Still, he had put the tape to good use hadn’t he? Perhaps his valuable time hadn’t been completely wasted after all. By God, they’d gotten his message loud and clear. Heartbreaker was a man of his word.
He wondered how long it would take them to find her. Hell, he’d done everything but post directions. Poor, poor Tiffany. He burst out laughing then; he couldn’t contain it. The bitch had never gotten to use the new phone she’d shoved in front of his face while she bragged about it. He’d used the phone though, to call his sweetheart, and he’d stayed on the line long enough for the mules to figure out whose name the phone was listed under.
He’d given her what he considered a fitting burial. He left her on a shallow grave near the highway. The scrub surrounding the gully obstructed the view. Eventually the mules would find her, and they’d know with one look what kind of woman she had been.
He broke her heart, and then he stole it. The spontaneous action worried him for a couple of minutes, but then he realized how careful he’d been not to get any of the blood in his van. Those amazing Ziploc bags really did do a good job, just like the commercials boasted. He’d have to remember to send the company a note praising their clever little product.
Filth. That’s what she’d been. Pure filth. And that was why he hadn’t kept the memento. He didn’t want to remember her, so he’d thrown it away.
Usually, whenever he encountered a worthy prospect, he entertained the notion of keeping her and training her, but at first glance he could plainly see that this one had been used, and he immediately ruled her out. The replacement had to be pure and innocent, clean, and adoring. Oh, yes, she’d be adoring all right, or a lasting relationship would never, ever work. No sirree.
He had done it before and he could do it again.
A burst of raw anger caught him unaware, shocking him. He realized then that he was gripping the steering wheel and forced himself to relax. All his time and effort had been wasted. Wasted! He had created the perfect mate, and when she died, he grieved.
He didn’t relish the chore of finding and training a replacement, but he couldn’t put it off much longer. No, he’d have to get started soon, which meant hour upon hour of careful, meticulous planning. He would have to see to every detail, every tiny wrinkle. And research. There would be so much research involved. He would have to know everything about her. Everything! Who her friends and relatives were, who would miss her, and who wouldn’t give a damn. Then he’d have to isolate her, alienate her, and once he finally took her, the real work would begin. He’d keep her locked away. The slow, agonizing training process would begin, day in and day out, endless training. He would be cruel and relentless until she became exactly what he wanted. There would be pain, lots of pain, but she would come to understand and forgive him once he had broken her and then molded her into the perfect mate. Why? Because she would adore him.
The anger wouldn’t let him alone. Rage was steadily building, gnawing at his gut like hungry maggots. He couldn’t let it get out of control, not now. He took a deep breath and ordered himself to think about something pleasant.
Little Tiffy had been as easy as she’d advertised. No challenge at all. He didn’t even have to sweet-talk her into getting into his van. No, she’d just strutted over to the door and scrambled right on up inside, with her tight little skirt hiked up above her crotch. She’d wanted him to see she wasn’t wearing panties. No modesty, that one. God only knew what diseases she’d been carrying. He’d had to wash three times just to get rid of the stench of her.
He made a mental note to remember to tell his buddies on the Internet that killing whores wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.
She couldn’t dirty talk her way out of what was happening to her. No, sir. Killing her had been a kick, but it hadn’t given him the rush he craved these days. He knew why of course. She hadn’t been clean.
“Green-eyed girl, won’t you come out to play . . .”
Oh, how he hated to start all over again. Such time! Such work!
“Calm down, calm down,” he whispered. “You’ve done it before, you can do it again.”
It wasn’t a project he was ready to undertake just yet. If he’d learned anything over the years, it was that you finished one job before you took on another.
The exit off I-35 leading to Holy Oaks loomed up ahead. An exemplary driver, he turned on the blinker and slowed the van.
“Green-eyed girl, I’m coming for you, coming for you, coming for you . . .”
He had a secret name for Holy Oaks. He called it “unfinished business.”
CHAPTER 15
The game was on.
A team of FBI agents swarmed into Holy Oaks to prepare the trap. Jules Wesson, their section leader, set up his command post in a spacious, well-appointed cabin owned by the abbey and located just eight blocks south of the town on the tip of Shadow Lake. Wesson, a Princeton graduate with a masters in abnormal psychology, was rumored to become Morganstern’s replacement if and when Wesson completed his doctorate, and if and when Morganstern retired—rumors most of the other agents believed had been started by Wesson himself. He was a by-the-book, hard-nosed, pain-in-the-ass boss, surprisingly arrogant given the fact that the agents under his direction had far more experience in the field than he did.
Joe Farley and Matt Feinberg, one a field agent from Omaha, Nebraska, the other an electronic surveillance specialist from Quantico, were sent into town ahead of the others to scout Laurant’s neighborhood and secure the premises. Both had been ordered to treat the property as a crime scene.
They knew they were going to have trouble blending in. In a town the size of Holy Oaks, everyone knew everyone else, and everyone else’s business, and the two agents didn’t want to stand out like a pair of red shoes in a funeral procession. They had been told that there were other strangers in town working at the abbey on the restoration, and so both of the agents dressed in work clothes. Farley wore a baseball cap and carried a black duffel bag. Feinberg carried a toolbox.
No one paid them the slightest attention. No one, that was, but Bessie Jean Vanderman.
While Agent Feinberg slowly circled the perimeter of Laurant’s two-story clapboard house, checking for possible hiding places, Agent Farley carried his bag up the front steps. He crossed the porch and paused at the door to put on a pair of gloves. An expert at getting in and out without leaving a trace, he used a very simple tool, his American Express card—he never left home without it—to open the door. It took him less than five seconds.
Sheriff Lloyd McGovern showed up five minutes later and burst in on Farley. Bessie Jean, Laurant’s neighbor and unofficial watch-dog now that Daddy had passed on, had called the sheriff when she spotted a squat-necked, square-framed man going inside Laurant’s house.
Farley was more concerned about the sheriff messing up his crime scene than the gun the man was waving about.
Lloyd, scratching his balding head and still brandishing his gun—which, the agent could plainly see, had the safety on—shouted, “You put your hands up, boy. I’m the law here in Holy Oaks and you’d best do what I say.”
Feinberg came inside the front door without making a sound. He walked up behind the sheriff and poked him in the back to get his attention. The sheriff mistakenly thought he had a gun. He dropped his weapon and put his hands up.
“I’m not resisting,” he stammered, the bluster and hostility gone from his voice now. “You boys take whatever you want, but leave me the hell alone.”
Rolling his eyes in exasperation, Feinberg moved to the side and waved his palms in front of the sheriff. Lloyd realized he was unarmed and scrambled to get his gun off the floor.
“All right now,” he began, pleased he was once again in charge. “What are you boys doing here? You’re just plain stupid if you think you’re going to steal anything of value. Look around you, and you can see Lauren don’t have much at all worth taking. I know for a fact that she doesn’t have a VCR, and her television set is at least ten years old. It can’t be worth more than forty dollars, and that sure ain’t worth going to jail for. As far as I can tell, she’s as poor as a church mouse. She ain’t got much in the bank, and she had to take out a loan to pay for her store.”
“How do you know how old her television set is?” Farley asked, curious.
“Harry told me. That’s Harry Evans,” he explained. “He’s my cousin twice removed. He tried to sell Lauren a brand-spanking-new television a while back. You know the kind with the picture inside the picture? She didn’t want it, and she asked him to fix up an old television she bought at a garage sale instead. She was throwing good money away if you ask me. And that’s how come I know how old her television is.”
“And you’ve got a relative working at the bank too?” Feinberg asked. “Is that how you know about the loan?”
“Something like that,” Lloyd answered. “I might remind you boys I’m the one with the gun here, and you’re gonna start answering my questions. Are you robbing Lauren?”
“No,” Feinberg answered.
“Then what are you doing in her house? Are you foreigner relatives of hers from France?”
Farley had been born and raised in the Bronx and hadn’t been able to rid himself of his thick street accent. He sounded like a thug in a bad gangster movie.
“That’s right,” he managed to say with a straight face. “We’re from France.”
The sheriff liked to be right. His chest puffed up like a peacock. Nodding as he put his gun away, he said, “I thought as much. You talk funny, so I figured you boys had to be foreigners.”
“Actually, Sheriff, we’re both from the East, and that’s why we have accents. My friend here was just joking when he said we’re French. We’re friends of Laurant’s brother,” he explained. “We’re doing some work up at the abbey, and Father Tom asked us to stop by and fix her sink.”
“It’s clogged,” Farley added to the lie.
The sheriff noticed the black bag near the front door. “Are you boys planning on spending the night here?”
“Maybe,” Farley answered. “Depends on how much work the plumbing needs.”
“She doesn’t own the house. She’s just renting. Where is Lauren?”
“She’ll be here soon.”
“And you think you boys are going to sleep here in the same house with her, and you’re not related?”
Feinberg’s patience was wearing thin. “Quit calling me boy. I’m thirty-two years old.”
“Thirty-two, huh? Then answer me this. What’s a grown man doing wearing braces? I never heard of such a thing.”
The braces were the last step in the reconstruction of a shattered jaw Feinberg had suffered four years ago during a raid that had gone sour, but the agent wasn’t about to impart that information to a man he had already surmised to be a complete moron. Besides, no one was supposed to know the truth, that they were FBI agents.
“We do things different in the east.”
“I reckon you do,” he agreed. “But you still shouldn’t be staying here.”
“Why? Are you worried about Laurant’s reputation?” Feinberg asked.
“No, everyone knows Lauren’s a good girl,” the sheriff replied as he settled his broad rear end on the arm of the sofa.
“Then what’s the problem?” Farley asked. “Why does it bother you if we sleep here?”
“Oh, it won’t bother me none at all, but it’s going to bother someone else you boys don’t want to be messing with. I’m warning you. You’d best find some other accommodations because he isn’t going to like hearing that Lauren’s got two men living with her, even if it’s just for a couple of days. No, he won’t like hearing it at all.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Yeah, who won’t like it?” Farley asked as he shut the door. The sheriff wasn’t going to leave until they had an answer to that question.
“Never you mind who. I’m going to have to tell him though. Why don’t you boys go on up to the abbey? They’ve got rooms you can use for free if you tell them you’re here for retreat. You know what that is, don’t you? You spend your time praying and contemplating.”
“I want to know who’s going to be upset about us staying with Laurant,” Farley persisted. “And I also want to know why you think you have to tell him.”
“ ’Cause if he found out that I knew and I didn’t tell him . . .”
“What?” Farley demanded.
“He can get real mean,” the sheriff said. “And I don’t want to make him angry.”
“Make who angry, Sheriff ?”
Lloyd pulled a stained handkerchief from his back pocket and mopped his brow. “It’s close in here, isn’t it? Lauren’s got herself a window air conditioner, and I don’t think she’d mind if you boys turned it on. The living room will be nice and cool by the time she gets home. She is coming here today, isn’t she?”
“We’re not sure,” Feinberg said.
Farley wouldn’t give up. “We’re still curious to hear that name, Sheriff.”
“I’m not giving it to you, and I can be right stubborn when I want to, and I’m feeling stubborn now. I wouldn’t get myself worked up about it if I was you, because you’re going to be meeting my friend real soon. He’ll come over here lickety-split as soon as he hears you’re here. I guarantee it. He’s a powerful man around these parts, so if you know what’s good for you, you’ll be real respectful to him. I wouldn’t make him mad, that’s for sure. The law can only do so much.”
“Meaning we’re on our own?” Farley asked.
The sheriff lowered his gaze. “Something like that.” Shrugging, he added, “It’s just the way things are around here. Progress comes with a price.”
“And that means . . .?” Farley asked.
“Never you mind.”
“You can tell your friend he has nothing to fear from us,” Feinberg said. “Neither one of us is romantically interested in Laurant.”
Farley guessed where Feinberg was heading and immediately nodded. “That’s right,” he agreed.
“Well, now, that’s good to hear because my friend is planning to marry Lauren real soon, and he always gets what he wants. Make no mistake about that.”