CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Lillian Martin sipped her wine, a chianti—West's favorite—and watched the news on her tv, a brand new discount smart tv to replace the one she had smashed a couple of weeks before.

She really needed to find something to take her anger out on besides TVs.

"At least I'm not in a hotel anymore."

She had rented an apartment four miles away from Faith Bold's apartment, far enough that it was unlikely they'd run into each other at the grocery store, but close enough that if Lillian felt a need to drive certain points closer to home, she could do it.

If the news was anything to go by, she would need to drive those points closer to home.

The news anchor was reporting on the murder of an electronics store clerk who had a tv placed into his hollowed-out abdomen with the message This is your fault, Bold taped to the top. And somehow, the news, the police, the FBI and the general public had all decided that this was probably unrelated to the West case and to Faith Bold in general. "Experts" believed the man was targeted by thieves who had staged the gruesome murder to try to hide behind the West case and throw the police off the scent. They pointed to the stolen smart TV and the empty till as evidence of that.

Lillian stared at the stolen smart tv and resisted the urge to crack it in half over her knee. She shouldn't have stolen the damned thing. That was her mistake. That's why they were able to put this off as a simple robbery.

But the cash she didn't have a choice about. She didn't have a job. She'd gotten the apartment by forging documents. As long as she paid rent, that wouldn't be a problem, but if she was going to pay rent, she either needed a job, or she needed to steal.

She sighed irritably and tossed back the rest of her glass before pouring more wine. She wanted to tear the place apart. She wanted to scream until her throat bled. She wanted to find Faith Bold, tear her eyes out, shove them down her throat, then stomp on her throat until both the throat and the eyeballs popped.

But that wasn't what West would do. West would evaluate the situation, identify mistakes, and make a plan that would avoid those mistakes in the future. So that's what Lillian would do.

"Yeah, except that West would become so fucking obsessed with that bitch that he would get himself thrown into prison for the rest of his life."

She could feel her hands starting to shake. She was close to seeing red.

She took a deep breath and drank the entire glass of wine in one gulp. The headrush and the slight wave of nausea that followed dulled her anger and allowed her to think.

Killing the clerk wasn't a mistake. In fact, it was a stroke of genius. It was garish and shocking. She needed to be both to get Faith Bold's attention.

The mistake was stealing the tv and the cash. She could avoid the first mistake by finding something other than TVs to break. Maybe she could get a punching bag and just hit that whenever she was enraged. As for the cash…

She sighed and poured more wine. "God damn it."

She really didn't want to get a job. It wasn't the idea of work that bothered her. She wasn't lazy. But if she worked, then she would have less time to focus on breaking Faith Bold and finishing what West and Trammell couldn't. And she would have to find a way to keep her anger under control. She wasn't sure if she could. After all, losing her cool at work was what had landed her in the mental hospital anyway.

But West had pulled her out. He had shown her that there was a way to satisfy her violent urges without going haywire and getting herself in trouble. He was every bit as violent as she was. He loved the feeling of blood spurting from his victims, loved the sound of their terrified screams, loved the godlike power that came from taking one of these pathetic, irritating little fucking animals and showing them in their last moments how utterly worthless they were as anything more than a toy for his amusement.

She loved thinking of West's piercing blue eyes gazing down at the helpless animal he'd captured. She loved thinking of her own knife joining his as they tore that animal apart. She loved imagining the taste of that blood on their lips as they kissed.

She moaned softly and flinched. "None of that right now," she said, downing her latest glass of wine. "Work now, play later."

She had to get a job. She could work mornings at a retail store. Maybe a coffee shop.

No, bad idea. If she had to see cranky people face to face first thing in the morning, she would end up in a mental institution again within a week. She would get a job with customer service. If she didn't have to see the bitches screaming at her, she could squeeze a stress ball to death and keep her perky voice and smile.

And she would remind herself that it was all for a reason. It was all for a purpose. She could be patient. She could take her time and make sure that the next time she called to Faith Bold, that whore would have no choice but to pay attention.

She poured herself another glass of wine, closed her eyes and sipped. She imagined West's lips pressed against hers and pretended the wine was blood.