I had to have those pictures, he told himself. Nobody was about to let me keep the book. Photocopies wouldn’t have been any good: they’re fine for printed stuff, but the pictures would’ve looked awful.
I bet nobody’s even opened that book for the past twenty years.
Nobody’ll notice the pages are gone.
You hope.
So if they give Lane shit, I’ll pay for the book.
Lot of good that’ll do. She’s never been in trouble. It’d kill her.
Nobody will notice a damn thing. She’ll return the book, and that’ll be it.
No point in worrying, anyway. The damage is done. You can’t put the pages back in, even if you wanted to.
They’re mine now.
He closed his eyes and let his mind dwell on the photographs. The memories of them soothed him. He filled his lungs with the mild, morning air. He stretched, savoring the solid feel of his flexing muscles, the softness of the sheet against his skin, the images of Bonnie.
He stayed in bed until he heard the soft grumble of the Mustang’s engine.
He spent the day on
Frequently he looked away from the computer screen and stared at his filing cabinet. The drawer where he’d hidden the yearbook pages was within reach. He longed to pore over them. But Jean was in the house. What if she came into his office while he had the pictures out?
Shortly after two o’clock Jean knocked on his door and opened it. “I thought I’d run over to Safeway. Anything you want me to pick up while I’m there?”
“Not that I can think of,” he said. “Have fun.”
“See you later.”
She closed the door.
Larry stared at the computer screen. He heard the faint thump of the front door shutting. He rubbed his moist hands on the sides of his shorts.
He waited for a while, then rolled his chair back, left the office, and reached the living room in time to see Jean’s car pass the windows.
Gone. She’s gone!
He glanced at his wristwatch. A quarter past two. Give Jean ten minutes to reach the store, at least ten inside, and another ten to get home.
He had at least half an hour.
Stomach trembling, he hurried to his office, shut the door and pulled out the steel drawer of the file cabinet. He’d slipped the pages into the folder for his short story “The Snatch.” He took out the entire folder, left the drawer agape, dropped onto his chair, flicked open the cover, and Bonnie smiled up at him.
The Spirit Queen photo.
“God,” he whispered.
Bonnie seemed even more beautiful than he remembered. Lovely, fresh, innocent.
No wonder she was voted queen.
He gazed at her flowing blond hair. It swept softly down her forehead, slightly longer on the right, so that it brushed the curve of her eyebrow. It didn’t quite touch her left eyebrow. The sides of her head were draped by shining tresses. Her eyes sparkled. Larry supposed that their gleam was a reflection of the camera’s flash. Her lips were together, and curled upward just a bit at the corners with the mere hint of a smile. She looked serious, but pleased and proud.
Her jaw cast a shadow that slanted across her neck and puddled in the hollow above her right collarbone. Her shoulders sloped down gently, bare to the borders of the photo. The top she wore looked black. Only its upper edge showed. It eased downward to a point in the center of her chest. Not quite low enough to show any cleavage.
Larry placed an open hand across the bottom of the picture.
With the garment covered, she might have been naked.
He gazed at her face, at the smooth, pale flesh of her chest. Faint shadows revealed the hollow of her throat, the curves of her collar bones.
If the picture extended downward, his hand would be resting across her breasts. He imagined firm mounds with skin like warm velvet, nipples erect and pressing into his palm. He moved his thumb downward. It would reach to the golden curls between her thighs.
Suddenly shocked at himself, Larry jerked his hand away from the picture. He slapped the folder shut.
God!
Face burning, he lurched out of his chair. He stuffed the folder back into the cabinet and shoved the drawer shut.
He returned to his chair. He stared at the computer screen. The sentences there seemed empty, meaningless. No point in trying to write more of this novel. Not today.
He signed off and replaced the disk with the one labeled “Vamp.”
“Vampire,” he muttered. “No way. Not Bonnie.”
He brought up the directory, then the last chapter he’d written on Saturday night.
A lot of catching up to do.
He exited that chapter.
He gazed at the blank screen.
Good luck, he thought. How in hell do I write about ending up in the garage with her? Say I was wearing pajamas, for starters.
Any way you slice it, you’re going to look like you’re losing your grip. Like you’re obsessed, or something.
And what about the annual? Tell the world you cut a library book to pieces? Figure out some kind of lie, maybe.
No matter what you write, Lane will know the truth. She’ll read the damn book.
The photos
Shit.
Cross that bridge when you come to it.
And be
She wasn’t dead when the pictures were taken.
She was so alive then. So glorious.
And now...
In his mind Larry saw the way she looked now. Hideous. A withered mummy with a stake in her heart.
That wasn’t done by any jealous boyfriend. Some bastard actually thought she was a vampire.
Murdered her.
Hid her body under the hotel stairs and hung a crucifix on the wall for good measure.
And padlocked the front doors?
That was a brand new padlock, Larry reminded himself. And someone had placed boards across the broken landing.
Bonnie’s killer?
Someone was certainly watching over the hotel. The coyote eater? Had he been hanging around Sagebrush Flat for more than twenty years — a mad sentry guarding the tomb of his slain vampire?
