he’ll bite the life out of the little freak and then set the house afire.
His newfound decisiveness thrills him. He no longer must ask for anyone’s advice or waste time in consultation, or seek approval. No one is the boss of him. Neither the law nor any code of morality constrains him, because he knows them to be fantasies of order. In truth, the only rule by which anyone can live successfully, either in the wilds or in civilization, is the sole mandate of cruel Nature: Prey shall submit, and predators shall reign supreme.
Farther along the hallway, he finds the master bedroom. Ashen light at the windows. Glowing green numbers on the bedside clock radio. This meager illumination is barely adequate even for his dark-adapted—and still adapting—eyes, but he makes his way to the king-size bed without turning on a lamp.
He can see just well enough to realize that the spread has been removed and folded on the padded bench at the foot of the bed. The bedclothes have been turned back for the night, most likely by the housekeeper who departed in the Toyota. Shacket drops to his knees to smell the fitted sheet and the top sheet between which Megan’s lithesome body has lain. The linens have not been changed today, sparing him the disappointment of nothing more than a residue of laundry detergent and fabric softener. By smell, he can distinguish between the shampooed freshness of her raven hair and the slightly salty creaminess of her lustrous skin and the moistness of the cleft between her legs where later he will make their future.
He puts his pistol on the nightstand and sits on the edge of the big bed. He unties his shoes and slips out of them but does not undress before lying where she spent the previous night, first on his back, with the top sheet and thin blanket drawn to his chin. The high-thread-count cotton that has clung to her long legs and snugged her mons veneris and draped her breasts now wraps him, and he feels cocooned in the essence of her.
35
In the house above Lake Tahoe, Rosa Leon had phoned Roger Austin, Dorothy’s attorney, using his cell number now that office hours had passed. She hadn’t called him to confirm that she was the sole heir; there was no reason for Dorothy to have deceived her with a false promise. But Mr. Austin was supposed to come to the house the day after the death, and that appointment needed to be changed.
Roger Austin had the deep yet mellifluous voice of a gifted speaker who could charm audiences, and everyone said that, as a man, his character was the equal of his fine voice: He was principled and trustworthy and a reliable rock in all circumstances. When he spoke of Dorothy Hummel’s passing, this rock’s voice fractured a few times, and once he had to stop for a minute to gather himself, which made Rosa regard him even more highly. He knew that she’d seen the video, but nevertheless he told her all that the estate contained, after taxes. He wanted to share her wonder in the change that had been wrought so suddenly in her life, and she had no difficulty giving him a taste of it. He wished also to assure her that, in association with him, Dorothy’s accountant would provide her with guidance in the days to come.
“But can we delay tomorrow’s meeting until perhaps Friday?” she asked. “I’ve some important things to attend to, and I can’t delay dealing with them.”
“Certainly, Rosa. How about three o’clock Friday afternoon?”
“That should be fine,” she said. “And thank you, Mr. Austin, for having been such a good friend to Dorothy.”
“Please call me Roger, as she did. Being a friend to Dorothy was the easiest thing in the world.” He laughed softly, perhaps to keep his voice from faltering again. “She was one of a very small number of people in this world whom I’ve loved as much as myself.”
With the call concluded, Rosa was eager to get on the road in pursuit of Kipp. If he had fled in grief, she would share it with him and, by sharing, relieve the poor creature of some of that terrible weight.
However, she worried that he hadn’t fled at all, but had been snatched instead, as melodramatic as that sounded. Dognapping was in fact the thing that Dorothy had most feared. At the moment, Kipp was in the vicinity of Olympic Valley, approximately