She was feeling hate now for the people who had done this to her, Priscilla, Clete, those two abductors, and Buchanan and those other awful men, one whose name she did not even know. The amazing thing was that she had forgotten so much, had lived in blissful ignorance, until she had somehow recalled some horrible events, like the first time with Clete and the first time with Buchanan. How had she sublimated those things? Were there more disgusting things that she would remember some day, that perhaps had something to do with her recurring nightmares?
Now, she had learned to hate the people who had wronged her innocence. She had so much hoped to cause Buchanan difficulties with her altering of his computer files, but Mark had been on the phone with the great manipulator just this Monday morning, and no hint of a problem had there been. Probably just a minor nuisance, perhaps set right by the stock broker, Harry Wickes. DesirЋe was no expert on stocks, but she knew the general principles. Maybe they had seen through her alterations. As Harry had said, they didn't even add up. Who could know what they had found in the end? But she had no intention of letting Buchanan get away with what he had done. She would keep her eyes wide open, and someday, somehow, she would get even. And she vowed she would never be alone with that man ever, ever again.
It was only ten AM and she was very upset. She had never done it before so early in the day, but she felt like a glass of wine. So she poured herself one.
Billy Canning and Sam Quaid sat in the coffee shop just a few doors down and across the street from the police station. Billy was chain-smoking and Sam was beginning to get tired of the smoke. Plates of half-eaten, greasy food sat in from of them and Sam was getting tired of hanging around.
Sam was scared. Everywhere he turned, things were looking slippery. Billy was hyper, packing pistols, and Sam was sure he was going to make a move against Clete, a very badly-thought-out move that would backfire and leave them in the shit. He wanted to run, get away, and let Billy hang himself his own way. Sam figured that by now he had been loyal enough and it was time to start looking out for himself. Billy had changed completely from the school chum he had been into a paranoid-psychotic on the verge of exploding. He was obsessed with killing Clete to avenge his brother Johnny. And the more he panted and sweated and snorted coke and smoked hash and swallowed pills, the worse he got. There was no way he would ever be normal again this side of detox.
But he would never surrender himself to treatment. One needed to be at least slightly rational to do that, and he wasn't even that.
"We're gonna take him today," Billy said, and Sam read the insanity in his bloodshot eyes and knew it was true.
"You got a plan?"
Billy looked at his friend, twitching in a way that reminded him of a rat.
"Let's talk about it."
She used a silk cloth to polish the.38 special revolver, and she very carefully wiped all fingerprints from the bullet casings wearing surgical gloves as she inserted them in the cylinder. She didn't want to leave anything lying around that could be traced back to her. She had gone into the farm workshop and used the grinder to remove the registration numbers from the gun. She had been smart enough not to get a stainless steel weapon, for she hoped that a short time in the ground or in a river would make the gun completely untraceable, just in case she had missed something.
Priscilla had made her plans for the day, and top of the list was to kill DesirЋe in the forest and bury her body in a deep hole, which she had already dug. Priscilla's muscles were still sore from the effort, though she had been clever enough to wear gloves and avoid blistering her hands. Of course, it was not something she could give to one of the farm hands to do, and besides, it was on the Mitchell farm, in a remote corner of the property where only a psychic would think of looking.
Hate and thoughts of revenge had ruled the girl's life for over a week, and she was decided about whom to blame for her humiliation. Yes, she had set DesirЋe up for Clete to fuck her and be filmed in the act, though the planned blackmail had gone awry when the sheriff had stolen the video tape. But being made to have sex with a black man was nothing compared to being raped by three dogs while wallowing in one's own feces, which was what DesirЋe had made happen to Priscilla. Though the older girl had no concrete evidence of it, she could not think of anyone else with a motive for making the anonymous phone call that had lured her into unspeakable degradation.
Following the incident Priscilla had spent several days in a mental ward, struggling to deal with the reality of it, and of course, she had had to have surgical repairs to her vagina and anus after the bolting dogs had torn the bulge of their penises from the lock of her muscles. She had felt so humiliated, and still did, that ideas of revenge had swirled in her brain twenty-four hours a day. Since she had no way of finding the canine perpetrators except by seeing her father offer huge rewards to the mercenary sheriff, she had decided to go straight to the author of her misery. Killing violently the big-eyed, innocent, blonde piano teacher who had alienated Mark's affections was the only way Priscilla knew of exorcising the demons in her heart. To do it secretly would accomplish all her ends without jeopardizing her own existence and future with DesirЋe's husband.
Picking up the phone, Priscilla dialed DesirЋe's number. It was picked up on the fifth ring.
"Hello," came DesirЋe's faintly forlorn-sounding voice.
Priscilla hung up before the greeting was repeated. She knew that the blonde bitch was home. She packed the revolver, two boxes of cartridges, three speed loaders, and a pen and paper into a Gucci bag, and walked out of the house, passing the half-open door of her father's bedroom and hearing the excited moans of her cousin Robyn coming from inside.
Things have really changed lately, Priscilla thought. Though maybe not for the worse. At least Daddy's fucking someone.
It was a form of spying on her husband, Tanya knew, as she accompanied him to the sheriff's office. They had injured one of the – to her – loving animals and she and Liz considered it a smart move to quiz Rodney discreetly about Clete's activities in tracking them down. It was becoming more and more difficult to keep track of the dogs, though Tanya figured that they had a lair somewhere on a remote part of the Mitchell property – from which they made frequent visits to the reporter's lonely young wife at the house.
Tanya had insisted on coming along for this meeting and Rodney, much more concerned about her since the three occasions when he had enjoyed threesomes with her and Robyn, was happy to see her interest in his work.
Clete was standing at the front counter when they walked in. She had seen him before and detested his cockiness and his savage animal presence. It seemed as if his mammoth muscles would burst through his shirt at any moment. She had never liked black men, and couldn't stand this one. She had seen the lovely Nancy Pace a couple of times in town and she wondered that she could let this beast touch her at all, much less consent to marry him. But then, some women liked the exotic. Tanya, however, admitted that her feelings toward him could have been influenced by the knowledge that he was hunting her loving pets.
Clete eyed her briefly as they came in, and gave Rodney a brief smile.
"Thanks for showing your pictures to Devereaux," Clete said. "It secured me an advance." He lit a cigarette and motioned them to some chairs at a table near the door. "Of course, it's just expenses, but I'm thinking of renting a good bloodhound to track them."