the windows, all the routes she might take to outwit him. After all, she was the type to barrel right in, wasn’t she? That was pretty much what he’d said the other day, mixing both clichés and awkward metaphors. “You’re an open book, Abby, and anybody can hear you coming a mile away.”
Much to her chagrin, she had to admit he was at least half-right.
So, instead of the expected, she just sat down.
It shouldn’t take long, she thought, squatting and easing her back against a tree opposite the barn wall. Five or ten minutes of absolute silence, and if he was in there, he’d get impatient and wonder where she was. He’d come out—and that’s when she’d get him. Frank Frett wasn’t the type to sit around, and several minutes without any kind of movement from her would drive him nuts.
While she waited, she imagined the things she would do to the lilac killer, once he was good and dead. She’d get something from the gardening shed…lye, perhaps. Yes, lye. That should do it. She’d dig a grave just deep enough to dump him in it. Then she’d pour the lye over his entire body. It would eat away at his skin and other mucous membranes in no time. His eyes would go first, but whether it would eat through his bones, she didn’t know. It really didn’t matter. The pain is what mattered. The same kind of pain her lilacs had felt when they were burned by poison at the hands of Frank Frett.
Lye, she recalled, was what they used when they buried people in the old days to prevent diseases from spreading. She remembered, too, a story about St. Margaret Mary, who claimed to have had visions of the Blessed Mother and was told by her to begin a devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. She did, and it was said that when they dug her up years later, her heart was still red and fresh, that the lye hadn’t touched it. It was God’s grace that her heart was preserved, the Church said, because of her love for the Blessed Mother. It was one of the miracles, Abby thought she recalled, that was used to prove her a saint.
Well, Frank Frett’s heart would never be touched by God’s grace. If they ever dug him up, they’d find it was cold, black and hard as a rock. Even lye couldn’t eat through a heart that hated lilacs.
A too-sweet smell of hay filtered through the wall of the stable, along with the sweaty odor of horses in their warmed stalls. Abby’s nose began to itch, and she pressed a finger under it to keep herself from sneezing. That did nothing for the smell of manure, which was faint but enough to make her empty stomach clutch. She hadn’t eaten in twelve hours, and she was hungry suddenly, though not in a good, healthy way. Instead, she really thought she was about to vomit. Covering her mouth with both hands, she gulped back the bile that rose in her throat, telling herself over and over, It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. Just don’t make a sound, not a sound.
It was Frett himself who saved her. Just when she thought she couldn’t hold it back any longer, she heard movement at the rear of the barn. She forgot all about throwing up and crouched, moving that way, listening for a direction. Then she saw him. He was crouching, too, and then running from the barn toward the little chapel, his body nothing more than a black form about fifty feet ahead of her.
She brought her gun up and pointed it at his back. “Stop!”
He twisted around, his own weapon raised. But she’d taken him by surprise, and she shot first. He went down.
Abby ran over to him, touching his leg with her foot. He didn’t move, and the splattered red blotch on his chest told her she’d hit her mark.
“Gotcha,” she said softly. “Your days of poisoning lilacs are over, Frank Frett.”
“You think so?” he taunted, grabbing her pant leg and yanking at it. She was so surprised, she lost her footing and fell, dropping her gun. Stumbling to her feet, she picked it up, but he was already running again. Reaching a live oak tree, he stood behind it for cover, and she ran in a zigzag pattern until she was close enough to shoot again.
It didn’t work, and she saw it coming before she felt it. He stepped out from behind the tree and aimed his Shocktech 2003 at her. The thrust went straight to her heart, and she went down with an enormous rush of breath and a moan.
She wasn’t faking it the way he had. The pain was sharp and stinging, and for a few seconds everything went black. Then, her vision clearing, she saw “Frank Frett” kneeling over her in the person of Ben Schaeffer, her lover, his face twisted in anger.
“Dammit all to hell, Abby! Why aren’t you wearing your protective gear? A face mask, at least! Paintballs can blind you, you know.”
3
Considering Abby’s “injury,” Ben wasn’t all that gentle as he dumped her from his shoulder onto her bed.
“If you’d worn the damned chest protector I bought for you, this never would have happened!”
“Don’t swear,” she said, laughing facedown into her pillow. “The nuns might hear.”
“I don’t give—” He checked himself and lowered his voice. “And why the hell didn’t you wear your face mask?”
“It makes me sweat,” she said.
“So you’d rather lose an eye? Turn over.”
“No.”
“Turn over!”
She pressed her belly into the sheets rather than give in.
He tugged at her shoulder. “C’mon, Abby. I want to see how bad you’re hurt. If you don’t turn over, I’ll turn you myself.”
She knew he could do it, so she rolled over, grinning. “You think that silly little paintball did me in? No way.”
“It got you square on the chest,” he argued. “For God’s sake, it almost knocked you out.”
“Don’t be so dramatic! All it did was smart and knock the wind out of me. A little. Besides, I got you first.”
“So you did. But I, at least, was wearing my chest protector,” he pointed out.
Pulling her jersey up over her chest, he swore again. His fingers carefully wiped the crimson glop from the flesh over her heart—where, despite her brilliant plan to one-up his character of “Frank Frett, the evil lilac killer,” he’d managed to get her with a big red splat of paint. The spot where the paintball had hit was badly inflamed. Ben stroked it gently. “Abby, this is final. If you don’t start wearing protective gear, I’m not—” He sighed.
“Not what?”
“Playing anymore.” The tone of his voice told her he knew the words sounded ridiculous, but his eyes were dead serious.
She pulled him down on the bed beside her and nuzzled his neck, while at the same time pressing herself seductively against him. “You’re not playing anymore? You sure about that?”
“I’m serious,” he said sternly. “This game is getting out of hand.”
She planted her lips against his ear. “And whose idea was it in the first place?” she murmured. “Who left me that scenario about some crazy gardener named Frank Frett killing off somebody’s lilacs? And where the hell did you get that scenario, anyway?”
He
