Night Hunter Read Free Page A

change that.
    “ Sweetie!” Amelia said cheerfully when Donna came on the line. “And how is San Francisco’s numero uno celebrity?”

C HAPTER 4
     
    Tammy
     
     
    Tammy Kowalski opened the front door and quickly ushered her nine-year-old daughters into the house.
    “ Go in the living room and watch TV,” she instructed the girls. “Don’t get into anything. I don’t want Daddy to know we were here.”
    “ Why are we here?” Kerry asked.
    “ Never mind. Just stay out of trouble.” Tammy pushed the girls toward the living room.
    Tammy beelined to her estranged husband’s bedroom and, with a practiced hand, sorted through each drawer of his dresser and nightstands. She found nothing new since the last time she had been through his things.
    At the unmade bed, she threw back the covers and bent over the mattress. Directly in the middle, on the mauve colored sheets, she saw a white, crusty stain. Then another. Semen? “Slut,” she whispered. She tossed the covers over the stain.
    She moved into the bathroom where she rummaged through the vanity drawers, medicine cabinet, and laundry hamper. In the wastebasket she found the cardboard cylinder to a tampon. “Scuzzy bitch.”
    On the floor, on her knees, digging in the wastebasket, Tammy caught sight of her reflection in the full-length mirror. She turned slowly and stared intently at her pale blond image. The summer had just begun, yet her skin was already the color of golden toast. Her round, icy gray eyes were bright in contrast.
    She stood, pivoting this way and that, delighting in the scrutiny of her body in the mirror. The aerobics instructor, at thirty-eight, in pink spandex pants and black midriff top, studied her tall, lean figure critically. Tammy cupped her new breasts. The incisions had healed and the tenderness and swelling was gone. She had a strong compulsion to see her firm breasts in Gary’s mirror. She pulled at the elastic top, about to take it off, when the phone rang.
    She flung open the bathroom door and shrieked, “Don’t answer that!”
    After six rings the answering machine clicked on. Gary’s voice filled the room with a recorded greeting. After the beep a woman’s voice, sounding cool and sophisticated, said: “Hi, hon. Bad news. Can’t make tonight. Have to fly to L.A. Call you tomorrow.”
    “ Great vocabulary. Me Jane. You Tarzan. Friggin’ home wrecking retard,” Tammy muttered as she rummaged through the roll top desk in the bedroom. She came across the payment books for the car and the house in Daly City that Gary had bought for her after the separation four months ago. He’d paid for the new boobs, too, although he didn’t know it. He thought he could buy her off. Fat chance. She wasn’t giving up that easily. She’d trade it all in to be with him again.
    “ Mom, we’re hungry.” The girls, miniatures of their mother, stood in the doorway.
    “ Okay. Okay. I’m done here.” She threw an arm around each girl and started down the hall. “Oops, hold it a sec.” She shooed them out of the room and crossed to the answering machine on the nightstand. She rewound the tape, listened to several messages, and then, with a self-satisfied smile, she erased the last message —the one from the “homewrecker.”
    In the living room, Tammy checked to make sure nothing was out of place. She sent the girls to the car as she locked up. Before joining them, she opened the mailbox, took out the mail, and sorted through it. There were a doctor bill, a couple of circulars, and a business envelope from KSCO TV. Tammy frowned. KSCO was where Donna worked. What would a TV station want with a doctor? Then she realized it wasn’t Gary they wanted. The letter was addressed to her, Tamara Kowalski.
    She tore it open, read it, and then whooped. Donna wanted to interview her on TV. Hot damn! She couldn’t wait to tell Gary.

CHAPTER 5
     
    Corrine
     
     
    Corinne Odett took a long pull on the bottle of beer before slamming it back down