Chapter 1

Woke up Monday morning feeling almost hung over; head pounding, stomach queasy and a dry taste in my mouth.  I sat up and put both feet on the floor before I leaned over and put my head between my legs.  Hands in my hair massaging my scalp, I recalled remnants of the nightmare that occurred last evening.  It all came back like a horrific dream.  Did I really kill him?  Was he even now lying on the bottom of the lake being nibbled away by fish?  Had I managed to clean up all the possible evidence of a crime of passion?  Can I really call it passion?  More liked pissed-offedness.  More pissed than any one person should ever be.  The kind of pissed that pushes you over a line most people never dream of crossing in their lifetime.  Oh, they may consider it.  And it great detail, I'm sure, but most people live their lives worrying over **** like Karma and even the immediate problem of being caught and incarcerated.  Most people did.  But I'm not most people.  Not anymore.  I know I crossed that line and now, there's no turning back.  All I can do is move forward one step at a time.  Knowing all this, I still ran into the bathroom, dropped to my knees and threw open the lid on the toilet and puked my guts up.

Gasping for breath, I stood up and headed for the shower.  Turning on the spray, I stripped down to my skin and then turned and looked into the mirror.  I didn't recognize the girl staring back at me.  I had never seen the blank, hollow looking eyes before or the pale, pasty complexion.  This new person was someone who had lost her soul.  And once lost, could not be recovered.  The cool thing about having no soul is that you don't give a ****.  So what?  I stepped into the hot, steamy onslaught of water.  It felt good.  Soaping up, I thought about how I had covered my tracks.  I went back over it all in my mind to make sure I left no loose ends.  It had all seemed very reasonable.  No one knew he had come out here.  No one would have heard the gunshot since my nearest neighbor was over three miles away.  No one would have watched me dump a hefty bag wrapped body into the lake at night.  No one would notice a small, single female parking a car in the middle of the city, wiping the inside clean of fingerprints and calmly locking up and walking away.  No one would notice that, after having coffee five blocks away, that I hailed a cab for a ride home.  No one.  Not a soul.  The 9 mm had been cleaned of all traces of powder so as to not show it had been fired recently.  No one even knew I had it.  It was unregistered.  It had belonged to my father and lord knows where he got it from.  He used to be a drug runner.  Mom would never say it but we all knew.  So he would just eventually be turned in as a missing person, maybe by his boss or someone in his family.  They'd eventually find his car but with no fingerprints or evidence of any kind of struggle, there would be no reason to declare a crime had been committed.  I felt fairly secure that I would get away with it. 

I dressed, blow-dried and applied some light make-up.  I needed a little color, you see.  I didn't want anyone to notice that a piece of me had died last night.  I practiced smiling for about ten minutes before grabbing my pursed and heading out the door to go to work.  It’s just another Monday at the office, after all. 

The view from the other side of that line, the one most never think of crossing, was looking endless.  It seemed I could go anywhere, choose any direction now and I no longer felt there were any social or moral boundaries.  No telling what may happen now.  I'm no longer in control.  Something else has taken over and it's pissed off and taking no prisoners.  There would be no survivors, no one to live and tell the tale.  Maybe I'll stop at Starbucks and grab a frappuccino.  Why not?

They say Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.  It’s a cliché but to most but what about the fury of a woman pushed beyond all that is reasonable?  Women, who have been abused, mistreated, neglected even?  What about them?  What level in Dante's Inferno do these women reside?  I contemplated this mystery over my morning coffee as I read mindless reports and entered statistical data.  I kept my door to my office closed that morning because I just couldn't deal with anyone popping in and being cheerfully inquiring.  It would have made me puke.  So I sat there, cooling coffee cup in one hand and my trusty pencil in the other hand, not quite seeing all the figures spread out before me but rather, envisioning the look on Aaron's face when he realized he had bit the dust; or was about to, within seconds.  I found I liked that he knew, in those last moments that he had pushed me too far and that, just this once, he was not getting the better of me.  I liked that the last thing he saw was the complete lack of care in my eyes.  I wanted him to contemplate his sins against me for eternity.  I knew I would suffer for my own sin but since I no longer had a soul, again, I didn't give a ****.  Our last fight occurred when I discovered some very lurid pictures of him with his latest conquest.  He didn't even have the decency to try and hide them well.  There they were, sitting on the dresser in his bedroom and there I was, the fool who was putting away his laundry that I had spent the afternoon washing for him.  I think that was the moment when something let go inside of me.  She was just one of many but she was the proverbial straw that broke this camel's back.  And it wasn't just the women, ya know.  It was those other times when he'd call me fat, said I wasn't pretty enough to be with him and he was just doing me a favor.  It was those times when he would drink too much and come home and slap me around.  Told me I was a sissy and couldn't take a hit.  That I was making more out of it than what it was and stop crying and go make me a sandwich bitch!  Then he'd say he was sorry.  He'd never do it or say anything like that again.  Of course you're beautiful baby!  I love you so much that it makes me crazy sometimes.  And then we'd have sex.  The raw, animal kind that was just off the hook and out of the world and he'd make me feel wanted and special again, until the next time.   

I looked up suddenly and spilled my coffee on my desk when my office door swung open and in walks my supervisor, Jake.  Jake was one of those chauvinistic males who thought women could not be in charge because it takes a man to do the job.  **** ****.  I never liked him but had spent the last four years kissing his fat, hairy ****.  He looked different today.  He somehow didn't seem as large or domineering as he used to.  In fact, he looked weak, like something to be hunted.  I briefly wondered how he'd look down the nose of my 9mm. 

"Got those figures ready yet"?  he asked.  He stood over me with his hands on his hips, belly protruding.  "Almost" I replied. 

“Well, see to it they're ready by 10:00 am sharp.  Jefferson is expecting those figures and I promised they would be ready."  Of course he promised.  I always delivered on time and with accuracy.  He'd been getting kudos for my work for some time now, the prick.

I just nodded and he turned to walk out.  At the last, he turned back around and said "Somethin' got into you?  You sick or something Jen?  Cuz you look like ****" 

I held his gaze with a new and steely one of my own.  Never had I stared him down before.  "Or something" I said. 

He finally dropped his eyes first, turned and walked out shaking his head like he'd seen something he'd never seen before.  Yea, it's called a backbone jackass.  Prepare to see more of it because I have been reborn and it isn’t pretty.  I knew that from that moment on, I would take NO MORE **** from anyone, least of all that uptight, conservative, moron.  I had one slight, miniscule thought that he would be wise enough not to push me after today.  That maybe he would recognize the death that waited for him in my eyes.  Then the thought was gone and I knew, with no more lines left to cross, that the hunt was on.  Why wait?  I got a bullet with your name on it Jake........