knew that nothing had been found. He imagined the arroyo at night, a huge black gash across the desert, its floor, invisible in the gloom his mind, he saw the top of the arroyo, saw white finl reaching upward from the blackness, grabbing the edge of the cliff, saw the vampire pulling itself upwal
Vampire. Jesus Christ, he was turning into a little lady. What the hell was wrong with him? He should knock this shit off, close up, and get his ass home to
But as he stood next to the grill, he heard rustlin the sagebrush outside, the light whisk sound of mo gravel, and he concentrated once again on the squa the grill, afraid to look up, not knowing when he would build up enough courage to leave the stand and go home.
' After dinner, Rich helped Anna with her spelling flasl cards. Her class was studying 'at' words this week--cat hat, fat, and bat--and she could recognize them all excep bat,' which for some reason she missed each and ever2 time. She kept confusing it with 'fat.' He tried to explain the difference between the two, and she could get it correct if he repeated the flash cards in identical order, but the minute he shuffled the cards, she would miss it again
They quit studying after fifteen minutes, when he sensed that Anna was getting restless, her attention starting to wander, and he told her she could watch TV un till bedtime. The two of them sat next to each other on the couch. A few moments later, Corrie came into the room Rich had thought she was in the kitchen doing something but she came in from the hallway.
She walked in front of the television. 'Here,' she said 'I want this in the paper.' She tossed two paper clippec pages on the coffee table.
He picked up the pages, glanced at the top one, shool his head. 'Can't do it.'
'What?'
'Joking,' he said, raising his hands in apologetic self defense. 'I'm just joking,' He read through the copy. fund-raising picnic for Wheeler's church? We don't haw to go to this, do we?'
'I'm going. Anna's going.' She looked at him coolly. 'I would appreciate it if you would accompany us.'
He dropped the papers on the table 'I suppose.' 'It's for a good cause.'
'Yeah,' he said. 'Right. Could you move over a little? You're blocking the screen.'
Corrie's mouth hardened into a straight line. 'Anna,' she said, 'I think it's time for you to go to bed.'
'But the show's not over yet!'
Rich patted her leg. 'Listen to your mother,' he said. She hesitated ....... 'Anna! ' Corrie repeated.
'A story? I thought you said you were too old for me to read you stories.'
'I'm not too old anymore.'
Rich looked at Anna, but she wouldn't meet his eyes.
He glanced over at Corrie, who was frowning. 'Are you afraid to go to sleep by yourself?. Is that it? Have you been having bad dreams? We could leave your light on for you.'
She shook her head emphatically. Too emphatically.
'It's all right, honey,' Corrie said softly. 'We're here to protect you.'
'I'm not afraid!' Anna pulled away from her father, jumped off the couch, and stalked out of the room.
Rich and Corrie looked at each other. The anger, the unborn argument that had been building between them had dissipated, and all they saw in each other's faces was concern for their daughter.
He stood. 'I'll find out what it is.'
'No, I will,' Corrie said.
He followed her down the hall. 'We both will.'
Am Hewett stared into the muzzle of the cocked pis for what seemed like hours before finally turning it a from his face. He slowly uncocked the gun and placed on the table in front of him. His hands were wet sweat, and perspiration streamed down his forehea stinging his eyes, dripping onto his nose.
He really had been planning to kill himself, to bl, his brains out, but at the last minute something has held him back; the feelinguno, the knowledge---that life would be better sacrificed some other way. Donna was going to the police. He had no doubt of that. She'd packed all of her clothes and personal belo ings and had taken Dawn with her, and the two of them were probably in the police station right now, spilling their guts, trying to make him look like some sort of sick perverts.
Or were they?
If Donna had planned to press charges, the cops wot have come to him by now, would have shown up at the store or, at the very least, would have been waiting him when he arrived home. Besides, why would Don pack all of her clothes if she was just going to turn him in? There would be no reason for her and Dawn to go out or find someplace else to stay if he were in jail.
Maybe they weren't going to the police. Maybe they were just running away.
Head pounding, he stood up and walked from the kitchen, through the living room, to Dawn's bedroom. Leaning against the door frame, unwilling to disturb the sanctity of her sanctuary even though she was gone, he took visual inventory of her room. She'd taken her clothes and her books. She'd taken her stuffed Winniethe-Pooh. She'd taken her high school photos, the ones she'd taped to the edges of her dresser mirror, as well as her old transistor radio. She'd left her Walkman. And her unicorn picture. And her camera.
Everything he'd bought her........... He felt a twinge of unreasonable hurt, a flash of pain in a vacuum of emptiness, but he was glad of the hurt. It meant that he still loved her.
He stared at the reflection of himself in the newly revealed mirror. He blamed Donna. He would bet a dollar to a donut that it was Donna who'd made her leave all those things behind. The bitch was jealous; that's all it was. She wasn't concerned about her daughter. She didn't give a rat's ass in hell about Dawn's welfare or happiness. She just wanted to get back at him. She was hurt and she wanted to hurt back. It was her own fault. She should have known what to expect. She should've seen it coming. He liked them young. Always had. She knew that.
She'd been sixteen when he'd married her, he'd been twenty-six. She'd known that it was her youth that had been one of the chief attractions for him, and she should have known that when she crossed that line into middle age, he would be forced to look elsewhere for his pleasure.
Only he hadn't meant for it to be their daughter.
He stared at Dawn's bed, remembered all of the good times they'd had there.
It had started innocently enough: he'd seen Dawn masturbating.
It had been a Friday night. He'd gotten out of bed after the ten o'clock news to go to the bathroom, and as he walked by his daughter's room, he saw movement through the crack of the open door. He had not looked closely, but that one quick glimpse had been enough. He'd seen Dawn's hand, massaging between her legs, backlit by the small wall night light.
He had not been able to get that image out of his mind--his daughter rubbing herself---and he began to notice, at breakfast and at dinner, that she was growing up, starting to fill out. That she was becoming a very attractive young woman. He began thinking about her when he was taking off his clothes, when he was taking a shower, when he was with Donna.
One day he came home from work at lunch to find a note from Donna waiting for him, explaining that she'd gone to the store with a friend.
He'd started to make himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when he noticed a rolled up pair of Dawn's white cotton panties on the tile floor next to the washing machine. Putting down the butter knife, he'd walked over to the washing machine and bent to pick up the panties. He stood slowly. They were small, delicate, and they felt soft and sensuous to his touch. He unrolled them, and pressed the thin material to his lips before guiltily dropping them into the washer.
He began coming home at lunch more often after that, secretly hoping that lightning would strike twice, but not daring to admit such a desire even to himself. He ate his lunches at the counter, staring toward the washing machine. His hope soon graduated into an obsession, and after two weeks he gave up all pretext of innocence, contriving as often as he could to get Donna out of the house before quickly sifting through the hamper for Dawn's panties. They hadn't had much of a smell at first, only cloth, but he'd soon begun to discern through the material the faint fishy scent of female arousal.
He hadn't intended to have sex with her, and probably would not have done so had she not caught him. He probably would have continued playing with her panties, fantasizing about her when he was with Donna, masturbating. Perhaps he would have eventually found a girl who looked like her......... But she'd come home one day at lunch, and he'd been sniffing the crotch of her underwear, inhaling the delicious perfume of her panties a
