With an Extreme Burning

how to approach Amy on the subject of sex, if not the subject of the condoms. You had to walk such a fine line with the girl sometimes. Most of her hostility was gone, but it still flared up now and then, when Amy felt she was being threatened in some way. “If you and Dad had stayed married, it wouldn't be like this.” Insecurity. Distrust. Thank you again, Chet Bracco, you deceitful jerk. At least Amy's hostility had extended to her father as well, and in fact seemed to be lingering there, where it belonged. Cecca couldn't have stood it if she had somehow been twisted around in her daughter's mind so that she became the villain.

Some leaves were down already, she noticed as she dragged the groceries out. Elm and magnolia both. Still August, hundred-degree temperatures, and the trees were showing fall color and losing leaves. Easterners were wrong about California not having seasons, but there was no getting around the fact that the seasons were erratic.

It was relatively cool on the porch. She thought she would sit out there for a while and wait for Amy to come home. The porch was her favorite part of the house—a half wraparound that extended to the back on the south side, with rounded pillar supports and intricate filigree work, wide enough for plenty of furniture and plants without crowding. The house, a two-story frame, had been built in 1926, when life was much slower paced and people had time to sit and relax on porches like this. The fact that modern architects wouldn't even think of putting such a porch on a new house was a sad commentary on present-day lifestyles. Houses weren't built to last like this one either. Nearly seventy years old and in sound condition; its succession of owners had treated it well. The people she'd bought it from had painted it four years before, in rich browns and tans, and done the interior with such style and taste that she hadn't had to alter much of it at all. Eight large rooms, two and a half baths, a detached garage … too much house, really, for just Amy and her.

Just her in another year, she thought. Amy seemed determined to move out next summer, take an apartment with a couple of girlfriends who were also planning to attend UC Berkeley. Eighteen and caught up in the wild Berkeley scene … every small-town mother's nightmare. She wouldn't listen to Cecca's touting of Balboa State. She wanted to be out on her own, she said, and she had the grades to get into UC, and UC's journalism program was so much better than Balboa State's—a point Cecca could hardly argue. Amy wanted to be an investigative reporter, either TV or newspaper/magazine, but preferably TV. She would probably succeed at one level or another; she had the talent and the determination. But she was still so young, prone to letting her emotions rule her common sense. And now this thing with the condoms. Good or bad, wise or foolish—Cecca couldn't decide which.

There was one message on the answering machine, for Amy. Cecca put the groceries away, drank a glass of ice water, and went upstairs to change into shorts and a thin blouse, no panties or bra. One good thing about having small breasts: When you turned forty, you didn't have to worry about sagging, flopping, rounded shoulders, or the need for sweaty uplift on hot days. Downstairs again, heading for the porch—and the telephone rang.

Her first thought was that it might be the Agbergs; she'd given them her home as well as her office number. She did a quick about-face, hurried into the kitchen to pick up.

“Hello? This is Francesca.”

Silence. A steady, rhythmic breathing.

Him again.

How many times now? Five, six? Never said anything, just breathed. Something to be grateful for, that, since twice it had been Amy who answered. But Cecca was not going to tolerate any more of it. The man at the telephone company had told her to buy a big whistle and to put it up close to the mouthpiece and blow on it as hard as she could; sometimes that hurt their eardrums enough to make them think twice about calling again. She opened the drawer under the counter, found the whistle she'd picked up at K-mart, lifted it out.

“Don't hang up.”

Male voice, but weirdly distorted, unreal.

Oh, God, she thought, now it starts. The filth, the profanities. She put the whistle in her mouth, thinking: No, you don't, I won't listen to that, not in my own kitchen.

But she didn't blow it because when he spoke again it wasn't sexual obscenities she heard. It was something worse—something much more chilling.

“Do you know where Amy is, Francesca?” he said. “Do you have any idea what's happening to that little bitch of yours this very minute?”

THREE

He didn't believe it about Katy.

Not for a minute.

A vile lie, part of the tormentor's sleazy bag of tricks. Vicious goddamn sociopath. Out there somewhere, enjoying himself, laughing behind his anonymity.

No, he didn't believe it, none of it.

Then why couldn't he stop thinking about it?

He walked; he couldn't seem to stop walking, either. The restlessness had driven him out of the house, into the Buick, up here to the university. Familiar surroundings, and a place where he could have people near him and still be alone. Not too many people; he couldn't have stood crowds. A few conscientious summer-school students, a smattering of teachers, custodial people, campus security … just enough to give him a feeling of human connection without intrusion.

She was having an affair. A very torrid affair. For a little more than three months before she died.

I'd have known, he thought. Wouldn't I have known, after seventeen years of marriage?

It started on May second, at two o'clock in the afternoon, at La Quinta Inn in Brookside Park.

Specific place. Clever touch; it gave the lie weight and substance. But it could be checked, proven false.

After that, usually twice a week. Monday and Friday afternoons, when you thought she was studying with Louise Kanvitz. That is what she told you, isn't it?

Even easier to check. The tormentor didn't care, that was the point. He wants me to check, because checking means doubt, and doubt means he's got me hooked.

Once in a field off Lone Mountain Road.

Another clever touch. Lone Mountain Road was the scene of the accident. Got that out of the paper. But what was she doing up there, alone, at nine o'clock on a Friday evening? Nothing off Lone Mountain Road except a few scattered dairy ranches. Hilly area, mostly cattle graze with patches of woods, hairpin turns in the road like the one she'd missed, deep ravines like the one her Dodge had crashed into. Isolated … known as a lover's lane. But there was nothing in that; the possibility had never even occurred to him. The highway patrol: Why was she up there, Mr. Mallory? Do you have friends on Lone Mountain Road? No, no friends. She said she was going for a drive; she liked to drive when she was nervous or out of sorts or blue, it relaxed her. Was she nervous or out of sorts or blue tonight, Mr. Mallory? Twitchy—that was the word she used. She was feeling twitchy and thought she'd go for a drive. What time did she leave? About six. Mmm, two and a half hours before the accident—did she usually stay out for such a long time? Not usually, no …

And more than once in her car, in the backseat, dog-fashion.

Bullshit. But she'd been fond of that position. “Do me from behind, sweetie, you know I love it that way.” Dammit, no. A devilishly lucky guess, that was all it was.

I was her partner.

No.

I'm the man who was fucking your wife.…

He walked. Balboa was one of the newer state schools, built in the mid-sixties for a limited enrollment; now the student roster was upward of seven thousand, with another three thousand in the extension and graduate programs. A dozen new buildings had been added, from a huge library to prefab overflow classrooms and offices, and until the massive state education cutbacks, a new gymnasium had been planned for the following year. Commuter school, limited student housing, but the campus already covered more than fifty acres. Gray concrete buildings for the most part, institutional modern, purely functional—ugly. But the unlovely architecture was offset by parklike landscaping that included hundreds of shade trees. Good place to walk even on hot days. Relaxing.

But not today.