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Amazon
Iniquity Rancor
Amazon
Category:
Mystery/Suspense
ISBN-10: 1440419590
Type: Fiction
Pages: 362
Copyright: Sep 16, 2008
ISBN-13: 9781440419591
Dane Mara Katz is grieving. She will stop at nothing to avenge her sister, Tara's, death, even if that means lending her life to Tara's killer, Gabrielle. Dane gives Gabby her home and husband, but only on an unknown loan.
After the death of her best friend and the realization that she was living a lie, Gabrielle is mentally fragile and unprepared for the terror about to be unleashed upon her.
Torture.
Excerpt
“Ah, the sky always seems so endless,” the woman thought.
She had to think. This waiting game was driving her mad and her old house had grown foreign to her in the five years she’d been gone.
Spread out before her were pictures. Such an immense number of them, they covered the vast floor of the empty living room. As if a puzzle they sat, splayed out, looking back at her and, beyond their shine, the summer sky grew pale blue and depthless out the big open picture window. A warm breeze blew through the house, releasing the stale air from its prison cell. Air breathed in long ago and exhaled to hang stagnant and still.
But the real tragedy was not the air, nor the neglected house which seemed now to be the dwelling of carpenter ants and the occasional spider. The big black plastic looking bodies of the ants would run past and over the pictures. Hundreds of them scrambled with no destination. Their only goal was to conquer whatever lay straight ahead. The spiders stayed in designated corners, being still and praying no one saw their unsightly, hairy selves.
The real tragedy was her.
She picked up a picture and stared at it before returning it to the floor, her gaze back out the window. If pictures told stories, she wondered what these told the people of the world.
Two little girls with pig tails sitting in front of a Christmas tree, all happy and warm.
The blond riding a quarter horse during the red fire of a Georgia sunset.
The same two girls, merely older this time, in a swimming pool, their hair slicked back making them all ears and beautiful expensive smiles.
Yes, what did other people see? Certainly, not the loss and pain of a dead sister. Positively not the hatred, rage and frustration of the living sister.
But she had never been able to let go. The whole thing stewed and boiled in her brain until she could explode all her boiled blood and flesh amongst the room. Splatter her hatred around to let everyone feel it. And damn whoever didn’t like it!
She sighed.
The one responsible was in the process of self inflicted blood letting.
She would not rest until this girl was dead, no matter what it cost her. It would be a small price to pay. No matter how bad she wanted it, however, it wasn’t going to happen today, that long awaited closure. She could feel the stupidity contained within the flesh of the one responsible. If Gabrielle couldn’t off herself in a car accident, why would anyone think she could commit suicide competently?
Discouraged and aggravated, she stretched herself out amongst the photos and rolled to the center of the room. The sticky gloss rectangles stuck to her skin and flipped off as she rolled, dead ants in her hair, the wind kissing her sweat.
And here, he came to her, crawling. The big dark beast of all beasts, as if an angel of hungry mercy. When he reached her he looked down at her, his sad eyes reflecting her pain. She gave a weak smile, but simply because stray black hair tickled her nose, not because her happiness was authentic.
He came down and pressed his lips to hers, to talk not kiss. That was how he often communicated with her. Putting his mouth on hers and making words, he could taste her cinnamon lip coating and smell her hair at the same time.
“I miss you,” he told her.
“I know, I miss you too,” she said.
He got up on his hands. “It’s not going to happen today, is it?”
She mouthed the word “no” as tears sprung to her eyes.
He sighed and wiped the tears away before they could reach her hair.
A cell phone rang from the kitchen. He hesitated. Answering it would prolong things.
“Devin, you have to,” she told him.
His forehead met hers.
“Dane, I don’t want to.”
But he did.
And, after he helped her get all the photos of the dead girl back in order and packed away, and after he showered with her and picked all the dead ants out of her long hair, they had dinner and slept and made love and slept some more.
Then, he left her.
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