Caroline was breaking for lunch when she passed by the facsimile machine and saw it spitting out a photograph of a woman. Usually she never let anything disrupt her lunchtime, but something about the photograph caught her attention and she waited to have a better look. Although it was a black and white, the full head of hair looked familiar, the eyes resembling that bitch who stole Michael from her.
The facial features defined her like a reflection in a mirror.
She ripped it apart from the other faxes and held it away from her for a better look, her farsightedness making close-up visibility a bit blurred since her glasses lay beside the switchboard. She ran back and grabbed them, ignoring the office clerk sitting in for her, and nearly sticking the earpiece in her eye in her rush to put them on. She stared at the picture, and reality dawned upon her that the likeness was a worthy reflection of the redheaded bitch. A slow smile etched the corners of her mouth, growing into a toothy grin.
“Well, I'll be damn!” she snorted. The sandwich she brought for lunch slipped her mind. She went to the tiny lounge and read the information on the faxed document, and then poured herself a cup of coffee. The woman might be missing, but it was by choice, Caroline figured. Yet, somebody was looking for her.
She finished reading the information while considering what to do about the missing person's report. She plopped down upon a chair, considering as many possible implications as her mind would register. Why was the bitch missing? Further, who wanted her bad enough to put out a missing person's report? Could it be a concerned parent? Maybe it was an irate lover, or even a jealous husband.
Getting out of the chair, she went back to the little alcove where the copy machine sat on a table, and made a copy of the fax transmission. Looking about to make sure she was unobserved, she buried the original behind other missing persons' reports, and then stared at the copy while she returned to the lounge for her lunch break. She would handle this little matter from home where no one would interfere, and she could perhaps have more time to gather information that was available about—she looked at the name. “Mrs. Rochelle Chandler,” she whispered to herself.
That answered the question of who was looking for her.
Rochelle Rathbone had changed her name to escape her husband.
Caroline was only sorry it wasn't a wanted poster. She would have liked that even better.
Remembering her lunch, she went to the refrigerator and plucked her brown bag from the fridge. She went back and plopped down in the empty chair, pulling her bologna sandwich from the bag. Unwrapping it with the free hand that wasn't holding the missing person's report, she lifted it to her mouth and took a big bite, smiling all the while, her eyes glittering over her bitter taste for vengeance.
Several hours later, after she left work for the day, she was on the phone as soon as she arrived home, but not to the police department in Miami. She was talking to the operator and writing down names and addresses and phone numbers of all the Chandlers listed. Then she started calling each one, crossing off names one after the other until she had crossed off all. The Chandler she sought obviously had an unlisted number.
“Damn it!” she swore and realized she would have to go through the Police Department in Miami. She dared not call them while she was away from her job, just in case they needed to call back to verify the information.
She took care of it as soon as she arrived to work the next morning. Feeling exhilaration, she hoped if things worked out as planned, Mrs. Rochelle Chandler would be history in a couple of days. All ready Caroline planned how she would get back in Michael's good graces. He would be disheartened and sad over his loss and would need a sympathetic friend to lean on.
“Hot damn!” She slapped her fist in the palm of her hand. “Mrs.
Rochelle Chandler, your husband must want you pretty bad to put out a missing person's report on you. You're about to be history in Windy Point,” she mumbled to herself.
ROCHELLE HAD BEEN IN HER new residence for a period of nearly four months. Michael put as much spare time as he could on remodeling the kitchen, and it was nearing completion. Left alone by Tillie Somers, who liked attending church on Wednesday evenings, Rochelle and Michael enjoyed an intimate dinner together.
Before Michael started on his carpentry chores for the evening, he took Rochelle in his arms and kissed her. When he would have turned to his carpentry, she held onto him. She traced her fingers over his lips, watching them grow into a delicious smile she could hardly ignore. She kissed him, letting her hands trail along his shoulders, down his back, grasping his buttocks and pressing herself against him.
“Honey, do you know what you're doing,” he inquired with a sly twinkle in his eyes.
“I believe I might, but if you think I need to be instructed…”
Needing no further convincing, Michael waltzed Rochelle up the stairs, and made passionate love to her in the room where his father and stepmother had met their deaths. He and Rochelle both had grown familiar with the room by now, and were troubled only fleetingly by what happened there. Her theory about using the room instead of leaving it locked had proven to be sound reasoning.
Maybe there was something to that cliché about looking fear in the eye.
There was something unusually special about their lovemaking that evening. Michael was never more amorous, and Rochelle never more loving and affectionate. As he kissed her lips and breasts and navel, his hands sluicing over her entire body to send her into delirious shimmering ecstasy, she clung to him as never before, returning kiss for kiss, caress for caress, and embrace for embrace.
When he eventually ended the foreplay to relieve their eager yearnings by sliding inside her, she whispered her love for him for the first time ever. “I love you, Michael. I love you.”
It was a poignant moment and Michael crushed her into his arms as if he would never let her go, his own mutterings of love warming his breath against her cheeks. They were in love, a glorious condition both accepted.
They spent much longer than they planned in bed that evening, and only the thought of Tillie coming home from church to find them gave them the incentive needed to crawl from its comfort and get dressed.
“Honey, I've sure messed up my plans tonight. I intended to get the kitchen finished before I left. Now I won't be able to. It's getting late.”
“Do you want to wait and work on it tomorrow night?”
Rochelle asked him, gazing into his eyes with so much love it poured into his veins through her touch.
Kissing her, he muttered, “I'll work for about an hour, and then maybe I can finish up tomorrow.”
“I'll balance my checkbook while you do that,” she said, smiling at his earlier inquiry to see if she was keeping good financial records.
They went downstairs where Michael went straightway to the kitchen, and Rochelle went to the living room where her checkbook lay on a table next to the calculator Michael gave her.
She was subtracting purchases and putting totals in her checkbook when the doorbell rang. Thinking it was Tillie who likely forgot her key on her way home from church Rochelle went and opened the door.
A BLAST OF SUN PARCHED AIR, putrid with the smell of aged booze and sweat, blew through the open doorway.
Rochelle froze in her tracks!
Her heart stopped beating.
She gasped and stepped back, eyes growing round with shock and fright. Her heart seemed to plummet to the floor from her chest.
She felt a scream rise in her throat, but no sound escaped. She was a statue, frozen as stiff and still as she was during and after one of her immobilizing nightmares.
Tobias stood at her door, appearing as tall, powerful, and domineering as he had ever been before. His face looked dark, angry, and dangerous. His beard had grown since his morning shave, and thick dark growth on his jaws and chin gave him an ominous appearance that made Rochelle's skin crawl. He stood looking at her for several seconds, neither of them saying anything, just staring as if neither could believe what they saw.
Then a slight flicker of pleasure eased the hardness of Tobias's features. When the first stab of shock passed, Rochelle's mouth fell open in surprise, solidifying her expression like a frozen block of ice. When she could think and move again, she shoved hard at the door, trying to close it in Tobias's face before he crossed the threshold. She was too late.
He jerked his arm up, shooting it out so his palm stopped the door from closing. He immediately moved inside, pushing past Rochelle. At that same instant, Rochelle saw he wasn't alone. A woman stepped inside behind him, a puckish smile on her face. She was full of herself, unusually pleased.
“Where's Michael?” Caroline asked in a tone besmirched by a mixture of anger and triumph over finally getting even. “I told the son of a bitch I'd get even with him, and I hope I have. Does he know you had a husband looking for you?”
If Caroline had known Michael was in the kitchen just a short distance away, she would have been more careful with her outburst.
The fact that he always parked in the garage so neighbors wouldn't know the amount of time he spent there served as a deceptive measure against gossipers, and obviously against Caroline as well.
Yet, she could not resist the temptation of showing up with Chandler and watching Mrs. Rochelle Chandler's face as her husband shocked the shit out of her with his unexpected presence.
Rochelle guardedly backed away, daring not to even imagine what Tobias planned for her. Would she wind up in some swamp in Florida, her remains carried off by alligators and other wild animals, or did he have more immediate plans for getting rid of her?
Caroline kept up her accusations in a burst of curses and strong disapproval. “You little bitch, you should have known better than mess with me,” she cursed, not once noticing the dark disapproval growing in Tobias's eyes.
Rochelle saw it though, as she stood locked into a frozen stance between her two enemies, staring at a despised husband on one side, and a sick and embittered woman on the other.
“I hope to hell you get what you deserve!” Caroline snorted contemptuously and took a lunge toward Rochelle with an outstretched hand.
Before Rochelle could back away, Tobias reached out an arm, catching Caroline by the collar of her shirt. He snatched her back, an ugly snarl about his mouth. “Get the fuck out of here!” Tobias cursed, and sent a staggering blow to Caroline's cheek, unbalancing her, sending her slamming to the floor.
Caroline lay there, temporarily stunned. Then, upon seeing Tobias bending over her with his arm pulled back, a balled fist ready to crash into her face, she suddenly cowered away from him, slithering and sliding on her backside along the floor toward the door. She thrust herself across the threshold, gaining her feet in a frantic motion of startled flight. Turning her back on her attacker, her feet took wings and she ran as fast as they would carry her to some place of concealment outside.
Now, with no one to interrupt them, Tobias reached out and grasped Rochelle's shoulders. “Baby, I've missed you like hell. I've come to take you home.”
His eyes took on a bright glow as they traveled her length and back up to her face. His right hand slid in a caress up and down her bare arm, the fingers of his other hand combing through her long silky strands of hair.
His attitude was hardly what Rochelle expected. Seeing him at her door, a flashing thought warned her he was there to carry out his threat to kill her. She had been certain that her death was imminent.
Now, she wasn't sure what Tobias's intentions were except to take her back to Miami. Did he plan to wait until he got her home to kill her, or had he really missed her and wanted to continue from where they had been before she left? Either way served no worthy choice for her. Her life was about to become hell again.
“Get whatever things you want. We're leaving,” he said more gently than she could ever remember, his fingers now tracing a path along her cheek as though he found fulfillment in the mere touch of her.
She thought of Michael just a few steps away in the kitchen. A prayer ran through her head that he would not hear the commotion, or that he would not try to intervene. She had no doubt Tobias would use whatever force required for dealing with Michael.
Rochelle shook her head, her hair flaring out as if wind-blown.
The words came pouring from her mouth, a desperate plea. “No, Tobias. No. I don't want to go back with you. Just go away and leave me in peace. Please, I beg you.”
“I can't do that, baby. I have missed you like hell. I need you,” he admitted, pulling her against him, his sickening scent of sweat, and stale alcohol breath creating an offensive zone all around him.
“You don't need me. You have all your other women. Just let me go, Tobias. Just let me go.” Tears invaded her eyes, blinding her and she stood there staring at him, her life suddenly shattered by his presence, her future threatened by the man she loathed and despised.
“God, I want you so much,” he invoked hungrily. In a single motion that caught Rochelle off guard, he clamped his mouth upon her lips.
Snatching her head back away from him, an involuntary scream tore from her lips. She struggled uselessly to get away from him, but his strength was no match for her. While he grasped her at the nape of her neck, she watched as his lips descended upon hers, claiming what he silently vowed was his to take.
“Let her go, Chandler!” Michael's voice came from the doorway, strangely calm.
Rochelle cringed inside with fright, struck by the memory that Tobias never went anywhere without a gun. Even before she could open her mouth to warn Michael, Tobias was pulling the gun from the waistband of his pants, pointing it straight at Michael.
“Noooooooo!” Rochelle screamed, throwing herself in the path of the gun, and was instantly snatched back by Tobias's firm jerk on her arm.
He pulled the trigger, firing a single shot, and Rochelle watched in horror as Michael crumpled to the floor, blood flowing from his wound and quickly spreading in a red puddle on the carpet beneath him.
Rochelle screamed, instinctively wanting to run to Michael, to hold him, minister to him, and help him. Instead, she saw Tobias taking aim for another shot, and with all her strength, she jerked from Tobias's hold and threw herself between the gun and Michael.
The gun pointed straight at her chest this time, and she squeezed her eyes shut waiting for the explosion of the bullet to penetrate her flesh.
In that instant, Rochelle felt her whole world sliding away from her. No sound came from Michael and her heart felt like a time-bomb ready to explode inside her chest with pain and fear that Michael might be dead or dying. Without Michael, life wouldn't be worth living, and a bullet from Tobias's gun would be a blessing.
Anything would be better than returning to Miami with him. Sobs rose in her throat and burst from her mouth.
Then she heard a sound, a scrape, some small movement that told her Michael was alive, and her only purpose in life at that moment was to keep him alive, to protect him with her own life however she could.
“No Tobias, please, I beg you!” she cried hysterically, still using her body as a shield for Michael against the gun Tobias aimed at him.
“He has nothing to do with any of this,” she continued. “Just leave him alone, I beg you. If you kill him, you will have to kill me, too! Leave him alone and I will go with you right now! We will walk out that door right now! I'll do anything you ask of me!” she cried desperately.
Tobias's finger seemed to press harder on the trigger. He waved the gun to one side of Rochelle, then the other, trying to get a good shot at Michael. Rochelle moved with the gun, defying his attempt to pull her aside with his other hand, her body the only protection against Tobias firing a fatal shot into Michael's body.
“No, Rochelle!” Michael invoked through a spasm of pain as he watched her attempting to deflect a bullet from him with her body.
She was afraid to turn her back on Tobias, fearing he would point the gun and shoot again. At least Michael was alive, and that was the only important thing. Nothing else mattered except keeping him alive.
“Walk toward the door, Baby,” Tobias said, still trying to get a clear aim at Michael while Rochelle continued her dance to shield Michael against the gun pointed at her chest.
She smelled the rotgut scent of alcohol on Tobias's breath, nearly gagging from it, knowing he was drunk. She knew the threat of prosecution for shooting Michael was the least of his concern now. He would kill Michael without blinking an eye.
“Tobias, please listen to me. If you want me to go with you, then let us both walk to the door. If you shoot him again, I will not go anywhere with you. You might as well just go ahead and shoot me, too.”
Tobias wavered, seeing Michael was in no condition to present a problem. However, he knew the loud explosion of the gunshot might have prompted someone to call the police; thus, getting the hell away from there seemed the most important thing on his agenda now. He lowered his arm, stuck the gun back into his belt, and then grabbing Rochelle's arm, moved toward the door.
“No, Rochelle!” Michael cried out as he struggled to gain his footing. Blood flowed from his wound, and his strength was quickly dwindling. He watched Tobias nearly drag Rochelle out the front door.
From the clump of bushes where she hid, Caroline crouched and watched. She saw Chandler push Rochelle in the back seat of the car driven by another man. He crawled in behind her, closed the door, and the car sped down the street.