The Silence That Speaks (Forensic Instincts 4)

Slapping Emma one more time, Roger felt some of his anger dissipate. His heart was racing. He’d certainly taught her a lesson. He was not someone to be toyed with. Now she knew better.

Emma’s Sim called a cab and crawled off in defeat. Good. The bitch had gotten what she deserved. And who knew? Maybe tomorrow night he’d start courting her again, repair their relationship, only to smack her around once more. He’d lead her on, just to crush her...the same way she’d done to him. This could give him hours of entertainment.

That gave Roger an idea. His heart started pumping with more adrenaline, and his mind started racing. It would be a shame if Emma’s Sims house burned to the ground. Grease fires were so lethal...an oven could go up in smoke in mere minutes. And if he took away the windows and doors, she would have no escape. She’d be totally helpless, dependent on him to save her very life.

The very princess he’d rescued would meet destruction by his hands. Well, that’s what happened to plastic people.

They melted.

Ironically, the Sims world wasn’t that different from real life.

* * *

Thinking about the task at hand, Janet pressed down on the gas pedal and accelerated a bit. Most New Yorkers hated driving. Not her. Under normal conditions, she actually enjoyed driving her Lincoln Town Car. When Dr. Safron had offered to sell it to her at a bargain price, she’d jumped at the opportunity. It was more luxurious than she could have afforded new, and she loved the way it floated on the highway. She also enjoyed the respect it commanded from onlookers, who assumed she was a person of some means.

If only they knew the truth.

She’d been driving for over an hour and a half when she pulled off the thruway at Exit 19, Kingston. Normally she would have used her E-ZPass, but tonight she pulled a ticket upon entering the thruway and paid cash upon leaving. She headed west on Onteora Trail toward the Ashokan Reservoir and Belleayre Ski Center.

Another twenty minutes and she’d be there.

* * *

Janet arrived at the tiny ski lodge cabin at 3:45 a.m.

She turned off her headlights and drove all the way down the gravel driveway until her car was no longer visible from the dirt road. The closest neighbor was twenty acres away, so no one would see her.

She took her tote bag and let herself in through the back door.

The same warm, fuzzy feeling as always greeted Janet as she came in. She loved this place. It might be owned by a corporation, but in all ways that mattered, it was hers.

Given how long it had been since someone had lived here, the place should smell musty. It didn’t. Janet prided herself on her biweekly visits, when she scrubbed the cabin from top to bottom, left it smelling fresh as pine trees, after which she spent one nostalgic night in the master bed.

Alone with her memories.

Now she shut the back door behind her, put down her tote and flipped on the low light over the kitchen stove. The cabin went from blackness to twilight. There was something very fitting about the aura it created—a melancholy ache that permeated the few small rooms. A galley kitchen, a cozy den with a fireplace and a bathroom between two bedrooms.

Janet walked around the cabin, looking at each room and remembering. She ran her hand over the rustic wooden furniture in the kitchen and den. She stood in the doorway of the smaller bedroom—taking in all the pinks and whites she remembered so well, with stuffed animals still sitting on the bed.

Then she turned to the master bedroom, hovering in the doorway and gazing at the bed.

Waves of memory flooded her.

Weekends of passionate lovemaking with Ronald. The final months of pregnancy living here all alone. The joy of giving birth to Diana within these very walls, assisted only by a local midwife. The mania of being a new mother. The joy of watching Diana grow from an infant into a little girl. Occasional ski weekends when Diana would sleep over at one of Janet’s local friends—just so the ski weekend could be only her and Ronald. Promises that Ronald made and never kept. Janet’s loneliness without companionship. Diana’s desperate need for a father that she never knew.

It was time to bring this chapter of their lives to a close—before Forensic Instincts closed it for them.

Returning to the kitchen, Janet opened her tote bag and removed the purchases she’d made at Nuthouse Hardware.

First, she placed the large cast-iron skillet on the propane stove and lit the burner. She waited until the pan was blazing hot. Then she removed the bacon from its package and dropped it into the skillet. The meat and fat hissed angrily in the skillet as it started to smoke. She reached up, opened a nearby cabinet and took out the bottle of Jack Daniel’s she kept there. Unscrewing the cap, she carelessly spilled the whiskey all over the counter, stove and skillet.

Instantly the amber liquid exploded in flames, quickly engulfing the counter and the nearby oven mitts. The flames traveled up the greasy backsplash and licked at the wooden cabinets. Rapidly the fire spread to adjacent walls, then to the ceiling.

Tears rolled down Janet’s cheeks as her eyes were accosted by the smoke. But the sobs escaping her were not caused by the smoke. This was emotional agony in its basest sense.

Squeezing her eyes shut to block out the scene, she turned, walked to the back door and opened it. The rush of fresh air added a burst of energy to the raging inferno behind her. She walked outside numbly, turning only when she reached her car.

Taking one last look, she saw sparks flying everywhere as the roof collapsed into the fiery pile of wood that was once her home.