Naked Heat: The Handyman, Episode II by Vincent Zandri (1)

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PRAISE FOR VINCENT ZANDRI

“Sensational . . . masterful . . . brilliant.”

—New York Post

“(A) chilling tale of obsessive love from Thriller Award–winner Zandri (Moonlight Weeps) . . . Riveting.”

—Publishers Weekly

“. . . Oh, what a story it is . . . Riveting . . . A terrific old school thriller.”

—Booklist “Starred Review”

“Zandri does a fantastic job with this story. Not only does he scare the reader, but the horror

show he presents also scares the man who is the definition of the word “tough.”

—Suspense Magazine

“I very highly recommend this book . . . It's a great crime drama that is full of action and intense suspense, along with some great twists . . . Vincent Zandri has become a huge name and just keeps pouring out one best seller after another.”

—Life in Review

“(The Innocent) is a thriller that has depth and substance, wickedness and compassion.”

—The Times-Union (Albany)

"The action never wanes."

—Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

"Gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting."

—Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author of Six Years

"Tough, stylish, heartbreaking."

—Don Winslow, New York Times bestselling author of Savages and Cartel.

“A tightly crafted, smart, disturbing, elegantly crafted complex thriller . . . I dare you to start it and not keep reading.”

—MJ Rose, New York Times bestselling author of Halo Effect and Closure

“A classic slice of raw pulp noir . . .”

—William Landay, New York Times bestselling author of Defending Jacob

“It was the only ambition I ever had—not to be a dancer or a Hollywood movie star, but a housewife in a good marriage.”

— Doris Day

They were unstoppable.

Tara and her good friend Allison.

When I came through the door of Allison’s single-story, ranch style home which was located in a wooded neighborhood a few miles west of my own, they were already in bed.

“We’re in here!” Tara called out.

I hesitated. Was this an invitation of some kind? I didn’t wait for an answer. I went with my gut and made my way down a long corridor with a polished wood floor until I came to an open bedroom door. The room was dimly lit, and the curtains were closed on the windows, but I could sense movement inside. When I poked my head in, I could see them both.

Tara and Allison together, in bed.

I took the room for the former master bedroom since it was so big, and the bed that occupied its center was a king-sized job with a large metal frame. The sheets were black and silky, and Allison’s long, lush hair blended in with them. She was kissing Tara, and both their sets of hands were playfully petting one another’s breasts. Their panties were still on, but as I approached the bed, Tara slowly peeled off Allison’s. Allison rolled onto her back while Tara made her way south and settled between her legs. Allison opened her legs, and Tara began to use her mouth on her pussy.

I was torn because part of me just wanted to stand there and watch, but another part of me wanted to strip naked and join in. I decided to take a seat on the small wooden stool that was set in front of a makeup table. The table supported a large mirror, so I could watch them in the mirror if I preferred. Watching Tara work on Allison in the mirror made the scene all the more surreal, but at the same time, sexy as all hell.

Allison ran her hands through Tara’s thick sandy blonde hair. She wrapped her hands around her head and pulled her into her pussy like she couldn’t get enough. Allison was heaving her chest up, her small but pert titties and nipples standing at rapt attention. Her eyes were closed, but every now and then she’d open them to watch Tara’s mouth and tongue working on her pussy. It was causing her to moan and sigh with a pleasure so profound I could feel it in my sternum.

It became impossible for me to stand idly by just watching. So, when Tara lifted her head, turned to me over her shoulder and said, “What are you waiting for, Vic? Are you going to fuck me or what?” I stripped myself of all my clothes and knelt on the bed behind her. Entering her took almost no effort since she was so wet, so ready for me. I was rock hard, and I knew if I went too fast, I would finish way too soon and I’d be back to just watching.

Making love to two women would take a special effort on my part.

It would take patience and discipline. It would take pacing. I wanted badly to please them both. I wanted to make them both cum before I came.

Two weeks had passed since the tragic death of Tara’s long-time husband. No police inquiries had been made into what was being described as a tragedy since her husband hadn’t even seen his fiftieth birthday yet. He’d simply drank one too many and, while heading downstairs to his man cave, met his fate on a stair tread that must have come loose over time. Tara’s husband never was much of a handyman around the house.

The handyman, as it turned out, was me.

During that two-week time span, I’d rewritten Obsessive Compulsive and started on the opening chapters of what would be my first big novel, Savage Sins, both of which used some of the details of the “tragic accident.” The loose stair tread…the big man dropping through the stairs…his chin bouncing off the stair tread directly below the loosened one…his body rearing back…the back of his skull bouncing off the concrete…the melon sound it made when it cracked…the blood that immediately began to pool around the crushed skull . . . the crimson red blood.

It all made for some vivid writing.

I resent Obsessive Compulsive to the editor who’d requested a second look once I’d rewritten. He accepted the piece, and it was scheduled to run later in the fall of the year. The elation I’d felt when I received not a full manuscript back in the mail, but instead, only an eight by ten inch typed letter telling me how honored the magazine would be to publish my gut-wrenching, heart-pulsing piece, was incomprehensible. They also informed me I would be receiving a check for five hundred dollars upon publication.

It was the most money I’d ever made as a writer.

I couldn’t wait until Stella got home to share the news. I used the credit card to buy a mid-range bottle of champagne. Mid-range or not, I chilled it in a bucket of ice which I set out on the dining room table along with two champagne glasses left over from New Year’s Eve. When Stella got home, looking beautiful and sexy in her short brown skirt, loose-fitting white button-down, and tall black leather boots, she raised her eyebrows.    

“What are we celebrating, Vic?” she asked.

I showed her the letter. Her face lit up. She cared after all. She really cared. It was an amazing feeling. I wondered if Mackey had felt this good when he first showed her his acceptance letter for his new novel. A man always wants to make his woman happy, to make her proud. I was that kind of man. I wanted Stella to brag about me to her friends, to tell the world about me. I wanted her to be proud to be walking arm in arm with me along a busy city street.

I wanted her complete devotion.

Pulling the bottle from the ice, I popped the cork. We drank two glasses each. Then I took hold of her hand, pulled her over to the couch. Turning her around, I pulled up her skirt and pulled down her black satin panties, forced her to kneel on the couch. I crouched and used my tongue on her heart shaped ass, flicking the tip of my tongue in and out of her tight hole. Stella loved when I tongued her rim, and her moaning with pleasure was proof. At the same time, I ran my fingers over her pussy, gently sliding two of them into her soaking wetness. There was too much room inside it, so I used three fingers, and when that wasn’t enough, I used four. I worked my tongue while finger fucking her, and it was all she could do not to scream aloud when she came.

Standing, I pulled out my cock and slowly entered her from behind. Suddenly, her pussy felt as tight as it did hot.

“Fuck me with everything you’ve got, Vic,” she whispered passionately.

I took hold of her long hair, yanked her head back. Then, I slapped her hard on the ass. So hard, I left a red mark with the imprint of my hand. She made a little crying noise with each slap. She loved the pain, the sting, the shock and awe of it all. I was fucking her so hard I thought I might hurt her until I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I pulled out, brought my cock around to her face. She quickly pulled back her hair and opened her mouth wide. When I released, she took it all in, and when I was done, she took my entire cock into her mouth and down her throat.

Less than a minute later, we sat half-clothed on the couch and finished off the champagne. We laughed and chatted it up for the first time in I don’t know how long. It felt really good.

It felt like that was as good as life could get.

Like I said, I not only had success with Obsessive Compulsive during that two-week period, but I’d also made terrific progress with Savage Sins. In the past, the words came very slowly. So slowly it had been like carving granite with my fingertips. But now, the words flowed with relative ease. It was a murder mystery that took place in Albany, and it was about a writer whose wife was cheating on him with another writer. But the husband was having trouble coming up with a story, so he made friends with his wife’s illicit affair in order to steal the novel of his competition. Once the deed was done, and the novel had been published with great fan fair, the husband was confronted by his wife’s lover who was angry as all hellfire. The husband had no choice but to kill the man and dispose of the body.

Turned out, it was easy to write about writers since I was one of them. I used Stella as my model for the wife, and Mackey as my model for her illicit lover. More importantly, I put to use every ounce of experience I’d collected as Tara’s handyman. I had it all planned out in my mind. In the novel, I would kill him by loosening the floorboards on his basement staircase. When he came home one night, drunker than a skunk, and decided to head down into his basement writing studio, he’d suffer a terrible accident.

It’s all there in Savage Sins. The grisly details.

The head smashing against the concrete, the blood pool, the slightly ajar mouth, the wide eyes, the whites quickly fading, the final, eternal exhalation of air leaving the lungs…It was a beautiful thing. In two weeks’ time, I was able to write twenty thousand words. At that rate, I’d be done with the novel in another three weeks. After that, a quick edit, and then the manuscript would be off to an agent I had chosen through some careful internet research. A slick New York agent who represented a certain author I knew.

An author named Mackey.

Kneeling behind Tara, I worked her slowly but hard at the same time. I watched them pet one another, their mouths connected, their tongues played, the nipples on their pale full titties as erect as my cock. Turning to me, as if on cue, they both smiled.

“It’s about time,” Tara said.

“I was getting worried,” Allison said. “I thought you said your handyman was horny.”

“He is,” Tara said, her voice trembling from my thrusts. “You just wait and see. He’s got enough for both of us.”

I couldn’t help it. I came like it was my first time. And just like that, I was hard again.

Later, we sat around the table in Allison’s kitchen, the girls wearing T-shirts and panties, me dressed back in my trousers and button-down shirt, the tails hanging out. We were drinking coffee spiked with Jameson. Irish coffee. We spent some time getting better acquainted and laughing about stupid things until it came time to get down to business.

“Tara tells me you have a way of fixing things,” Allison said, both her hands wrapped around her coffee cup as if it were cold inside the kitchen.

I nodded.

“I helped Tara when she needed it most,” I said. “How can I help you, Allison?”

She glanced at Tara, bit down on her bottom lip nervously.

“I have a problem,” she said.

“What kind of problem?” I asked, knowing full well her answer.

She finger-combed her long, lush black hair so that it parted over her right eye.

“It’s my husband,” she said. “We’re legally separated, but he won’t leave.”

“Do you have children?”

“No kids.” She shook her head. “There’s no reason for him not to leave, other than to torture me.”

I stood from the table, took a look around the kitchen. It was a modern kitchen. Maybe that’s not exactly right. It was more like a retro kitchen, modeled after something from the 1960s only with updated appliances. Like I said, the house was a ranch, probably constructed right after World War Two. It had obviously been gutted and refurbished relatively recently. In the past five years or so. The counters were covered in stainless steel, the appliances were also stainless steel, the gas stove contained six burners and a giant exhaust hood. There was a wine cooler and not one sink, but two. One for drinks, the other for cooking. The wood table we had been sitting at was long and black and probably came from Ikea, along with its matching chairs.

Some serious money had definitely been dumped into this place.

“You’ve got one hell of a setup here,” I said. “Maybe that’s why he doesn’t leave. He probably thinks he owns the house more than you do.”

“He’s got enough money to build another one,” Allison said, stealing a drink of her coffee. “Believe me.”

I took a walk into the living room. It wasn’t separated from the kitchen by a wall. In fact, there were no walls separating anything other than the bedrooms and bathrooms which were located at the back side of the house. There were exterior walls of course, but they were made of brick that had been painted hospital white. The walls were otherwise bare. No framed photos of Allison and her husband, no photos of them together or apart. No kids, no dogs, no extended family. Just nothing.

“What’s his name?” I asked from where I stood on the bare wood living room floor. 

Both Tara and Allison looked at me.

“Andrew,” Allison said. “Andrew Craig.”

“What’s he look like?”

That’s when Tara got up. “I’m going to take my leave, and allow you two to discuss this matter on your own.”

“Oh no,” Allison said, a pout on her pretty face. “Does that mean Sex Club is over for today?”

“There’s always next week,” Tara said with a smile.

She pushed her chair in, left the kitchen area and went back into the master bedroom. When she came back out less than a minute later, she was fully dressed. She looked beautiful, her blue eyes lighting up the otherwise cold and barren room. Allison got up from the table, walked her to the front door. The two embraced, and then kissed one another gently on the mouth. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d bet their true relationship had not so much to do with erotic pleasure or consensual experimentation—the Sex Club—but instead had to do with real love, real friendship.

They trusted one another. 

Maybe that’s why Tara felt confident about introducing me to Allison. She knew I might be able to help her. And in helping her, I might also help myself and my work. The relationship would be mutually beneficial. It was as if I had suddenly entered into a secret organization—an underground organization—that I had no idea existed in the suburbs. A club in which these beautiful, proud women, were being victimized.

They would be victimized no longer, now that they had someone like me to help them. Someone who, unlike the police, was willing to help them without humiliation, without fear, without remorse. Someone who could give them the finality they needed and, what was equally important, revenge. I was their way out of the horror. I was their handyman.

Tara left, and Allison locked the door behind her.

She turned to me.

“I want to show you something that will explain a lot, Vic,” she said. “Come with me.”

Together we entered a room located across from the master bedroom. A big desk took up much of the far wall. The desk was neat, tidy, and didn’t appear to be used for anything but show. It contained a desk lamp, a pen holder, and a desk mat, but otherwise . . . nothing. No phone, no computer, no papers.

The opposite wall contained a tall glass and wood cabinet. Stored inside it were numerous pistols and long guns. The cabinet was locked. To my right was a closet, and the wall to my direct left supported a pair of double-hung windows that looked out onto the back lawn.

“This is my husband’s office,” Allison said, “if you haven’t already guessed.”

I nodded. I might have mentioned that, like the rest of the house, the office was sterile, dead, cold. Like a morgue. But why state the obvious?

“What is it you wish to show me, Allison?”

She went around the desk, reached under the top center drawer, produced a key that was stored there.

“Andrew has no idea I know where he keeps this key,” she said as she unlocked the top drawer, which also unlocked all the desk drawers. Setting the key on top of the desk, she opened the top drawer, came back out with a framed photo. She set it on the desk.

I stepped over to the desk, picked up the picture. It was a middle-aged man dressed in a blue suit. He was well built and sported a mustache and goatee sprinkled with salt and pepper. His hair was short and receding in front. Eyes brown, far as I could tell. He was receiving some sort of award from a police officer with his left hand while, with his right, he shook the officer’s hand. In the background hung a large banner that read, “Colonie Police Department Benevolent Society.”

“My husband is great friends with the Colonie Police, as you can see,” she explained. “As well as the Albany and the Troy police too.”

“What’s he do?”

“He works for the policeman’s union. He’s a New York State lobbyist. Thus the house, thus the over the top furnishings that go with it, thus the reason he won’t leave, thus the threats and my ability not to do a thing about them. You see, Vic, the police will always take his side, especially now that he’s presented them all with a fictional portrait of me. His wild, untamable, psychotic wife. My my, how they all feel sorry for him.”

She reached across the desk, snatched the photo out of my hand, returned it to the desk drawer, slamming it closed.

“Doesn’t it make him mad?” I asked.

“Doesn’t what make him mad?”

“That you store his picture inside the desk instead of out in the open.”

She exhaled. “It used to hang on the wall in the living room. I pulled it down one night during one of our many bitter fights and tossed it into the fireplace. Of course, the glass shattered. But Andrew rescued the picture, bought a new frame for it. He now keeps it under lock and key in the desk, like he’s afraid I’ll just smash it again if I see it.”

“Well,” I said, “do you want to?”

She worked up a grin. “Don’t tempt me,” she said.

I thought Allison was going to get up, and we could finally leave that room. It was making me uncomfortable. Felt like I was standing in a fishbowl. Hell, maybe a guy who worked for the police lobby kept CCTV cameras hidden inside his office, maybe inside and outside the entire house. But she didn’t get up. Instead, she opened the bottom drawer, pulled out a manila file. Closing the drawer, she stood and came back around the desk.

“Bathroom,” she said.

I followed her into the bathroom. Setting the folder down on the vanity, she turned on both the hot and cold water. Taking hold of a washcloth, she dipped the cloth under the water and then rubbed some soap into it. From there she proceeded to wash her face. She wasn’t gentle with herself but really began to run the soap into her skin until something strange began to happen.

Turns out, she was removing her makeup which had been heavily, but very skillfully, applied. I watched while she scrubbed and scrubbed, but when she was done, she revealed something that took me more than by surprise. It shocked the hell out of me.

Her left eye had been black and blued. Not today or yesterday. Maybe a week ago, but there was enough purple, yellow, and blue skin coloring left to indicate that someone, no doubt her husband, had balled his fist in it. Her right cheek was also bruised, and now that the makeup had been removed, I could see that it was still a little swollen.

When she pulled back her hair to reveal her left earlobe, she said, “Look.”

Pushing her lobe forward I could make out a scar about the length of my index finger. It was jagged and purple and still new. Maybe a week old.

“That’s where Andrew cut me with a broken plate,” she revealed. “I bled for hours upon hours.”

“That needs plastic surgery,” I said. “It doesn’t even look like it was professionally stitched.”

“We got into a fight early last week. I wanted him out, once and for all. I threatened to call the police. But he said if I called them he would kill me. Then he would kill himself. He smiled when he said it. Because he meant it.”

“He sounds like a real charmer.”

“I made the mistake of slapping him then. He lost that smile pretty damned quick, and he punched me in the face. Twice. I picked up a plate that was set out on the kitchen table. I was going to hit him with it. But he snatched it out of my hand, broke it over my head.” She exhaled, bit down on her bottom lip like she was hesitant to tell me what happened next.

“And?” I pushed.

She started to cry. “Then he went into his office, came back out with a shotgun. He pumped the shotgun and he made me get down on my knees.” She shifted her gaze from me as if ashamed over what she was about to reveal. “He…he made me open my mouth…He—”

“I get it,” I said. “You’ve said enough, Allison. You’ve been through enough.”

I’d entered into this handyman thing quite by accident only a couple of weeks ago. My motivation for helping Tara had as much to do with my secret lust for her as it did my frustration with my life. My utter lack of success as a writer, my inability to satisfy Stella, to make her love me, to be proud of me the way she had been with Mackey. When I realized that I could help Tara out of an impossible situation with an abusive husband, and at the same time, gain invaluable experience for my stories, I took the shot and agreed to her plan. I knew it was murder, but then, was it really murder in the eyes of Almighty God? Or was it Tara’s salvation?

  I believed then and now that I did the right thing when I loosened that basement staircase in Tara’s home. She was freed and the creep she was married to could no longer torture her or her kids. I could say the same thing about Allison. If what she was telling me was the truth, her situation with Andrew was no better than Tara’s. In fact, judging by the scars and bruises on her face and head, her situation was worse.

So, why was I having trouble swallowing this one? Why did I find myself doubting her story? No, scratch that. I didn't doubt her story so much as my built-in crap detector was telling me there were parts—crucial parts—she was conveniently leaving out. If what she said about Andrew being the kind of man who could break a plate over his wife’s head and shove the barrel of a loaded shotgun in her mouth were true, then I would have no trouble ending his life. I’d get some good—if not great—material out of it, and at the same time, I’d be doing Allison and humanity a favor. But if I were to kill him under false pretenses, then I’d never forgive myself.

Neither would God.

She wiped her eyes then finger-combed her hair. She truly was an attractive, if not beautiful, woman. Her hair made me want to swim in it, her luscious lips made me want to kiss them, her exotic eyes were as enticing as a warm shot of whiskey on a cold winter’s day. And her body, well, it was to die for. It might even be enough to kill for.

She turned her frown upside down and approached me. Slowly, she wrapped her arms around my neck and brought her face to my face. Our lips touched. She kissed me with everything she had, her tongue playful and sweet tasting. She removed a hand from the back of my neck and brushed it over my ass until she brought it around front, gripping my erection.

She started unbuckling my belt.

“Let me take care of you,” she said. “Andrew won’t be home for hours. Let me be your slave.”

I felt her hand and wanted nothing more than to be her master. If that’s what she wanted, I was willing to do that for her. But then I also had to go with my gut, which was telling me to back away from this one for now. Hadn’t I already been today’s special guest at the neighborhood Sex Club? If all went according to plan, Allison’s plan that is, then I was sure to be the special guest at more Sex Club events. It wasn’t a matter of if but when.

I pushed myself away.

“I’ve really got to go,” I said. “I’ve got a manuscript waiting for me, and Stella will be home soon.”

She let go of my belt and went back to pouting.

“If you say so,” she said. Then, “Will you tell Stella about this? About Andrew?”

I shook my head.

“Stella stays innocent. That’s one of the rules.”

“She know you play around?”

“We have an understanding,” I said. It was a fabrication that came out of my mouth automatically. Instinctually. “Maybe she’s explained it to you during one of your dinner dates.”

“How liberating,” she said, smiling. “Maybe you can bring her to Sex Club one of these days. If she’s so inclined. I can’t imagine you being with any woman who wasn’t ravaging. And Stella is positively ravaging.”

My pulse picked up. I had to wonder if Stella would be inclined to swing? My guess is she would. Stella always did live by the ‘I’ll try anything once’ principle.”

“You never know, Allison,” I said.

I went for the door.

“When will I hear from you regarding, Andrew?”

I turned to her, my hand on the doorknob.

“I didn’t realize you’d made me an official offer.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, accentuating her cleavage under her too large T-shirt.

“I didn’t realize I had to come out and formally say it.”

“Are you making me an offer?”

“I thought it was obvious, Vic.”

“How much?”

“Twenty-five percent insurance payout,” she said. “The policy is worth a hair over one million. And all the Sex Club love you want.”

…and invaluable material for my stories and novels…

“You open for negotiation?” I asked.

“I’m told twenty-five percent of one mil is more than generous.” She took hold of the manila envelope set on the counter. She opened it, reached inside, pull out two neat stacks of cash. Twenty-dollar denominations.

“Down payment,” she said. “Ten thousand.”

Tara’s insurance money hadn’t quite come through yet and neither had my check for Obsessive Compulsive. I badly needed the cash. I took hold of it, then reached around her for the envelope. I stored the cash back inside the envelope and folded it in on itself.

“It’ll be tricky,” I said, feeling the weight of the cash in hand. The most cash I’d ever held at one time. “And highly illegal. Can I trust you to keep your mouth shut if I agree to the plan?”

“I need this to happen. My life is on the line, Vic. And yes, considering I would be a co-conspirator in a capital murder case you can be assured of my silence.”

“I’ll be in touch,” I said, opening the door.

I left without saying goodbye . . . cash in hand.

I drove home in silence. No music, no talk radio, nothing. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. How odd this whole scenario was turning out to be. First Tara, and now Allison. Two seemingly upscale and respectable suburban housewives engaging in a kind of secret life. A secret life of sex and mutual hatred for abusive spouses. These were not weak, submissive women, although their husbands might view them that way. These were Alpha females. These were women who were willing to risk it all in order to enjoy the life they felt they deserved.

Or hell, maybe that’s just me the writer wrapping too much flowery language around the plain truth. Maybe it was more accurate to say that these women had been beaten into submission, and were only now rising from the ashes. Way I figured it, they were finding solace in one another’s trust, and even in one another’s arms, and enjoying every minute of it. They weren’t lesbians nor were they perverts. Not at all. They were simply into their sex, their freedom, their love for a beautiful body, and for now anyway, I was along for the ride. I was their handyman. That was both my good luck and my misfortune.

Thing is, I’d seen the scars and bruises on Allison. I’d seen her tears. Yet, there was something that didn’t seem right. Unlike Tara, who seemed genuinely at the end of her rope with her husband, I sensed Allison was keeping something from me. I had no doubt her husband had done the things to her that she said he’d done, but I couldn’t help feeling that maybe he’d been coerced. Maybe Allison wasn’t all that innocent. Maybe she’d pushed him to his limit, and he just blew up. I’d seen it happen before. Seen it happen between Stella and me. One minute you’re having an argument over a piece of burnt toast, and the next minute, the goddamned toaster is flying past your head and crashing into the kitchen wall behind you.

Bam! No more toaster. Almost no more head.

If I was going to put myself out there for Allison, I needed something more. More proof that her situation with Andrew was as dire as she said it was. Before I agreed to her plan, I needed to do a little more research.

Stella still wasn’t home, which was a good thing. It meant I could use her computer without her knowing it. I wasn’t much for the digital age. I still typed out my manuscripts and short stories on a portable Remington I’d picked up at a garage sale for twenty bucks, still sent them to the publishers through snail mail. Still did things the old-fashioned way. I guess you could say I was sort of a throw-back to an era gone by. Mickey Spillane was my hero. As were Hemingway, Miller, Bukowski, and Mailer. The tough, hard-boiled language these writers—and others like them—espoused, had been lost to a new generation of emasculated, sexless males. I loved my masculinity, and I fed it like a lioness feeds fresh red meat to her cubs. I wasn’t afraid to use it, with my writing, with my mouth, or with my fists if need be. When I fucked a woman, she knew who was in charge, who was out to tame her. She knew my cock wasn’t just an instrument for her arousal and overall enjoyment. It was a weapon.

It was a fucking loaded gun.

Truth be told, I always assumed a lot of the editors who’d rejected me over the years—editors who had to be younger than me—kind of appreciated the gesture of receiving real paper in the mail. It was a novelty for these kids. The touch, feel, and smell of real paper and ink as opposed to the cold, third person of an electronic submission…a digital nothing born of a disconnected digital world.

Back to the assignment at hand.

Making my way to Stella’s office, a converted corner bedroom near the house’s front door which had once served as Mackey’s writing studio, I flipped up the lid on her laptop. When the icon appeared for me to type in the secret password, I typed “Stella101,” since I’d happened to catch her typing the phrase into the space on many an occasion. The Google search engine appeared as her home page.

I typed “Andrew Craig Albany New York” into the search engine, pressed the Enter key.

Several local newspaper articles on him appeared. The suited, mustached and goateed Lobbyist appeared in maybe a half-ozen different articles about him and his work with one variety of policeman’s fund or another. One article bore the headline, Craig Secures Record Payout for Retired Cops. I scanned the first couple of paragraphs, and like the headline stated, Craig, through his successful lobbying and investing skills, had been successful in generating record pension payouts to all local cops who’d served their posts with distinction and were able to retire with full benefits.

There was a photo of him surrounded by several salt and pepper haired men wearing “Kiss Me, I’m a Retired Cop!” t-shirts. They were all standing outdoors at what looked like a park. Some of the cops in the photos were wearing sunglasses, almost all of them were holding cans of beer. Every one of them were smiling.

In another photo, Craig stood by the hospital bed of a sick kid. The poor kid’s hair was gone, but he was smiling for the camera. Craig Delivers Donation to Children’s Cancer Ward. It was enough to warm my heart. In yet another article, Craig was standing side by side with a woman dressed in black. She wore Jackie O sunglasses and a black hat. He was wearing a black suit and tie. and a pair of aviator sunglasses masked his eyes. Craig Takes Care of Widows of Slain Policemen, the headline read.

I sat back in the chair, pulled the lid down on the computer.

“Jeeze,” I said to myself aloud. “What’s not to like about this guy?”

In my head, I saw Allison, saw the scar behind her ear, saw the bruising. Could a man like Craig—a man so upstanding and revered—have really been so violent to his wife? A woman as attractive and seemingly sweet as Allison?

Of course, the answer was yes. Who the hell knew what went on behind the closed doors of all those pretty suburban homes? Just last summer, a decorated Colonie cop came home one day after work and decided to execute his entire family using his service weapon before setting his house on fire and then turning the service weapon on himself. Stunned neighbors expressed their shock and dismay on the local nightly news reports. “He seemed like such a nice man,” they said. “He seemed so normal. So eager to please. Those poor kids. His poor wife.”

...His poor wife…She must have had no idea she married a monster…

I guess we all have stories like that. You live long enough, you see the true nature of the human condition. A man is just as likely to let a spider live as he is to pull the legs off it, one at a time. What did Henry Miller once say? Inside every man lurks a cold-blooded killer.

If it turned out the private Craig was a son of a bitch as opposed to the very public and caring Craig, it wouldn’t come as a shock. Who the hell was I to talk? How was I any different? It didn’t take a whole lot of convincing for me to take care of Tara’s husband. In the end, it probably wouldn’t take a lot of convincing for me to take care of Andrew either. However, my gut kept speaking to me, kept asking questions. It needed more proof.

“So be it,” I whispered as I was getting up.

That’s when the sound of a small electronic ping came from the laptop. I sat back down and raised the lid once more. It was a private Facebook message for Stella. And it was coming from someone who was very familiar to me.

Mackey.

You there? asked the message.

I felt my pulse pick up. No, that’s not right. I thought I was going to burst with an aneurysm. Heart beating in my throat, mouth suddenly dry, I placed my fingers on the keyboard. But before I typed anything, it came to me that I had a choice here. I had to be careful not to jump to conclusions. While I automatically assumed that two simple words could be interpreted as Stella must be having an affair with Mackey, it could also simply mean he’d been trying to communicate with her any way he knew how, and maybe she doesn’t like it.

Maybe she just hasn’t said anything about it to me for fear that I would blow a gasket, for fear I would set out to find the son of a bitch, and ring his neck. I don’t lose my cool all that often, but when I do, I’m like a runaway locomotive. You’d better get the hell out of the way, or get smashed, or run over, or both. Stella had been witness to the rage on more than one occasion, and it was never a pretty sight, let me tell you.

The time I stopped the car in the middle of the road, came to mind. I was being tailgated by some college kid. I threw open the door, grabbed the hammer I kept under the seat as an equalizer. Stella was seated in the passenger seat. She screamed for me to get back in the car while I made my way over to the kid’s car instead, smashed his windshield. The kid was so scared, he backed up, spun his car around, and peeled off in the opposite direction. A stunned passerby eyed me with fear while I got back in the car, my body filled with fire and fury, and took off. Stella didn’t speak to me for a full hour after that.

Another instance, I’d had a few too many drinks that night, and a few too many rejections that week. Stella was talking on the phone. I overheard her talking about Mackey and his success. She was speaking under her breath. She didn’t want to me to hear what she was saying, but I overheard her words as plain as day.

“Mackey is going to be famous,” she said. “He deserves it. Meanwhile, we’re struggling. I hope I made the right decision.”

It was the first time I actually saw red. My vision was clear, but it was like I was seeing through a filter of blood red. I pulled the phone out of her hand then threw it against the wall. It exploded on contact.

“You’re scaring me!” she’d screamed.

“Go back to Mackey!” I’d barked.

I made a fist, cocked back my arm. Her face went pale. I’d never touched a woman in anger in my life. I lowered my arm, unclenched my fist. She got up, grabbed her keys, left the house for the night. A good idea, in retrospect.

I inhaled a deep breath, stared at the two words that seemed to be throbbing on the screen as though alive, as though possessing breath of their own.

You there?

Instead of acting rash and typing in a threat, I could do something else. I could pretend I was Stella. It wasn’t exactly the right or honest thing to do, but by playing it that way, I might get a better, more rational, idea of just what the hell was going on between the two exes.

Positioning my hands over the keyboard, I typed, I’m here.

There was a pause that seemed to last forever. I listened to my pulse pumping in my temples, and I wanted a strong drink in the worst way. But nothing was going to move me from that chair.

Wasn’t sure you’d respond, he typed.

That was a good sign. It meant Stella wasn’t always quick to answer his instant messages.

What’s up?

Working…lonely…lonely for you

The lonely bit caused a spark in my heart. I decided to pry a little bit. Word on the street was that Mackey was having trouble with book three. Rumors were spreading through writer’s circles that he was blocked, and it was killing him.

How’s the writing? I typed. How’s the new book coming along?

There was a long pause, as though he didn’t want to talk about it. Until he typed: Pretty awful…can’t seem to find a story to follow up my last novel with. This is the first one I’m trying to write without you. I don’t find another story, I’m dead in the water. The publisher will can my ass. It’s been two years since I’ve put out a new book. Three years since you left me for Vic.

There it was. A chance for me to have some fun with him. Or not fun. Just plain revenge.

Vic is killing it. Just got a story taken by a big magazine, and he’s cranking away on a new novel. Says he’s going to be done in a couple of weeks. I’ve never seen him so excited. Finally, the breakthrough moment we’ve all been waiting for. I’m so, so happy for him.

I was really pouring it on. Really trying my hardest to make the SOB sweat. It took a while, but then he wrote back.

You always were the only muse for me, Stel.

Stop it, I typed in. That’s just your imagination. You had a lot of muses on the side as I recall. Thus the breakup.

No I mean it, he shot back. Can’t you take me back? I can’t write without you, Stel.

Just then, the sound of the overhead garage door opening. I had to end this conversation and end it now.

I’m sorry, Mackey. I really am. But I’m with Vic, and he needs me. You had your shot.

I want you… Now.

I know you do, I typed. Now for the coup de grace. Just promise me something.

What is it?

You won’t kill yourself if the story doesn’t come.

The garage door stopped. I had to end this. End it now.

I can’t promise anything to anyone anymore, he said. I love you. Need you. That’s all I know.

I found the Delete Conversation icon, and I clicked on it. Then, I pressed the power button on the machine, and it turned off. Closing the lid, I shot up, made my way back into the dining room, and planted myself by the bar. By the time Stella walked through the back door, I was casually pouring a shot of whiskey.

“A little bit early, even for you?” she said.

It was still early in the afternoon, and Stella looked great. She wore tight black pants and matching pumps with a white satin button-down shirt that was hardly buttoned. Stella loved exposing skin and sexy lingerie. I pictured the men she worked with, how their eyes must be glued to her whenever she walked by.

I drank down the shot, set the drinking glass on the bar.

“I’m just home for a late lunch,” she said, brushing back her hair. “So, I have to make it quick. What’s new?”

I wanted to tell her that I enjoyed two lovelies in bed this morning. That I was offered the opportunity to make another easy two hundred fifty K, that the material I would gather along with it would guarantee me not just one new novel, but two. I was on a roll. But of course, I couldn’t say a word about any of it.

Instead, I said, “Have you heard from Mackey lately?”

She turned to me quickly. “Why do you ask such a thing, Vic?”

She shuffled her way into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, pulled out some cold cuts, a loaf of bread, and the mustard; set it all on the counter. It wasn’t like her hands were suddenly shaking, but she seemed genuinely startled by my inquiry. Like she had something to hide. But I was the last one to point fingers when it came to that department.

“You haven’t mentioned him in a while,” I said.

She placed a couple slices of turkey on a slice of bread, squeezed out a dollop of mustard onto it, then set a second slice of bread on top. She stole a quick bite.

“What’s to talk about?” she said. “I don’t communicate with him.”

I thought about asking her if that included Facebook messaging but decided to let it go. I wasn’t looking for a fight. I was just looking for information.

“How’s his writing going?” I pressed.

She cocked her head and averted her eyes. I’d hit a nerve.

“A couple of our old friends told me he wasn’t doing so well lately,” she revealed. “That’s he’s blocked or something like that.”

Hearing that Mackey was having trouble from Stella, his former muse, made it seem all the more real. All the more true.

Gently, I took the sandwich from her hand, took a bite, handed it back.

“Yes, you may have some,” she said, a smirk on her face.

“I’d be suicidal if I couldn’t write,” I said.

“That’s what worries me,” she said. “Mackey used to have his dark moments. This will kill him if he can’t write. Not to mention his career.” She shook her head. “He worked so hard.”

In my head, I pictured Mackey seated at his kitchen table, the business end of a semi-automatic stuffed in his mouth. It wasn’t an entirely bad thought.

“Sounds like you still care, Stel.”

“Don’t get your panties in a tussle, Vic. I don’t love him anymore. But then, I don’t want him to die either.”

I felt a smile growing on my face. It wasn’t a happy smile. It was more like a crack that forms in a concrete sidewalk when the rain seeps in and freezes. 

“Speaking of work,” she changed the focus of the conversation. “How’s yours going? You finish that novel yet?”

She finished her sandwich, washed her hands in the sink.

“Almost,” I said. “It’s gonna be a huge payday. You just wait and see, honey.”

“Let’s hope so. Mortgage payment is coming up.”

“The five hundred I’m getting for that story,” I said, taking hold of her, bringing my face into the nape of her neck. “It’s yours.”

I started kissing her. She smelled like flowers. Her skin was smooth and warm, and I wanted only to eat her up.

“Very generous of you, Vic,” she said, like that promised five hundred didn’t really amount to a hill of spoiled beans. She struggled to free herself. “I don’t have time, baby. I have to get back. We’ll pick this up later.”

She slipped her way out of my grasp and entered the dining room, but then, she stopped and slowly turned. She made a gesture with her face like she smelled something that wasn’t quite right.

“If I didn’t know any better, Vic,” she said, “I’d say you smell like pussy.”

An electric start in my heart. Had I washed when I got home from Allison’s? No, I hadn’t. I’d immediately planted myself in Stella’s office to use her computer. Then Mackey chimed in, and I lost all sense of time.

“You haven’t been with anyone else, have you, Vic?” She said it casually, as though asking if we had any chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

The look on her face wasn’t anger or suspicion. It was half smile, half smirk. It told me she was playing with me. But at the same time, there was seriousness in the playing. Did she trust me? I’m not sure, but no matter what, she knew how much I desired her. Both as a lover and a muse.

I cleared my throat.

“That’s funny, Stel,” I said. “I thought we had an understanding.”

She burst out laughing.

“That’s right,” she said. “You get to fuck other women, and I don’t get to fuck other men. If we’ve established an understanding, I must have been high when it happened.”

I bit down on my bottom lip.

“You don’t have to worry about anything,” I said as if that would console her.

She finger-combed her lush hair once more. The way it rested on her neck made me want to bend her over the table, pull her skirt up.

“I’ll be seeing ya, Vic,” she said.

“What time?”

She started for the door.

“Not sure,” she said, glancing at me over her shoulder. “I’m going out after work.”

“Where?” I begged.

“Does it matter?” she said, opening the door. “Thought we had an understanding?”

She stepped out, closed the door behind her before I had the chance to respond.

I went back into the kitchen, made a sandwich for myself.  Something was going on between Stella and Mackey. At base, they were back in communication with one another. That much was obvious. She was also starting to suspect something about my affairs. That is, you consider my interludes with Tara and more recently with the Sex Club, as outright affairs. And they were.

Stella had reason to be suspicious.

Our relationship began with our having an affair. And you know what they say about affairs. They’re like murder. Once you commit the first one, the next one gets easier . . . and easier.

I ate my sandwich at the counter and tried to clear my head. I tried to put the Mackey/ Stella subplot aside and refocus on Allison and her offer. I had more pressing matters to concentrate on. Like getting back to her house. Although, this time I was going to arrive unannounced and unseen. Meaning, I was about to do a little snooping, whether she liked it or not.

Inside my bedroom, I dug through my dresser drawers until I found an old pair of black jeans I used to wear on stage back when I was a drummer in a local punk rock band. We’re going back some years—hell, more like a couple of decades—so I hoped they still fit. I located a black t-shirt, and the black combat boots I wore almost every day would be perfect. I had a couple of black watch caps I wore in the winter and even a pair of black leather gloves. Now it was just a matter of finding some sort of black face paint to hide all the light reflecting white skin.

I stood there in the bedroom, dressed in black, and I thought about it. Where could I find something to camouflage my face? That’s when Stella came to mind. She must have some mascara hanging around. Black mascara to match her black eyebrows and her rich black hair. I went into the master bathroom, and I opened the drawer on the vanity where she kept her makeup and other junk. There were all sorts of makeup bottles and containers stored there along with various tools for applying it. Plus, maybe a dozen varieties of lipstick along with some facial creams and powders. I guess it took a lot of work being a good-looking woman.

It took some time to rummage through the stuff, but it didn’t take all that long to find a bottle of mascara. It came with its own little applicator brush. Soaking the brush in the black liquid, I applied a generous dollop on each cheek and my brow. I then used my fingers to rub it all in. Looking at my face in the mirror, I couldn’t help but smile. I hadn’t covered my face entirely with the stuff, but I’d done a decent enough job. The real test would come, however, when I shut off the lights and closed the blinds. I did exactly that. Once the room was dark, I looked in the mirror again.

I blended in with the night. I was ready to snoop as soon as the sun went down.

Turning the bathroom lights back on, I returned the mascara to Stella’s drawer. That’s when I happened to find something stored in the very back of the overly crowded drawer. Something not at all like all the glass, metal, and plastic containers. It was a cardboard box of some kind.

A box of condoms.

I stood there, my stomach tightening and my throat constricting. I had to be rational about this before I jumped to conclusions. Stupid, foolish conclusions that would make me go ballistic on somebody. Somebody like Mackey. I had to calm down and ask myself the right questions. The logical, sensible questions.

Did Stella and I use condoms?

The answer: No. Never in our relationship had we used them.

Could this box be left over from a long time ago? Back when she was still with Mackey three years ago?

I looked at the expiration date on the bottom of the package. The expiration date didn’t take me aback so much as it made me dizzy. The “use by” date still had five years. I’d used enough condoms in my life to know the average shelf life for one of those latex cock socks was five years. It didn’t take a moron to do the math. Stella had purchased these recently. Within the past few months.

Opening the box, I looked inside, pulled them out. In a box of a dozen, four were missing. I did more math. Stella had fucked somebody four times. Fucked him behind my back.

…If we established an understanding, I must have been high when it happened…

The rage was back.

“Motherfucker!” I shouted, slamming my fist against the vanity counter.

I thought about calling her cell phone, but then I took a second or two to breathe, to calm myself down. Hadn’t I slept with not one, but two gorgeous women just that morning? Hadn’t I been sleeping with Tara for several weeks now? Who the hell was I to be so angry?

The answer was Mackey.

“Why does it have to be, Mackey?” I asked myself.

“You don’t know it’s Mackey, Vic,” I answered. “Calm the hell down.”

I exhaled, breathed in, exhaled once more. Returning the condoms to the box, I carefully stored it back in the exact place I’d found it in the depths of the makeup drawer. I also returned the mascara then slammed the drawer closed like I meant it.

I found the reflection of my face in the mirror—a tight, wide-eyed, black painted face. There are forty-three muscles in the human face. Every one of them seemed tensed up, stretched to the breaking point. I was not exactly in the right state of mind to be sneaking around a stranger’s property. But it was exactly what I was about to do. Because if I remained inside the house for even a minute more, I would inevitably make the decision to head out to Mackey’s new home in the suburbs. I would break down the door, and I would beat him until he could write no more. Then, when I was done with him, I would start on Stella.

Turning out the light, I left the bathroom, the bedroom, and the house altogether. I got in my car, and in my brain, set a course for Allison’s house.

It was fully dark by the time I arrived at her heavily wooded property. Her driveway was long, and it wrapped around the side of a hill, like the threads on a screw. I knew if I drove to the top of the driveway, I risked Allison and Andrew hearing the engine. Naturally, the headlights would be extinguished, but it was still too much of a risk. I thought it best to park the car along the road, down away from their property.

From there, I would take it on foot.

The driveway was flanked by thick brush and tall, second growth trees. Whoever decided to build a home on this hill back in the 1950s was looking for seclusion, even if he was still located in the suburbs. The driveway wasn’t paved, it was instead constructed of packed gravel. Must have been a bitch in the winter. But then, Andrew Craig seemed like a man who never had to lift a finger to do his own dirty work. Things like driveway plowing, lawn mowing, and tree cutting could always be subbed out to the lowest bidder.

When I came to the top of the winding driveway, I noticed two cars parked on the circular drive. The first one I recognized as Allison’s—a burgundy BMW, two-door convertible. I pictured her driving it, the wind filling out her long black hair. Or maybe she’d be wearing a red silk scarf over it and a pair of aviator sunglasses. The second car was a black four-door Mercedes sedan. The windows were tinted, and the trim was chrome. It cost more than the house Stella and I lived in. Or so I would guess.

The lights were on in the house. I ducked behind the Mercedes, careful to keep from touching it or else risk setting off its alarm. I could see them both through one of the picture windows. They were facing one another. They were also arguing. It was impossible to hear what they were saying to one another, but I had no doubt that they were shouting. Fighting.

They were also drinking, pouring one shot after the other of what looked like vodka. But then, I was positioned outside the house so it might have been gin for all I knew. Allison was doing most of the shouting. He was holding his drink and just taking it. She was getting up into his face like a bulldog.

Then, she threw her drink, and hauled off and slapped him. He grabbed her arm, but she hit him again using the other hand. He went to grab her again, but this time, she said something to him that stopped him dead in his tracks. Even from my perch in the driveway, I could see his face turn pale, his eyes go wide. She said something else to him, and that’s when he did something very strange.

He slowly got down on his knees.

But he didn’t stop there. He went down on all fours. She disappeared out of view, having moved beyond the frame of the picture window. It was my chance to slip away from the relative safety of the car to a closer position. That way I might not only get a better view of what was happening, but I’d possibly hear them.

Maintaining a crouched position, I sprinted across the driveway and made my way into the bushes. From there, I could look directly through the window. It was more dangerous than spying on them from a distance, but I could make out the entire wide-open floor plan. I locked my eyes on Andrew. He was still down on all fours even though at least a minute had passed. His body was trembling. At first, I took this to mean he was afraid of what was about to happen to him, but then it dawned on me that he might be excited for what was about to transpire instead.

For certain, I knew that he was shaking with excitement, when Allison showed back up on the scene, not wearing the casual clothing she’d been dressed in just moments ago. Instead, she was dressed in an outfit a million miles from casual suburban housewife.

She was dressed like a dominatrix.

Andrew glanced at her but just as quickly corrected himself, shifting his eyes back to staring at the plain wood floor.

“You’re a bad man!” Allison shouted.

She held a black riding crop in her hand. She reared back with it, whipped him hard on the ass. He jarred forward in pain, but he didn’t complain. Not a word. Instead, he began to tremble even more violently.

“Who told you you could look at me?!” she barked.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She hit him again. “Who said you could speak?!”

She stood foursquare in the middle of the living area. Her black hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. She was wearing a leather bra that fit her so tightly that it hurt to look at it. Her bikini panties were leather, and she wore black fishnet stockings and a garter belt. For shoes, she wore tall black leather boots with stiletto heels. Both her hands were covered in long black gloves. Her lipstick was also black. In a word, she looked dangerous, but sexy too. So much so that I found myself trembling.

“It’s time to teach you a lesson, bad man,” she said.

Again, she disappeared from view. But when she returned, she had a stepladder which she pulled open and positioned directly beneath an exposed horizontal beam. Climbing the ladder, she reached up and grabbed hold of something out of sight resting on top of the beam. It was a chain with a collar attached to it. Along with the collar were two sets of hand-cuff like shackle devices.

She dropped the length of chain from the beam. It hit the floor. She then grabbed something else that had been stored on top of the beam—a black device, like the remote control to a television or a stereo system. Climbing back down the ladder, she set it aside and once more gripped her riding crop with her free hand.

She whacked his ass with it again.

“Get up,” she demanded.

He stood as ordered. At rapt attention.

“Hit me,” she insisted, her arms and hands pressed against her sides.

He inhaled like he required extra oxygen for what he was about to do. He slapped her. Hard enough that I could hear the impact.

“Again,” she pressed. “Harder this time.”

He inhaled and exhaled again. Then he hauled off and struck her face with such force her knees buckled. I thought for sure she might collapse.

“That all you got, pussy man?” she goaded him. “You’re pathetic. You’re nothing. Did you know I fucked another man this morning after you left for work? His cock was big and hard, and it filled my mouth and my ass.”

I watched his face turn a bright shade of red. He knew her words were true. His eyes went wide, his teeth ground together, lips pursed. He made a fist, walloped her in the jaw. This time, I was convinced she would go down. She wobbled unsteadily on her feet but then regained her balance. That’s when she slowly brought her gloved hand to her face, not like she was feeling the welt that was surely already growing there, but so she could caress it, savor the pain. So much for Andrew abusing her.

She was fucking asking for the abuse.   

She cleared her throat, composed herself, slapped the riding crop against the palm of her free hand.

“Undress,” she commanded.

“Yes, Madame,” he replied.

She hit him again. “Did I tell you to talk?”

“No, Madame,” he said.

She struck him with the crop once more.

It dawned on me that he must have been asking for it just like she was. He couldn’t be that stupid to openly defy her the way he was. Which told me they must have enjoyed the pain. It turned them on. It was their common denominator. By the looks of things, the two of them were professionals when it came to the pain department.

Minutes later, he was not only naked, but he was shackled and cuffed to the overhead chain. The chain must have been attached to an electronic pulley or come-along system that was also hidden by the thick overhead beam. When she pressed a specific button on the remote she’d retrieved, the chain began to retract, and Andrew was raised off the floor. His arms, ankles, and neck were pulled violently backward in ways God never intended. But he never so much as said a word. Never uttered a sound other than a grunt. He wasn’t choking. No bones were about to break, and no skin was about to tear, but I couldn’t help but think he had to be in some serious agony.

Then again, I guess what’s pain to me was pleasure to others.

How’d the famous song lyric go?

Hurts so good. Come on, baby, make it hurt so good…

Time went by, and Allison went from teasing him, making him hard, stroking and rubbing him, to striking him with the crop. I wasn’t entirely clear on the game they were playing until it struck me. She didn’t want him to climax. Simple as that. If he came too early, she would have no choice but to leave him hanging. No choice but to keep on punishing him.

For two formerly married people who were supposed to hate one another, they most definitely had themselves one hell of an understanding, if not a special relationship. I’d seen enough. I really didn’t feel the need to hang around to find out how the climax turned out, and I got the point of the floor show, which was anything but subtle or ironic. Maybe to them, it was just plain playful or a way to pass the time. Whatever the case, Allison Craig was not the damsel in distress she portrayed herself to be this morning.

Tomorrow, we’d have to have a little chat.

I slipped back through the bushes and quickly but quietly made my way back down the driveway. I got back in my car and drove away, one eye on the road, the other planted on the rearview. It wouldn’t surprise me one ounce if Andrew Craig had surveillance cameras positioned in all sorts of places inside and outside the house. He was a little tied up at the moment, so it would be impossible for him to view the CCTV footage, but who knew how long their sadistic game of BDSM or S&M, or whatever the hell you call it, would last. Better that I disappear now, under the cover of darkness.

When I returned home, the house was blacker than Allison’s leather outfit. But somehow, not nearly as interesting or inviting, dare I say it. I washed my face off in the kitchen sink, put the gloves and hat away in the front hall closet, poured myself a drink, and sat down with the darkness, my old friend.

I thought about the events of the day. The Sex Club in the late morning, Allison’s offer to murder her husband in exchange for a hefty payday, and of course, the much appreciated hands-on research, the Facebook instant message from Mackey, the discovery of the condoms in Stella’s makeup drawer, and her leaving for the evening with no mention of where she was going or who she’d be with and when she was coming back. And finally, my witnessing the S&M game Allison and Andrew were playing. For two supposedly legally separated individuals stubbornly living under the same roof, they seemed to be getting along just fine. In their own particular way, of course.

It was pretty clear to me now that she lied about the bruises on her face and the scar behind her ear. Looked to me like they were both delivering frequent beatings to one another. How fucked up is that? But then, who was I to judge? Let’s face it, these were not your normal, everyday, run of the mill suburbanites. These were people who had not just one skeleton hidden in the closet, but a whole bunch of them. It’s what attracted me to them. It’s what made them interesting. I would write about them, one way or another.

But the question was, would I kill for them?

Kill for Allison?

I sipped on my drink, felt the whiskey seep into my bloodstream. If I had a cell phone, I might text Stella. Demand she tell me where she was. But I didn’t have a cell phone, and I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know where she was. Maybe I should go back into her office, turn her laptop back on, see if Mackey would once again chime in. Maybe he was busy. Maybe he was busy fucking my significant other.

I pictured the two of them together. I pictured her naked body lying beside his. I imagined her hand on his cock, her running the tip of her tongue up and down his shaft, visualized her taking it all the way into her mouth…

Christ, if I wasn’t already getting hard. I was drowning in a sea of vivid memories that weren’t mine, or necessarily real. My imagination knew how to stab me in the back when it wanted. It was as untrustworthy as thin ice and just as transparent.

I drank down the shot of whiskey, got up, poured another.

“You’re gonna make yourself crazy you keep thinking those thoughts, Vic,” I said aloud. “Crazier than you already are.”

I went to the picture window in the living room, looked out onto the dark, summertime street. Looked at the houses with their lights off, all those innocent people snuggled into their beds. I pictured Tara sleeping next door. She was alone. A small spark of optimism filled my veins. I glanced at my watch. It was going on ten in the evening. Stella might not be back for hours. But then again, her car might pull up in the driveway in a matter of seconds.

“Fuck it,” I said to myself, pulling back the shot. “Two can play this little game. Fuck you, Stella, and fuck you too, Mackey.”

I set the empty shot glass on the bar then headed out the back door onto the back deck. Making my way through the gate on the old wood privacy fence that surrounded the small half-acre back property, I walked over the trimmed grass into Tara’s backyard and onto her small wooden back deck. I could see that her sliding glass door was open, only the screen closed to keep out the bugs.

Candles were burning inside and out, the flames flickering in the gentle summer breeze, their orange light casting shadows on both the interior and exterior walls. I heard music playing on the stereo. Bob Dylan if I had to guess. I pictured Tara sitting on the couch, a bottle of white wine opened, a glass poured. Maybe she’d be smoking a joint, just enjoying her solitude and her life now that her husband was finally gone. The kids would be asleep by this point of the evening, and she would have the house to herself. Life was good for Tara these days, thanks to the handyman.

A smile adorned my face. I felt those forty-three muscles at work. I put my hand on the screen door opener. That’s when I heard voices. Not loud voices. Soft voices barely audible above the music. More than one voice. Tara had company.

Shrouded by darkness broken only by the candles, I cupped my hand around my ear, pressed it against the screen, tried my hardest to hear what was being said. But all I could make out was mumbling, whispering. Two voices mixing with one another. Both of them female. Both of them conscious of the children who were asleep in the bedrooms. Two women curled up on the couch drinking wine. Maybe Tara and Allison. Suddenly, I began to feel not only optimistic but downright excited. What better way to end this night than to repeat the way the day began this morning?

The perfect pair of bookends.

I shifted my left foot, and that’s when it collided with the empty metal planter. It wasn’t a loud noise, but it was enough to cause the voices to stop mid-sentence. It also caused my pulse to elevate, the fine hairs on the back of my neck to stand up. I stood there breathing, hard.

“Who’s there?” Tara asked.

Footsteps echoed over the interior wood floor. I shifted myself to the right and out of her line of sight. Quickly, but quietly I made my way over her deck and back to my fence gate. Opening the gate, I slipped inside and breathed freely. Why the hell hadn’t I just spoken up when Tara asked who’s there? She would have been happy to see me. But then, she had company, and I felt like an intruder.

I guess I panicked.

Her screen door slid open. I heard not one person heading out onto the deck but two. Locating a narrow opening between the vertical slats in the wood fence, I had a clear line of sight of her backyard. What I saw sent a shockwave up and down my spine.

Just as I suspected, I saw two women. But it wasn’t Tara and Allison. It was, instead, Tara and Stella.

Quickly making my way back into the house, I checked the garage. Stella’s car was gone. She didn’t need to take the car if she was only going next door. If she was hanging out only a few feet away, where the hell did she park the car? Another question loomed large inside my increasingly overheated brain. Was she good friends with Tara? Sure, they were friends. Or friendly anyway, like good neighbors tend to be. Friendly but not personal. We lived too close to one another to become too personal. Too close to become enemies, should the relationship suddenly crash and burn.

Something else to consider. Had Tara seen me standing outside her back screen door? Had she seen me running away? Because if she had, then she was the one who was going to have some serious questions for me.

The rattle and hum of the garage door suddenly opening took me by surprise. I felt my heart jump into my throat. My instinct was to grab a drink, make like nothing was wrong. But I already had a drink in my hand. I didn’t even remember pouring it.

The garage door stopped, and the back door opened. Stella walked in.

“Why the darkness?” she said.

“It’s what happens when there’s no light.”

“That supposed to be funny?”

I could see her smiling wryly. I wasn’t sure if it was a good sign or bad. I sipped some whiskey. “You want a nightcap?” I asked.

“I just had some wine,” she said, slowly taking the two steps up into the dining room, taking a seat at the end of the table where my typewriter rested along with a neat stack of typed pages beside it. Even in the semi-darkness, I could make out her big brown eyes focusing on my work. “You’re making progress,” she added. “You’re on fire these days, Vic. What’s changed?”

Inside my body, I felt this incredible heat. It was a fueled by frustration and inspired by lust. I wanted Stella. Every minute of every day I wanted Stella. Even when I was fucking Tara and Allison on the big bed this morning, I still wanted Stella. Looking at her face, her luscious lips, her perfect nose, the way her long thick hair draped across her forehead, I wanted to dive into her and drown.

But take it from a man who makes up lies for a living, deep down inside, I knew she was keeping something from me, and I was determined to find out what it was.

“Where were you tonight, Stel?”

She exhaled.

“Around,” she said. “I met up with an old friend at Lanies. Then, I paid another friend a long overdue visit.”

Old friend. As in Mackey? Or another friend, as in Tara?

“These friends have names?”

She crossed her arms over her chest.

“You might not like the sound of one of them,” she said pursing her thick lips.

A start in my heart.

“Try me.” My mouth went dry. “Let’s start with the friend who was long overdue for a visit.”

“Tara,” she said.

She was being honest. Maybe she’d simply parked her car in Tara’s driveway. I guess I never thought of looking for it in the most obvious of places.

“And the old friend?”

I drank down the rest of my drink because in my gut of guts, I knew what was coming.

“Mackey,” she said.

Setting the now empty glass on the bar, I about-faced and approached her. How should I handle her seeing Mackey? Should I yell, and wave my arms around wildly in the air, make a gigantic booze-induced scene? Or should I simply be cool about it? The latter was the way I wanted it to go down. Make like her seeing her old lover without first asking if I was okay with it didn’t have the slightest effect on me. Because after all, her seeing Mackey might be nothing more than her attempt at baiting me. And I wasn’t about to take the bait.

“Mackey,” I said. “That’s funny my mentioning him earlier like that, and here you already had a date planned.”

Naturally, I recalled his Facebook private messages from earlier in the day.

She giggled.

“I wouldn’t call it a date,” she explained. “It was a drink. Nothing more.”

“Sure about that?” I said, taking a step forward, pushing myself between her legs so that they had no choice but to open up.

She looked me up and down, licked her lips.

“What are you doing?” she said, her tone deep and hinting of excitement. “It’s late.”

I shushed her, while slowly dropping down to my knees. She spread her legs as wide as they could go, and I could feel the heat radiating from her. Using my fingertips, I gently brushed her pussy outside her silky black panties. She was soaking.

“Looks like your old lover has had quite the effect on you, Stella,” I said. “You’re so wet.”

I could make out her breathing. She pulled her shirt off, exposing the black bra beneath it. She took hold of both her nipples and began pinching them through the material.

“Eat me, Vic,” she said.

I pulled her panties aside, exposed her trimmed pussy entirely. I kissed it, and then began using my tongue on her the best way I knew how. Her thighs were trembling. I could taste and smell her sweetness. Her swelled pink clit and trimmed black hair glistened in the dim lighting. I wanted to be consumed by her. Her pussy belonged to me and to me alone. I flicked my tongue over her lips until she thrust her hips out, released a scream, and came all over my face.

I stood and she quickly unbuckled my belt, pulled my hardness out. She began sucking it. She was working me so skillfully, so completely, so intensely, I knew it wasn’t going to take long until I released.

The words were coming out of my mouth, even before I created them in my brain.

“Did you think about sucking on Mackey like this?”

She freed her mouth.

“Yes,” she whispered, rubbing me. Pumping me.

“Do you miss his cock?”

“I do. But I love your cock too.”

“How big is Mackey’s cock?”

“Eight or nine inches. But not as thick as yours.”

“Do you want them both? At the same time?”

“Oh yes, how I would love that. One of you going down on me, the other cock in my mouth.”

When I released, it was like a gusher. She took as much in as she could, but it was all too much. When I was finished, she wiped her mouth and used her shirt to pick up anything that landed on her face, neck, and chest.

“That didn’t take long,” I said, zipping myself up.

She stood up.

“Now that that’s out of the way,” she said, “I do have one question for you.”

“What is it?” I said, pouring the last shot of the night.

“What were you doing outside Tara’s screen door?”

I drank my shot, and together the two of us went to bed. In the midst of the brushing of teeth, the washing of faces, and the locking of doors, I casually explained that I saw what looked to be a fire outside on Tara’s back deck. Knowing the state of mind she might be in these days, I thought it prudent to make a check on the house. When I could see that she was burning some candles and entertaining a friend, I didn’t want to disturb her or risk her thinking I was being a nosy busybody neighbor, so I quickly rushed back to the house. Simple and as innocent as all that.

“I had no idea the person she was entertaining was you,” I lied. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wasn’t sure I was going to visit her,” Stella said, getting into bed, throwing the comforter over her. “After Mackey and I were done with our drink, I decided to call her. She said she was home and could use a little company. I drove straight to her house. Just as simple and innocent as your story.”

“I see,” I said, getting into bed beside her. “Simple and innocent, that’s us.”

That’s when something hit me over the head. A thought. The condoms in the drawer. I got out of bed.

“Where are you going, Vic?” Stella said.

“Bathroom,” I said. “Too many drinks tonight I think. Weak bladder.”

“You’d better be careful with that stuff,” she said. “It’ll kill you one day you don’t watch out.”

Entering into the bathroom, I closed the door behind me, turned on the light. I opened Stella’s makeup drawer, reached inside for the condoms. They were all the way inside, just like I left them earlier. But Stella must have come back to the house while I was at the Craig’s. She must have come back and retrieved the box. I counted ten in the box previously. I counted them again. There were only seven condoms left.

My heart sank down around my ankles. I didn’t have a right to feel destroyed, but I did anyway. Did Stella and I have an understanding? No. It had all been a lie. A lie fabricated to make me feel better about myself. About Tara. About Allison. If Stella was fucking Mackey again, it was just something I had to accept and live with. After all, what’s good for the goose… If I felt lousy about it, I should have felt worse.

You could say, I deserved every bit of the pain.

I slipped the condom box back inside the drawer where I found it. Then, I slowly closed the drawer. I flushed the toilet just to add realism to the situation, shut off the light, and opened the door.

When I got back to bed, I said goodnight to Stella and leaned in for a kiss. The loving kiss of a good boyfriend. Then I turned the light off, knowing that in the morning I would pay Allison another visit. Now that I knew Stella was back to fucking Mackey, all bets were off. I wanted revenge, and I wanted justice. Since I couldn’t very well kill either Stella or Mackey, I would do the next best thing. I would accept Allison’s offer to murder Andrew. The act wouldn’t be at all right in the eyes of God or the law, but that wasn’t the point, was it? Killing Andrew on behalf of my art would give me the material I needed for yet another great book. It would make me rich and famous while Mackey died a slow death from writer’s block. That would be the sweetest revenge of all.

It didn’t take me long to fall asleep. But when I did, I dreamt the sweetest of dreams.

The next morning was bright, warm, and beautiful. Stella had left for work early, and I had the house to myself. I made the coffee, decided to forego the whiskey, and dug right into Savage Sins. The pages seemed to be writing themselves. It was easy when you personally experienced the plot, first hand.

But writing, as exciting as the story in progress was turning out, was a sedentary occupation. I was spending too much time sitting. I needed to get the blood flowing through the veins again. After throwing on my running shorts, a t-shirt, and a pair of sneakers, I made my way outside, breathed in the fresh morning air.

“Morning, Vic,” came a voice from across the lawn.

I turned, saw Tara standing in her driveway. She was wearing black workout tights, and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. The kids were running circles around her while she tried to round them up, put them into the mini-van. Her ass was heart-shaped, and her breasts filled out her tight elastic top perfectly. She looked stunning, and I wanted her in the worst way. But not now.

I waved back. She smiled, blew me a kiss.

Turning, I made my way down the length of the driveway and entered into a slow jog.

When I returned, I lifted free weights in the basement for half an hour, then showered and dressed in a pair of fresh trousers and a blue button down. Retrieving my black leather gloves from the top drawer on my dresser, I shoved them in my back pocket, then made a cup of coffee and some toast which I consumed in the car while driving to Allison’s house. As though expecting me to arrive at that very moment, she was standing outside the front door of her hilltop ranch, a cup of coffee in her hand.

She was wearing workout clothes that were very similar to the ones Tara had been wearing, as though they had attended the same workout class that morning. Perhaps they had. As I approached her, I could see that her skin was radiant, coated with a sheen of perspiration. She glowed in the light of the morning sun that poured in through the breaks in the tall trees.

“So,” she said. “What’s your answer, Vic?”

In my head, rapid-fire memories. Tara and me in her basement, a big spider hovering over her washing machine by its web. Tara and me in her kitchen, our bodies colliding like two magnets. My loosening the basement staircase step. Her husband falling, finding death the moment his skull struck the concrete floor. Me, seated in front of my typewriter, pounding out a new story and a new novel with all the confidence of an old pro, knowing my career was about to take a turn for the better. The Sex Club at Allison’s, her scars and cuts. Finding the condoms in the drawer in the bathroom. The Craig’s S&M game. Stella meeting up with Mackey and later, with Tara. Three more missing condoms…

My life was changing rapidly.

Reaching out, I gently touched the small bruise on her face. The bruise Andrew had given her at her explicit request. She winced at my gentle touch.

“The answer is yes,” I said. “The handyman will take care of your husband problem.” 

She gave me the key to the gun cabinet inside Andrew’s office.

“He goes to the range on Thursday afternoons,” she said. “Then he comes home and cleans his pistols. He’ll have been drinking with his friends, and he’ll be drinking while he takes care of the guns. It’s the ritual.”

“What time should I expect him?”

“About four.”

“Where will you be?”

“On the other side of the house.”

I nodded, stared at the key in my hand. “What day is it? Sometimes writers have a habit of losing track.”

“Thursday,” she said. “The day of power and expansion.”

“The day of reckoning,” I said.

I never left her house that day. In fact, I spent most of it in Andrew’s office. Rather than leave my prints all over the place, I covered my hands with the tight leather gloves. I then opened the gun cabinet with the key, pulled out one of the .45s on display. There was a box of .45 caliber ammo stored in one of the two bottom drawers of the cabinet. I loaded the pistol’s magazine with seven rounds, then slapped the magazine into the pistol grip. I’d done my two years in the Army during the first Gulf War, so I wasn’t a total stranger to semi-automatics. Especially .45 caliber model 1911.

Truth be told, it felt good to hold one again.

The afternoon went by slowly. Agonizingly slowly. I played a dozen different scenarios over and over again in my head. Me, waiting for Andrew in the closet, springing myself on him when he came through the office door… Me, hiding behind his desk, shooting him in the back when he returned his guns to the cabinet… Me, waiting in the next-door bathroom, then sneaking into the office and shooting him while he was seated at his desk. He wouldn’t know what hit him.

All of these ideas would probably work. But somehow, the idea of sneaking up on him just didn’t seem fair to me. Somehow, it seemed like the cowardly way to go about killing him. Like the coward, Bob Ford, who shot and killed Jesse James in the back.

How would Hemingway do it? I asked myself.  

That’s when I decided to simply wait for him inside the office. Wait for him while I sat in his chair behind his desk. It was the honorable thing to do. The manly thing.

When I heard his car pull up, I felt my pulse elevate, my heartbeat pick up speed, my mouth turn dry. But at the same time, I felt good. Powerful. Like I was about to do something not for Allison, but for me and my art. My life. The answer to everything was the cold, hard .45 gripped in my shooting hand.

Andrew entered the house through the front door. Words were exchanged between Allison and Andrew. Quick, harsh words. She said he was drunk. He said he didn’t give a shit.

“Guns and booze,” she spat. “Better watch it, or you might shoot yourself.”

“You’d love that,” he countered. “Then you’d finally be free of me.” He laughed bitterly. “But then, who would you have to beat on? To punish and torture? Who would spank you? Punch you?”

They were fighting. But I sensed the playful part of their relationship—the painful playful part—wasn’t about to enter into the equation this late afternoon. I didn’t have to see the expressions on their faces nor hear the words being spoken from their mouths to taste and feel the bitterness the two held for one another. Was that bitterness enough to kill Andrew? Of course not. Nor was the insurance money I would split with Allison. But the experience I would gather in the act of the killing would be invaluable, and therein laid my entire motivation for what I was about to do. But was I about to kill the right person? I was beginning to believe it was Allison who was abusing Andrew.

Footsteps along the bare wood floor, each of them laden and heavy. Each of them like the tick of the second hand on a clock. Tick, tock, tick, tock…

I heard his breathing as he placed his hand on the doorknob, twisted it. My heart began pounding against my sternum, the gun gripped in my leather glove-covered shooting hand, my palms moist with perspiration. He stepped inside, closed the door behind him.

It was strange, because he didn’t notice me at first. It took me more than a few beats to realize he couldn’t see me very well because he wasn’t seeing straight. After all, his eyes were full of tears.

“No more,” he whispered, as he drew a semi-automatic from his hip holster, placed the barrel in his mouth.

I was so shocked at what I was seeing, my body must have reacted instinctively. I shuddered and the swivel chair I was seated in squeaked. The noise was enough to break Andrew out of his concentration. Slowly withdrawing the pistol barrel from his mouth, he turned to me.

His blue eyes went wide, his smooth face went tight.

“Who the hell are you?” he said, a single tear falling down his cheek.

“I’m a friend of Allison’s,” I said, taking aim with the .45.

His tight face went white.

“Have you fucked her?”

I nodded.

For a man at the end of his rope, he was quicker than I thought. Assuming a combat stance, both hands gripping his weapon, he planted a bead on me, finger on the trigger. A headshot from that range that would spray my brains and skull all over the window behind me.

Instinct took over. It became a simple matter of him or me.

I raised the .45 and pulled the trigger. It was his brains that sprayed the door behind him. His body dropped like a stone, and I knew his soul had already pulled an Elvis and left the building even before I had the chance to shoot up from the chair.

The king of the castle was dead.

Coming around the desk, I peered down at him and what I saw robbed me of my breath. Despite the nickel-sized hole in the center of his forehead, he bore a smile. The tears were still falling from both his eyes, one of which was wide open as if looking toward a future free of Allison, and the other looking inward at all the pain he had suffered while alive. Death must come as quite a relief to a man who despises himself. Despises his life. Andrew was proof positive of that.

He should have shot me when he had the chance. But he didn’t pull the trigger. He hesitated, because, in the end, he wanted to die more than he wanted to live. It was a remarkable thing to witness. This wasn’t about my being Allison’s handyman. It was about being Andrew’s.

I would make careful note of everything that went down inside that office over the course of the last few minutes. Andrew’s heavy footsteps outside the door, his hand on the doorknob, his slowly opening the door then closing it behind him, the tears coming from his eyes, the sound of his agonized voice telling himself he couldn’t take anymore, him drawing his weapon, the cold, bitter taste of gunmetal inside his mouth, his shock upon seeing me seated behind his desk, the moment he tried to draw on me like we were caught in some old High Noon Hollywood style Western, the blast of the .45, the concussion against my shooting hand, the nickel-sized hole in his forehead, and the spray of blood and brain matter that stained the office door.

All of it would be prime material for yet another novel, and all of it would be so real that the reader would wonder if I had actually witnessed first-hand the killing of a man by handgun, up close and personal. They might even wonder if I had performed the killing myself. But what they would never know is how good I felt about it. How good it felt to spring Andrew from the trap that was his home.

Then, a voice from outside the door. A faint voice that somehow sounded louder and more shocking than the blast of the .45.

“Is it done?” Allison asked.

“It’s done.”

I could only imagine if the voice she heard from the other side of the door had been Andrew’s. Now that would have been one hell of a wakeup call for her.

“Can I come in, Vic?”

I knew in my burning heart that if she entered the office, I would shoot her dead. I craved the experience being the handyman afforded me, but the last thing I needed was a mass murder on my hands.

“Not yet. Go get your phone. You’re going to need to call 911 in a minute or two. The sooner, the better. But not before I tell you. So be ready. Understand?”

“I understand,” she said.    

I pictured her standing outside the door, her eyes wide, her long hair pulled back behind her ears, her heart pounding, temples pulsing.

I had work to do. It needed to get it done now.

Here’s what I did to make Andrew’s murder look like a suicide brought about by an abusive wife. I pulled the hanky from my back pocket, cleaned the .45 of my prints. Then, I placed it in Andrew’s right hand, with his thumb jammed inside the trigger guard, rather than his index finger. The pistol was positioned in his hand so that the barrel was facing him, rather than facing a hostile target on the opposite side of the room.

I then picked up the 9mm off the floor, placed that back into his hip holster like he’d never pulled it out in the first place. Judging by the way he was lying on his back, the hole dead center in his forehead, the smile on his face, the one eye open, and the other closed, it looked like the perfect suicide. Almost like he was asking himself to “Kill me. Put me out of my misery. For God’s sake kill me, please.”

Sure, the cops would wonder why he hadn’t used his 9mm when he was packing it right on his hip. But then, any cop worth his or her salt knows a single round fired from a .45 to the forehead is a sure bet to blow one’s brains out. The 9mm would have done the same, but the .45 is that much bigger. That much more powerful. There would be no question of its ability to end one’s life and end it definitively. It meant Andrew was committed to the act. He wasn’t merely calling out for help.

When there was nothing left to do for Andrew, I cleaned off everything I had touched with my hanky. Gloves or no gloves, it was the precautionary thing to do. The desk, the box of .45 caliber rounds, the swivel chair, the gun cabinet. I opened the door with the hanky draped over the doorknob, careful not to step in the now considerable pool of blood.

“Adios, Andrew,” I whispered. “I hope you’re in a happier place now.” Then, stepping out into the hall. “It’s time now, Allison. Call the police.”

“I got it,” she said from inside the kitchen.

Turning once more toward the body, I took one more good look at Andrew. If only I believed in cell phones, in modern technology, I might have snapped a few pictures of him. But then, from a writer’s perspective, relying on your imagination was better than using digital pictures as a crutch. Your brain was a better recording device, because in the end, all a writer could rely on was his imagination and his experience. Both were in prime working condition these days.

The faint sound of sirens in the near distance. Already, the cops and the EMTs were on their way. I stepped out into the hall, left the door open a few inches. Making my way slowly along the narrow corridor, I heard not a single voice but, instead, voices. I stepped into the kitchen and saw them. The three of them were seated at the kitchen table, all of them with smiles on their faces despite the dead body lying on the floor of Andrew’s office.

Allison, Tara, and one other woman.

My love, my life . . . Stella.

(To be continued…)

If you enjoyed this episode of , go immediately to episode III, Savage Sins. Or if you haven’t yet savored the first episode, , just click on the title. For more information on Vincent Zandri titles, go to

Winner of the 2015 PWA Shamus Award and the 2015 ITW Thriller Award for Best Original Paperback Novel, Vincent Zandri is the NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, and AMAZON NO. 1 Overall Bestselling author of more than 25 novels including THE REMAINS, MOONLIGHT WEEPS, EVERYTHING BURNS, and ORCHARD GROVE. An MFA in Writing graduate of Vermont College, Zandri's work is translated in the Dutch, Russian, French, Italian, and Japanese. Recently, Zandri was the subject of a major feature by the New York Times. He has also made appearances on Bloomberg TV and FOX news. In December 2014, Suspense Magazine named Zandri's, THE SHROUD KEY, as one of the Best Books of 2014. Recently, Suspense Magazine voted WHEN SHADOWS COME as one of the Best Books of 2016. A freelance photo-journalist and the author of the popular "lit blog," The Vincent Zandri Vox, Zandri has written for Living Ready Magazine, RT, New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, The Times Union (Albany), Game & Fish Magazine, and many more. He lives in New York and Florence, Italy. For more go to

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