Divine Evil

hands on her shoulders. Bending, he kissed her cheeks in turn.
    “Amazing.”
    Clare's breath whistled out. “Thank God.”
    “I hate to be wrong.” Angie's voice was taut with excitement. “I really
hate
to have to admit I might be wrong. But coming here, working here was the best thing you could have done. Christ, Clare, you stagger me.”
    Clare put an arm around each of them, torn between the urge to weep and to howl with laughter. In her heart she'd known the sculptures were good. But her head had taken over with nasty, nagging doubts.
    “Let's have the wine,” she said.
    Bob Meese hurried back to his shop, entering through the rear to avoid customers. He locked both the outside and inside doors before picking up the phone. As he dialed he tried to work up some saliva. Facing in the light of day what he did at night always dried up the spit in his mouth.
    “I saw her,” he said the moment the phone was answered.
    “And?”
    “She's thinking about her old man all right. You can see it.” Bob took a moment to thank any deity that he'd been too young to be initiated when Jack Kimball had taken his last fall. “I don't think she knows what he was into-I mean, she acts too easy about it. I was right about that statue, though. I got a better look at it today.”
    “Tell me.”
    Bob wished he'd taken the time to get himself a nice, cold drink. “It looks like-I told you.” He pressed his lips together. Here in his office, with the pictures of his wife and kids standing on his cluttered desk and the smell of linseed oil stinging his nostrils, it was hard to believe he was one of them.
    Enjoyed being one of them.
    “The ceremonial mask, the robes. A beast on a man's body.” His voice lowered to a whisper, though there was no one to hear. “It could be any one of us-just like she'd seen. I don't think she remembers, exactly-or she doesn't know she remembers.”
    “A part of her does.” The voice was flat and ice-cold. “And might be dangerous. We'll watch her. Perhaps give her a gentle warning.”
    Bob was only marginally relieved by the word
gentle.
“Listen, I don't think she remembers, really. Nothing to hurt us. She'd have told the sheriff. And from the look of things, those two are too busy squeaking bedsprings to talk about much of anything.”
    “Eloquently put.” The cool disdain in the tone made Bob wince. “I'll take your opinion under advisement.”
    “I don't want anything to happen to her. She's a friend.”
    “You have no friends but the brotherhood.” It was no statement, but a warning. “If she needs to be dealt with, she will be. Remember your oath.”
    “I remember,” Bob said as the phone clicked in his ear. “I remember.”
    Sarah Hewitt strolled down Main Street, delighted with the balmy evening. The mildness gave her a good excuse to wear shorts and watch the old farts in front of the post office go big-eyed. The thin denim was so tight she'd had to lie down on her bed to pull up the zipper. The material dug seductively into her crotch. Her full, firm breasts swayed lightly under a cropped T-shirt with WILD THING scrawled across the chest.
    She'd doused herself with an Opium rip-off and painted her mouth a dark, dangerous red. She walked slowly, lazily, knowing that all eyes were trained on her jigglingass. There was nothing Sarah liked better than drawing attention, and it didn't matter a damn to her if it was the shocked or approving kind.
    She'd been drawing it since sixth grade, when she'd let Bucky Knight take off her shirt behind the bushes during the school picnic. Since Bucky was three years older, he'd gotten the brunt of old Gladys Finch's wrath. A fact that had amused Sarah no end, since the little experiment was her idea in the first place.
    Three years later, she'd let little Marylou Wilson's daddy do a lot more than look. Sarah had baby-sat for Marylou most every Saturday night for fifty cents an hour. But when horny Sam Wilson drove Sarah home, he'd given her an extra twenty to keep her mouth shut if he copped a few feels.
    She'd enjoyed the money but quickly got tired of Sam's sweaty hands and flabby belly. So she'd seduced a boy her own age, one of the Hawbaker boys-damned if she could remember which one.
    It didn't matter, she thought. They were all married now to eagle-eyed, wide-assed women.
    She was beginning to think of marriage herself-though not of fidelity. The idea of being stuck in bed with one man for the rest of her life was revolting. But