ringed her like a jeweled belt. For a moment Colin felt that he could do anything to her that he wished; he had complete immunity. He was the invisible man.
“How’d you like to get in her pants?” Roy asked.
Finally Colin lowered the binoculars.
“You want her?” Roy asked.
“Who wouldn’t?”
“We can have her.”
“You’re living in a dream.”
“Her husband’s at work all day.”
“So?”
“She’s pretty much alone over there.”
“What do you mean-‘pretty much’?”
“She has a five-year-old kid.”
“Then she’s not alone at all.”
“The kid won’t give us any trouble.”
Colin knew that Roy was playing the game again, but this time he decided to play along. “What’s your plan?”
“We just go over and knock on the door. She knows me. She’ll open up.”
“And then?”
“You and me can handle her. We’ll push inside, knock her down. I’ll put a knife at her throat.”
“She’ll scream.”
“Not with a knife at her throat.”
“She’ll think you’re bluffing.”
“If she does,” Roy said, “I’ll cut her a little to show we mean business.”
“What about the kid?”
“I’ll have Sarah under control, so you’ll be free to catch the brat and tie him up.”
“What’ll I tie him with?”
“We’ll take along some clothesline.”
“After I’ve gotten him out of the way, what happens?”
Roy grinned. “Then we’ll strip her, tie her to the bed, and use her.”
“And you think she’s not going to tell anybody what we’ve done?”
“Oh, of course, when we’re finished with her, we’ll have to kill her.”
“And the kid, too?” Colin asked.
“He’s a rotten little brat. I’d like to snuff him most of all.”
“It’s a bad idea. Forget it.”
“Yesterday, you dared me to kill someone,” Roy said. “And now the idea scares you.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“What do you mean?”
Colin sighed. “You’ve protected yourself by coming up with a plan that can’t possibly work. You figured I’d shoot it down, and then you could say, ‘Well, I wanted to prove I could kill someone, but Colin chickened out on me.’”
“What’s wrong with my plan?” Roy demanded.
“First of all, you live next door to her.”
“So what?”
“The cops would suspect you right off.”
“Me? I’m just a fourteen-year-old kid.”
“Old enough to be a suspect.”
“You really think so?”
“Sure.”
“Well … you could give me an alibi. You could swear I was at your house when she was murdered.”
“Then they’d suspect both of us.”
For a long time Roy stared down at Sarah Callahan. Finally he turned away from the window and began to pace. “What we’d have to do is leave clues that pointed away from us. We’d have to mislead them.”
“You realize the kind of lab equipment they’ve got? They can trace you by a single hair, a thread, almost anything.”
“But if we could snuff her in such a way that they’d never in a million years think it was just kids that did it …”
“How?”
Roy continued to pace. “We’d make it look like some raving lunatic killed her, some sex maniac. We’d stab her a hundred times. We’d cut off her ears. We’d slice up the brat pretty good, too, and we’d use blood to write a lot of crazy things on the walls.”
“You’re really gross.”
Roy stopped pacing and stared hard at him. “What’s the matter? Are you a sissy about blood?”
Colin felt queasy but tried not to show it. “Even if you could mislead the cops that way, there’s too many other things wrong with your plan.”
“Like what?”
“Someone will see us going into the Callahan place.”
“Who?”
“Maybe somebody taking out the garbage. Or somebody washing windows. Or just somebody going by in a car.”
“So we’ll use the Callahans’ back door.”
Colin glanced out the window. “Looks to me like that wall goes all around the property. We’d have to enter by the front walk and go around the house to get to the back door.”
“Nah. We could climb over the wall in a minute.”
“If anyone saw us, they’d be sure to remember. Besides, what about fingerprints when we get into the house?”
“We’ll wear gloves, of course.”
“You mean we’ll walk up to the door wearing gloves in ninety-degree heat, carrying a lot of rope and a knife- and she’ll let us in without a second thought?”
Roy was becoming impatient. “When she opens the door, we’ll move so fast she won’t have time to realize anything’s wrong.”
“What if she does? What if she’s faster than we are?”
“She won’t be.”
“We’ve at least got to consider the possibility,” Colin insisted.
“Okay. I’ve considered it, and I’ve decided it’s nothing to worry about.”
“Another thing. What if she opens the inner door but not the storm door?”
“Then we’ll open the storm door,” Roy said. “What’s the problem?”
“What if it’s locked?”
“Christ!”
“Well, we have to expect the worst.”
“Okay, okay. It’s a bad idea.”
“That’s what I said.”
“But I’m not giving up.”
“I don’t want you to give up,” Colin said. “I’m enjoying the game.”
“Sooner or later, I’ll find the right setup. I’ll find someone for us to kill. You better believe it.”
For a while they took turns watching Sarah Callahan through the binoculars.
Earlier, Colin had been eager to tell Roy about Heather. But now, for reasons he couldn’t quite define, he felt the time wasn’t right. For the moment Heather would be his little secret.
When Sarah Callahan finished sunning herself, Colin and Roy went down to the garage and passed Monday
