She pressed up against the brick wall of the house to avoid being seen, shivering in the freezing wind. This had to go in the record book as the stupidest idea she'd ever had. When did breaking and entering into someone's house in the middle of the night ever sound like a good idea? Sure, it seemed easy enough on paper but wait until you're out in a dark alley with the temperature hovering in the low 20s.
She took a deep breath and prepared herself for the next step. If you're going to be stupid you might as well be stupid all the way. And Isabelle had always been one to give her all. She crept towards the back door and reached under the potted plant to retrieve the key she had used countless times in the past. She had been here before many times, usually to water the plants and air out the house.
The house belonged to Beatrice Sterling, or it had until she passed away three months ago. Beatrice's son and daughter had inherited the house but she figured no one had gotten around to removing the key. And she was right. The key was tucked securely under the same tired old plant. Now came the hard part; actually using it.
Was she really going in there to enact her revenge on D.S.? She hadn't been able to stop thinking about the nights he had visited her. It was all his fault; she would have been content to be a housewife her whole life, never knowing what was missing until he came to her house that first night. Now he was all she could think about.
She had spent a good amount of time pondering D.S.'s identity. She had made a mental list of everyone she knew, crossing out names and ruling certain people out automatically because of their physical characteristics. But she hadn't been able to pinpoint who D.S. was in that list. No one she knew, so to speak, fit the profile.
It wasn't until Beatrice had passed that a spark of memory came to Isabelle. She remembered spending afternoons with Beatrice on her back porch, drinking sweet tea and being told stories about her son Dillon. He was, according to Beatrice, a handsome man, but so many parents think their children are attractive. Judging by the looks of Beatrice, she had a hard time imagining her son as handsome. Beatrice wasn't ugly; she was just a huge hulking woman, with graying hair and large, doughty features.
Dillon had visited his mother often, so for that he was a good son. She had never met him, but had spent time with his sister, Cheryl, on Beatrice's back porch. Cheryl didn't seem as impressed with Dillon's achievements, as siblings are often harder to impress.
Beatrice could talk of little else. Dillon was visiting, could we help her clean? Dillon sent this wonderful bouquet of flowers; could we put them in a vase? Oh, and wash out the vase first, pretty please? Beatrice was old so we forgave her bossiness and did as much as we could to help, even if it meant slaving over her house for an entire Saturday and neglecting our own duties at home.
But she knew she had more than a little resentment built up towards Dillon, as he was the cause of countless hours of cleaning. Cheryl did as well judging by the dark looks she shot her mother's way every time Dillon's name was mentioned; which was often.
Beatrice's passing had taken her mind off of D.S. temporarily, at least until the funeral. At the graveside service, Cheryl and her family had huddled together under an umbrella. Standing right behind Cheryl was the acclaimed Dillon. She had surreptitiously tried to study the man Beatrice had raved about, hoping he wouldn't notice a married woman with husband and children in tow staring at him.
Beatrice hadn't lied when she told of his good looks. He was handsome, with dark brown hair that curled carelessly over his scalp, deep gray brown eyes that probed into your mind, and long graceful fingers. Why she noticed his fingers when there was so much more to notice bothered her, but notice them she did. He had broad shoulders encased in an expensive black suit that fit his somber attitude but didn't quite match the glint of mischief in his eyes. He stood there with his family and did his duty with class and grace, never once giving anything away in his demeanor.
She, however, wasn't that lucky or good at being surreptitious and had left her class and grace at home. He had caught her staring at him and raised an eyebrow in her direction. She couldn't be sure but she sensed a glimmer of humor in his eyes, as if he found it amusing that he had caught her. Then he did something so bizarre, well, bizarre for a funeral, that she had literally staggered. He had blown her a kiss.
A kiss for crying out loud! What had that been about? She had quickly looked away and hadn't looked at him again for the rest of the service. Or at least when she looked she made sure she wouldn't be caught. After the service she took her family home and grieved for Beatrice, for even though she had been an old curmudgeon, she had been her friend. She would miss her a great deal.
It wasn't until later that images of Dillon started to interrupt her thoughts. There had been something familiar about him, something she couldn't place. It wasn't just that she knew so much about him from Beatrice, there was something else. She just couldn't figure it out.
A memory of something that had happened at the funeral had kept replaying in her mind. At one point during the service, when she had been successful at studying him without being detected, or so she thought, he had ran his hand down his niece's face and that movement had struck a chord in her. It was the same lazy stroking her rapist had used. She had brushed it off at the time but it had continued to haunt her.
Could Dillon be D.S.? The questions had jumbled up in her head. She couldn't be sure but knowing Beatrice like she did, she was almost positive she had talked about her to Dillon, but why would he have chosen her to rape? Surely there were more attractive, young, nubile women out there? No resentment there, she snickered. He was certainly attractive enough to get his own dates without force. So why choose her? As far as she knew the funeral was the only place she had ever come into contact with Dillon and even that had been extremely limited.
Shortly after the funeral Dillon had moved into his mother's house. She hadn't been back since Beatrice had passed but Cheryl had kept her up to date on Dillon's activities. She could have cared less what Dillon was doing as she had heard enough about Dillon from Beatrice to last a lifetime but she had listened politely anyway.
What did she care if Dillon was fixing up his mother's house? As far as she was concerned he should have done that when Beatrice was alive. But Cheryl seemed to have gotten over her sibling rivalry now that Beatrice was gone and Dillon was her only surviving relative.
She had only half listened when Cheryl had talked about Dillon's latest achievement, something to do with producing music. But she remembered clearly sitting bolt upright when Cheryl said the name of his production company, D.S. Productions.
Then she had turned into a fiend, asking Cheryl questions about Dillon's work, where he worked, how long had he been using D.S. in his business name? She stopped short of asking what his schedule had been when that mysterious visitor had come to her house and before Cheryl got suspicious. She had never before shown any interest in Dillon so she didn't want to give anything away.
After that conversation, she had started doing some investigating of her own. She checked out D.S. Productions and was able, through their website, to see where D.S. had been during that time and found out he had been in town, both times. She was also able to read the web profile on D.S. and gleaned a few more interesting tidbits of info from that. The biggest clue had been the company logo, a knife with D.S. engraved on the handle and Productions running down the blade. That was when she knew the identity of her rapist. That was when she began to plan.
She didn't want to go to the police; it would be her word against his. She didn't have confidence that she would be believed and without DNA evidence it seemed useless to go through all that. Truthfully, she didn't want him jailed for what he had done. But she did want revenge for the desires he had awakened in her. He deserved to pay for the hunger he had instilled. So she had watched Dillon, trying to find out his habits, trying to figure out for sure if he was the one who had disrupted her world.
Based on what she had seen, he could very well be her mysterious visitor. He was the right height, his hair was the right color and he moved with an animal like grace she had witnessed only a few times before. Plus, his being her rapist made sense; there had been no evidence of a break-in at her house, only someone with a key could have gotten in. Beatrice had had a key to her house. She was certain it was him and that led her to come up with this plan. This stupid, stupid plan! What was she thinking? When her husband informed her he was taking off on his usual weekend trip with the kids, she had gone into action.
Now, teeth chattering, she stood on Beatrice's back porch and listened to the night, trying to discern if anyone else was out there. She held the key in her palm and rubbed its rough edges, torn between enacting her revenge and going home to her warm bed. She should go home and forget this man ever existed but she couldn't forget, wouldn't ever forget. With that thought she felt a kernel of courage, she couldn't forget and she was willing to bet money that he hadn't forgotten either.
