“Come back tomorrow,” Jake assured the kid. “I’ll have some for you. I got a safe source, and I know what will make you feel real good.”

  The bigger man got up from a well-worn chair and crossed to the leader’s side. Staring the boss in the eye, he posed a question that was on all their minds, “What about the woman? Are you sure she’s not going to remember something to put the cops on our trail?”

  Jake grinned, “Louie, what are you concerned about? All you did was hold her; I was the one who cut her up. So if I’m not worried, why should you be? I can assure you she has no clue as to who attacked her. I doubt if she’s even talked to the cops since she left the hospital. But I know where she is. And if things get a little hot, it won’t be too hard to silence her before any of us fall into the cops’ web.”

  “Why not just do it now?” Louie argued.

  Jake shook his head, walked three feet toward a far wall, and stepped on an inch-long roach. Smiling, he glanced back to the big guy, “If you have the stomach for it, go ahead. But make sure you aren’t spotted, or leave DNA evidence behind, and you can’t make any other mistake that could lead the cops back to you. And, if you think you have problems sleeping now, wait until you’re worried about being nailed for Murder One. That’ll keep you looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life.”

  “Yeah,” the big man agreed, “I guess so. But as long as she’s alive it gives me the creeps.”

  “Not me,” Jake laughed, “I’m loving that she has to look at herself in the mirror each day. I promised to make her ugly and I did. I can’t begin to explain the satisfaction I feel when I think of that. I put her in her place. I took that holier-than-thou attitude and brought her down to the gutter. She may not know who I am, but she’ll never forget what I’ve done.”

  His lips formed into a smile that was both wicked and haunting. It was so unnerving that the other two men in the room looked away in a combination of disgust and fear.

  “You are too stupid to understand,” Jake snickered. “It’s not about how much money we get from a stick-up or even how much pain we inflict. No, it’s about power. Each time we pull a job, we make those we hit feel powerless. And that makes us superior. We essentially own them because we have shaken them to the core. They live their lives scared they might run into us again. Because of us they have nightmares that will never end.”

  He rubbed his hands together and turned back to face his confederates.

  “Who could ask for anything more?”

  47

  The attack, as she now called it, had placed Leslie on a roller coaster of dynamic swings in emotions. She began each day by looking in the mirror. Just a mere glance at the image reflected in the glass caused her to sink into a deep depression, made even darker by her mother’s constant talk of lawsuits. Nothing, not even the daily routine of watching television show after show brought her any relief. Then, at just the moment when she thought life was nothing more than a black hole, Hunter would come by.

  Her nights with Hunter were filled with one-on-one conversation, old movies, board games, and listening to him talk about his work. On these evenings, she forgot about her problems, her pain, and her own fears and became a carefree participant in life. She lived only for these moments.

  “Aren’t you tired of my place?” Hunter asked as he put away the Trivial Pursuit board.

  Her scarred face aglow, she laughed and responded, “I feel more at home at your place than I do at my own.”

  “Well,” Hunter answered, “I’m at home, too, but I’m also getting tired of it. I need a break.”

  She knew what he meant by a break. He’d been hinting at it for weeks. He wanted to go on the town, grab a meal at Big Al’s, take in a movie at the Multiplex, or go bowling. Just thinking about doing any of those things rocked her even more than the nightmares that often plagued her sleep.

  Looking nervously across the living room, Leslie swallowed hard. Speaking in her sweetest voice she tried to charm the man who’d become her only contact with the real world. “Oh, Hunter, you know what just being with you means to me. I’m not ready to face the world. I need a little more time.”

  “I’m not going to make you, Les,” he assured her, “but I do want you to do more than just hang out here. Tomorrow, let’s go to the lake. My sister has a cabin there, and a boat, and we could ski for a while, and then watch the sun go down from the deck. I think that would be a blast. And the setting is certainly a lot better than my place.”

  “Are you sure that no one else is going to be there?” Leslie demanded.

  “Not a soul.”

  “OK,” Leslie gave in, “as long as it is just you and me.”

  “Now, about tonight,” Hunter began.

  “What?”

  “I need to work with one of my kids,” he explained. “He’s going through a rough time and he needs some guidance. So, let me take you home now and I’ll pick you up at, say, two tomorrow afternoon.”

  Trying not to sound too disappointed, Leslie replied, “Sure,” and then after pausing a second she added, “might need some time at home anyway. Tonight’s as good as any.”

  She’d only been home a few minutes when Meg called and offered her a chance to come over to her place. Forgetting about giving Hunter the line about needing to be home, Leslie jumped at the opportunity to get away from her mother. It had been two weeks since she had visited with her cousin, and she could hardly wait to update her on all that had happened. If she couldn’t be with Hunter, Meg was a great second choice.

  Two hours later, after a great homemade chicken dinner, and after Meg had put her daughter to bed, the conversation took on a much more serious tone.

  “Your scars are healing nicely,” Meg observed. “I think that Dr. Parks did a great job.”

  “Oh,” Leslie’s hands involuntarily drew to her face as she spoke, “they still make me look like a freak. When I stare at them, they remind me of my first few attempts at sewing on the machine.”

  “Well,” Meg assured her, “Dawn didn’t seem to notice. And if a two-year-old doesn’t point, then you have a good start. Let’s remember there will be a time, after several more surgeries and some sanding, when they’ll fade to almost nothing. Your memories and fears will probably linger longer than the visible signs of what happened.”

  Meg took a sip from a glass filled with Coke. “Have the police uncovered anything else?”

  “No,” Leslie’s answer sounded more indifferent than vindictive. “They’re pretty much at a dead end. I guess whoever did it might never get caught. It would help so much if I could just remember his name.”

  “You heard a name that night?” Meg inquired.

  “Yes, I know I did, but even in my dreams, whenever I get close to remembering it, I go all foggy.”

  “Well, the mind is a funny thing,” Meg answered, sounding more like a nurse than a cousin. “Sometimes the images are brought into sharp focus by seeing or hearing something completely unrelated to the event. Maybe you will hear or read the name that you heard and then it will all pop back.”

  “I wish that it would happen soon. The farther I get from that night, the less I want to have to relive it in a trial.”

  Nodding her head, Meg got up from her chair and put a disc in the CD player. After punching the play button, she took a seat on the floor, crossed her legs Indian-fashion, and leaned against the couch. Closing her eyes, she let the music fill her head as if bringing back the memories of the moment she first heard these notes.

  Watching her cousin, Leslie strained to recognize the voice of the singer, but while it sounded very familiar, she couldn’t place it. Finally, after letting the first selection play out, she broke the silence.

  “Who is this?”

  Opening her eyes, Meg brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She listened to the opening words of the second song before replying. “It is obvious that you are younger than I am. If you were my age, you would know Louise Mandrell. She was one of Steve’s favorite singers. This was his favorite album and I discovered it the other day when I was cleaning up some stuff. The song he loved so much was called ‘Save Me.’ ”

  “It’s nice,” Leslie nodded. “Maybe I need to start tuning into some country.” Listening to a line in the song, she then added, “Speaking of taking someone away to the moonlight, I think I’m falling hard for Hunter.”

  Smiling, Meg got off the floor and returned to the couch. Staring at her cousin for a moment, she grinned, “And he for you?”

  “I don’t know,” Leslie admitted. “I’d like to think so. I mean he sees me all the time and he says wonderful things, but I’m just not sure.”

  “You think he may just be thinking friendship?” Meg asked.

  “Could be,” Leslie sighed. “He hasn’t made any kind of romantic moves on me. Just a nice good-night kiss on the forehead. In a way, it is unlike any kind of relationship I’ve ever had. Maybe it’s my face. Maybe that’s why he can’t really kiss me or hold me like a lover.”

  Not letting a second pass, Meg jumped back, “Maybe it’s the environment.”

  “What are you talking about?” Leslie demanded.

  “How can you know what you have unless you view it in the light of the real world? I mean you and Hunter have spent the last month hiding in the dark. You can’t build a life with someone else that way, nor can you live your own life that way. You’re hiding, and in a way I don’t blame you and I understand, but you’ve got to get back in the real world someday.”

  “I will,” Leslie promised. “I’m just not ready yet.”

  “Leslie, I don’t mean to sound like a preacher, but I want you to think about your whole life, not just the last few weeks. Why did you come home to talk to your mother about the Buffalo Scotch ad? The reason was that you knew that she’d say take it, and then you could point to her and tell folks you wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t thought it was a good idea. Why did you come home this time? To do the same thing! Your mother would have given her stamp of approval on the perfume ad campaign and then you could have taken off your clothes, and it wouldn’t have been your decision. If you got any negative feedback, you could point to Flo.”

  “But …”

  “No buts,” Meg cut her off. “What I’m saying is it goes back through your whole life. It was the reason you dated some people and didn’t date others in high school, and why you chose to quit school and go to New York. Flo kept you under her thumb. Your whole value system is based on her judgments. And she has made it easy.”

  “No, wait just a minute,” Leslie argued. “I was in New York, on my own, and did what I wanted.”

  “Maybe you did,” Meg replied. “But Flo was controlling how you felt about yourself then, and she is even doing it now. Your mother thinks that you look terrible. She thinks she has been given a freak for a daughter. So, when you look in the mirror you see a freak, too. Think about it for a moment, when it came to crunch time, did you ever make up your own mind about anything in your life or even how you look? Your mother, the woman you say grates on your nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard, sets the standards as to how you feel about yourself.”

  The room took on a strange silence, broken only by the music. Minutes passed, and neither woman looked at the other. Finally, only after the CD had finished playing its final selection, Leslie piped up.

  “I don’t know what you just said has to do with me and Hunter. And I don’t need my mother to point out to me I’m a freak. All I have to do is look in the mirror. Look at me, tell me I’m not one!”

  A cold stare emanated from Meg’s face, followed by an even frostier reply, “Yes, you are a freak!” She let the word sink in, watching as her cousin’s eyes took on a look of disbelief. Then, right at the moment Leslie was hitting bottom, Meg added, “But you’re a freak because you choose to make yourself one.”

  Meg let her words hang in the air for a few seconds and then launched into a story, “Do you remember Coach Collins’s wife?”

  Leslie nodded.

  “What do you remember about her?”

  “Well, she was outgoing, vivacious, and a lot of fun. Had a personality that wouldn’t quit. Everyone wanted to be around her.”

  “What about her face?”

  “What about it?”

  “The whole left side had burn scars,” Meg explained. “Don’t you remember the stories? She and the coach almost lost their lives when their house burned right after they got married.”

  Thinking back, Leslie did remember the story, but while she knew that Carol Collins might have had a little scar on one side of her face, she couldn’t remember just how. As Leslie became lost in her thoughts, Meg pulled an old high school annual out from a bookshelf. Leafing through the pages, she found the picture she was looking for and handed it to her cousin.

  “I don’t remember the scar being that big,” Leslie said looking at the photo. “I could have sworn that it was just a mark.”

  Pointing to another picture, Meg asked, “What about Missy Schmidt? She was a dwarf and she didn’t let it stop her. She was even chosen a Homecoming Princess. If you will turn back a few pages, you’ll note that she was class favorite, too. She could have been a freak, but she chose not to be.

  “Now, if you want to spend your life behind huge glasses and only going to places where other people aren’t, you’re going to not only cheat yourself, but cheat everyone else in the world, too.”

  Touching her face again, Leslie let her fingers trace the jagged tracks, lingering on the deep ones beside her mouth and across her nose. Shaking her head, she pulled her hands back to her side, and breathed, “I just don’t know.”

  “Listen, Les,” Meg explained, “I probably had no business being so hard on you. I’m probably expecting too much too soon. I know you need to grieve and to heal emotionally, but I don’t want you to sell yourself short. Hunter has been so good for you, but he can only do so much. You have to walk on your own, without him always being there to protect you. I love you like a sister and I don’t want to see you get hurt, but sometimes it’s the pain that heals us.”

  48

  Meg’s words played over and over again in Leslie’s head right up until the time Hunter knocked on the door the following afternoon. Seeing his face, noting his quick smile, gave her the lift she needed to once again forget her problems, at least for a while.

  “Les,” Hunter laughed a few hours later as he pulled her from the water into the boat, “You’re still a good skier. We must have dragged you for thirty feet that time. When you fall, which you have done really well, you’re supposed to let go of the rope.”

  “Well,” she replied as she grabbed a towel and dried off, “it has been a few years since I’ve tried.”

  “Tried is the operative word here,” Hunter shot back. “As I remember, you couldn’t ski when we were in high school, either.”

  As he fired the boat up and headed for the lake cabin, Leslie sat in the back and watched the wind blow through his hair. She couldn’t believe how good he looked in his swimsuit, just how well he had maintained his body. Smiling, she knew she was with the man of most women’s dreams.

  Stretching her long legs, she also was sure she still had a body that turned heads. She was confident that no one on the lake looked better in a swimsuit than she did. Yet, once, when a boat had passed close to theirs, she noted a man staring not at her figure, but at her face. His expression showed he was more than a little shocked. He quickly turned to his girlfriend and then pointed back to Leslie, but, by that time, she’d already grabbed her sunglasses and turned her face the other way. That one scene, completely unnoticed by Hunter, had brought back her fears. Over and over again in her mind, she had heard the word freak. It would be hours after that incident before she was again able to relax.

  Hunter cooked a wonderful meal but Leslie had eaten little. Later, after they’d watched the sun set over the beautiful, placid blue water, he built a roaring fire. Now dressed in old jeans and a cotton blouse, Leslie relaxed in front of the flames, and in a matter of minutes, fell sound asleep. But the sleep was far from restful.

  In her dreams, Leslie found herself mingling in a large crowd. The smell of popcorn and cotton candy hovered around her, and the sound of an old-fashioned calliope was playing in the background. She smiled at Hunter as he pointed to a large group of people gathered in front of a tent. Latching onto his arm, she followed him as they pushed their way to the front of the line. Reaching into his pocket, he purchased two tickets, handed them to the man, and he and Leslie walked in.

  The first thing they saw was a man with four arms who could play guitar and a banjo at the same time. In the next booth a fat lady, reputed to weigh over seven hundred pounds, sat in an oversized chair eating a huge sack full of donuts. Within the next few minutes, Leslie observed a snake man,a pair of Siamese twins, and a cone-headed boy. Still, the best or worst, depending upon the customer’s perspective was evidently yet to come. A large crowd had gathered at the last booth. Many of the patrons were in an obvious state of shock, too caught up in the grotesque scene to move. Others, perhaps more hardened, were pointing and shouting barbs at the exhibit. Overcome with curiosity, Leslie released Hunter’s arm and with childlike exuberance and curiosity ran to the booth. Shoving her way to the front, she looked up and was greeted by a woman whose face was covered with scars. As she studied the horribly disfigured woman, Leslie turned her head, completely repulsed. Then it hit her. She knew the freak. The woman in the exhibit was someone she’d seen somewhere before. Lifting her eyes, it was as if a mirror had been pushed in front of her face. The woman who made everyone sick was Leslie.

  Suddenly she heard the crowd begin to shout, “Freak, freak, freak!” Forcing her way back through the mass of angry people, she ran back to where she had left Hunter, but he wasn’t there. Looking behind the screaming crowd, now pointing and screaming at her, morbidly following every move she made, and there, in the front of the mob, was Hunter. His face was distorted in a look of anguish and pain and he had joined the chorus. At the top of his lungs he was yelling, “Freak, freak, freak …”