Cooked Goose (4 page)

Hoity-toity bitch needs to be brought down a notch or two
, he thought.
Needs to be shown who’s boss.
And what he had planned for her this evening would certainly do the trick.

He noted that she was loaded down with bags, and he wondered if the rear of the car where he was hiding was dark enough. If she tossed the sacks into the back, would she see him?

For a brief moment, he reconsidered his M.O. and decided to alter it next time. This scenario contained too many unknowns, not to mention the uncomfortable wait. But he filed it away—something to consider later when he was reliving this event, moment by delicious moment.

He was relieved when she walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk. His pulse rate rose as he listened to her place the bags inside, then slam the lid closed.

He pulled his knife from the open backpack on the floorboard beside him and gripped it tightly in his sweaty fist. He was trembling all over, but it felt good. It felt great! Control. It was all a matter of control. And he had it.

She unlocked the driver’s door, swung it open and slid onto the seat. Tossing her purse onto the passenger’s side of the floorboard, she sighed, and he felt that exhaled breath wash through him, hot and moist. Tuned to every nuance of her, he was acutely aware of her perfume, her body’s own unique scent, and the underlying smell of chocolate—she had just eaten something.

He waited until she had put the key into the ignition and started the car. Without making a sound, without even daring to breathe, he rose onto his knees behind her. His movements were silent, fluid. The perfect predator—or so he thought of himself in his deeply self-satisfied moments.

A quick glance right and left told him they were alone in this dark end of the parking lot.

It was time.

His left arm snaked around her from behind. His hand clamped over her mouth. He felt her scream against his palm as he pinched her jaws tightly.

Reaching around with his right hand, he showed her the enormous hunting knife. He felt her terror, like an exotic elixir, pouring through her body and into his. She shook violently and thrashed around, as though she were trying to turn in her seat to see him.

“Don’t do it, bitch,” he told her in a voice that didn’t sound like his own, even to him. This voice was deeper, more guttural, darker and more demonic than anything a Hollywood sound stage could conjure. “Just keep looking straight ahead and don’t scream or, I swear, I’ll cut your damn throat. Do you hear me?”

He put the blade of the knife against her neck, not caring whether the freshly honed edge nicked her or not. He continued to pinch her jaws tightly until he felt her body go limp in surrender.

“Do you hear me?” he repeated.

She nodded.

Slowly he removed his hand.

He saw her glance at him in her rear-view mirror. But it didn’t really matter if she saw him or not. The white beard took care of that.

“Please, don’t hurt me,” she said in a voice so shrill and squeaky she sounded like a cartoon mouse.

He was highly amused.

“Hurt you? Well, baby, that’s up to you. Are you going to be smart, or are you going to be stupid?”

She tried to speak but choked on the word.

“What?” He pressed the knife tighter to her throat.

“I said...” She gagged. And he decided that if she ruined this by vomiting, he was going to kill her for sure. “I said...” she tried again, “...smart. I’m going to be smart.”

“That’s good. You be smart, baby, and you might even live to give away all those Christmas presents you just bought.”
 

She began to softly cry. “They’re for my kids,” she said.

He could tell she was trying to keep it together, struggling not to break down. Apparently, she was stronger than he had thought.

“My kids need me,” she said. “Please don’t hurt me. I’ll do anything you say.”

“Of course you will,” he replied coolly. He was beginning to really enjoy the game. This was it. This was what he lived for.

“You’re going to do exactly what I tell you to,” he said. “Because I’ve got the knife. I’m the one in control. Complete control. Don’t forget it.”

With his left hand he reached down and caressed her breast. Softly at first, tenderly, like a lover. Then he squeezed, tighter and tighter, until he heard her gasp from the pain. He thought of the quiet, deserted orange grove. The rich smell of citrus in the cool night air.

Yes, there was a lot more pain where that had come from. He could tell already: It was going to be a long, long night.

CHAPTER THREE

9:30 p.m.

Only thirty more feet to the front door, Savannah told herself as she dragged her tired body up the sidewalk to her small, Spanish-style cottage. Once you're inside, you can fall apart at the seams. You can scream, cry, or just quietly pass out, and nobody but the cats will ever know.

Ah, the pleasures of living alone.

As she stepped onto the porch and fingered the selections on her key ring for the one to the door, Savannah tried not to notice that her house was looking as bedraggled these days as she felt.

The chipped stucco had long ago lost its freshly painted, white glow. The bougainvillea bushes, which she had named Ilsa and Bogey, were taking over the front of the place. Any night now, a wandering tendril might snake through her upstairs bedroom window and strangle her in her sleep.

More than once, she had wondered what it would be like to have a man around the house. A Prince Charming, enchanted sword in hand, whacking back the wayward bougainvillea, then climbing through the bedroom window to claim his prize.

Unfortunately, most of the guys she met weren’t exactly princes, they weren’t notably charming, and she hadn’t exactly had to bar her bedroom window against marauding, lust-besotted suitors.

Savannah had to admit: Maybe she had been a bit standoffish. Perhaps she should install a functional escalator from the sidewalk, over the porch, to that lonely, second-story window and leave it on “up” all night. Nope. There was no point in playing so hard to get.

But the moment Savannah opened her front door, she abandoned all plans of acquiring a lover. Who needed male attention when feline affection was so readily available, unconditional, and uncomplicated?

Two blue-black, furry, live house slippers entwined themselves warmly around her feet and ankles, vibrating better than any expensive gadget from a techno catalogue. And these two apparatuses operated, not on batteries, but on cans of salmon-flavored, gourmet cat food.

“Good evening, Cleopatra, Diamante,” she told the regal pair, reaching down to stroke the silky, ebony coats. They each wore rhinestone-studded black collars that glimmered in the dim porch light as they gazed up at her with emerald eyes full of adoration.

“Yeah, yeah, and if I missed a day feeding you, you’d both turn on me like a couple of ravenous jackals,” she told them as she tossed her purse onto the cherry piecrust table inside the door. She headed for the kitchen and their feeding bowls, which she was fairly certain—judging from the feverish pitch of their purrs—were licked clean.

They were.

She took a tin of cat food from the cupboard and a can opener from a drawer. So much for immediate self-indulgence upon arriving home, she thought with a tired sigh as she scooped the smelly concoction into the bowls. The cats buried their faces in it, infinitely satisfied.

There, she had done her act of kindness for the animal kingdom. And now, a warm bubble bath in the claw foot, Victorian tub upstairs, a cup of hot chocolate with a splash of Bailey’s, a few scented candles and—

The jingling of the cell phone in her pocket extinguished her fantasy candles and burst the iridescent bubbles of her imaginary bath.

Irritated, she answered it without even looking at the caller ID. “I’m not here. I never will be again,” she told her caller. “Go away.”

“Sav-v-van-n-n-ah.”

She wanted to hang up. Desperately. But she couldn’t pretend she didn’t recognize that tear-choked southern drawl. If it had been any of her other eight siblings calling, she would have hung up without even a nudge of conscience. Even big sisters had to get some credit for time served, now that her batch of younger sisters and brothers were almost all adults. At least legally, if not emotionally.

But Vidalia was pregnant. Extremely pregnant.

And as tired as Savannah was, she couldn’t be that cruel. You just didn’t hang up on a woman who was in a family way.

Not one who already had one set of completely adorable, completely undisciplined, five-year-old twins.

Besides, knowing Vidalia, she would only call back.

“Hi, sweetie pie. How’s your tummy?” Savannah said as she tucked the phone between her ear and shoulder and reached into the refrigerator for the milk. Even if the bath and candles were a write-off, the hot chocolate and Bailey’s were still within arm’s reach.

“My tummy is hu-u-u-ge!” The plaintive admission was punctuated with a long, fluid sniff. “And so’s my butt. I’m the size of a barn door and gettin’ bigger every day. I hate being pregnant!”

“Don’t worry, honey. Your butt was big before you got pregnant and—”

No sooner had the words left her mouth than Savannah wanted to kick her own ample posterior from there to Sunday. But she had never received any awards for tactfulness, and she was even less diplomatic after a hard day on the job.

Fresh wailing erupted on the other end, and Savannah felt as useful as a boll weevil in a cotton patch.

“I didn’t mean that the way it came out, sugar,” she said. “I just meant that we Reid gals are known for being deliciously curvaceous and voluptuous—whether we’re with child or not.”

“Well, Butch says I’m a heifer and if I don’t lose all this weight as soon as the baby’s born, he’s gonna divorce me.”

I'd be plum delighted to put a 9mm slug between his beady little eyes and save you the paperwork,
Savannah thought. But this time she censored her words before they rolled off her tongue. One major faux pas per evening was enough.

“I’m sure he didn’t mean a word of it,” she said. “You know how men are...”

“Rude, selfish bastards who only care about themselves, who only worry about whether they’re gonna run out of beer, and who’s gonna win the World Series.”

“Precisely.”

Another pathetic sniff. “Do you think they’re all that way, or just Butch?”

Savannah thought of her bougainvillea that needed chopping, and the proposed escalator construction in her front yard. “There has to be a good one, or two.”

“Do you really think so?”

“It’s hard to imagine, but there’s a lot of them around. I mean, what are the odds they’d all be rotten?”

“So, why didn’t I marry a nice one?”

Savannah sighed as she poured the milk into a glass measuring cup and stuck it into the microwave. “Because you were in love with Butch.” She set the timer and punched the Start button. “You said he had a cute butt and drove his own car. Those were his two major attributes, as I remember you explaining them to me on your wedding day.”

“Boy, I was sure dumb then.”

“You were young, sweetie, that’s all. You—”

“Yeah. I shoulda held out for Bobby Taylor. He had a new truck and great shoulders, too.”

Savannah’s fatigue gauge slid a few notches closer to exhaustion. “Vidalia, I hope you’re feeling better now, because I’ve had a rough day and I really need to just kick back and—”

“Oh, I see. You don’t have time for me either. You’re so busy with your career and all that more exciting stuff. But that’s okay; I understand. Don’t you worry about me. No, siree, Bob. I’ll be all right.
 
I always am.”

A vision materialized before Savannah’s eyes: The blessed Saint Vidalia, tied to a stake as flames licked the hem of her robe, eyes lifted heavenward.

It made her want to barf.

As her sister sniffled on the Georgia end, Savannah removed the heated milk from the microwave and slammed the door closed. Mentally, she counted to five, collecting the fragments of her patience before replying. “I’m sure Butch didn’t mean to hurt you, Vidalia,” she said as she poured the milk into her favorite Old Country Roses teacup and added a generous scoop of cocoa mix. “He’s the father of your children and a pretty decent dad. Besides, you married him for better and for worse.”

“He’s a slob.”

“He doesn’t beat you.”

“And he snores.”

“He brings home a weekly paycheck...most of the time.”

“I have to make him get a haircut and—”

“And he doesn’t fool around on you. Stop griping, kiddo. You’ve got it better than most. Kiss and make up.”

Louder sniffles. “We can’t. We haven’t had sex for ages, what with my backaches and all.”

“Oh, well, no wonder the old boy’s cranky,” she muttered, pulling an oversized bottle of Bailey’s from the liquor cabinet. “Ask him to take the twins to McDonalds for dinner, to vacuum the house, take out the garbage and give you a back massage in exchange for some hanky panky.”