The Third Victim by Collin Wilcox Page A

Hers was the opposite problem. She slept too deeply. Sometimes, awakening in the morning, it would frighten her that she could remember nothing. Sleep for her was a dark, dismal void—like death.
    Walking steadily, she was moving out into the hallway, then into the living room. She was standing in the center of the living room, where she could look into the front entryway. The floor revealed nothing—no new sign of terror to add to the knife she’d found that morning, and hidden high in the cupboard. She turned, retraced her steps. In the hallway again, she moved to Josh’s door. The boy lay twisted tortuously in his blankets, breathing heavily. For the past two days, he’d been fighting a summer cold. She slipped into the room and covered him with a sheet and a blanket. Then, motionless beside the bed, she stood staring down into the small oval face, limned by the faint light from the window.
    There were, her life-drawing teachers had told her, certain characteristics of a child’s head. The forehead and cranium were large in proportion to the face. The nose and chin were small. The upper lip overhung the lower lip, and the eyes were large.
    Josh fulfilled all these criteria. Visually, then, he was an average boy.
    Yet, to her, this child could never be average. This was a child who, according to his moods, could lift her from sadness to joy, then drop her back. This was someone she was responsible for—someone who had grown inside her, more than seven years ago. Admittedly, the seed had been planted unexpectedly. Yet when she learned that she was pregnant, they’d both been glad. After the first shock—Kevin’s first shock—they’d both been glad. They’d celebrated—given a party.
    Then they’d gotten married.
    Holding the robe close, she stooped to kiss Josh’s forehead. Conscious of his heavy breathing, she laid her palm against his forehead. It felt cool—healthy. She straightened, stepped into the hallway, and walked the few steps to the kitchen. Nothing was disturbed. Both doors were securely closed; the back door was bolted. The door leading downstairs to the cellar was closed and locked.
    It had been her imagination. Josh had probably cried out in his sleep, awakening her. As a mother, even in the depths of a neurotically sound sleep, she would be awakened—half awakened—by the cry of her child.
    She went to the sink, turned on the tap, drank a glass of water. The wall clock read eleven twenty; she’d been asleep for less than an hour.
    She must get back to bed—get back to sleep. For tomorrow night—for her first adventure in extramarital sex—she must be well rested.
    Kevin pointed to the empty glass. He nodded to the bartender, who took the glass, dropped in fresh ice cubes, and reached for the bourbon bottle.
    It was a small, nondescript neighborhood barroom, featuring shuffleboard, quarter-a-game pool, and bar whiskey at sixty-five cents a shot. A pink-tinted mirror extended full length behind the bar, lit by concealed neon tubes. Kevin glanced at his reflection, then glanced away quickly.
    He was aware that, these last few months, he avoided his own reflection. And, these last few months, he took little pleasure in the sound of his own name.
    It was, he knew, a deficiency of the ego—an affliction that, lately, was becoming increasingly painful. Yet the remedy was obscure. If it had been a distended ego—Dick Wagner’s, for instance—the abscess could be lanced. A chronically shrunken ego, on the other hand, required more subtle treatment. Hormones for the psyche, perhaps. Vitamins for the soul.
    The bartender, grossly fat, was placing the bourbon and water before him. A dollar bill, the next-to-last in his wallet, completed the transaction.
    Sipping the drink, he allowed his gaze to slowly circle the bar, briefly assessing each face in turn. Not one was his intellectual equal. This was a working-man’s bar, catering to the invisible underside of Santa Barbara—to those who served