ANGRY ENOUGH TO KILL by S. J. DUNN

PRAISE FOR

ANGRY ENOUGH TO KILL “A brave novel with sympathetic characters that goes far beyond shallow revenge fantasy.”

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ¨Wonderfully satirical, ANGRY ENOUGH TO KILL will sweep you to the finish, and haunt you long after.”

MICHAEL GRAIS, Executive Producer, Screenwriter (Poltergeist I and II, and many other projects) "A provocative thriller with riveting action, three intriguing female characters, and an age-old conundrum - 'does a noble cause justify evil acts (murder)?'"

OZZIE CHEEK, Screenwriter, author of CLAWS “Evil often gets a pass, but not in Angry Enough to Kill, a taut thriller peopled with heartbreakingly real characters who to seek their own style of justice in the fight against pedophilia.”

- ELLEN HERBERT, awardwinning author of Falling Women and Other Stories “A fast-paced thriller with a villain you’ll love to hate.”

- REBECCA MCFARLAND KYLE, - Amazon Top 1000 Reviewer, VINE Voice “S.J.'s unflinching take on vigilantism and pedophilia makes this novel eminently readable and highly disturbing...a novel that readers can enjoy for the pure pleasure of the words, but also makes us think about what we would do if such horrors were visited upon us.”

- Kerry Dunn (no relation), author of JOE PEACE (optioned for a TV series)

'

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright Š 2015 by S. J. Dunn

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Published by SHELFSTEALERS, Inc., Laredo, Texas.

Shelfstealers and the Shelfstealers colophon are registered trademarks of Shelfstealers, Inc.

For information contact: Shelfstealers, Inc., 220 N Zapata Hwy #11, Laredo, TX 78043. www.shelfstealers.com

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-61972-004-6 COVER DESIGN BY Criando Ideias

First Edition 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

by S. J. Dunn

Shelfstealers, Inc.

Laredo, TX

For Karen Cameron, 1946-2003, who could make one balloon a circus.

And for the survivors.

“Even a god cannot change the past.�

-Agathon

Social Contract: An implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits, one of which is a guarantee of peace and security.

-Thomas Hobbes and others

CHAPTER ONE HUNTING SEASON

L oring Jeremias is tempted to turn back,

but this decision is not reversible. No. She's come too far and given up too much. The time to reconsider is past.

In the late Fall chill, she quickens her pace along the forest trail, the ground hard and frozen beneath her moccasins. The winter snows have yet to fall in Jackson, Wyoming, and for this, she is grateful. The sawed-off shotgun digs through the backpack into her waist. She shrugs its weight to the side, rubs her hands over her arms to warm them, and forces her fingers deep into her gloves.

Her mouth is so parched, her lips cling to her teeth.

The fog forms and fades away, only to form again in different shapes, hunters...witnesses.

Don’t think. Just get it done.

Beside the Snake River, trees pierce the haze. Tendrils of fog slither down the alder standing alone in the center of the clearing, and she imagines them creeping along the ground toward her. Magpies tch, tch, tch. An eagle screeches, wings flapping, and the river churns in the distance.

At the side of the clearing, she clambers over a fallen pine, and crawls under the boughs she arranged so meticulously the day before. The laces on one of her moccasins have come undone. She ties them, this time with a double knot, loads the tranquilizer pistol and settles down. It shouldn’t be long now.

Nothing obstructs her view of the pathway leading from the town to the river.

She rests her arms on the log, and waits.

Something crawls up her neck. She swats at it; a spider lands on her arm. She coughs back a scream, and brushes it off. After a time, her knees ache and she shifts on the damp leaves, releasing a whiff of mold and decay.

A twig snaps.

Her hand tightens around the dart pistol.

Please let it be Devlin.

He's whistling, a tuneless wheeze she’s heard before, and he carries a plastic bag. She knows what’s inside: a Sears catalog with pictures of children in their

back-to-school clothes.

Will he take a leak as he did yesterday and the day before? She tries not to breathe.

He hangs the bag on a branch of the alder and unzips his fly. Urine steams against the tree. He grunts, zips up and paws for the bag.

The dart won’t kill him, but if they find him before the Medetomidine-Ketamine dissipates...

Too many ifs.

She fires.

“What the fuck?” He grabs his rump, yanks out the dart, and frowns.

She rises and shakes the branches from her shoulders.

His hand grasps for the tree. He stumbles and drops to his knees, as though praying for forgiveness.

Damn, he’s going to fall forward. She wants to rush to him, to prop him up, but she waits for the drug to take effect.

He rubs his eyes and squints. He's hallucinating. She can hear her own ragged breathing over his mumbled gibberish.

When he falls forward on his hands and knees, and leans to the side, she scrambles to him, props him up with her hip. She places the shotgun on the ground, picks up the dart and jams it into its case in the pocket of her vest.

One piece of evidence out of the way.

His eyelids flutter, his jaw sags, and when his head nods, she rolls him onto his back the way she learned in First Aid. It’s easier than she thought.

Too much beer and age have thinned his bones, wasted his muscles.

With her arms under his armpits, she drags him and props his back against the tree. His body remains upright. No need for the rope in her backpack to keep him in place.

Fetid whiffs of sweat and mothballs rise from his wool jacket. She holds her breath, picks up the shotgun and confirms the chamber is empty.

To test the suicide position, she wedges the gun barrel into his chin with the butt on the ground between his legs, close to his groin.

His eyelashes . . . long and curled like a child’s. He was someone’s child once.

But so was she.

She needs his prints. He’s right-handed—for days she watched him open doors, drink beer, and scratch his nose, all with his right hand. But early in the morning, in the woods, and free from the vigilant eyes of the locals who tried unsuccessfully to run him out of town, he turns the pages of his scrapbook with his left hand. His special pictures. His special children.

She places his right hand around the trigger guard, shoves the thumb into the slot, presses hard, removes the hand and clamps the fingers and thumb around the stock and again on the action and barrel. Except for the area around the trigger guard, she repeats the process with his left hand, near the muzzle end, compressing thumb and fingers into the barrel, and steadies it under his stubbled chin.

Satisfied, she removes the box of shells from her pocket, keeps two, and scatters the rest on the ground. She presses his fingers onto the box and on the shells.

From the backpack, she pulls out the drop sheet, shrouds her body from head

to toe. She finds the armholes and ensures the gun is in the proper position, but when she tries to chamber a shell, the grip won’t move.

Damn.

She pumps.

Nothing.

She pumps again.

Thunk. The grip loads.

She drops to her haunches. Rams the barrel under his chin. The world pauses, waiting for her to fall. She remembers to breathe.

Gritting her teeth, she thinks about the children and squeezes the trigger.

Sound waves blast through her and beyond. And blood, so much blood. Brain tissue gushes onto the drop sheet, splatters on the tree, startling her even though she memorized the after-effects of shotgun suicides.

Wave upon wave of nausea. Gagging sounds.

Hers.

Run. Hide. Anywhere. Anywhere but the closet, that musty closet, behind Mommy’s muskrat coat.

But she mustn’t run. She cannot leave evidence. She has done what she had to do; now she must save herself and the others who depend on her to escape.

She sacrifices stealth for speed, rises and folds the sheet into itself and away from her. An alert forensic investigator might notice a gap in the splatter pattern where her body shielded the ground, but the investigators might be parents. A parent might choose to overlook many things.

Or might not.

Perhaps animals will disturb the site and cover her tracks.

Hurrying now, down the bank to the river, rinsing the drop sheet, folding it into itself, resisting the urge to plunge into the river until her soul runs clear, stuffing the drop sheet into a green garbage bag, cramming it into her backpack.

She's still alone. Still safe.

She hangs a camera around her neck, and pulls an orange vest over her camouflage jacket. If other hunters come, she'll say she was hiking, taking pictures, heard the shot, and found him.

She will cry. It won’t be difficult to cry.

One last check of the site. Devlin’s bag still hangs on the tree. Would he have brought it today? No, not if he intended suicide. She shoves it into the backpack.

Are there furrows where she dragged him? A few. She scuffs the dirt with a fallen branch.

Where’s the spent shell?

It should be on his left. No, his right.

Think!

She can’t see it. She should be able to spot the red casing.

Did she trap it in the drop sheet and flush it into the river? What if she can’t find it?

Tears push at her eyes. It must look like a suicide. She cannot fail now.

She steps back. “Calm down. Breathe.” She’s muttering, but can’t stop.

With a stick, she checks up and down his clothes.

Nothing.

She pokes the leafy debris.

A glimpse. Red plastic and brass still in the chamber. How could she have forgotten? Pump-action shotguns don’t eject the shell until the next round is chambered. She swallows to moisten her tongue and struggles to her feet. When she checks her clothes and her moccasins, she can’t see any evidence. No obvious bloodstains, no brain tissue. She backs away from the body, shoulders the backpack and slides the straps over her jacket.

To survive now, she must leave unseen and she must forget, but forgetting is not one of her skills.

Along the trail, she prays they’ll find his body soon, that she’ll read about his suicide in the Jackson Hole News and Guide when she checks the Internet back in New York. A pointless prayer because what will be, will be, and that's okay.

The sun breaks through the sky's stinging haze. She feels exposed. Someone is shining a flashlight into her eyes, the closet door is open, and she can see Daddy’s shoes, and Daddy, waiting.

At the edge of the forest, protected by the pines, she watches a Range Rover leave the Edelweiss Motel’s parking lot and turn left onto Harbinger Road. When it chuffs out of sight, she slips out of the woods and into the end unit of the motel, changes her clothes, and cleans the room. She shuts the door behind her, throws the backpack into the trunk of her nondescript Ford and drives away.

For the first hundred miles, she fights back nausea, and grips the steering wheel with whitened knuckles until her hands cramp. Gunshot echoes rumble in her ears.

Will they ever disappear? She wants to forget them, but she won’t. She knows she won’t.

At the second hundred-mile interval, she buries her moccasins and the drop sheet in the woods. At the third, she rips the Sears catalog to shreds, imagining that same catalog sitting so openly, so innocently on the coffee tables of homes with children. She stuffs the pieces into the bag, buries it, and tries not to think about the picture of a little girl she knows, holding a Barbie doll, Gold Jubilee edition.

The dirt settles over the bag. She exhales and straightens her shoulders.

Later, deep in the woods, she digs one last hole, burns her hunting clothes and gloves, and buries the ashes.

From time to time along the way home, she pulls over and tries to sleep in the back seat, a shallow sleep, floating on top of a pond roughed by the wind.

In Summit, New Jersey, she parks the car in a garage she rents under a false name, and changes into a navy business suit.

She will take the Transit to Hoboken and the P.A.T.H. train to the subway. She’ll ride the elevator to her office. There, she'll search for hints of suspicion in her colleagues' voices, and pretend to be normal. She’s had a lifetime of pretending to be normal.

Perhaps her next murder will be easier.

Two Years Earlier

CHAPTER TWO RUNNING AWAY FROM HOME

L oring Jeremias hesitated at the door to her closet, wiping away a trickle of sweat between her breasts. Her silk pajama top stuck to her chest. She was ten again, her turn on the diving board, all her classmates jostling for position behind her, calling her a coward and telling her to cannonball. She could hear them laughing, and opened her mouth to take in more air.

“Not today. Please, not today.” She was accustomed to saying her thoughts under her breath when others weren’t around, so accustomed that sometimes the thoughts came out at the wrong time, but no one listened. No one ever listened.

This morning, she'd woken up well before dawn. Not that she minded; the Annual Run-Away-From-Home Weekends with Robin and Kendy were worth losing sleep over. This would be their fourth getaway, always the first weekend in June, the off-season at Whistler in British Columbia, but open season for the three of them to escape life’s responsibilities and pretend to be teenagers. Robin would pick her up; Kendy would meet them at the San Francisco International Airport with their mascot, the Rubber Chicken. Arcee. Without him, the weekend wouldn’t be the same. Loring was convinced Arcee would complain if Kendy left him behind —that damned chicken had climbed Machu Picchu, ridden a camel, and was probably an honorary member of the Mile High Club.

She could hear Arcee saying, ‘The closet won't bite you, Lori, but if you don’t get moving, I will.’ And maybe he would.

And maybe not, but now her challenge was to keep from biting everyone else because her period was due next week. Every month, a week of excoriation, emotions peeled raw like a pomegranate, its seeds staining her and everything she touched. Always worse for people like her, or so her psychiatrist claimed, as if a shared misery could comfort the afflicted.

She squeezed her earlobes. Her psychiatrist said this released calming endorphins into her bloodstream. She liked to imagine them: millions of Pac Men, their mouths gobbling up everything disgusting inside.

At least David would be safe from her pre-menstrual rages. She was only twenty-nine, but often she wished for an early menopause. Would that erase the

past? Not likely. Some memories were like crayon marks on the wall. Even when you painted over them, they bled through the surface.

‘Cut the self-pity, why don’t you?’ Arcee again.

She shifted her weight and pushed her hair behind her ears. All she had to do was shower, get dressed and get out of the house without provoking a pointless argument with David. If she could manage that, she could manage the weekend.

She stepped into the closet, and waded through a rainbow of sweaters, presents from David, until she found a compromise, a navy sweater set and matching navy slacks, two sizes too large because it was important to be invisible. Such a shame; her longed-for career as a George Smiley, cut short by long legs and a long neck.

No blending into a crowd.

In the shower, she washed herself by feel, like a nurse washing a patient. When she stepped out of the smother of steam, she dried off and pulled on her clothes under a towel, the way children dressed themselves at the beach. Remembering David, she undid the three top buttons of her cardigan.

He still slept, sprawled out, open-mouthed on their king-sized bed, one foot hanging over the side. His vulnerability frightened her, as if somehow this were her fault. She wanted to snug the comforter around him, but he would wake up, and she'd rather avoid him today. They'd said their weekend good-bye's last night.

If he slept through Robin's arrival, she'd leave him a note. To love him from a distance came as effortlessly as floating on the Dead Sea; up close and personal, she drowned.

She tiptoed out of the bedroom and along the hall, past the potted palms that kept the world outside from seeing through the windows to the second floor.

Across the bay, over the rooftops zigzagging down the hill, pale light rimmed the horizon, broken by the grim shadow of Alcatraz.

After popping orange muffins into the oven and making coffee, she collected the San Francisco Chronicle from the front doormat. David loved to linger over the newspaper. 'Relaxes me,' he said. Truth? He was a news junkie. On Sundays, he did The New York Times crossword puzzle. Long ago, she bought a whole box of First Prize blue ribbons, and gave him one every time he finished the puzzle in less than an hour. One of their many marriage rituals. Ruts, some people called them, but they helped her to keep her footing.

When she returned to the kitchen, David, in bathrobe and pajamas, was already ensconced at the breakfast table, their first piece of furniture. ‘Blond oak,’ he’d said when they bought it. ‘To match your hair.’

She must have woken him up with her closet mutterings.

The fig trees in the corners and the windows on either side of the table framed him staring at the freighters in the bay. Each time he sipped his coffee, his morning cowlick changed colors. Sandy, sunny, sandy. She liked to watch him when he was unaware, to guess at what he might be thinking.

She dried her sweaty palms on her slacks, and snuck up behind him to kiss the top of his head.

“What’s my Magic Man doing up so early?” She set the paper on the table. “And when are you going to buy a new bathrobe?”

“No way, José,” he said, clutching the frayed lapels of his robe with both hands.

“You don't dump your old friends.” He reached behind him to pull her closer, and

patted the sides of her body. “Mrs. Jeremias, didn’t you wear that last Saturday?

What on earth will your friends think?”

“No, you played golf with Jake.” Jake Mongrain was David’s senior partner and his mentor and idol. “I wore my cargo pants.” Last Saturday’s rebellion came through in her voice. It felt good; childish, but good. All the same, she hoped he hadn’t noticed.

“Did you remember to pack your suitcase last night?”

She wasn’t a child, but he often treated her that way, as if the crippled part of her was always on his mind. She could hear Kendy saying in her Texas twang that she was downright lucky to have a man who didn’t complain even when things went wrong, but too often he could be so perfect that thoughts scurried across her mind like rats, and she wanted to hit him.

For God’s sake, don’t let those rats nest.

At least, she didn't mutter. David thought her muttering was cute; she found it humiliating.

“Anything interesting?” She rested her chin on his head and pointed at the newspaper.

“Not much.” He folded the paper and shoved it aside. She sensed him drawing into himself, and wondered why.

His cell phone buzzed. He answered and put his hand over the mouthpiece. “I’ll take this in the den.” He frowned at the newspaper, his way of telling her she wouldn’t like the news. “Leave it be, Sweetheart.”

She bit her tongue to keep from saying ‘don’t bloody well tell me what I can and can’t read. I’m not a child.’ She wondered who would be calling him so early. A woman? Smart, impossibly beautiful and predatory?

“Don't!”

He didn't hear her, had disappeared into the den, but even if he'd heard, he always forgave her these moments of needless jealousy.

She sat down and stared at the newspaper. To feel this much resentment for the man she tried so hard to love was not good. Her psychiatrist said that only she could control her thoughts. Some days this was effortless.

Her hand turned over the paper. 'Sex Offender Beaten into a Coma with Baseball Bats.' So that’s what David was hiding from her. For her own good, he'd say.

“Aha!” He returned to the kitchen and poured himself a coffee. “You read the newspaper anyway, I see.” An observation, not a criticism, and yet she could feel her insides gathering forces, and pressed her elbows into her body. Tight.

Newspaper in hand, she fled to the kitchen island, wanting him to chase her, needing David the Clown this morning. She hopped up on the granite counter.

“Ow!” The copper pots rattled above her head. She always forgot the pot hanger.

He rose, concern stitching his eyebrows into a thick and solid line. “You okay?”

David the Protector. She should be grateful.

She rolled the newspaper into a tube and hopped off the counter. “Yep,” she said, struggling to keep her tone light. “Baseball bats are going to be hot. Let’s start a business.” With the paper, she swung at an imaginary ball. “We’ll be millionaires.” She swung again, and took a step backward with a ‘catch me if you can’ look.

“And what do we call this business?” He tightened the belt of his bathrobe and rose to his full six feet. In heels, she was taller than he, but he always told her to stand tall. “What about Bats for Rats?” he said, and winked.

Good. He was playing along.

“Hell, no,” she said. “We’d have the animal rights activists all over us.” She stepped toward him, searching for a better name. “Hockey sticks. Sticks for Pricks.” She swiped at an imaginary puck and laughed because hockey was David’s religion. That, and the law.

“Is nothing sacred?” He skated toward her, socked feet sliding on the terracotta tiles, until he reached her and pretended to pummel her shoulders.

“Pucks for…?” she said.

“Always the prude,” he said. “For fucks, Sweetheart.”

She turned around, leaned into him and rocked against his chest, her safe place.

The doorbell rang. “That must be Robin.” She broke free by snaking under his arms. “I'll get it.”

When she opened the front door, Robin, the shoulder everyone used to cry on, was wiping her puffy eyelids with the back of a hand, her round face flushed, her prematurely graying hair even grayer than a week before on their weekly garage sale jaunt. She was having another bad day. Since her husband Marty's death last year, she’d had a lot of bad days.

Loring put on a smile. “I'm so glad you're early.” She could hear the relief in her own voice. No volcanic eruptions or seismic shifts when others were present. David would be safe, and so would she.

“I almost didn’t come.” Robin hugged her, a longer-than-normal hug. “Last night, I invented all sorts of excuses. My practice can’t do without me. Hah! The other vets are more than capable...” She drew away, a tear escaping her eyes. “But Marty would want me to come, and I’d feel guilty all weekend if I let you down.”

“You and your Roman Catholic guilt.”

“Can you believe it? Fine vet I am. I still feel guilty every time I put an animal out of its misery.”

Loring called over her shoulder to David. “Hey, Magic Man, we're leaving,” She pulled at Robin's elbow. “Come on. Time to cut loose.”

They walked down the front steps, and along the sidewalk, to Robin’s VW Beetle. Well, Loring walked; Robin shuffled. Maybe the weekend would be good for Robin. She might even smile.

David caught up to them and knocked on Loring’s window. “Lori, aren’t you forgetting something?” He held up her suitcase.

She felt her cheeks flush and clenched her fists. “Oops,” she said, to make light of her stupidity. She climbed out of the car, and David slipped the suitcase into the back seat.

“Are you sure you have your passport and plane ticket?” He winked, as if he realized how patronizing his voice sounded. “And what about your birth control pills?”

She forced a smile—she’d had her tubes tied. She smiled again, this time for real, kissed her forefinger and tapped his nose. Few men would have agreed that bringing children into this world could be a form of cruelty.

He stayed in the driveway watching them back out, and blew her a kiss. She caught it in her hand and pressed it to her cheek.

“He’s at it again, eh?” Robin said. Only a best friend would dare to comment on someone else’s husband, and only the best friend’s best friend would know she wasn’t referring to the blown kiss.

“Yep. Bugs the heck out of me.”

“But he loves you. That’s what counts.” She sniffed.

“Are you okay?” It might be too soon for Robin to whoop it up the way they always did on these weekends.

“I will be once we get to Whistler.”

“Oh, God. I hope Kendy doesn’t sit on the piano in the hotel lobby and vamp again. She can’t sing worth a damn, but she sure can vamp.” The girl—that’s what she called herself—couldn’t help herself.

Robin’s full lips, her best feature, or so she often said, turned up at the corners.

“A smile?”

“Maybe.”

Loring sat back in her seat. She'd made it out of the house without provoking an argument with David. Now all she had to do was survive the weekend. She'd try to forget the phone call. It was nothing, probably work-related, and David would tell her all about it on Monday.

Just two and a half days. Maybe the Pac Men would gobble up all the smutty hormones this weekend.

Like that would happen, but she’d try. For Robin’s sake, she really would try.

CHAPTER THREE WHEN GOOD MEN DO NOTHING

R obin and Lori arrived at the San Francisco International Airport at noon. Kendy was waiting for them at the Arrivals Gate with her dimpled smile and huge hugs...and wearing a hot pink tracksuit that Robin would never wear unless she wanted to audition for the Goodyear blimp.

“Are we girls fixin' to have fun?” tiny Kendy said in her big voice. Robin thought Kendy must have been in the wrong lineup when God was handing out voices, because hers was deep and gravelly.

As if the ebony hair cascading down Kendy's back, and curves in all the right places weren’t enough, Kendy del Castillo surprised the heck out of everyone: Mexican cappuccino skin from her father but no accent in English—unless you counted the Texas drawl she could turn on and off depending on her mood, and she was definitely in the mood now.

“Lookie, guess what I got.” She reached into the outside pocket of her hot pink carry-all and retrieved three sets of Mickey Mouse hats, ears included.

Lori grabbed a set and plopped them on her head. “You found them this year.

Where were they?”

“Just lyin' around bein' lazy.”

“Kendy,” Robin said, “You don't really expect us to wear these on the plane, do you?”

“She surely does.” Lori reproduced a perfect copy of Kendy's drawl, and twirled around like a little girl showing off her new Easter bonnet.

“I surely do, don’t I?” Kendy gave her shoulders a sexy shake. “Besides, this girl has given up dressin’ for dear old Mama because there ain't no map to the place called ‘Mother’s Approval,’ is there?”

Robin made a face, but the weekend was off to a great start. Maybe it was true —if you pretend to be happy, eventually you will be. She pushed and pulled at Kendy. “Stand beside your Gawd-knows-where-you-got-those pink suitcases so I can take your picture. You, too, Lori.” They hammed for the camera. “I hope all that pink doesn't break the lens.”

“Mama calls me the Easter Bunny. She thinks pink is an awful color because the girls in her Bridge Club don’t approve of pink.”

“Must have been before Michelle Obama, doncha think?” Robin said.

“Even after Ann Romney. The Bridge Club girls are Republicans.”

“Figures,” Robin said and corralled them toward the check-in desk.

Once on the plane, they found their seats, all three together, ordered drinks as soon as they could, and settled back to catch up on the news: David's full partnership, Lori's fifth degree black belt, the finalization of Kendy's father's estate so that now she owned her father's car dealership outright.

Twiddling with her hair, Kendy said, “Dear old Mama has gone downhill since Daddy died. I’d feel sorry for her, except that depreciatin’ and deprecatin’ are two things she’s especially good at.”

They kept asking questions about Robin's vet practice. Work, the great healer, people said. Hah! When they were sure they hadn't missed anything, Kendy regaled them with jokes delivered in every accent imaginable, until the flight attendant came over and asked them, nicely, to consider the other passengers.

Robin wondered how she could have forgotten Kendy’s endless repertoire of jokes, and whispered in Kendy's ear, “This is exactly what I need. Bless you.”

At the Vancouver International Airport, after collecting their baggage and clearing customs, they found the Hertz car rental desk.

“Girlfriends, this girl will handle this.” Kendy fluttered her eyelashes at the Hispanic clerk. “Buenas tardes,” she said.

Robin stepped back and tended to the luggage. She couldn't watch, and she didn't understand Spanish, at least not at Kendy's speed.

“Here we go again.” Lori rolled her eyes and stayed with Robin.

Robin thought it strange that her two best friends were opposite poles on the continuum of human behavior when it came to men: Lori never flirted, but Kendy took center stage whenever a man was within ten feet. Sometimes it hurt to know too much behavioral science or the relationship between cause and effect—the causes of her friends' behavior were wretchedly similar, but the external effects were different.

“Y'all ready to roll?” Kendy stuffed the rental contract into her oversized handbag. “SUV for the price of a compact.” She said it matter-of-factly, and it truly was a matter of fact that Kendy could negotiate. Her car-sale commissions were a legend.

They loaded their suitcases into the SUV, closed the doors, and headed off to Whistler, with Robin driving.

Kendy lit into the jokes again.

A half hour later, Robin's stomach hurt. “Cut it out. I can’t laugh and drive at the same time.”

“All righty, then. Let’s sing.”

Lori groaned. “Lord, save us.”

“No savin’ you,” Kendy said, and she led them in a singalong—everything from war songs like Over There and Lily Marlene, (without the lamppost), Paul Anka, the Beatles, Whitney Houston, Boyz II Men, Justin Bieber, Call Me Maybe, and she even threw in some Shakira and Ricky Martin, to show off her multiculturalism, she said.

Finally, Robin’s voice gave out. “Stop. I can’t drive, sing and laugh at the same

time.” She twiddled with the radio.

At thirty-four, Robin was their Chairman of the Board—she thought they’d awarded her the leadership role because she was the eldest. Ever since college, they'd called themselves the Board of Directors, infinitely better than the feminist collectives who, in their peasant skirts and Birkenstock sandals, gathered in church halls and basements to bemoan the state of the world.

The Board didn’t wallow. They got on with it.

Well, she'd decided to get on with it, too, and she wasn't doing too badly, so far.

She’d laughed at Kendy’s jokes. Real laughter. Spontaneous, not forced, not pretend.

She should establish the Piper Scientific Research Foundation, learn how to extract grief, pour it into a beaker, and send it to Mars. And while she was at it, she might as well extract her leftover Roman Catholic guilt, too. She could see it now—two Nobel prizes. Vanity, thy name is Robin.

Soft jazz on CBC Radio soothed them for several miles, replaced by 'A Million Closed Eyes,' a documentary about a man convicted of forty-five counts of gross indecency, buggery, and sodomy, all with boys under eight.

Robin cringed, whether from the horrid details, or from her own anger, she didn't know. “Did anyone think to bring CDs? I don't need to be reminded of Samantha's murder, thank you.” Serious was not part of her plan for the weekend.

She'd been mired in mourning for Marty for long enough. At some point—last week to be exact, when she'd just about jammed out of this weekend—she'd realized that mourning brought a kind of neurotic comfort, almost restful, because you don't have to join the world and all its stresses. But Atlas had shrugged for too long; well, Atlas would stop shrugging right now. “I need some quiet. Just for—” “No!” Lori turned up the volume.

Wasn't the weekend going swimmingly?

“Lord love a duck, Girlfriend,” Kendy said, tapping Lori’s shoulder from the back seat. “Are you lookin’ to be depressed?”

Lori increased the volume even more, her lips pressed into a thin line.

No talking to her with that chin jutting forward, so, they listened.

Over the years, the man, William Hansen, served as Mayor, Boy Scout leader, Big Brother, and hockey coach in a small pulp and paper town in Northern Ontario.

“Fucking disgusting.” Lori snatched a look at Robin—the Chairman of the Board didn't like obscenities, but Robin didn’t comment this time. She shared her strong feelings. So did Kendy. The bonds of their friendship reached back to college, and strengthened during their years volunteering for the Association of Victims Rights.

All those briefs to government, letters to the editor, magazine articles and fundraising campaigns, and nothing changed. What a waste of time. But even during the most serious work, it was Lori who said, ‘Lighten up;’ it was Lori who brought the chips and beer. Where was that Lori now?

“Really, Loring.” Robin reached to turn off the radio. “I've had enough of this.”

“Don't you dare touch that.” She shoved Robin’s arm out of the way.

Robin bit her lower lip. Should she turn around and go home?

Bill Hansen’s predatory life lasted thirty years, until, based on videotaped evidence from a motel room, he was convicted and sentenced. But not for life.

All the parents interviewed said they never would have allowed Bill to be around their sons if they’d had any idea he was such a sick man. The last interview ended with a question to which the parents had no answer: “If this man wasn’t a problem, why did everyone call him ‘Three Dollar Bill?”

“They—damn—well—knew!” Lori pounded her knee, underlining every word with a punch. “I—fucking—know—they—knew.”

In the odd disquiet rippling the air, Robin turned off the radio. She kept her voice even and gentle. “Lori, being a little light in your loafers doesn’t mean you’re a pedophile.”

“Don’t you think I know the difference, and don’t you think the whole goddamned town knew, too?”

“Well, now, Ma’am,” Kendy said, lifting her long curls off her neck and into a cluster on top of her head, a little girl showing off her new hairdo. “In Texas, we'd have opened a whole can of whoop-ass on that worthless son of a bitch, skinned him like a dead rattler, and hung him out to dry.” Her naughty smile faded. “This girl is convinced that China has the right solution because they simply shoot the sucker, and his family pays for the bullet.”

“Do they still do that?” Robin asked.

“Hell and damnation, maybe they just did it in the old days, or in rural China.¨ Lori’s chest heaved. “If those were my children, I’d kill the bastard.”

“You couldn’t,” Robin said. “I know I couldn’t.” And she did know. Frailty, thy name is Robin. She’d tried to kill the man who abused and killed her niece Samantha, but she’d backed out at the last minute. Not enough anger for fuel, or cowardice?

“Mark my words,” Kendy said. “Killin' ain't so hard once you get the hang of it, and this girl surely would like to cut off a few of those hangin' bits between the legs of every bastard—“ “Don’t fucking tell me what I could or couldn’t do,” Lori said. “Not even you, Robin.”

“All I meant was that you’d be caught.” She shrank into her seat.

“Well, now,” Kendy said. “That ain't necessarily so because we could trade victims.”

“Sorry.” Lori rested her hand on Robin's knee. “Didn't mean to take my PMS out on you.”

“Fine.” Except it wasn't fine. ¨Lori, damn it, you're not going to ruin this weekend for us.” She'd almost said 'me.' “And I know I should be damning the world with all its Dan the Sandmans and Three Dollar Bills, not you, but we're here to have some fun.”

“Damn them?” Kendy said, “Let's damn well kill them. Trade victims like they did in Strangers on a Train, best gawl darn movie I ever saw.¨ She grinned. ¨Did you know that Hitchcock directed, and he made his typical appearance by struggling with a double bass as he got onto the train? Dimitri Tiomkin wrote the soundtrack, and I can't remember who—” “Kendy doesn't remember?” Lori nudged Robin's elbow.

This time, Robin sang, “Kendy doesn't remember, Kendy doesn't remember,” and Lori joined in with a snort and a giggle.

“Oh, shut up, you two. This girl is allowed to be forgettering sometimes.”

Lori put her hand on Robin's shoulder. “Are we going to let her get away with it?”

“Damn right we are.” She shook her finger at Kendy's reflection in the rearview mirror. “Just don' t let it happen again.”

“Scout' s honor,” Kendy said, and started singing again. Lori joined in before Robin, and they sang all the rest of the way to Whistler.

At Whistler, Kendy navigated from the back seat. They ooh’d and aah’d over the gabled roofs nestled in the mountains, ski chalets everywhere, some not much more stylish than student hangouts and others, mansions, from modern to artfully rustic. ¨Gosh a’ mighty,¨ Kendy said, when they' d piled all the bags by the fireplace of the condo. “This place is tidier than a witch's broom closet.”

“Don’t worry,” Robin said. “We’ll soon make a mess of it.” But Kendy was right; the place was sterile, a picture in a magazine touting the good life, except there was no sign of life. No half-read newspapers, no slippers sloughed off, no mohair throws, and the dining-room table was set for a showing.

Lori slipped away, and stood by the window in the dining room staring into the deepening blackness.

Robin was having none of that; the Chairman’s first obligation was to get her people organized and having fun. “Come on, Lori. Next order of business is stocking the fridge and cupboards.” She marched over to the window. “Don’t let the Board down.”

“Just enjoying the sunset.”

“Yoo hoo, Members of the Board.” Kendy held up two bottles of champagne and a Nordstrom’s bag. “Y'all, come on and join me in the kitchen.”

Robin whistled. “You splurged.” She pushed Lori toward the kitchen.

“Well, now,” said Kendy, “this girl has never really celebrated her divorce—” “Celebrate?” Robin almost dropped her champagne flute. 'Celebrate' and 'divorce' didn't belong in the same sentence.

“Yes, celebrate, because that gawdawful circus left town right after the fuckin’ honeymoon.” Kendy wrinkled her nose. “Not that there was a whole lot of fuckin’.”

She gave a bitter snort, uncorked the champagne and poured. “But enough about that.”

Robin knew the story of Kendy’s gang-rape when she was nine, and how she couldn’t have sex that wasn’t painful. So why did she ever get married in the first place? But that was Kendy for you. Bitter and sweet at the same time, inconsistent, and probably pushed into it by her mother.

“To Kendy.” Robin always pronounced the toasts. “May she and her dealership prosper, and may her singlehood be everything she wants it to be.”

“It surely will be,” Kendy said. “I love the freedom to perform nefarious deeds with no one checkin' on me.” She downed her champagne in one gulp. “Now wasn’t that orgasmic.” She extended her glass for a refill, downing it and pouring herself another. “But before I forget . . .” She opened the Nordstrom’s bag and handed each of them a gift-wrapped package amid thank-you’s and you shouldn’t have’s. Her propensity for gift giving was embarrassing, as though she needed to

buy their friendship, but nothing as magical as friendship could be for sale: the best tonic for the blues known to man—or woman. Especially women. Too bad no one could explain it.

Another project for her research foundation. No Nobel Prize, but if she could bottle it...hey! Maybe she could sell it after all.

Robin’s gift was a plastic name tag with ‘Chairman of the Bored’ beneath her name; she assumed the other name tags said ‘Member of the Bored.’ The gifts were never expensive, but they were constant. Kendy never accepted their gifts.

She said she didn’t need or want anything. She didn’t understand the full meaning of ‘it is more blessed to give than to receive.’ She kept all the blessings to herself and robbed them of the opportunity to be blessed, too.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Lori threw her name tag on the counter and sucked her finger. “It bit me.”

Robin wondered if Lori’s marriage was in trouble; there must be some reason for her new and enriched vocabulary.

“Here, let me.” Robin walked around the counter to pin the name tag to Lori’s cardigan. The words, ‘it’s going to be all right’ waited in the wings, threatening to walk on stage, but she didn’t say them because sympathy made Lori cry.

“Come on, Guys.” She grabbed some toothpicks from the kitchen counter top and led Lori by the hand into the living room. “Time for the big lottery.”

Lori chose the cushy beige sofa against the wall. Robin commandeered the armchair, not as comfortable, but she wanted to be close to Lori without hemming her in. Kendy sat on the love seat and curled her legs under her. If there’d been a man in the room, he would have been drooling.

Robin broke all except one toothpick, hid the uneven ends in her hand, and they drew lots for bedrooms. Kendy got the room with twin beds; Lori, the room with the Queen-sized bed; and Robin, the master suite on the main floor. She jumped from the chair and did a jig while the others clapped and cheered her on.

Such silly traditions, but sometimes traditions give meaning to life and help you to keep on living.

Without asking for a yay or nay, she called Pizza Hut. While they waited for the pizza to arrive, they ‘moved in.’

Back in the living room, they drank their champagne in companionable silence until Lori broke it by saying, “We haven' t talked about men yet.”

From her position on the floor, Kendy said, “I guess we must, in case men are watching. They would expect it.”

Robin leaned forward. “So, Kendy, what do you think about men?”

“Not much.”

Robin and Lori burst into laughter.

“That' s not what I meant. I mean I don' t much think about them at all.”

“Hah!” Robin said. “I doubt the guy at the Hertz Rental Desk would agree.”

“You mean this?” Kendy stood up in one graceful motion. She gyrated her hips in a more than passable imitation of Miley Cyrus. “That's just to get what I want.

Men are so easily hornswoggled, I can do it with my eyes shut.”

The doorbell rang.

“Pizza!”

When Robin returned with the pizza, Lori and Kendy had laid out plates,

napkins and beer on the square coffee table. The Board didn’t need its Chairman to be organized. Lori was saying, “Almost makes me wish I had my own children.”

Kendy fought Robin for the first piece of pizza, but Lori wasn’t eating.

Robin knew she should be worried about her, but Lori probably could have produced a baker’s dozen of kids if she’d wanted them. And Robin? She whisperprayed her bargains to a non-existent God. Give me a child, and I will . . . what?

Be perfect?

She half-listened to them debate the pros and cons of having children, until Kendy talked herself out, stretched her arms above her head, and said, “Carry on, Girls.”

“Sounds like a movie,” Robin said.

“Right. British, except it's ladies, not girls,” Kendy said on her way to the bedroom.

“No list of actors, names of directors, producers or other trivia?” Robin asked.

“Too tired,” Kendy said, and wiggled her rear.

Robin yawned and stretched, intending to follow her, but Lori’s eyes were fixed, staring.

“I think it started when I was three or four,” she said, out of nowhere. “He'd wait until my mother went to work, and then he’d give me a bath and kiss me,” hand slipping between her thighs, “here,” thighs clamping together.

Oh, God! Robin bent over and huffed into her palms. Please don’t let me cry, please don’t let me cry, she needs me, the little girl, a baby, oh, my God, just a baby, how could a father . . .

She moved to the sofa and reached for Lori’s forearm. “I’m so sorry.”

“There’s more.”

She knew about the abuse, but none of the distressing details. Why now?

Because of the program about Three Dollar Bill?

“Lori, you don’t need to do this.” She stroked her hand.

“No. I do. Really. Please. My psychiatrist said that when I could tell it all to a friend, the healing would start, so here goes.” She squared her shoulders. “He’d take me down the basement to get an empty ice cream bucket, and drag me upstairs to their bedroom...” A tear trickled, unnoticed, down the side of her nose and into her mouth.

Robin squeezed her hand before grabbing a paper napkin from the coffee table to dab the tear away. Perspiration beaded Lori’s upper lip. Robin waited, blinking back tears.

“And all through it, he talked.” Lori opened her eyes wide. “He fucking talked. I can still hear his voice. He’d say . . . he’d say . . . I can't—.” She coughed, a choking sound, close to vomiting. “I can't tell you what he'd say.” She gripped her legs and rocked back and forth.

Robin had seen her rock before, but now she understood why. And why her outburst in the kitchen prompted the lines she didn’t say. The lines that weren’t appropriate then were necessary now. “It’s all right, Lori. It’s going to be all right,” rocking, rocking, rocking, a dirge of rocking, with Robin crooning, “it’s all right, it’s going to be all right,” until the rocking slowed, and Lori reached for a napkin and blew her nose.

When would the anger start, the Three-Dollar-Bill rage?

“Does David know?”

“Poor David. Yes, he knows, but not the details.” She pulled her knees closer to her chest. “He sure didn’t know what he was getting into when he married me.”

“How long did this go on?”

“Until my father died. I was eleven.”

Eight years.

“Did you tell your mother? Anyone? Surely someone could have stopped it.” But children don’t tell, not when their world turns topsy-turvy with the telling.

“I sure as hell told my mother.” She grabbed a cushion, threw it across the room toward the balcony window, and erupted from the sofa. “Right after I started grade school, right after my father asked my friend Jennifer if she knew how to make babies.” She spat out the words like snake venom. “In front of me. I knew what would happen. I couldn’t . . . ” Her pacing stopped at the fireplace. She faced Robin, head bowed, cowed, a child expecting a reprimand. “I couldn’t let him hurt Jennifer, so when my mother got home that night, I showed her the ice cream bucket. She slapped it out of my hands and yelled, ‘Meredith Loring Merrifield, you stop that lying. Your father is a good man. Don’t ever say that again. You’re a bad, bad, girl.’”

What kind of mother puts her marriage ahead of her child?

“Typical, isn’t it?” Loring snorted. “Cured me of telling anyone else, though.”

How had she survived? How did any of them survive?

“Lori, it wasn’t your fault. You know that, don’t you?” She held her arms wide, and Lori nestled into her.

“Thanks for listening, Dr. Robin. There's more, but I guess I'm not quite ready yet.” She gave Robin a quick hug. “Oh, God, I’m all sweaty. Shower time.”

After Lori disappeared down the stairs with another ‘thanks for listening,' Robin went to bed, but couldn’t sleep. The light from the television flickered on the ceiling, casting shadows along the walls.

Her mother used to turn on the bedside lamp and make animal-shaped shadows on the wall. Robin felt safe then. You could say what you wanted about her parents, and Robin often did—her stay-at-home mother, a groupie who seemed to think that if she hung around priests, their supposed purity would rub off on her by osmosis; her father, the workaholic and stern disciplinarian, the head of the household, ‘and don’t you forget it.’ But they protected her. A family with flaws and dysfunctions, but they protected her.

Who had protected Lori?

Robin’s parents raised her to believe in Good and Evil, two powerful forces battling for control of our souls. ‘Good and God will win,’ they said.

She rejected it all. Can’t touch it, can’t smell it, can’t taste it.

Can’t be.

Eventually, even agnosticism was too pale a word, and she declared herself an atheist. But now she wondered, because if Evil existed, so must Good.

Was it as Edmund Burke said—evil flourishes when good men do nothing?

CHAPTER FOUR LET'S PLAY A GAME G ood and Evil used Robin’s

brain for a battleground during the night, and in the morning, her head throbbed. She threw on her bathrobe and padded into the kitchen, determined to help Lori enjoy the weekend.

Kendy and Lori sat on opposite sides of the dining-room table, their heads hidden behind sections of the Whistler Real Estate Guide.

“You guys look as terrible as I feel,” she said, adding milk to her coffee.

No reply.

“If you keep this up,” she said, taking a place at the end of the table, “people will think you’re married.” When neither of them laughed, Robin worried that Three Dollar Bill would haunt their entire weekend. “Up and at ‘em, Guys.” She stood up. “How about a walk around Lost Lake?”

“Do we have to, Mama?” Kendy said. “It’s rainin'. Even the frogs are wearin' life jackets.”

“I don't see a single frog. Come now, Ladies. Bundle up.”

During the walk, Robin’s friends acted as though they were on a forced march, but the walk must have done some good because over lunch at the Japanese restaurant they solved all the problems of the world, shopped in the Village for gifts, and yapped about everything and nothing.

She herded them toward the Blackcomb Benchlands where the condo nestled among the evergreens. “Nap time, Kiddies.”

At 6:30 pm they dressed for dinner. Kendy took pictures of them in various stages of dress and undress, as usual, and all for the album they were creating so that when they were ninety they could peer through their bifocals and remember their lost youth.

“Oh, my, hold that pose, Robin,” Kendy said when she saw Robin's hot pink underwear. She yelled to Lori in the next room. “Ya gotta see this.”

Lori, wrapped in a towel, peeked her head around the door, and gasped theatrically. “Look, Ma, Robin's given up her widow's black.”

“I'm trying,” Robin said.

“Very tryin'.”

At the Wildflower Restaurant, the maitre d' escorted them to an upholstered booth on the raised dais at the back. Heads turned. Kendy’s Fendi clung to her curves, and she'd added cowboy boots and a rhinestone vest. Lori, the runway model, dazzled in a Lida Baday pant-tuxedo. In her own basic black dinner suit, Robin felt ever the Lumpy Robin, a fact of life she accepted. More or less, but mostly less.

Kendy slid along the cushioned bench to the back of the booth, pulled The Rubber Chicken out of her handbag, and plunked him on the table. Good for her.

“Behave yourself, Arcee,” Lori said, patting his rear, “because we certainly won't.”

Robin scooted in beside Lori and opposite Kendy.

“Oh, goodie! Party hats.” Kendy arranged a linen napkin on her head and posed.

Robin flopped her napkin on her head, but Lori was somewhere else.

“Lori,” Kendy said. “Are we supposed to be refined now that we’re all grow'd up?” No response. She pouted. “Refined doesn’t mean girls can’t have fun.”

“Good evening, my lovelies,” the waiter said. “Would you like me to take your picture?”

Arms over shoulders, they scrunched into a group and smiled for the camera.

“For posterity.” He handed the camera to Robin, eyeing Kendy’s cleavage. He tore his eyes away as if realizing his tip might be reduced if he showed too much interest.

They ordered wine and dinner. Kendy drank enough to compensate for the nondrinkers in any crowd, and despite her size she carried booze well. Might have been an innate genetic tolerance, or perhaps you couldn’t tell the difference between the two Kendys: drunk or sober, 'that girl' wore protective coloration like a chameleon. Lori joined in the clinking of glasses as though it were an annoying obligation, placed her glass on the table, and folded her hands in her lap. She’d checked out of the Good Times Motel.

Robin despaired; she would make Lori check back into the fun, even if it meant taking her on a trip to the Ladies' Room to demand that she participate. She’d use emotional blackmail if necessary. No one, not even her best friend, was going to steal her chance to pack up her grief and leave that suitcase in a closet. Not this weekend.

She used her side plate as a gavel on the table. “You guys,” she nudged Lori's elbow. “I've got an idea for a novel, but I know I'll never get around to writing it.”

“You're the only one who knows how to write,” Lori said. “Why don't you write it?”

“Kids' stories are my passion.¨ Kendy eyed her, opened her mouth to speak, and closed it. She looked at Lori playing with the scallions she'd picked out of her salad, and seemed to make up her mind. “Okay, Girlfriends, let’s play a game. We’ll plan Three Dollar Bill’s murder.”

Not quite what Robin had in mind, but it would have to do because Lori leaned forward.

“Why stop at Bill?” Lori's lips turned upward in what a casual observer might mistake as a smile.

“I’m not sure we should be joking about this,” Robin said.

“Lori's right,” Kendy said. “The game will be more fun if we don’t stop at one.

Let's get all of the sons-of-bitches. No offense to the bitches.”

When Robin looked at Lori again, she was staring, wide-eyed, and as still as a cat before it pounces on its prey.

“Come on, Robin,” Kendy said. “Saddle up and get with the program.”

She gave in despite her doubts. A little morbid fun could still be fun.

Over their salads and appetizers, they decided that only convicted pedophiles should be targeted.

“Guilt should be society’s call,” Robin said. If she was going to play, she’d put moral misgivings aside as much as possible, and dig right in.

“Yeah.” Kendy dipped her foccacia into the balsamic vinegar and olive oil. “Not like Star Chamber, where the judges put the hit on innocent people. I can see the movie, without Michael Douglas unfortunately because this girl doubts very much that the yummy Mr. Douglas would want to play a pedophile.” She sighed. “But with a feminine touch, no stuffy Judges. We’ll carry out the sentence that society doesn’t have the guts to pass, but every parent wants.”

“Deserves,” Lori said, far too seriously for Robin's liking. “The parents and the victims deserve vengeance.”

“Please!” Robin put her hand on Lori's forearm. “This is supposed to be a game.

Can we have a little laughter? I'd go for some giggles, too.” She sounded so needy.

“It's okay, Girlfriend.” Kendy reached over and gave Robin's hand a sympathetic pat. “I mean, Madame Chairman.” She winked and fluttered her eyelashes. “Is it acceptable if we only target convicted pedophiles?” She reached into her beaded handbag and printed on the back of her checkbook, speaking aloud while she wrote. “Only Convicted Pedophiles, and we'll giggle while we're killing the suckers.”

She looked up. “Good enough, Madame Chairman?”

Lori was giggling for real and that made Robin laugh, too.

“All right, already,” Robin said. “We can proceed, I guess.”

“Oh, goodie!” Kendy clapped her hands. “And while we're on this particular road, remember the movie Strangers on a Train, the one where the two guys trade victims.” She didn't wait for an answer. “Rule Number Two. There can't be any connection between us and the pedophile.” While she wrote down that rule, she said, “And, Rule Number Three, no connections with the children either.

Motiveless crimes are difficult to prove.”

“So if someone abused David's niece, I couldn't get him?” Lori made a balloon face, puffing air into her closed mouth. “I don't think I like these rules.”

“Gawdawful, aren't they?” Kendy said, tearing off another section of bread.

“Don't worry, Ladies, they're our rules and we can break 'em.”

Here we are, Robin thought, in full view of the restaurant's Saturday night trade, three women, dressed in their finest, planning the semi-perfect murder. And no one is paying any attention.

“Rule Number Four.” Kendy, seemingly oblivious to anything but the game and food, speared a marinated artichoke from her salad and brandished it in front of her. “We'll use a different method of killing every time. Don't want to create a pattern for police to identify. True or false?” She transcribed the latest rule, and pretended to hide her notes while the waiter served their entrees. They suspended the game to admire their plates.

“Well, ain't this girl right hungry.” Kendy swallowed a forkful of sea bass.

“Mmm, mmm, good.”

“Different cities, too, wouldn't you say?” Lori held up her wine glass. “Bon appetit, by the way.”

Between bites of food and sips of wine, they assigned poisons to their veterinarian Robin, and guns to Lori because she was the ace skeet-shooter.

“And let's not forget hunting accidents.” Lori hunched her shoulders, hands clawing the table, mimicking a soldier crawling through the woods.

“Not so loud,” Robin said, but no one looked their way. She was relieved, but more so because Lori's earlier snit had disappeared.

“It's only a game,” Kendy said. “And who takes three over-dressed girls seriously, anyway?”

“Okay, then. Bombs,” Robin said. “Someone should learn about bombs.” ¨Nah,¨ Lori said. “Gotta look like accidents.”

Kendy typed on an imaginary keyboard. “And I'll become a master computer spy.”

“Me, too.” Lori raised her wine goblet, caught the waiter's eye and pointed at the empty bottle of Shiraz.

While the waiter waited for Kendy to approve the vintage, he poured more wine, and stacked the dinner plates on his forearm, Robin ordered the chocolate bag, filled with frangelica mousse and fruit, and three forks.

“Car accidents,” Kendy announced. “There are a hundred million things that can go wrong with a car, and the consequences can be . . .,” lowering her voice to a deep bass, “oh so painfully slow, and oh so permanently fatal.”

When the waiter brought the dessert to the table, Kendy said, “Wait, Mr. Waiter, if you were set on planning the perfect murder, how would ya do it?”

He glanced around the restaurant, placed his hand on his chin, and pursed his lips. “I'd find out where the guy ate, what restaurant, get myself hired, and slip poison into his food when no one was watching. Then, I'd quit, but not right away,” he said, obviously pleased with his plan. “Enjoy your dessert.”

“My new career,” Kendy said, pretending to make a note. “Waiting tables.” She smoked an imaginary cigar. “How will we get in touch with each other? Letter drops? Carry chalk in our briefcases? Design a special code?”

“I know,” Robin said. “Make an appointment for your pet if you need to talk to me. My examination rooms are sound-proofed, perfect for clandestine meetings with your trusty witch doctor and her poisonous potions.”

“Boo hoo, ” Kendy said. “This girl doesn't have a pet.”

“Neither do I.” Lori copied Kendy's pout, and then brightened. “But David will be ecstatic. He's always wanted a cat.”

The perfect murder, dessert wine and liqueurs kept them going until 11:30 when the waiter asked if they wouldn't mind settling the bill so the restaurant could close off the till. They divided the bill into three equal portions plus a hefty tip. No arguing over pennies for the Board of Directors.

“Robin's writing a thriller,” Kendy told the cab driver, and flashed him a luminous smile. “Rule Number Seven, Robin. Only the actual murderer should know who the target is. Less to blab about if we...they're ever questioned.”

By the time they arrived at the condo, Three Dollar Bill was long forgotten. They

sprawled on the sofas and floor, laughing at Kendy's jokes and old times.

At 2:00 am, Robin's eyelids were drooping. “I’m going to bed. Carry on, Girls.”

“Good name for a movie,” Kendy yelled as Robin struggled up from the floor.

“I knew you'd say that.”

Kendy moved onto the sofa beside Lori.

“Go to bed, Robin.” Lori turned and whispered something to Kendy, whose eyes opened as wide as a child’s at Christmas.

Robin was tempted to rejoin them, but they could manage just fine without her.

All in all, she was pleased. Their Run-Away-From-Home Weekend was back on track.

Dr. Robin Piper had done it again. Her mother always said she had a gift for healing.

Don't break your arm patting yourself on your back, Robin. You had more than a little help from Kendy.

Yes, but that's what friends are for.

CHAPTER FIVE A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION O n Sunday morning, Robin opened her eyes, covered her head with the pillow, and groaned. Today they had to pack up and drive back to Vancouver, and tomorrow, work.

A weekend of miracles. Two miracles—that she'd barely thought about Marty, and that now, when she turned her mind to him, she felt only a dull ache and gratefulness for their time together. She wished they could make the next RunAway-From-Home weekend last three days, maybe four.

In the kitchen, her friends sat in their usual places around the dining-room table. Outside, the clouds layering the mountainside darkened to charcoal, obscuring the ski runs and the trees.

“Dr. Piper,” Kendy said, “so good of you to join us. Clean mugs in the dishwasher, and this girl has just made a fresh pot of coffee.”

“Thank you, Ms. Del Castillo, although I can't understand how I could have outslept you guys.”

Thank God, Three Dollar Bill was laid to rest. “How late did you stay up last night?”

Lori and Kendy traded looks.

Now what was that all about? Robin doctored her coffee with real whipped cream.

“Take a cookie.” Kendy, all teeth and dimples, offered the bag, and grabbed it back. “The Whistler Cookie Company makes the best cookies in the world. Even better than your mama's.”

“Why, thank you, Ms. Del Castillo.” Robin tore the bag from her hands. “How gracious of you to share.” She chose two chocolate chunk cookies, and shoved the ripest banana from the fruit basket into the pocket of her bathrobe. “To the living room, Ladies.”

She sauntered to the sofa, where she fluffed up the pillows, rearranged them into a haphazard nest, plunked down and stretched out her legs. “Decadent, truly decadent,” she said, moaning conspicuously after each delectable bite.

As if to observe her rapture, the others came into the living room.

“Isn’t life sweet?” she asked, expecting them to sprawl around her, but they stood on either side of the fireplace. “It was a rhetorical question.”

Lori looked at Kendy and cleared her throat. “We think it might work.” Her voice didn't falter.

“What might work?” It took a minute and then Robin's jaw tightened. She understood the ‘it.’ Wasn’t that what real friends did? They knew what their friends were saying even before they finished a sentence, and even if the words were inelegant and came out all wrong, they knew what their friends meant to say.

That, not the words, was all that mattered.

But this? This was unthinkable.

“You’re kidding, right?” Her coffee spilled on the sofa. She ignored it. Were they waiting for their de facto Chairman of the Board to sign the resolution? A rubber stamp on a death warrant? Her mouth tasted of overripe banana. They couldn’t possibly be serious.

“Do you have any idea what you’re saying?” She searched their faces, Lori’s and Kendy’s, both unreachable. She was a figure in a Salvador Dali painting, chairs, plates and cutlery floating around her in the air.

They stared at her, the battle lines drawn, but she hadn’t heard the call to arms, the drums or trumpets. She felt abandoned, alone.

This can’t be happening.

“You guys,” Robin said. “It’s fine to joke about the perfect murder, to think about killing and fantasize about it. I get it.”

But to do it? She knew that was different because she’d tried. She'd stood outside the Courthouse where Dan the Sandman was on trial for Samantha’s murder, waited for them to bring him out, prepared to go out in a blaze of fury, but, in the end, she couldn’t do it.

Of course, her friends could think about murder, but they couldn’t harm anyone. Not these friends. Not her best friends. And if she couldn’t kill, they couldn’t either.

“You would actually murder someone?” Her throat seized. She wrapped her bathrobe around her to stop the feeling that the friends with whom she thought she would grow old were strangers.

“I could.¨ Lori stamped her foot. “As far as I'm concerned, they're not human.

They're animals.” Apparently realizing she was talking to a woman who devoted her adult life to healing and saving animals, she had the good grace to look chastened.

Robin wrenched the belt of her bathrobe tight to her waist, and stood up. Lori raised her head, her chin jutting out stubbornly, not chastened now. She folded her arms across her chest, girding herself for battle.

“Kendy, you, too?” Kendy wasn't likely to make a hasty retreat, not with the way the justice system had treated her, but murder wasn't the answer.

“Robin, you . . .” Kendy's tone was accusing, “and the rest of the world may be able to watch children being abused, but this girl can't sit still and do nothing, and she downright will not, not, not, sit still any longer.”

Am I the only sane one in the room?

“Everyone deserves to live. I don't care what they've done.”

Oh, shit! Both Lori and Kendy flinched. Kendy sprang from the arm of the chair, and went to Lori's side, her arms supporting and protecting her friend.

“You know I didn't mean it that way.” But Lori didn't know what she meant, did

she? Nor did Kendy. They were the unlucky ones.

“For God's sake,” Robin said, “I'm as frustrated as anyone with how we fail our children, but killing?” Her legs gave way and she collapsed onto the sofa. “Murder is never right.” And now she was whining and close to tears. “I don't believe you. I don't think you could do it.”

Lori sat in the wing chair by the fireplace. Kendy moved behind her and placed her hands on the back of the chair. All that picture needed was a farmer's pitchfork. Or maybe an assault weapon.

“Girl, you think about it,” Kendy said. “Close your eyes if you have to.” Her voice took on a raw edge. “But last night, you were into the murder game, so somewhere inside, you want to do this as much as we do.”

“We were joking, Kendy. We were only joking.”

“I wasn't,” Lori said. “I meant every word.”

“And that's why we were joking,” Robin said. “We had to snap you out of your Three-Dollar-Bill rage.”

“Lordy, Robin, you're the one who's always telling us to visualize, so do it, why don't you? Put a face on him, the pervert who abused your child, the very own child you've always wanted, no matter how hard you've tried to hide it.” Kendy stretched out her arms, fingers curved, tendons raised and rigid.” Don't tell me you couldn't do it then, because I wouldn't believe you.”

She closed her eyes to shut out Kendy's fiercely righteous hands. “That's not the point,” she whispered. “It's not whether I could,” although she knew she couldn't, “it's whether I should.” Those were her words, but she realized now that neither morality or even religion stopped her from avenging Samantha's death. Fear stopped her. Fear of imprisonment, fear of her own death.

“This is ridiculous.” She sat up, her back stiff. She sounded like a schoolmarm.

“You can't take the law into your own hands, not in this society. The Chinese way of shooting the pedophile may have worked in a rural society, and I'm not saying that it did, but let's assume it did work.” She got up from the sofa to emphasize her words. “But we don't live in rural China. We live here, in a large supposedly civilized and modern society . . . well, it's large anyway, and we have to have laws.

We have to have a system, flawed or not, or we'll end up shooting everyone and everybody, first because we think they've committed a murder or abused a child, and eventually to settle a complaint about a dog that barks too much. It would be chaos.” She slumped back into the sofa.

Lori lifted herself out of the chair, approached Robin and knelt at her feet. She was breathing shallow breaths. “I know all about the social contract theory of society. I've heard it often enough from David.” She exhaled and shook her head to clear it. “We gave up the right to take the law into our own hands,” her voice was rising now, “but in exchange we were supposed to be protected. What kind of system protects predators more than the victims?” She gripped Robin's knees, pleading. “You've never been abused, Robin. You don't know what it's like to try to survive afterward—” “What afterward?” Kendy said. “There ain't no afterward.”

“Kendy's right,” Lori said. “There is no afterward. You can't possibly understand how ashamed the victims feel, and how that shame colors almost every breathing moment of our lives.”

But Robin did understand, at least part of it. She understood because she knew how it felt to want children, and to believe that she would never have them, and how that unrequited want was like tinted lenses through which everything she saw, heard, touched or smelled became what she did not have.

“You're not telling me anything new.” She pried Lori's hands from her knees.

“You're darn right it's not new.” Kendy’s knuckles were white. She released her grip on the back of the chair and moved to its side Her hands formed fists that trembled like a pack of rabid dogs straining at their leashes. “It's too damned old for empty words, Robin. It's got to stop.” Her fists clenched and unclenched and clenched again. “One victim is too many, but at least the predatory pedophile's first victim is his alone. But what about the second, the third, the two hundredth victim?”

She moved toward Robin, towering over her. “At least two hundred victims and some studies say it's closer to four hundred for each predatory pedophile. You remember the stats from the AVR's research library. In our marvelous United States of America with its oh so prized legal system, over 400,000 children are sexually abused every year, and while you sit there in your comfortable pew arguing with us, how many more children are being abused?”

“Shut up!” She thrust Kendy out of the way and climbed over Lori to escape.

“I'm sick and tired of your damn statistics, Kendy. After awhile, they get boring.”

She sat at the far end of the love seat, and pulled a blanket over her legs. “The world is full of terrifying statistics.”

“And so we should do nothing?” Kendy sat on the sofa and made space for Lori.

“Who's protecting the children?” Her voice cracked. “Tell me that.”

“Yes,” Lori said, “tell us, because no one's protecting the children, and whose fault is it?” She raised her hand and pointed at each of them, ending with herself.

“It's our fault because we are society, and we are failing our children. We're accomplices, and I, for one, can't be an accomplice any more.”

Robin looked into Lori's eyes, so blue and pure and earnest, and wondered who she was. Not Lori. A stranger.

Didn't we pick our friends because we could see into their hearts? Because we knew, we just knew that despite their flaws, despite whatever disagreements we might have about certain issues, their hearts were pure and their basic values were in tune with ours? God, even the topics forbidden to strangers at dinner parties were open season among friends. Friends could argue over politics, religion and sex, and nothing, but nothing, could destroy the comfort they found in each other's company. At least, not for very long.

But this?

“When did you decide . . . on this . . . this . . . mass hysteria?”

“Last night,” Kendy said. “After you went to bed. You were with us in the AVR, Robin, and you know how hard we worked to change the system. Sweet Jesus, we spent three years of our lives and bugger-all happened. We're no further ahead than when we started. You were the first to throw up your hands in despair—” “That was frustration, not despair. What I feel now is despair, and despair is what you must be feeling, because only despair causes people to choose this kind of violence.” She could see Kendy and Lori behind bars. Could Lori survive without David? Could Kendy—Kendy could probably survive anything, but their lives

would be in ruins. Too horrific to contemplate.

“Have you thought about the consequences?”

“Damn the consequences,” Kendy said, “but, yes, we have, and we're damn well prepared to accept them.”

“Hah! It's not possible to predict everything. And even if you have, are you sure you're not just thinking about the consequences to you?” She unwrapped the blanket and set her feet on the floor. “What happens if you kill an innocent man?”

She might have killed the sheriff whose kids were planning a surprise birthday party for him . . .

“Rule Number One, remember?” Lori said. “We'll only kill convicted pedophiles.”

“Not a perfect answer, and you know it. Not everyone rotting in jail is guilty. I know most are, but not everyone. What about the cases where children have lied, or been influenced by well-meaning but incompetent therapists?”

Oh, no, I've said the wrong thing again.

“And before you both go ballistic, I'm not minimizing the horrific fact that there are too many real pedophiles out there and far too many real abuses going on, but you can't deny that there have been false allegations, too.”

“We'll give you that one,” Kendy said, “and we'll amend Rule Number One so that it's only pedophiles who have been convicted more than once, because where there's smoke, there's fire, and I'm going to put the fire out for good, one pedophile at a time.”

Robin searched for another approach, but her mind was muddled with a loneliness that seemed to stretch and contract like a boa constrictor wrapping around her and squeezing. She had trouble breathing. What could she say to convince them they were in a fantasy world?

“So let's forget about society for a minute. Let's think about morality. It's not our right to decide who lives or dies. It's God's right. God's to decide. Anything else is a sin.” She thought she'd given up religion forever, but it was only an extremely long Lent.

Is this all I have offer? A recently resurrected, still feeble and unformed faith in God? Lori sprang up, her face flushed and feverish. She grabbed onto the mantle.

“What kind of God allows children to be hurt? What kind of society allows it? Why talk about sin when the real sin is doing nothing, where children—the very roots of our society—are abused every two minutes. Every two minutes, for Christ's sake.”

Robin: the accused, charged with crimes she didn't commit, problems she didn't create, and for which she wasn't responsible.

But maybe she was. Maybe by doing nothing she was as responsible as the pedophile, or the pedophile's family, or the treating psychiatrist, if there was one.

Or the justice system. Maybe Kendy and Lori were right.

But murder? Surely there were other options. She shuddered.

Rain from a sudden squall rapped on the glass balcony doors, dripped off the railings and drowned in pools of water on the deck, while Robin prayed for arguments, for salvation, and for her friends. She searched their faces for a weak spot in their defenses. Kendy's black curls framed a face where every freckle stood out in an indelible bas-relief. Lori's jaw was clenched and a pulse dented her

cheek. Their eyes asked the same question: 'Are you with us?”

How can I be?

She had to negotiate a cease-fire.

“You've obviously talked about this behind my back.” She wondered which bothered her more, that they shut her out last night, or that they were shutting her out now. She folded her hands in her lap. “You need time to think.”

“How long do you need?” Lori asked, and sat down in the wing chair again. This time she sat firmly against its back and stared, as if Robin were the crazy one.

“This is insane.” Robin covered her face with her hands, drew her fingers down the sides and wrapped her hands around her neck. “It's not how long I need; it's how long you need to regain your senses.”

Kendy marched into the kitchen, and slammed plates and mugs into the dishwasher. They rattled and clacked in their slots. “It's not insane and you can't change our minds.”

Robin raced after her and wrenched the empty coffee pot from her hands.

“You're not shutting me out like this!” But Kendy closed her eyes and wasn't about to open them.

Robin swung around. “Lori?”

Lori blocked the entrance to the living room, her arms crossed.

Robin stormed around the kitchen, waving her arms in all directions, stomping on the floor. “You'll be caught. And, Kendy, since you're so goddamned good at it, visualize yourself in prison for life, would you? I can.” She stamped her feet like a child having a tantrum, with the same sense of helplessness. “I can see you dying.

I can see your souls dying.” Tears scalded her face. She picked up the dishtowel, wiped away the tears, and the sweat from her palms. She was losing them, friendships she thought were immutable. “I can't let you do this.” She threw the dishtowel onto the counter top.

Kendy snorted and rolled her eyes. “Our Chairman of the Board thinks she can control us.”

Robin slumped against the sink. Kendy was right. She couldn't control them.

She couldn't control their thoughts, she couldn't control their words . . . and if they were to act on their words, could she betray them? Would she?

She heard a jagged cracking, the metal expanding in the fireplace, a link in a chain broken. “I won't be a part of it.” Her neck was stiff. She shivered and folded her fingers into her palms.

Lori left her station at the doorway, came to her and held her hands. “I'm sorry, Robin.” Her eyes seemed to say goodbye.

“Please don't do this.”

Lori looked away.

“Please, think about it,” Robin said, turning to Kendy. “For a year. Please.” She was crying again. “For me?”

“Three months.” Lori squeezed her hands. “We'll wait three months.”

Kendy touched her on the shoulder. “We won't change our minds.”

Time and reflection were Robin's only allies. “All I want is time for you to reconsider. That's all I have left to ask,” she said, praying for more, so much more.

“Three months from now,” Lori said, “the first weekend of the month, we'll meet here in Whistler. Anyone who wants out simply won't turn up. If you don't come,

you won't know who does.” She sought confirmation from Kendy. “Agreed?”

And there they were, the three of them, each with their thumbs up, the way they signaled their accord during the old days, but it wasn't the same.

Lori stroked Robin's hair the way Samantha did when she played being a Mom. “I'll make the reservation and send you the details.”

“Let's plan for four days next time, okay?” Kendy headed out of the kitchen to pack.

How strange to have a wish granted when you no longer wished for it.

The weekend was over.

No one spoke as they packed and loaded the car.

On the way to Vancouver, while Kendy and Lori talked in the back seat about nonsense, or slept, Robin played chauffeur. She wished she'd never turned on the radio. She wished she'd never agreed to the stupid murder game. She tried to stop blaming herself, but she couldn't.

They said they would wait. They weren't murderers. They were so pathetically middle class that the most they could imagine for a fun time was to develop a set of rules for committing pretend murders. No one would show up at the next weekend.

She wanted to believe everything would return to normal. She prayed for it. All the way to Vancouver, and on the plane to San Francisco, Robin Piper, the selfprofessed atheist, prayed.

Kindle version available for pre-order on Amazon at http://amzn.to/1rN2DWO [Book Club Discussion Guide included]