I see that the patch on his arm says SHERIFF, not DEPUTY. This sheriff isn’t exactly the kindly old man I’d pictured. He’s forty-five at most, and he glances at the license plate of the truck before he follows Steven’s path into the store.
Good God. I blow a long breath past my teeth. My arrogance might have been my downfall if I’d followed through on my plans to kill Steven. That man was not the country bumpkin I assumed I’d be dealing with. That was a man with a suspicious eye and a keen curiosity.
Steven reappears with a big Styrofoam cup of coffee. When he pulls out, I glance in the mirror to see the sheriff standing in the doorway, watching us leave.
Yeah. I would have been in trouble. I want revenge, but I do not want a life sentence. I feel like a damn lucky girl as we hit the highway. I’m not on my way to jail, and what I have planned now will be far more painful for Steven than death. It’s a win-win.
I manage to keep my mouth shut the whole way home, and, boy, it isn’t easy. Either Steven doesn’t remember telling me about Rhonda, or he’s just trying to avoid the subject, because he doesn’t bring it up either.
When we get near the city, I ask if I can come over to his place tonight. When he responds with a grumpy “No,” I’m genuinely disappointed. I want him drunk and spilling more details right now.
But this is for the best. I need to do a little planning.
I wave from the curb as he drives away; then I take the stairs two at a time and burst into my apartment, calling hello to my cat. She blinks sleepily at me from the couch as if she never noticed I was gone. Clearly she did fine without me. She lets me close enough for a few quick strokes of her soft fur, and then she scoots elegantly out of my reach and into the kitchen.
When I check the phone I left behind, I find three text messages from Luke and smile even harder at the sight of them. My cat didn’t miss me, but someone did.
Want to go to dinner? he texted yesterday afternoon.
Then: Checking to make sure you got my text.
And finally: Now I’m just being annoying. Call me tomorrow if you’re free?
I glance at the clock, but it’s already after 8:00. Oh, well.
Popping open my laptop, I first search for everything I can find on Rhonda Hepsworth. Thousands of results appear almost instantaneously, and a quick study shows me that everything on the first few pages is related to the church. I open images and scroll through a few of those, but I see no sign of her wanton secrets here.
She wears the same overdone smile in each one. Her hair is perfect and her necklines modest.
When did this happen with Steven? And how? I’m absolutely dying to know, but he already told me he’d be busy catching up on church business for a couple of days. “Maybe we’ll hang out next weekend,” he’d said gruffly.
If I were truly a needy, dependent Jane, I’d be worried right now. He’s obviously displeased and blowing me off, but my only irritation is that I won’t be able to grill him about Rhonda for a while.
The truth is that he’s embarrassed he didn’t get to show off by bringing home a deer, so he’s pissed at me for witnessing his failure. I told him I was proud of him anyway. That made a vein in his forehead stand out.
If only he’d taken me along on the hunt, he could have blamed his failure directly on me and my noise or female scent or something. Steven didn’t plan ahead.
Tomorrow morning I’ll start lobbying to go to Bible study on Wednesday night, followed up by some fornicating afterward. I need him to take me back to his house so he can get drunk again.
Returning to the hits on Rhonda Hepsworth, I click through to a church newsletter. Steven told me Rhonda had worked in the church offices before she married the pastor. If they keep all the archives online, maybe I can find her maiden name. But it’s a bust. The archives only go back two years.
Still, it all must have been a big deal. Announcements. A grand wedding. I search for “Pastor Robert Hepsworth” and “Rhonda” and “engaged,” and I’ve got it. A beautiful picture of young Rhonda Entenman and her new father figure posing for an engagement picture.
Her smile is more natural and her hair is less blond. She looks genuinely happy and could probably pass for eighteen instead of twenty-two. Good Pastor Hepsworth is positively glowing. The cuckold rises triumphant from his divorce! But still a cuckold, sadly.
Lucky for me, Rhonda has a pretty unique name, so I search her maiden name and here she is: listed on the graduation rolls for a community college, named as a regional champion in the javelin throw during high school . . . and pictured with quite a few red Solo cups on ancient Facebook posts.
Here she is in a bikini on a fishing boat, her arms around two other blondes. She’s flashing a peace sign with one hand and holding a beer in the other. Her body is taut and tan, that unique blend of firm and soft that only comes with youth. I can see what the pastor liked about her. I can see what Steven liked too.
In another picture she’s sitting on a boy’s lap, skirt short and neckline low. He’s smiling down at her cleavage while she laughs. She wasn’t always into older men, it seems. She looks like an entirely average college student. How in the world did she get suckered into marrying Hepsworth?
But she probably wasn’t suckered. She was an average girl dating average boys and going to a cheap community college. The pastor is the chief of his world, with lots of money and influence and a big house. Rhonda decided she was moving up and moving up quick.
Or maybe she was like Meg, looking desperately for a strong man to tell her what to do and wear and say, because she’d never had a dad around to be her moon and sun and anchor or whatever the hell good dads are supposed to be. I don’t know anything about that. I’ve had affairs with far too many of those good dads. They’re men, just men, the same as any other.
However it had happened, Rhonda became the pastor’s wife, with the costume and performance that went with it, and it must not have been what she’d expected. Or maybe she just wanted to have her cake and eat it too. The father with all his money and power, and the son with his young body and filthy talk.
This is all so exciting.
I give up on my research on Rhonda and transfer the photos and video Steven took of me from my burner phone to my computer. I’ve already viewed it all several times, and, frankly, I don’t look too bad even without implants.
I’m in the middle of deleting everything from the burner phone when I pause over one still shot. It’s just my body, my head cut off below the chin. I’m naked, one hand sliding up my neck and the other at my side as if I don’t know what to do with it. The only identifying mark is the filigree cross I wear at my neck. Other than the necklace, I’m completely exposed.
Still pumped up on mischief and adrenaline, I type in a number I stole from Steven’s phone and text the picture with no message. Then I finish deleting the pics and remove the battery and SIM card from the phone to store everything in the dresser. I’ll destroy it all when this is done.
Okay, I might keep a couple of the more flattering pictures. Every woman should have memories of her glory days once she’s old and wrinkled. I’ll add these to my collection.
Back on my old phone, I text Steven a quick I luv u! along with a bunch of pink hearts. He doesn’t respond. Rude.
Then I text Luke. Sorry. I was out of town on a quick trip.
Only about thirty seconds pass before he responds. Something fun?
No. Just work.
I’m reading that book you got me. Thanks again. It’s great.
I’m so glad you like it. I stare at my text for a while, trying to think what I should say, what he’d like me to say. Something to keep him interested now that I have a bit more time with him. I’m really missing your big bathtub tonight.
Just my big bathtub?
He’s good at making me laugh. I send him a winky face.
Want to grab dinner tomorrow? he asks.
I do. I really do. Steven is ignoring me, so it shouldn’t be any trouble at all, and I need to find a way to bide my time until Steven invites me back to his place again.