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Joshua pushed one hand through his mane of snohite hair "But if Bruno killed other women--
where are their bodies?"
"Not in St Helena," Hilary said "He may have been schizophrenic, but the respectable, Dr Jekyll-half of his personality was firmly in control when he was around people who knew hione out of town to kill Out of the valley"
"San Francisco," Tony said, "He apparently went there regularly"
"Any town in the northern part of the state," Hilary said, "Any place far enough away from the Napa Valley for him to be anonymous"
"Noait," Joshua said "Wait a minute Even if he went soue resemblance to Katherine, even if he killed them in other towns--he’d still have to leave bodies behind There would have been similarities in the way he murdered them, links that the authorities would have noticed, They’d be looking for a modern-day Jack the Ripper We’d have heard all about it on the news"
"If the murders were spread over five years and over a lot of towns in several counties, the police probably wouldn’t e state
Hundreds of thousands of square anizations, and there’s seldoht to be In fact, there’s only one sure-fire way for thes--that’s if at least two, and preferably three, of the murders take place in a relatively short span of tile police jurisdiction, one county or one city"
Hilary walked away from the desk, returned to the couch "So it’s possible," she said, feeling as cold as the October wind sounded "It’s possible that he’s been slaughtering wo the past five years, and I’ave him any trouble"
"It’s not only possible, but probable," Tony said "I’d say we can count on it" The Xerox of the letter that had been found in the safe-deposit box was on the coffee table in front of him; he picked it up and read the first sentence aloud "’My o, but she keeps co back to life in new bodies,’"
"Bodies," Hilary said
"That’s the key word," Tony said "Not body, singular Bodies, plural From that, I think we can infer that he killed her several tirave ray "But if you’re rightI’ve beenall of us in St Helena have been living beside the most evil, vicious sort of ri us in the clothes of a common man’"
"What’s that froot a dustbin ets throhether I want to hold on to it or not I re tis of one of the saints, but I don’t recall which one ’The Beast of Hell walks a us in the clothes of a common man If the demon should reveal its true face to you at a time when you have turned away froleefully devour your heart and rend you li pit’"
"You sound like Latham Hawthorne," Joshua said
Outside, the wind shrieked
Frye put the knife on the nightstand, well out of Sally’s reach Then he grabbed the lapels of her uniforarment open Buttons popped
She was paralyzed by terror She did not resist hirinned at her and said, "No, Mother Now, I get even"
He ripped the dress all the way down the front and flung it open She was revealed in bra and panties and pantyhose, a slim, pretty body He clutched the cups of her bra and jerked them down
The straps bit into her skin and then broke Fabric tore Elastic snapped
Her brsts were large for her size and bone structure, round and full, with very dark, pebbly nipples He squeezed theravelly voice, that one word acquired the eerie quality of a sinister chant, a Satanic litany
He wrenched off her shoes, first the right, then the left, and threw them aside One of them struck the mirror above the dresser and shattered it
The sound of falling glass roused the woman from her shock-induced catatonic trance, and she tried to pull away froth; she writhed and fluttered ineffectually against him
He held her without difficulty, slapped her tith such force that her ed open and her eyes swam A fine thread of blood unraveled from the corner of her mouth, ran down her chin
"You rotten bitch!" he said, furious "No sex, huh? I can’t have any sex, you said No sex ever, you said Can’t risk so out what I am, you said Well, you already knohat I am, Mother You already knowfrom you, Mother You know I’m different from other men You know my prick isn’t like theirs You knoho my father was You know You know that my prick is like his I don’t have to hide it fro to shove it into you, Mother All the way up into you You hearher head froot control of herself, locked eyes with hiazed intently at him (and he could see Katherine in there, beyond the brown eyes, glaring out at him), and she said, "Listen to me Please, listen to me! You’re sick You’re a very sick man You’re all mixed up You need help"
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!"
He slapped her again, harder than he had done before, swinging his big hand in a long swift arc, into the side of her face
Each act of violence excited hiasps of pain and her birdlike cries, by the way her tender flesh reddened and swelled The sight of her pain-contorted face and her scared-rabbit eyes stoked his lust to an unbearable white-hot fla He was breathing like a bull His eyes ide Hisso excessively that he had to s every couple of seconds to avoid drooling on her
He hed them up
She had retreated from the terror, had slipped back into that seid
On the one hand, Bruno hated her and did not care how badly he hurt her He wanted to cause her pain He wanted her to suffer for all the things she had done to hi him into the world in the first place
But on the other hand, he was asha histo stick his penis into her Therefore, as he pawed at her, he tried to explain himself and justify his actions: "You told me that if I ever tried to ht away that I’m not human You said she’d see the difference, and she’d know She’d call the police, and they’d take me away, and they’d burn me at the stake because they’d knoho my father was But you already know It’s no surprise to you, Mother So I can use ht up in you, Mother, and no one will burnit into her while she was alive He’d been hopelessly cowed by her But by the time she had come back from the dead in her first new body, Bruno had tasted freedo and new ideas He realized at once that he ain--or dragging hirave with her But he also realized that he could screw her and be safe, since she already knew his secret She was the one who had told him the truth about himself; she’d told him ten thousand times She knew that his father was a de, for she had been raped by that inhu her pregnancy, she had worn overlapping girdles to conceal her condition When her tiive birth under the care of a close-mouthed midwife in San Francisco Later, she told people in St Helena that Bruno was the illegitiotten in trouble, that his real mother died shortly after his birth, and that her last as for Katherine to raise the boy She brought the baby hoally placed in her care and custody She lived in constant, nu fear that someone would discover Bruno was hers, and that his father was not hueny of a demon was his penis He had the penis of a demon, different from that of a man He must always hide it, she said, or he would be uncovered and burned at the stake She had told hi hi to knohat a penis was for So, in a peculiar way, she had beco and his curse She was a curse because she kept returning froain control of hi because, if she didn’t keep coain, he wouldn’t have anyone into whoreat, hot quantities of sen that built up like boiling lava in him Without her, he was dooarded her resurrections with horror and outrage, a part of hierly looked forward to each new encounter with each new body that she inhabited
Now, as he knelt on the bed beside her, looking down at her brsts and at the dark pubic bush that was visible through her pale yellow panties, his erection grew so hard that it hurt He are of the de itself; he felt the beast surging toward the surface of his mind