With an Extreme Burning

But the library didn't.

He kept talking at her. Talking, talking. Amy didn't hear it all; she didn't want to listen. She sat slumped on the seat beside him, the seat belt tight around her—he'd made sure she put it on and kept it on—and told herself over and over to stay cool. He hadn't hurt her yet and he wasn't going to, not if she could help it.

“… Didn't want to do it this way, Amy, I really didn't. I wanted so much for us to get to know each other first, to be close. But you're not ready and there isn't enough time to wait. I thought there'd be, but there isn't. Your mother and Dix … I wish I knew where they went. You really don't know, do you? No. I don't think they suspect me yet, but they may be getting close. Now I'll have to hurry with them, too.…”

Him him him! All the time she'd been fooling herself; all the time it was him. Katy Mallory, Mr. Harrell, Bobby … he'd killed them. What if she'd actually let him have sex with her? She felt awful enough as it was, sick and shamed, but if she'd let him do it to her, she'd have hated herself for the rest of her life.

How could she have thought he loved her?

How could she have thought she loved him?

How could she have been so stupid!

“… Pick you up like that, with a gun in broad daylight. Somebody might have seen us together. I don't think anybody did, but what other choice did I have? I've got to finish it. That's the only thing that matters. Why couldn't you have made it easy for me? Making me use a gun … I don't like guns any more than your mom does. This one isn't mine, I'd never own a gun. It belonged to Louise Kanvitz. I didn't want to hurt her, but she forced me with her gun and her demands. Greedy bitch. Her fault, not mine. Hers and Katy's. Katy shouldn't have let it slip about us. I warned her to be careful. Didn't I warn her? They never listen, they never listen …”

Why?

Amy still didn't know that. He had hardly stopped talking since they'd left Hallam's ten or fifteen minutes earlier, but he hadn't said—she couldn't remember him saying—anything about why.

“Why?” The word just popped out of her.

At first she didn't think he'd heard. Then his head jerked toward her and he said, “Why what?”

“Why are you doing this? Why do you want to hurt Mom, me, everybody we know?”

“Not everybody, Amy. Just the ones who deserve it.”

“I never did anything to you. Neither did Mom.”

“Yes, she did. She hurt me worse than you could ever know. Her and Katy and Eileen.”

“What did they do?”

“They killed me,” he said. “They destroyed my life.”

“That doesn't make any sense …”

“Never mind now. I don't want to talk about that now. We'll have a nice long talk when we get there. There'll be a little time for us to get to know each other better.”

“Get where? Where're you taking me?”

“Don't you know, Amy? Haven't you guessed?”

She hadn't been paying attention to where they were. She peered through the windshield, saw that they'd left town, were traveling through rolling brown farmland. Familiar landmarks told her they were on outer Bodega Avenue. Heading west, toward the coast.

She knew then, even before he said it.

“Up to your dad's cottage. Up to the Dunes.”

Barksfield Road was on the northeast side of Pelican Bay, a snaky street that extended inland through pine woods. The houses that lined it were a mix of old and new architectural styles on large lots, well built and well maintained. Number 289 turned out to be a newish ranch-style home, ell-shaped, at least four bedrooms, with a detached garage. It was nearly one o'clock and raining heavily again when Dix pulled into the driveway. No cars were visible on the property and no lights showed in any of the facing windows.

“Nobody home,” he said.

“Now what?”

“We'll try the neighbors.”

The nearest was across the road, a hundred yards away—a big frame house with firelight dancing behind its partially draped front window. Dix swung the car in along a crushed-rock drive, stopped next to a deep porch. The wind was gusting, driving the rain in near-horizontal sheets; they ran from the car onto the porch.

The man who answered the bell was in his seventies, stooped but sharp-eyed, wearing a heavy wool sweater over baggy trousers. He frowned when he saw that they were strangers, but it wasn't a frown of displeasure; if anything, he seemed glad to be having unexpected visitors. He cocked the left side of his head toward them. Behind his ear on that side was a flesh-toned hearing aid.

“Do something for you folks?”

“We're looking for Gordon Cotter,” Dix said.

“Cotter, did you say?”

“Gordon Cotter, yes. We understand that he—”

“Wait a minute. Can't hear you with that rain rattling down. Damn hearing aid don't work good in weather like this. Come in so I can shut the door.”

It was warm in the house, smoky from a blazing wood fire. The old man said his name was Delaney, Martin Delaney, and invited them to sit down.

Dix said, “We can't stay, Mr. Delaney. We'd just like to know about Gordon Cotter, if he still owns the house across the road.”

“Not anymore. Family named Elroy owns it now. Baptists, holy rollers. You friends of his?”

“Cotter's? No. We have business with him.”

“What kind of business?”

“It's personal.”

“None of my business, eh?” Delaney laughed; his false teeth made a clacking sound. “You know what happened to his family?”

“Yes, we know.”

“His fault. Driving too fast in the rain, didn't have his headlights on. He always did drive too fast and loose. But he wouldn't admit it.”

“Wouldn't admit the accident was his fault?”

“That's right. Talked to him once, after he come home from the hospital. He said it was the people in the other car's fault, the one that pulled out from the restaurant.”

Dix glanced at Cecca. She moved closer to him, either for warmth or support.

“Oh, he took it hard,” Delaney said. “Real hard. One thing you can say for Cotter, he loved his wife and those two kids. Cute kids, too. My wife was alive then—she used to say they were a perfect family. Blessed, she said. Terrible thing to lose them like that, all at once. Just the opposite of blessed.”

Cecca asked, “How long ago did he sell the house, Mr. Delaney?”

“Three, four months after it happened. Sat over there all that time, didn't go to work, wouldn't hardly leave the house. Grieved longer and harder than any man I ever knew. Then one morning he was gone and the place was up for sale. Just up and left.”

“Do you know where he went?”

“No idea,” Delaney said. “Haven't seen nor heard from him since. Nobody around here has. Didn't take his furniture, wherever he went. Left it all right there in the house. Sold the house with the furniture included. Hell of a deal for the holy rollers.”

“Would you please tell us what he looks like?”

“Looks like? I thought you knew him.”

“We think we know him,” Dix said. “We need to be sure.”

“Well, I'm not too good at that sort of thing …”

“Please try.”

“Gordon Cotter, eh? Man about forty, now. Tall, good shape—played a lot of tennis and golf. Blond hair, blue