Cooked Goose

she could under the circumstances... she dyed her hair orange and green, and got her tongue pierced, too.
    He had kicked her out. And Mom had let him.
    To hell with them both, she decided.
    Worse yet, they had shipped her off to her dad’s. Talk about going from bad to worse. Oh, sure, he had bought her the Roadster, and it was a pretty cool car.
    But it didn’t make up for years of coming home to an empty house and waiting, hour after hour, for your parent to arrive... a parent who, if honest, would admit wishing that you weren’t living there.
    As she pulled into the driveway and pushed the button on the remote garage-door opener, she didn’t know whether to hope her dad’s car would be inside or not. Her dad... or being alone... what a lousy choice.
    He was gone.
    Okay, fine. She’d blast out his stereo and smoke a joint right in the living room. He wouldn’t smell it when he did come home; he’d been smoking cigarettes for so long that his nose didn’t work.
    Maybe she’d shoot up some heroin, too, just to irk him, and invite some boys over for an orgy.
    Except that Margie didn’t do that sort of thing. No hard stuff- She might smoke some pot once in a blue moon. She might drink a little and let a boyfriend feel her up if she really, really liked him. She might yell at her folks to get what she wanted from time to time, but Margie liked to think that, basically, she was a lot better kid than they gave her credit for being.
    She had friends who were a lot worse.
    As she pulled her Roadster into the dark garage, she was careful not to hit the trash cans on her right or the water heater on the left. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, the car was pretty special to her, and she wanted to keep the paint and body perfect for as long as she could.
    When he had given it to her, her dad had made some smart-mouth remark about how she would probably wreck it the first month. She would show him how wrong he was... how responsible she had become since she had turned sixteen. It was time the old man realized, she wasn’t a kid anymore.
    Making sure the car was securely in Park, she cut the key and grabbed her purse from the seat beside her. Just as she was opening the door, she thought of what Savannah had said about being careful when you got in and out of your vehicle. Savannah was pretty cool; Margie wished she had a mom or at least a big sister like Savannah to talk to, to do things with. That would be—
    The rest of the thought vanished the instant she saw him, a man-shaped shadow, slipping beneath the garage door just before it slid closed.
    He was inside! With her! And the door was closed!
    It’s your dad, her mind whispered frantically. And she tried with all her might to believe it.
    He forgot his keys or something. Yeah, that’s it.
    But that wasn’t it.
    And he wasn’t her father.
    Through the garage’s one small window, the streetlamp shone in, just enough for her to see the snowy, curly beard, the silly hat with the white fur trim.
    She opened her mouth to scream, but the cry froze there, choking her, and all that came out was a strangled, gagging sound.
    “Don’t!” he said as he moved closer to her. “Don’t scream, don’t say anything, just do exactly what I say. Because if you don’t, I’m going to kill you. Do you understand?”
    Margie nodded as a wave of pure terror washed over her, icy cold, from head to toe. When the jolt of adrenaline hit her knees they nearly buckled beneath her.
    “I said, ‘Do you understand?’ ” he repeated. His voice had a harsh, cruel tone to it. “Answer me, or I’ll kill you right here and now.”
    “Yes.” She gulped and nodded her head vigorously. “I understand you.”
    And she did. She understood him much better than he probably realized.
    Margie wasn’t a stupid girl. She had lied and been lied to many times before, and she was streetwise enough to recognize manipulation when she heard it.
    And she knew deep in her gut—just as she had known that this intruder wasn’t her father the instant he had entered the garage—whether she did as she was told or not, this guy intended to hurt her.
    Then he was going to kill her.

CHAPTER NINE

    7:42 P.M.

    “ T ammy, I can’t believe you did all this. Bless your little pea-pickin’ heart.” Savannah gave her assistant a hug as she surveyed her “child-proof” guest bedroom, stripped to the bare minimum in anticipation of the arrival of the twins from Hades. “You put away the china