It was mid-August, hot and humid, and I'd turned the air on high before retiring to bed. My body was shivering so I covered myself head to toe in a thick comforter, but the falling temperatures did nothing to cool the rage burning within. I had lain in bed for hours, brainstorming, my mind on the murder to come.

     Even her name sounded whorish. Sleazy. Just thinking about her made me sick to my stomach. She'd acted like all was right in the world when I saw her in the restroom. I recalled the effort it had taken to keep myself from slamming her face into the mirror. I wanted to hurt her, beat her with my own hands, knock out the teeth that provided her that pretty smile, and give her a taste of the pain she had caused me.

She would pay. Dearly.

     So now I had her name and hometown, and that was a good start, but I still needed much more. I ran through a mental list of resources I still had available. Transaction histories from the bank would tell me if they had been to hotels, or on dates, maybe even a clue as to when it all began, although there was the possibility that he had opened a new account. I could hire a private investigator, but my funds were dwindling fast as it was and I decided to keep that option as a last resort.

     I had already called Buckeye Cellular and requested his mobile phone records to be sent to me via mail, and I was anxious to check the next morning's bounty. But my first task of the day would be to purchase a good digital camera and a memory card to hold the maximum amount of photos. My plan was to follow Dom from work and let him lead me to the tramp.

     Some time during the early morning hours I had fallen asleep, exhausted from my mental murder planning, but I was plagued by a series of disturbing nightmares, the last of which featuring the lovely Miss McCafferty. She was wearing a Marilyn Monroe hairdo, bright red lips, and a simple white wedding dress. She stood immediately before me at the altar with Dom, white roses lining the arch over their heads, exchanging rings and reciting vows, oblivious to my demands that she leave my husband alone.

     As the ceremony continued and she retrieved her bouquet from the maid of honor, I saw the flash of metal and then watched as it proceeded to close in on her throat. She never saw it coming, just kept smiling ahead at Dom. I observed the knife sink into her neck, torrents of crimson dying her white dress to scarlet. She was covered in blood, a repulsive sight, and I looked away, recognizing my own hand still brandishing the weapon. She turned to me then, her expression giving away no hint of the pain she had to be enduring, a smile playing on the corners of her mouth as she whispered, "I will never die !"

     I woke with a start, sweat plastering my hair to my neck and forehead, the blanket and sheets twisted around my legs. The air was still on, the room was seemingly as cold as an Arctic winter, and I could feel the beads of sweat on my body starting to freeze. Telling myself it was just a dream, I sat up and took a deep breath, reaching for the covers to combat the chills running up my spine. I couldn't get the last image of the dream out of my mind, and I knew I wouldn't be sleeping any more that night. In the final few seconds, just before I came to, I had been looking right at Kirsten.