Divine Evil by Nora Roberts Page B

between him and the other kids in town.
    He contented himself toying with the black candles and pentagrams and goat's blood he kept locked in his desk drawer. While his parents slept in their cozy bed, he worshipped deities they would never understand.
    And he watched the town from his aerielike perch atop the house, focusing his high-powered telescope. He saw a great deal.
    His house stood diagonally across from the Kimball place. He'd seen Clare arrive and watched her regularly ever since. He knew the stories. Since she had come back to town they had all been dug up and opened-like an old casket, they breathed out sorrow and death. He'd waited to see when she would go up, when the light in the Kimball attic would go on. But she had yet to explore that room.
    He wasn't very disappointed. For now, he could home his lens in on her bedroom window. He'd already watched her dress, pulling a shirt down her long, lean torso, hitching jeans over her narrow hips. Her body was very slender and very white, the triangle between her legs as red and glossy as the hair on her head. He imagined himself creeping through her back door, quietly climbing her steps. Hewould clamp a hand over her mouth before she screamed. Then he would tie her down, and while she writhed and bucked helplessly, he would do things to her-things that would make her sweat and strain and groan.
    When he was done, she would beg him to come back.
    It would be great, he thought, really great, to rape a woman in a house where someone had died violently.
    Ernie heard the truck clatter down the street. He recognized Bob Meese's Ford from Yesterday's Treasures in town. The truck lumbered up the Kimball drive, belching carbon monoxide. He saw Clare jump out, and though he couldn't hear, he could see she was laughing and talking excitedly as the portly Meese heaved himself down from the cab.
    “I appreciate this, Bob, really.”
    “No problemo.” He figured it was the least he could do for old times′ sake-even though he'd only dated Clare once. On the night her father died. In any case, when a customer plunked down fifteen hundred without haggling, he was more than willing to deliver the merchandise. “I'll give you a hand with the stuff.” He hitched up his sagging belt, then hauled a drop leaf table out of the truck bed. “This is a nice piece. With some refinishing, you'll have a gem.”
    “I like it the way it is.” It was scarred and stained and had plenty of character. Clare muscled out a ladder-back chair with a frayed rush seat. There was a matching one still on the truck, along with an iron standing lamp with a fringed shade, a rug in a faded floral pattern, and a sofa.
    They carried the light loads inside, then wrestled the rug between them, chatting as they worked about old friends, new events. Bob was already panting when theywalked back to the truck to study the curvy red brocade sofa.
    “This is great. I'm crazy about the swans carved in the armrests.”
    “Weighs a ton,” Bob said. He started to hoist himself up on the bed when he spotted Ernie loitering on the curb across the street. “Hey, Ernie Butts, what you doing?”
    Ernie's sulky mouth turned down. His hands dove into his pockets. “Nothing.”
    “Well, get your ass over here and do something. Kid's creepy,” Bob muttered to Clare, “but he's got a young back.”
    “Hi.” Clare offered Ernie a sympathetic smile when he sauntered over. “I'm Clare.”
    “Yeah.” He could smell her hair, fresh, clean with sexy undertones.
    “Get on up there and help me haul this thing.” Bob jerked his head toward the sofa.
    “I'll help.” Agile, Clare jumped up in the back beside Ernie.
    “Don't need to.” Before she could get a grip, Ernie had lifted the end of the sofa. She saw the muscles in his thin arms bunch. She immediately pictured them sculpted in dark oak. As they swung the sofa down, Bob grunting and swearing, she scrambled out of the way. Ernie walked backward, up the drive, over