face caught the light; the burn scars looked angrier today than usual.

Unlike Hoyt, Emma made a point of looking Mrs. Crowley in the eye. She refused to be put off by her injuries—or her manner.

Hoyt just steered clear of the woman and often apologized for hiring her.

“She’s fine,” Emma always said in Mrs. Crowley’s defense. She suspected that the woman had trouble getting other positions and couldn’t afford to lose this job. Hoyt paid her well and the living accommodations were probably nicer than any she’d had before. Not that Emma’s kindness or the house or the pay had softened Mrs. Crowley in the least.

“Whatever happened to her has made her push people away,” Emma told her husband. “We just need to keep trying to make her feel at home here.”

Hoyt had been skeptical. “You probably pick up stray dogs, too, don’t you? Honey, this time I don’t think even you can make that woman civil—let alone happy.”

Emma couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to Mrs. Crowley that made her like this. She suspected it was more than whatever accident she’d had that had left her disfigured. But Emma doubted she would ever know. It wasn’t like Mrs. Crowley was going to tell her anytime soon.

“DID YOU CALL THE SHERIFF?” Zane asked without looking at her as Dakota joined him at the window.

“No.” With a sinking feeling, Dakota watched Sheriff McCall Crawford climb awkwardly out of the patrol vehicle. Dakota saw that the sheriff was pregnant, a good seven or eight months along.

“Maybe Courtney called her, or—”

Or Courtney had been found. Dakota didn’t let him finish that thought. “Courtney wouldn’t have called the sheriff.” If her sister had had any intention of calling the sheriff, wouldn’t Courtney have done so last night instead of calling her?

Whatever Courtney was up to, Dakota suspected the sheriff was the last person she wanted involved.

“Well, if you didn’t call her, and Courtney didn’t …” Zane let the thought hang between them.

Dakota glanced over at him, saw his freshly scratched face in the glow of the afternoon sun coming through the window and could guess what was about to happen.

Once the sheriff saw the scratches, she wouldn’t need to hear about the phone conversation Dakota’d had with Courtney in the wee hours this morning. Nor would the sheriff need to see the bloody phone from under Zane’s bed before hauling him off to jail.

Common sense told Dakota, given the evidence, jail was probably the best place for him. But not if she had any hope of him helping her find her sister.

“Here’s what I want you to do,” she said as the sheriff’s footfalls echoed on the old wooden porch. “Go in the bathroom and stay there. Let me handle this.”

Zane shook his head as the sheriff knocked at the front door. “If you think I’m going to hide behind your skirts—”

“What you’re going to do is help me find Courtney, and you can’t very well do that behind bars,” Dakota said through gritted teeth as the sheriff knocked again. “Turn on the shower. There’s something I haven’t told you about Courtney. Now trust me.”

She shot him an impatient look and waited until he disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door before she went to answer the sheriff’s third knock.

AS THE DOOR SWUNG OPEN, Sheriff McCall Crawford couldn’t help her surprise.

“Dakota Lansing?” McCall said. “Haven’t seen you in a while.” She’d been several years ahead of Dakota and they’d gone to different schools—McCall in Whitehorse, while Dakota had gone to Chinook—but they’d crossed paths because of sports.

“I’ve been living in New Mexico. I only recently returned. For my father’s funeral,” she added.

“Yes, I heard. I’m sorry.” The sheriff looked past her. “Is Zane around, by any chance?”

“He’s in the shower, but you’re welcome to come in.” She stepped back and McCall entered the house. “He’s getting ready so we can go out for dinner.”

McCall glanced around the small house. There wasn’t much to see. Zane Chisholm obviously wasn’t into decorating. She doubted he spent much time here.

“I came out to talk to Zane, but since you’re here …” McCall said. “Is there a problem I should know about?”

Dakota looked confused by the question. “A problem?”

“I got a call that there was a domestic disturbance out here.”

“When was that?”

“Twenty minutes ago,” McCall said.

Dakota let out a laugh. “You didn’t really take that call seriously, did you? The closest neighbor is a half mile away. Hard to really see or hear a domestic disturbance, unless of course they said there was gunfire involved.”

“True,” McCall said. “Unless, of course, you made the call.”

“I can assure you, I didn’t call. But I suspect caller ID would have confirmed that,” Dakota said.

The sheriff smiled. She remembered Dakota Lansing as being smart and capable. “Just had to check. Actually the call came from a woman who said she was your sister.”

“Courtney?”

McCall saw that she now had Dakota’s attention. “Is Courtney Baxter your sister?”

“My half sister. Long story. Why would she make a call like that? I haven’t seen her for several days.”

“Good question.” McCall glanced toward the bathroom door. She could hear the shower still running. Zane Chisholm took an awfully long shower.

As she felt the baby kick, McCall rested her hand on her swollen belly. For a moment she was lost in that amazing feeling. The whole pregnancy had been like this, stolen moments from her job when she felt as if she wanted to pinch herself. She just couldn’t believe she and Luke were having a baby.

“Is it possible your sister is jealous?” McCall asked as she turned to leave. “I heard Zane was out with a pretty blonde last night. Apparently they were celebrating rather hard.”

Compliments of the Whitehorse grapevine first thing this morning. McCall even knew that Courtney Baxter had been wearing a very sexy red dress. Who needed Twitter? No one in this county, she thought.

That Courtney was Dakota Lansing’s half sister had come as a surprise. The scuttlebutt now around town was that the girl was the product of an affair Clay Lansing had years ago.

“I actually set up the date,” Dakota said. “I knew the two of them would hit it off. Zane and I are just friends. But I can understand why Courtney might be jealous after a date with Zane. He is a catch.”

McCall nodded as she glanced into the kitchen and bedroom, saw the unmade bed and figured this was merely a case of sibling rivalry. “Well, you two have a nice supper. Have Zane give me a call when he gets a chance.”

As she started for the front door, she heard a cell phone ring from somewhere in the bedroom. “If that’s your sister calling, please tell her I’d like to talk to her, too,” McCall said, and let herself out.

DAKOTA LET OUT THE BREATH she’d been holding since the moment she’d realized it was Courtney’s cell phone ringing. Zane had left it lying on the crumpled covers of the bed. Fortunately it had been out of the sheriff’s sight.

She hurried into the bedroom and gingerly picked up the phone. Private caller. “Hello?”

No answer, but she could hear breathing on the line. “Who is this? Courtney? If that’s you—”

Whoever it was hung up.

Dakota stood holding the phone for a moment, then quickly dropped it back on the bed. She felt a rush of anger. Courtney was fine. She’d called the sheriff twenty minutes ago. She must have seen Dakota’s pickup parked in front of Zane’s house from the county road.

Or she’d called so the sheriff would see Zane’s scratched face.

“What are you up to, Courtney?” Dakota said to the empty bedroom. No good, that much she was sure of. “And what really happened here last night?”

The room provided few answers. Unless you read something into the crumpled sheets on the bed. She felt a surge of anger mixed with something she didn’t want to admit. Jealousy. Zane had gone out with her sister. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She swore under her breath.

Too bad he hadn’t felt that way when they were kids, Dakota thought, remembering how he’d pushed her away.

“You’re just a kid,” he’d said when she tried to hang around him at the rodeo grounds. “Go on. Find someone your own age to bug.”

She ground her teeth at the memory. She’d had the worst crush on him. And, stupidly, she’d written it all down in her diary, every horrible tearful account, including her conviction: Zane doesn’t know it, but some day I’m going to marry him.

Two days ago, when she’d realized that someone had been in her things, she’d discovered that her diary and some old photographs were missing. Courtney. She was the only one who could have taken the diary.

Now Dakota wondered when Courtney had taken it. Two weeks ago—about the same time that someone had mysteriously signed Zane Chisholm up for a dating service?

It was no coincidence that Courtney had tricked Zane into a date. Dakota was sure of that. Courtney had the diary. She knew how her sister had felt about Zane. So Courtney had done this out of meanness?

What had she hoped to accomplish by this? More than sibling rivalry, Dakota thought, remembering the scratches on Zane’s face and the frantic phone call in the wee hours this morning.

Whatever Courtney was up to, Dakota was going to find her and put a stop to it. And Zane was going to help her.

Unlike him, Dakota had a bad feeling she knew exactly why Courtney had targeted him. She couldn’t wait to get her hands on her diary—and her sister.

MRS. CROWLEY STEPPED into her room and closed the door firmly behind her. She had always been so good at playing her roles—she now thought of herself as Mrs. Crowley. Smiling at the thought, she locked the door to listen. She had to make sure she wouldn’t be disturbed.

It hadn’t taken long to learn the sounds of the house. The older section had more to say than the newer one, but she knew all of its many voices—which floorboards creaked, which doors opened silently, which spot in the house carried the most sound for eavesdropping.

She’d explored every square inch of the house until she knew she could move through it blind if she had to. That was a possibility if the house were ever to catch fire.

Satisfied that everyone was down for the night, she stretched, relieving her back from the strain of walking hunched over. She had taught herself to move silently and now chuckled to herself at how many times she’d been able to come up behind Emma without her knowing it and startle her.

Moving just as silently now, she stepped into the bathroom and studied herself in the mirror over the sink a moment before she reached up and took out the white contact lens. She blinked, waiting for the eye to focus. Then she removed the dark brown contact lens.

She slowly began to remove the burn scar, peeling it off as she peeled away Mrs. Crowley. At last she stood at the mirror, her face scrubbed clean, her eyes blue again.

As she stared at herself, though, she felt she was looking at a stranger. It had been so long since she’d been herself, her image came as a shock.

But it was nothing compared to the shock it would give others in the house when the time came to end this charade, she thought with a wry smile.

Chapter Four

The moment Zane had gone into the bathroom and turned on the shower, he’d changed his mind about staying hidden while Dakota handled the sheriff.

He’d never run from trouble in his life, and he wasn’t going to now. But as he’d reached for the bathroom door handle, he’d glimpsed his face again in the mirror over the sink. The scratches were an angry red and, maybe worse, he had no explanation for them.

Dakota was right. He needed to find Courtney and he couldn’t do that behind bars. He feared anything he said to the sheriff would come out sounding like a lie. If Sheriff McCall Crawford saw Courtney’s cell phone …

He’d stayed put even though it was hard. He couldn’t hear what was being said. For all he knew, Courtney had been found and that was why the sheriff was here.

Zane jumped at the tap on the bathroom door. He quickly turned off the shower and opened the door.

“The coast is clear,” Dakota said as he came out.

“What did McCall want?” He hated the fear he heard in his voice. From Dakota’s reaction, she’d heard it too. She had to be wondering if she was wrong about him.

“Apparently Courtney called about a disturbance out here between you and me.”

“Courtney called? Then she’s all right?”

“Apparently.”

He shook his head. “But why would she …” The thought struck him like a brick. “She wanted the sheriff to see the scratches on my face and arm. What the hell is going on with her?”

“She seems to have it in for the two of us,” Dakota said. “That’s why we have to find her and find out what she’s up to.”

“The two of us?”

Dakota looked away for a moment as if she hadn’t meant to say that. “The last time I saw her was a few days ago. Right after that I realized she’d been in my house and taken something of mine.” She waved a hand through the air. “The point is, I want it back. She had no business in my house, let alone taking anything of mine.”

He nodded, seeing that whatever Courtney had taken, Dakota didn’t want to talk about it. He changed the subject. “What did McCall make of all this?”

“She seemed to think it was my sister being jealous.”

“We know better.” The date last night, what he could remember of it, hadn’t been anything special. In fact, he recalled before he’d lost his memory that he hadn’t planned to see Courtney again. She was beautiful, but not that interesting.

His head still hurt, but a thought wormed its way through. “You said Courtney showed up two weeks ago. That’s the same time someone broke into my house and used my computer to set up the rural dating account. Could she have been planning this that long ago, trying to set me up for more than a date?”

“Why go to the trouble?” Dakota asked, frowning as if she was trying to work it out herself.

“Why me at all?” It didn’t make any sense to him either. “The requirements I put down for the perfect date apparently made Courtney the perfect match.”

Dakota raised an eyebrow.

“I didn’t put down any requirements, but whoever signed me up must have rigged it so that my requirements matched Courtney’s. It had to be Courtney.”

“A lot of trouble and to what end?”

“I guess that depends on what happened last night,” he said as he glanced around the living room. Nothing seemed to be missing, but then he’d made that mistake before.

“You really don’t remember what happened after your date?” she asked.

“I’ve never had a hangover like this before.”

Dakota was looking at the scratches on his face again. “Maybe you should get a drug test at the hospital.”

Dakota was willing to consider that he’d been drugged? Zane was surprised and relieved. But why hadn’t he thought of it? Because he’d been running scared from the moment he’d opened his eyes this morning.

He had to know what he was dealing with. Courtney Baxter seemed to be setting him up. But why? He was just grateful that Dakota seemed to be on his side. If he’d just gotten drunk and didn’t remember, that was one thing. But if Dakota was right and Courtney had drugged him …

“I think a drug test is a good idea,” he said, but Dakota didn’t seem to hear him.

She was looking at Courtney’s cell phone. She had picked it up by two fingers. He could see the smeared blood from here.

“Any idea how it got blood on it?” she asked. “Or how it ended up under your bed? I noticed there was also a broken lamp on the other side of the bed. You probably don’t know anything about that either.”

He shook his head. “You said you heard something crash in the background when you were on the phone with her.”

“Could have been the lamp.” She looked down at the phone again. “Maybe we should see about getting DNA off this phone to find out if it is even Courtney’s blood. We can have a doctor run a blood test on you at the same time for possible drugs. Do you have a small plastic sandwich bag we can put this in?”

“Top drawer on the right.” He watched her head for the kitchen, trying to figure out what about Dakota was bothering him. She certainly was taking all this better than he would have thought.

“I doubt there will be fingerprints other than ours, but …” She stopped on her way back from the kitchen, the cell phone in a plastic bag she’d found in the drawer. “What’s wrong?”

He wasn’t sure. “You just kept me out of jail—at least temporarily—and now you’re going to help clear me? What’s going on, Dakota?”

“I told you. I need your help to find Courtney.”

“Because she took something of yours that you want back. If you just wanted to find Courtney, you could have told the sheriff everything you know and thrown me to the wolves,” he said. “The sheriff, with all her resources, would be looking for your sister right now. So why didn’t you? It wasn’t just to keep me out of jail so I could help you find her. I hate to sound suspicious, but I have to wonder why you’re so anxious to find her that you would throw in with me.”

“She’s my sister.”

“Uh-huh.”

Dakota sighed. “Okay, maybe I’ve suspected she was up to something from the first time I laid eyes on her.”

“You said your father’s name and signature are on her birth certificate. Are you saying you’re questioning that?”

She shrugged. “All I know is that something’s wrong with her story. After what you’ve told me, I’m even more convinced.”

“But not enough to go to the sheriff.”

“I want to do some investigating of my own before I get the sheriff involved,” Dakota said.

He suspected there was more, something she was hiding, but right now he was just glad he wasn’t in jail. “Then you believe me?”

“I’m willing to consider you were set up.” She stepped to the door and opened it. “On the way into town, I think we should see who Courtney’s been calling—and who’s been calling her.”

DAKOTA HADN’T BEEN completely truthful. Not that she didn’t have her reasons for wanting to believe Zane and, if she was being honest with herself, some of them had to do with the crush she’d had on him when she was a girl.

He was even more handsome now. Not that she was the kind of woman who was overcome by good looks. Zane hadn’t made fun of her like the other boys when she’d been the skinny, freckle-faced, buck-toothed, mouth-full-of-braces girl who’d hung around him like a lovesick puppy.

Nor was she that smitten girl anymore. But she also believed that Zane, while no longer the lanky boy she’d known as a girl, was still honorable and decent. She had to trust her instincts. Her instincts told her that Zane was telling the truth.

“I’ll drive,” she said, and Zane didn’t argue. He looked like death warmed over, making her also believe she might be right about him having been drugged.

She could tell that his greatest fear was that something really awful had happened to Courtney last night. Dakota told herself it was more likely, after what the sheriff had said, that Courtney was up to her pretty little neck in this and not as the victim. Another reason Dakota wanted to find her as quickly as possible.

As she drove, she watched Zane out of the corner of her eye as he began to check the numbers on the cell phone through the plastic bag.

“There are no contact numbers,” Zane said. “I get the feeling this is a fairly new phone, since there are so few calls and messages. The last outgoing call was …” He read off the number.

“That’s the number at my ranch from when Courtney called last night. Do you recognize any of the other numbers?”

“As for incoming, there are calls and messages from you and Arlene Evans Monroe. I had asked her to call Courtney and get back to me when she heard from her.” He studied the numbers for a moment. “Otherwise there are two incoming calls from numbers that I don’t recognize. Courtney returned one of those calls, but not the most recent one.”

Dakota realized she hadn’t told Zane about the phone call earlier. “Someone was looking for her. Before the sheriff left your house, Courtney’s cell phone rang. I answered it. I could hear breathing on the other end of the line, but the person didn’t say anything before hanging up.”

“Courtney? If she was the one who called the sheriff about a disturbance at my house,” he said, his brows furrowing.

“Or someone else looking for Courtney.”

“Do you recognize either of these numbers?” He read the numbers off to her.

“Sorry, they don’t sound familiar. There’s a notebook and pen in the glove box,” she told him as they neared town.

Zane jotted down the numbers as Dakota pulled into the back of the hospital.

Whitehorse County Hospital was small. As they walked in the back door, Zane spotted Dr. Buck Carrey. He looked more like a rancher than a doctor. A big man, he had a weathered face wrinkled from the sun and from smiling. His gray hair was uncharacteristically long for Whitehorse and pulled back in a ponytail. Today he was wearing jeans, boots and a Western shirt, with his white Stetson cocked back on his head.

He greeted Zane warmly, then shook hands with Dakota, whom he hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting before, and invited them into his office. “You said this was a confidential matter?” he asked, closing the door.

Dakota listened while Zane gave an abbreviated version of what they needed. Doc raised a brow when Zane showed him the phone. “Let’s start with the blood test. As for the DNA, I need something to compare it to.”

“I’m her sister. Well, half sister. Will that work?”

“Close enough.” Doc left and came back with the items he needed to do both tests. He took blood from Zane, then a swab of Dakota’s mouth and another swab of blood from the phone.