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L.J. parked two blocks from the security director’s home. The afternoon was bright and cloudless. Mirrored sunglasses hid a quarter of his face, the trendy, wrap-around frames providing a benign mask.
The uncharacteristic cold snap was losing its grip. The weatherman predicted temperatures climbing into the seventies by late afternoon. While the forecast made his cashmere topcoat overkill, the garment hid his build. The cost? A thin patina of sweat on his forehead.
Though hardly dressed for a stroll around the block, he figured any nosy neighbor would dismiss him as an insurance salesman. He strode past a meticulously restored Victorian. Renovation crews made a tidy profit in the gentrified neighborhood.
Enormous azalea bushes edging his target’s deep porch cast a convenient umbrella of darkness as he slid a key into the front door lock. The cost of the key and security pass code had been minimal. He’d made nice with Miz Pearl and rummaged her pocketbook when she visited the powder room. Bless old ladies and their zippered purse compartments.
As the alarm’s warning chirps sounded, his fingers flew over the keypad. A comforting silence descended as he punched in the fifth number. The irony wasn’t lost on him. Tsk. Tsk. A security chief should know better than write down her digital code for anyone, even her mother.
L.J. consulted his watch. Two-thirty and the lady of the house rarely arrived home before six. Still he’d restrict his visit to sixty minutes.
He shucked his topcoat, set his briefcase on a side table, and extracted his tools. He glanced at a photo given a place of honor. Graduation day with Senator Yates and her mother. An omen? He had to give her credit. She didn’t trade on her family connections. Of course she’d grown up in Chicago as a Reid, far removed from the Southern aristocrats populating the Yates family tree.
L.J. tugged off his leather driving gloves and tossed them on his coat. He studied the senator’s smiling face. He’d always welcomed L.J.’s campaign donations, but now the politician was ready to play Mr. Tidy-Bowl, intent on cleaning out DoD toilets and flushing him into the sewer.
He slipped on skin-tight surgeon’s gloves and flexed his fingers. Much better.
L.J. had a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. Household wiring was a piece of cake, and he loved electronic gadgetry. He targeted the wireless Internet connection first. In under eight minutes, he arranged for every keystroke sent or received to create a phantom twin on his screen.
He treated his next project as a game of hide-and-seek. Where to conceal video feeds? They needed to be hidden yet poised to capture conversations. Since police would be summoned, the devices had to go undetected during a pro forma household search. Of course, the cops wouldn’t be looking for sophisticated spyware.
Now for the fun stuff.
He opened the door to the basement, and a black fur ball shot past him. “Damn cat,” he muttered as his heart rate slowed. Then the notion dawned—a dead pussy could be a highly effective postscript. One small furry sacrifice for greater psychological harm.
“Here, kitty, kitty,” he cooed as he switched on the stairwell light. The stairs squeaked in complaint. The basement—somewhat rare in vintage Sunbelt homes—felt damp and chilly, a good fifteen degrees cooler than the first floor.
While the upper floors had been retrofitted with granite countertops and cosmetic nods to twenty-first century style, there’d been no renovations below. Open stairs teetered on the cusp of rickety. The old treads spongy.
The stairs led to a low-ceilinged, cobwebbed space. A switch controlled the stairwell bulb. In the cellar itself, pull strings controlled each of the three bare bulbs that lit specific areas.
L.J. yanked the string dangling from the first socket, then the second. The water heater and an HVAC unit lined the back wall. To the side, a moldy workbench showcased a jumble of old hand tools. A rusted saw lay on top.
“Here, kitty. Damned cat’s like the woman. Uppity.” The feline would turn up.
L.J. tripped the breaker to the water heater. One icy shower and she’d come down to check. He grabbed the saw. Two-thirds of the way up the stairs he stopped. Sawing the old wood proved hard work. Sweat plastered the dress shirt to his back.
Recalling one of his father’s old sayings— “The fall won’t kill you. But the landing might.”—he checked the landing zone. Nothing lethal. The descent would be painful, not fatal.
After unscrewing the light bulb above the booby-trapped tread, he substituted the burned-out one he’d brought. At the top of the stairs, he flipped the light switch to its off position and left the door ajar. Maybe Miss Puss would slink out of hiding once he moved away.
He stopped briefly at the refrigerator then headed to the bedroom. His tongue moistened his lips as he rummaged her neatly folded underwear. He frowned in disappointment. No silk. No bikini underpants. No lacy bustiers. Only cotton panties, utilitarian bras, ribbed white socks.
No wonder her husband left. Bitch had no imagination.
Again, a vision of Riley seized him. She cowered on her knees—nude—pleading. His initial reasons for sidelining the security director remained. Alongside them, a new itch. He longed to punish this woman, break her will.
L.J. recalled the look on his wife’s face as the heart attack stole her life. He hadn’t actually killed his spouse. Just withheld the tiny nitroglycerin pill as she sucked air and her face turned cartoon shades. What crime? She was weak. It was nature’s way.
He shook his head. Riley was fit. But not as fit as me. How would her face look when she admitted that truth?
L.J. glanced at his watch. Ten minutes left. Enough time to corral the damn cat?