Love Can Be Murder

sudden gust of cold wind blew over her, raising a chill. Penny hugged herself and lifted her gaze to the new subdivisions carved into the hills around Mojo proper. The palatial, modern homes stared down at her and the town like predators with huge glass eyes. Even in the daylight, the creepy feeling of being watched was inescapable.
    Penny inhaled deeply to calm her frayed nerves with clean, pumpkin-scented air, but instead she got a head full of paint fumes. Unable to deny her curiosity any longer, Penny pivoted to her right and gasped at the sight of her beloved home, now almost completely covered in the dreadful pink color, like the stomach being coated in the Pepto-Bismol commercial. She covered her mouth with her hand to smother the choking noise that erupted from her throat. Unbidden, tears sprang to her eyes.
    "Ain't it something?"
    Penny blinked. Her feet had carried her to the sidewalk on their own volition. And to her horror, Sheena Linder stood across the narrow two-lane road, dressed in tight jeans and a tighter sweater, sporting a white neck brace and smirking at Penny behind enormous gold sunglasses.
    Penny's tongue lodged against the roof of her mouth. She'd seen the woman come and go from the tanning salon on the square, but the last time she'd seen her face-to-face (so to speak) had been when Penny had caught her having sex with Deke. She'd relived that scene a thousand times, wishing she had done or said something so profound that both of them would have begged for forgiveness—or at least disengaged from each other. Instead, they had paused to stare at her stupidly only long enough to curse before resuming their slapping, heaving screw. She had heard them climax as she had stumbled out into the hall, their squeals and moans mingling to create a noise as unnerving and unforgettable as the screech of a computer connecting to a modem. It was the single most degrading moment of her life.
    During the divorce, Penny had somehow managed to avoid the woman's company, although she had secretly fantasized about writing something nasty on the windows of the Forever Sun tanning salon or running into Sheena at the grocery store and saying something wicked and clever over the public address system.
    But whatever clever words she had dreamed up escaped her now as the woman looked both ways and teetered across the street on hooker high heels. Penny could not have been more terrified if a car had been careening toward her. Her feet were rooted to the spot as she estimated the distance back to the front door of her store. And yet some small, realistic part of her knew she was going to have to deal with the woman sooner or later.
    Although later was definitely more appealing.
    Traffic literally stopped for the curvaceous woman as she crossed the two lanes. Catcalls ensued as Sheena beamed and waved at the male drivers in both directions, stroking the brace around her neck, managing to look sexy and sympathetic at the same time. Penny watched in stupefied awe, taking a couple of steps backward as Sheena joined her on the sidewalk. The woman's skin was the color of a scorched sweet potato, her hair platinum blond. Next to Sheena's trendy, tight clothing, Penny felt like a plain, pale pioneer woman in her wrinkled denim overalls, flat, chunky-heeled sandals, and long-sleeve hemp shirt.
    "I wanted to see the house from over here while the painters were taking a break," Sheena said with a toss of her head. Indeed, the workers and the van were gone. She peeled off the sunglasses, stared at the house, and sighed. "It's perfect."
    Penny straightened. "Pardon me, I was just leaving."
    "You don't like it?" Sheena asked with an innocent smile.
    Penny set her jaw. "It's none of my concern. It's Deke's house."
    "And mine, soon," Sheena said, holding out her left hand. On her ring finger, a huge, dazzling diamond nearly lasered Penny's corneas. "I thought you should know that Deke and I are getting married." She grinned, meanly. "No hard feelin's."
    Hurt and rage rose in Penny's chest like a tide, overwhelming her. Scenes from the past several months swam in her brain—the betrayal, the heartbreak, the attorneys, the arguments, the upheaval, the loneliness, the VD tests. She had found Deke's fumbling foreplay amusing, his back hair endearing. She had loved him despite his faults, yet he had exposed her to ridicule and speculation. The mail in her left hand rattled as her arm began to shake. It was one thing to bear the