Time of Death

“Honey, forget all that fame and fortune bullshit and come home where you belong.”

“Oh, Mike, why can’t you understand? I just got a speaking part on a Law and Order episode. I want you to be happy for me. I want you to fly out here and—”

“I can’t.”

“You mean you won’t.”

“Yeah, okay. I won’t. I don’t belong out there and neither do you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I’m not going to live and die in Dunmore, Alabama, and waste the talent the Good Lord gave me. I’ve got a good singing voice and I’m taking acting lessons and my teacher says I’m a natural. And I’m told I have the kind of looks that will help me go far in the business.”

“You do what you have to do,” he’d said. “And I’ll do what I have to do.”

“What you have to do doesn’t include me anymore, does it? You’ve stopped loving me … if you ever really did.”

“How can you say that? I love you so damn much it hurts,” he had told her. “And I miss you something awful. It’s you who doesn’t love me. If you did, you’d come home and we’d get married the way we planned. In a few years, we could save up enough for a house and our first baby.”

“I don’t want a baby! Not now. Not for years and years.”

In the end, Mike had been forced to accept the fact that Lorie would never come back to him, that he had lost her forever.

It had taken him years to get over her, to move on with his life, and he could thank Molly for that. She had been his salvation. All the dreams he’d once had that included Lorie, all the plans the two of them had made together, he had fulfilled with another woman, with Molly. Thinking about his children, he knew that was the way things were meant to be.

He wasn’t the kind of man who wasted his time looking back and wondering what if? or wished for things that he couldn’t have.

Yeah, sure, he could have Lorie, could have had her when she first came back to Dunmore, could have had her before and after Molly died. He could probably still have her. But the Lorie he had known and loved no longer existed. His Lorie was as dead to him as Molly was. The Lorie who had come to him a sixteen-year-old virgin, the girl who had been his and only his. The teenager who had planned her future around him and the family they would one day have.

The Lorie Hammonds who had returned to Dunmore nine years ago was a bruised and battered, used and discarded whore. God only knew how many men she’d had sex with, not just in that sleazy porno movie she’d made, but during the years she had been trying to get her big break. Just about every man in Dunmore had seen her in that film. He had seen the movie once, and the sight of her and what she’d been doing had made him sick.

Why she had ever thought when she returned to Dunmore, her reputation in tatters and her life worthless, that he would forgive her, that they could be friends again, he’d never know.

Mike had been so lost in his thoughts that he almost missed Jack and Cathy’s driveway and had to slam on his brakes and back up a few yards. Lorie parked her SUV, got out, and opened the back hatch. He pulled his truck up behind her vehicle, killed the motor, and got out.

He rushed over to her, grabbed her suitcase, and said, “Here, let me get that for you.”

She released the suitcase without protest and started walking toward the porch. He kept in step alongside her. When they reached the front door, she rang the doorbell and they waited together.

“I appreciate the escort, Sheriff,” she said in a soft, sexy voice that caressed every nerve in his body.

“You’re welcome, Ms. Hammonds. Just doing my job.”

When the door opened, Derek Lawrence stood in the doorway. “Hello, Lorie.” He reached out, grasped her hand, and pulled her over the threshold. He glanced around her and spotted Mike. “Hello, Sheriff. Nice of you to see Lorie here all safe and sound.” He held out his hand. “Here, let me take her suitcase.”

Reluctantly, Mike handed over the suitcase. “Where’s Maleah?”

“On the phone at the moment,” he said. “Seems the newlyweds called to check on Seth and on the old homestead.”

“She isn’t going to tell them about me, is she? I don’t want them worrying while they’re on their honeymoon,” Lorie said.

Derek put his arm around Lorie’s shoulders and ushered her inside the foyer. “I’m sure she won’t say a word. And there’s no reason for anyone to worry about your safety. You have two Powell Agency employees acting as your bodyguards. And may I say what a pleasure this job is for me.”

Mike cleared his throat. Derek glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, are you staying for dinner? Perdue didn’t say. I set the table for three, but I can add another—”

“No thanks.” Mike had the sudden urge to punch Derek Lawrence. “I’ve got other plans.” When Lorie looked at him, he said, “If you need me, I’m just a phone call away.”

“I’m sure she won’t need you,” Derek told him.

With that said, Mike nodded, turned and tromped off the porch. Cursing under his breath, he got in his truck, backed out of the driveway, and couldn’t get away fast enough from the image of Derek Lawrence’s arm draped around Lorie’s shoulders.

Chapter 7

After locking the door and securing it so that no one with a key could enter, he took the laptop from his suitcase and carried it with him to the desk in his motel room. He retrieved the DVD from the pouch on the laptop case, flipped open the plastic case, and carefully removed the disk. With steady fingers, he inserted the disk into the side slot on the computer and waited for the movie to load. He reached over to the far side of the desk, upended a glass, and quickly added ice from the ice bucket that he had filled earlier. As the film credits played, he poured a cola into the glass. He didn’t need to read the credits. He knew them by heart.

Midnight Masquerade. Written by Casey Lloyd and Laura Lou Roberts. Directed by Grant Leroy. Produced by Travis Dillard.

He kicked back in the chair and turned sideways to prop his feet up on the edge of the bed.

Dewey Flowers and Woody Wilson were the stars, the main players in this piece of filth.

Dewey and Woody would never make another sinful movie such as this. They had been punished for their wickedness, for polluting the minds and hearts of everyone who saw this movie; punished for their parts in destroying the lives of the innocent who were adversely affected by the pornography industry, this sickeningly vulgar movie in particular. There was an ironic form of justice in the fact that he was the one who was righting the wrongs they had committed. He supposed that he had known for years that it was his fate to someday seek retribution.

And not only for himself alone.

His gaze settled on the screen. Watching the depraved acts that had been captured on film no longer nauseated him the way it once had. Over the years, he had become immune to the disgusting obscenity, the bestial perversions.

Well-endowed men and big-breasted women frolicked about at a costume ball, but their only costumes were beautiful masks covering their faces. They kissed and licked and sucked one another, their bodies entwining in an orgy of carnal acts. Two men, one wearing a devil mask and the other an intricate court jester/joker mask, laid a voluptuous black woman on the floor and while one penetrated her, the other one toyed with her silicone-enhanced tits.

The two men were Charlie Hung, a strikingly handsome man of Asian descent, and a big, rugged blond—Sonny Shag. The dark-skinned beauty, whose red sequined mask had fallen off and lay on the floor beside her, was Ebony O.

In the background the two stars danced, their bodies rubbing seductively against each other. Woody placed his hands on Dewey’s waist and lifted her high into the air, then let her slide down the front of his body until she was on her knees, his erect penis directly in front of her face.

In the background three young women—a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead—held hands and danced in a circle, the long, colorful ribbons on their masks floating around their shoulders and caressing their naked breasts.

Puff Raven, the tall, elegant brunette.

Cherry Sweets, the exotically beautiful redhead.

And Candy Ruff, the sex-kitten blonde.

Their stage names were ridiculous, of course, but the suggestive pseudonyms were simply part of the fantasy. Other movies produced by the one and only Travis Dillard had starred some of these same actors, and in each film the credits had read like a who’s who of stupid suggestive names.

He had lost count of how many times he had watched Midnight Masquerade. Hundreds of times. Maybe thousands of times.

He knew the dialogue—what little there was—by heart. And he could mimic every grunt, groan, moan, and scream of delight.

He saw the women’s faces—and God help him, their naked bodies, too—in his dreams. One particular face in particular. The woman he loved. The woman he hated. The woman who had ruined his life. The woman who had made him the man he was today.

As much as Lorie appreciated being guarded by Maleah and Derek, she resented the fact that some lunatic’s actions had run her out of her own home. Whoever this guy was, she hoped the police caught him before he killed again.