Since he was already angry, he figured this was as good a time as any to hear all the bullshit she had to say.
His wife had left him several messages. Bitching, bitching always bitching. Chelsea had sprained her foot at recess. Miranda had lost her lunch money. Who the fuck cared?
He was so sure all her messages would be the same he almost didn’t listen to the last one. His finger hovered over the button that would delete it, like the others, when he heard her say something that made his heart jump into his throat.
***
Amarok hadn’t been able to find anyone around the houses near Evelyn’s. He’d even driven slowly back to town, searching for vehicles that might be loitering about the area—or were carrying the Jennings boys. He didn’t see Chad or Tex or anyone who seemed remotely suspicious, so he went all the way to the Jennings’ house to feel the engine of the only vehicle the family owned. It was an SUV, not a car, but he figured Evelyn could’ve gotten that wrong. She admitted she hadn’t caught a good look at her visitor or visitors.
But the engine was cold. And the house was dark.
He stood at the edge of the property, waiting to be sure no one was moving around inside, but nothing changed in fifteen minutes or more.
If it had been the Jennings boys, they’d sure managed to get themselves home and in bed fast, he thought, especially considering they had no idea he’d be coming by.
Should he knock? He wanted to see how quickly they’d answer the door. But he took pity on their poor parents and decided he could talk to them tomorrow, like he’d told Evelyn he would. Someone had cut her telephone line. Even if that someone had only done it for kicks, as a scare tactic, he wanted to know if the Jennings were responsible. He also wanted to make it clear that he’d consider it stalking and would act accordingly.
By the time he returned to Evelyn’s house, it was after one, and he could tell when she let him in that his knock had dragged her from a deep sleep.
“Don’t wake up,” he said. “Just go to bed. Makita and I will be out here, on the couch. So you don’t have to worry about anything.”
“You don’t have to stay,” she mumbled, but he took her by the shoulders, turned her around and pointed her down the hall, and she didn’t attempt to argue again.
“Hey, boy,” he said to Makita and shooed him off the couch so he could lie down.
***
As Jasper rushed back to Anchorage, so he could catch the first flight out in the morning, his wife’s words kept echoing through his head. “Andy? I don’t even know if you’re listening to your messages. You’re probably not. I haven’t heard a word from you since you left. And I don’t have any other number to reach you by. But the police came to our door this morning, while I was making breakfast. They asked a lot of questions about our car, wanted to look in it. Apparently, some teenage girl claims she saw the same make and model not far from where a woman was kidnapped two weeks ago?”
Hillary had sounded frightened, tentative, which told him that she was afraid the police might have had good reason to ask about him—and that alarmed him more than anything. He needed her on his side, needed her to retain confidence in him. How she made him appear to the authorities could be the difference between being overlooked or examined more closely.
“I-I told them that you were at job interviews that day,” her message had said. “But they want to talk to you anyway. They said they’d be back. I don’t know when they’ll be coming. I couldn’t even tell them the day you’d be home.”
He was returning a lot sooner than he’d planned. He had no choice. He had to get back and reassure Hillary, so she’d stand by him and insist that he could never harm anyone. He also had to make sure that he destroyed any and all evidence left in his hideaway, in case they wound up arresting him and went searching in that area because he or his car had been spotted down there, too.
And while he was in clean-up mode, he figured he might as well do a much better job of burying the last woman he’d killed. He’d grown over-confident, had barely thrown a few shovelfuls of dirt over her body, thinking that she could wait until he returned from having his fun with Evelyn.
He had a lot to do, and he wasn’t sure he’d have the time or the opportunity to do it. But he’d be an idiot not to at least try and fix what he could while he had the chance. It could mean the difference between getting off—or going to prison for the rest of his life. He had a comfortable lifestyle, someone to pay the bills and provide sex—sex that wasn’t nearly as exciting as what he got elsewhere but sex all the same—and a home. He didn’t want to lose all that, didn’t want to have to provide it for himself. He’d tried that before, and it was a hard and boring existence.
Still, it bothered him to be driving away while Evelyn was probably moaning with pleasure beneath that young trooper.