Twisted

guns. Carolyn remembered the forms he’d had to fill out to buy them; she knew gun shops kept good records of ownership. She mentioned this now.
    “Might be stolen, might not be his,” Lawrence said.
    “It’d have his fingerprints on it.”
    “We’d have to wipe it—you touched it, remember?” But then he laughed.
    “What?”
    “Well, even if we wiped the gun, the bullets’d still have his prints on them.”
    She nuzzled against his neck.
    “But,” Lawrence added, “he’s just a carjacker. You really want to bring him down on a murder charge?”
    “He was going to rape me,” she pointed out. “Maybe kill me. Look at it like this: We’ll be doing a good deed, getting him put away before he hurts someone.”
    “A hundred thousand?” Lawrence gazed up at the ceiling. “You know, those social workers and counselors. . . in prison, I mean? They’d ask about all sorts of crazy stuff. What appealed to me about antisocial behavior? What was I angry about? Was my childhood conflicted? ” He laughed. “They didn’t like my answers. I told ’em I could make five thousand a day just to break some poor schmuck’s arm. Who the hell wouldn’t want a job like that?”
    “Well, here’s a chance for your nest egg.” She kissed his ear and whispered the words that always thrilled her, “Tax free.”
    He thought for a moment. “We’d have to set it up carefully. Maybe we find the motel where he’s meeting his girlfriend—”
    “I know it. They always go to the same place.”
    “How does it work?” He laughed. “I was married for ten years and I never had an affair. Would she leave the place first? Or him?”
    “She’d leave first. He’d wait, pay for the room.”
    “Okay, after he pays he gets in the car. I’m there waiting for him.”
    “And you shoot him?”
    Lawrence laughed. “In a motel parking lot? With people around? I don’t think so. No, I’ll force him to drive me someplace deserted. Do it there. Make it look like we fought and I shot him. Then I panicked and jumped out of the car and ran. I’ll drop the gun on the way. You follow and pick me up. . . . When should we do it? Sooner’s better. I need the money bad. I owe big-time on that Lincoln.”
    “Stan usually goes to see her on Tuesday and Thursday nights.”
    “Today’s Tuesday,” he said.
    She nodded. “That’s where he is now.”
    “Well, day after tomorrow. Sure. It’s a good setup. We’ve got a murder weapon that can’t be traced to us, a good motive. And a fall guy.”
    Carolyn rolled atop Lawrence once more, straddled him, feeling his interest in her Pamela Anderson body rapidly reviving. And she thought: We sure do have a fall guy, Lawrence. You. An ex-con out of work, a man with a great motive to rob Stan—and kill him in the process.
    “I think it’ll work,” he said.
    “I think it will too,” Carolyn said. And started to chew on his lower lip.

    Sensuous curves . . .
    The car gently rocking back and forth.
    It was Thursday, another overcast spring evening, and Carolyn was wearing a long-sleeved navy blouse and a pleated skirt that ended halfway between knee and ankle. A couple of the assistants in the hospital office had looked at her with surprise. No cleavage today, no thigh, no straining buttons. The AquaNet had remained capped and her hair was pulled back in a plain ponytail. She’d decided that after she made the anonymous call to the police reporting one man shooting another in a green Cadillac, she’d have to speed back home and prepare to be the demure, innocent widow. A costume change might be hard to manage in time.
    She found herself in an odd state: nearly aroused. The sashaying of the car, the cool air on her skin. And, she had to admit, the thought of Stan dying turned her on.
    So did getting her hands on his money. He was such a miser. He wouldn’t even buy her the damn Lexus. It had to be a lease.
    Thinking about Lawrence too.
    Such a great lover.
    But a better fall guy.
    Too bad, Larry.
    It wouldn’t be easy, though. She couldn’t call the cops from the car phone, of course; there’d be a record of the call. So she decided to pick the place for the hit herself. This would make sense to Larry—she was the native; he wouldn’t know the area. She’d suggest that he drive Stan to Cardiff Falls. There, the county road stretched through a steep valley. A mile up the road was a convenience store with two telephones outside.
    She’d follow them and after Larry’d