It was quarter past nine. Cathy had arrived early at the Smith’s place to surprise Eric. After much reflection she regretted trying to pressure him to kill Dirk and her husband. She knew, of course, of Eric’s violent past and his time in prison for assault, but he was no killer and he was certainly no gun for hire. She was worried that she had offended him and she didn’t want to do anything to cool their torrid relationship. In due time, she would find another person to do her dirty work, but for now she wanted Eric and his hot, passionate love making back in her life. The exotic life she had envisioned would be nothing without the handsome Eric at her side to expunge her ravaging fantasies.
She hurried into the bedroom and disrobed promptly, leaving her tennis outfit, panties, and bra lying in a pile on a chair in the corner of the spacious room. Naked and feeling vampy, she climbed up on the bed to try out different poses before he arrived. As she rolled around on the bed trying out different seductive poses, she noticed the ever growing crop of spider veins on her legs and decided on a different course of action. I’d better hide those, she thought. She rolled out of bed, yanked the bed spread off the bed and tossed it in the corner. She carefully lifted the blanket and bed sheet and slid underneath them with her bare torso fully exposed from the waist up. She grabbed her purse lying on the nightstand next to her and took out her compact. She thought it would turn Eric on if her large, firm breasts were staring at him when he entered the room, especially if she was nonchalantly applying fresh makeup. She was excited and ready and she couldn’t wait for Eric to walk in that room. She sat anxiously waiting for the sound of the garage door opening to announce his arrival.
Suddenly her cell phone rang. “It must be him!” She smiled and poked around inside of her messy purse lying on the night stand next to her and hunted desperately for the elusive phone. She felt it on the bottom, hastily lifted it out of her purse and flipped it open. Sally Mann’s name popped up on the lighted display. Her brow narrowed, “Hmm, I wonder what Sally wants at this time of day?” She punched the phone on and answered.
“Hello.”
“Cathy?”
“Yes, Sally.”
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything. Is your appointment over?”
“Yes, it’s over. What is it? Why have you called?”
“I’m very sorry to tell you that here’s been an awful tragedy, Cathy; it just came over the morning news and I knew you were getting your hair done, so I thought I better give you a call in case you hadn’t heard.”
Cathy quickly pulled the blankets back and rolled to the edge of the bed. Her heart was racing. She felt a thrill race up her spine. Dirk did it after all. He killed the son-of-a-bitch! She was on the verge of being ecstatic. “Oh my, Sally, is it Ed? Has something happened to my dear, sweet Ed?”
“Oh no, Cathy, it’s not Ed, thank goodness!”
Cathy was confused. She yanked the blanket off the bed, wrapped it around her and began pacing the floor. “Then what is it, Sally? What is the tragedy?”
“It’s that fellow you play tennis with, that handsome guy. He was murdered last night at Cody’s. He got into a fight with a biker guy and the guy stabbed him in the chest. He died this morning at 4:30 a.m. They made heroic efforts to save his life, but to no avail. They said he had just lost too much blood.”
“Oh no! Oh no!” Cathy stumbled over and collapsed on top of her clothes in the chair in the corner. She felt weak and nauseated, her mind was racing. She was breathing like a long distance runner who had just finished a marathon. She was in a total state of shock. Her stomach pushed up to her throat. She leaned forward, remnants of her breakfast exploding from her mouth. She vomited over and over again. The convulsions were so powerful that she was losing her breath between episodes, yet she couldn’t control them. She began to feel light-headed and then the room went suddenly black. Her limp body tumbled from the chair into an oozing puddle of bodily excrements. Her cell phone slid from her hand and bounced on the soft carpeting next to her.
“Hello, Cathy. Are you there?”
“Are you all right, Cathy?”
“Answer me, Cathy!”