In the early days at Sam and Rachel’s home, when I grew tired of reading, I drilled small openings and filled them with wireless pinhole cameras. There are more than sixty of them installed throughout the house. It takes me three hours every two weeks just to change the battery packs on those cameras! I also made minor repairs so they wouldn’t have to call in repairmen. I took the time to make my attic area as comfortable as possible. I installed access doors in several areas of the house, siphoned some heat and air from the rooms they didn’t use very often, and wired the attic for computer access. I linked to their land phones and their computers and even programmed a scanner to listen in on their cell phone calls.
Of course, it wasn’t all work. Sam and Rachel are gone all day, five days a week, so I took the time to really enjoy their gorgeous home. Mondays and Fridays, they had a half-day cleaning service I had to watch out for. The other three mornings, I’d work out in their state-of-the-art gym for a couple of hours and then relax in the steam shower in their master bedroom. Afternoons were reserved for my investigating.
Usually, when I become an unseen part of my hosts’ lives, I grow to hate them. Familiarity really does breed contempt. In this case, the more I learned about her, the more I found myself becoming intrigued with Rachel. This phenomenon started the day I learned she volunteered her time on Sunday afternoons at a horse farm that takes care of broken-down racehorses. I visited the place one day—not a Sunday—and took the full tour. I was so impressed by the work they did, I let a couple of months go by and then made a substantial anonymous contribution.
While monitoring Sam’s and Rachel’s lives by camera, computer, and phone, I saw how hard she tried to make their marriage work. Sam’s a decent enough guy, but not the most romantic person in the world. He’s a workaholic; he’s forgetful and often insensitive. He’s bad about following through on prior commitments he’s made, such as meeting his wife after work or attending receptions for her clients. He’s always up for his work but holds the opinion that her work is meaningless, since it contributes in such a small way to their income.
Rachel was showing all the classic signals of a bored, ignored wife, but Sam wasn’t picking up on them. She felt unneeded and taken for granted. He craved sexual attention, she craved relationship attention, and neither got what they wanted.
Over time, I saw them slip further and further away from each other. By the time they were sleeping in separate bedrooms, I knew things were beyond repair. She’d climb into her bed, and I’d sit on the floor joists in the attic, a scant ten feet above her, and listen to her cry herself to sleep. And every night, I wondered what it would be like to have a relationship with a woman of such passion. Yes, she cussed like a sailor! Yes, she was often cold and unfeeling and could turn into the world’s biggest bitch in the blink of an eye. And yes, she was everything I look for in a woman. Taming a woman like Rachel, capturing her heart, making her crave me would be like reaching the summit of Kilimanjaro. I pictured winning her over, making her want to do things to me she’d never done to a man, things she’d never dreamed of doing. I knew exactly what to do, which buttons to push, which words to say. But I waited too long. And Kevin Vaughn beat me to it. I could have had her; there’s not an ounce of doubt in my mind.
But Kevin Vaughn got her. He caught her at the exact moment in her life, and he won her over and got her to do all the sick, twisted, sexy, passionate, loving things I’d dreamed of her doing to me.
I’m bullshitting you. I’m Kevin Vaughn.
Chapter 35
To be precise, Rachel knows me as Kevin Vaughn. My idea was to take the remaining fifty million dollars I had and put it into a corporation. This is a sum of money the government would feel good about confiscating someday, so I figured I may as well make it easy for them to find. I had our geek squad do a patent search for anything related to health or healthy lifestyles, Rachel’s specialty. It took a couple of months, but they located a home fitness product that had a chance to sell enough units to actually turn a profit. I also put a few hundred thousand into a webzine that had a small but powerful subscriber base. Then I brought these products to Rachel’s company and asked to see examples of work produced by the various account reps.
Naturally, I loved Rachel’s work and surprised everyone by insisting she lead the team to overhaul my webzine and promote my fitness product. This appreciation of her skill was like catnip to a kitten for an underappreciated wife in the death throes of her marriage.
Big-budget advertising requires a lot of initial face time between the ad coordinator and the company rep. It thoroughly impressed Rachel, as well as her company, that I involved myself personally in the meetings. And there were lots of meetings, lots of late-nighters. I should mention I’m extremely good-looking. I say this sincerely, as a matter of fact, with no conceit. You can ask anyone—or if you want, just look at me.
Before you judge me for these comments, you should be aware I take no pride in my looks. They’re not mine, after all. They’re the result of a total facial reconstruction by the top plastic surgeons in the world, a procedure that left me with movie-star looks. I didn’t ask for these looks, and I don’t like them. They were forced on me by the Agency while I was in a coma. Everything from the tip of my head to the base of my neck began as a fantasy in the minds of the world’s greatest plastic surgeons. The coma lasted three years, during which time, I had the opportunity to heal in an antiseptic, controlled environment. I’ve been told there has never been a more successful plastic surgery performed and probably such a surgery will never be performed again.
I took my time with Rachel. My flirting, was subtle, just enough to pique her interest, not enough to cause alarm. There was no sexual pressure. I knew I couldn’t push her and didn’t need to. I’d seen her naked hundreds of times over the previous fifteen months, so I was in no hurry to get her clothes off—which made me that much more appealing to her.
She’d never met anyone as understanding as me, as wealthy, or as good-looking. (I know, I know. But these were her words, not mine.) I never spoke ill of her husband, and in the early days, when she brought his name up, I changed the subject.
This was not about sex or lust or power or control or any of those things—not completely any of those things. It was more about Rachel being the kind of woman that fits my biological imperative. Millions of years of gene programming led me to be attracted to a certain type of woman.
Actually, that’s a crock, since I’m attracted to most types of women. But women like Rachel give me reason to care.
My job precludes normal, healthy relationships. I’ve been married once (Janet) and have a wonderful daughter (Kimberly). I fell in love about five years ago, just before the coma (Kathleen), but the Agency told everyone I’d died and had a mock funeral for me. Kathleen, thinking I was dead, fell in love with the next guy who came along and got married. Most of the years before and after Kathleen were spent in the company of hookers, several of whom have become close friends.
Janet was far too bitchy, Kathleen far too sweet. Rachel’s a happy medium.
Our first time?
Well, our first time was tentative. She wanted me to make the first move. I did. Then I pulled back, and she
