Man,
he had sure made out nicely on that deal--$75,000 in insurance
money for a house with a leaking roof and termites chewing away
at the foundation. Half a coffee can of gasoline and a book of
matches. Hard to beat that! And the insurance money had more than
paid off his truck and the gambling debts he owed at Smitty’s
Bar. Yep, it would’ve been perfect except for Lindy Beth’s
screw up. Her mistake had cost him his wife and son. He would
never get to run his fingers through Shelby’s dark curls
again, never smell the vanilla musk on her neck, never feel her
smooth hands rub him down with wintergreen isopropyl after a long
haul in the truck. And then there was little Gator Jr., too. Who
could ask for more obedient boy? He’d fetch the whole damn
woodpile in a blizzard if you asked him to. Gator’s eyes
teared up, and he sniffed.
“Oh, my God, Gator. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have
pointed it out to you.”
“It’s all right.” One of the fishing lines had
gone slack from the current bouncing the bait along the bottom.
He reeled in some line and set the pole handle back into its mud
hole.
Gator bit down hard on his lip and looked at Lindy Beth out of
the corner of his eye. Yeah, she was sorry all right. It was all
her fault. Bird-brained bitch! He should have known better. If
only he had double-checked the house before lighting the gasoline.
But why would he? Lindy Beth had told him no one was home. He
had telephoned her from a truck stop on his drive back from Memphis,
called her at Grammy’s house on Christmas Eve morning, listening
to her whine about how much she missed him and how she wished
he could be at Grammy’s house for the Christmas Eve sleep
over and gift exchange. The whole family was supposed to be spending
the night at Grammy’s house, including Shelby and Gator
Jr. But that’s not how it happened. No, that wasn’t
how it happened at all.
Maybe Lindy Beth had planned it that way. Maybe she had wanted
them to be burned alive so she could have him all to herself.
Made sense. Her panties had been wet for him since the sixth grade,
since the day he’d diddled her in the tree house high up
in the white oak in Grammy’s back yard. They were just kids--just
two kids playing like kids will do. Only she didn’t get
over it. She’d rub up against him every chance she got.
She’d beg and cry like a baby when he pushed her away. Oh
yeah, he gave in every now and then when she was hot on him. But
only because Lindy Beth would do anything, anything he told her
to do. He told her a woman’s eyes were just another pair
of ovaries and that her brain was an empty uterus. He told her
that, and she believed him.
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