Loved to Death

By Wanda Dionne

A wild and dangerous obsession is born the day Sierra Martine backs her car into Banker Ross’s blood-colored van in the hot, dusty town of Riverbend in the Texas Hill Country. Banker manages the town’s hardware store on the courthouse square. His wife, Franny, obese and submissive to her husband’s control, notices Banker’s increasing secretive nature, but remains unaware that a Voice in his head constantly badgers him to follow his darker impulses.

Banker’s erotic fantasies bolster his ego. He sees himself in a nowhere job burdened by a too fat wife who selfishly holds him back. He dreams of being a big shot, perhaps even mayor. When he meets Sierra, he decides he will win her, control her, make her his own. He will love her to death.

He sets upon a quest to get her attention, to win her affections. No one would ever consider him, the quiet man next door, as a suspect in the sadistic sexual murders that strikes fear and panic in Riverbend that hot Texas summer.

Franny and Sierra unwittingly are thrust into danger where they must rely on their own personal strengths and experience to keep them alive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wanda Dionne
• Release date: Jul 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310970795

Wanda Dionne

Wanda Dionne is the author of three young adult historical novels, one children’s picture book, and two adult suspense novels. She is an award-winning author, who holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from Baylor University. She has written professionally for newspapers and magazines and is a former Women’s Editor of The Orange (Texas) Leader, at that time the youngest Women’s Editor in the state. She served as Entertainment Editor and Celebrity Reporter for The Tampa (Florida) Tribune.Her non-fiction articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Writers’ Digest. She and her husband own Rainbow Personnel, a personnel placement firm exclusively for the insurance industry in Houston, Texas. Wife, mother, and active in the Houston, Texas, writers’ community, she is also one of the founders of The Woodlands (Texas) Writers’ Guild.Wanda has made numerous school appearances in period costume, bringing a suitcase of Victorian and Civil War artifacts for student readers to enjoy. She encourages middle grade and high school audiences to participate in the lifetime adventure of reading.“Most writers learn over time that they have a central theme they return to over and over again. I write about victims who overcome. If I can inspire readers to draw on the strength that is within themselves, I have done my job well,” she said.From junior high on, I knew I wanted to be a writer. I worked on school newspapers and received my degree in Journalism from Baylor University. I started as a reporter writing obituaries and details of car crashes and school board meetings, working my way up to Entertainment Editor of The Tampa Tribune and eventually to become the youngest Women’s Editor on a Texas daily newspaper. I’ve freelanced in the magazine market and I have written and published three young adult historical books, one children’s book and two adult suspense novels.As a writer and one of the founders of The Woodlands Writers Guild, The Woodlands, Texas, (now known as Writers of The Woodlands), I believe that what you give is what you get. Be encouraged by reading, attending classes, developing relationships, and actively pursuing your dreams.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Six Months Earlier

The man shoved his newspaper aside and ambled to the back porch in no particular hurry. It wouldn’t do for Mama to fall out of bed while he was on watch.

How you doing, Mama? Anything going on in that empty head of yours?

The bedridden older woman couldn’t speak. He wasn’t sure if she could hear. The noises she made sounded more like cat mewling than words. He leaned over her, tried to read her thoughts by staring into her dry, crusted eyes.

Even when he was a child, he’d read Mama’s mood through her eyes, not her body language. She had been an inveterate actress, but the fire or ice in her eyes always warned ahead of the crack of the belt or other cruel punishments.

How he had hated her in his youth.

When he became a man, she had tried to keep him as tightly under her control as when he wore diapers. She used to be a woman of purpose, a woman determined to see her world through slightly discolored glass. Now she was a gasping, wheezing eighty-pound skeleton of sharp angles and repulsive odors.

Now, she was dying.

Now she was the one wearing diapers, and by the smell of her, she had fouled herself again.

What am I going to do with you, Mama?

Her doctor insisted she be moved to an in-patient hospice, so the son could get back to normal living. Normal living? His mother had resided for five long years on the back porch he had converted to a sick room. She’d been nursed with compassion, while she made it as hard on him as possible. Complaining about everything. Fighting him on every issue, even when he needed the money from the sale of her home to pay her medical bills.

He tried to be practical, God knew. Tried to keep things pleasant, but after her stroke, it hadn’t taken long before he divorced himself from his mama’s daily demands.

His life seemed fractured by unwanted responsibilities. Fissures split his psyche. Dreams came to him that he had no hope of realizing. He wanted to be done with Mama, his fat wife, his ho-hum existence. He wanted to be somebody else, to start anew.

His mother lay dying and he had to be the practical son, as always. The only child. Mama didn’t want to leave his house. She’d never want to be stored with strangers. She couldn’t afford it, anyway. And neither could he.

But this wasn’t a money issue.

Caw-w-w-w. The old woman’s lips made strange gyrations. Her parched tongue darted in and out.

What do you want, Mama? Some water? You thirsty? He held the glass with its bent straw near her mouth, knowing she didn’t have the strength to raise her head to suck out the water. Her frail body strained desperately toward the straw, eyes wild with want. Only then did he draw a bit of water into the plastic tube and dribble a thimbleful of the captured liquid into her mouth.

Roll it around on your tongue, Mama. Isn’t that good?

Caw-w-w-w.

‘You sound like an old crow, Mama. You know you’re dying, don’t you? Does that scare you, Mama? It should.

The old woman’s chest rose high. Was she holding her breath? But her body collapsed, fetid air rushed out of her mouth, and the man turned his head to keep from gagging.

He didn’t like babysitting, so he abandoned the bedside to lean against the door post, studying the brittle body that once held such authority over him.

Even though her heart still throbbed and air bellowed through her lungs, she had already stopped living. He could end her pitiful existence so easily.

If he wanted to.

He’d killed before—animals. Ripped the throats out of alley cats, cut off their tails. Watched them spin and flop in the dirt. He had poisoned dogs, too, but that was messy and it took way too long for them to die.

Oh yes, he had killed before. The desire always lurked near the surface. He knew his own power.

Helping Mama die would end her pain. Should he be so merciful? Or should he keep her living so she would suffer more? Payback for childhood traumas.

She was beyond fighting him. Her spirit was all used up.

He smiled, returning to her bedside and thumbing a shiny tear from his mother’s hollow cheek. Solemnly, he picked up the extra pillow, hugging it close to his chest.

I would never hurt you, Mama. Never. I promise.

Chapter 2

Sierra Martine hurried down the wide courthouse steps in a red mosaic fog. Her only goal was to reach her ten-year-old Jeep Wrangler before she broke down.

Maneuvering the bronze sunglasses into place, she gripped her briefcase tightly and glanced to see if anyone was watching.

The courthouse had been a madman’s den that day. Her boss, Janet Dedmond, the District Attorney of Courage County, Texas, had gone through the motions of a rape case, which the Grand Jury had dismissed for lack of hard evidence. The accused was a member of one of the county’s most formidable oil and ranch families. Their twenty-year-old bastard-in-training son had partied with a young high school student, against her wishes, she claimed, but evidence was nil, a he-said, she-said confrontation that turned Sierra’s stomach. The D.A.’s tame pleadings had been ineffectual in front of the grand jury made of hard-working people whose livelihoods depended upon keeping their county prosperous with oil and cattle.

Sierra had commiserated with the traumatized girl and her parents before leaving the hallowed halls of justice. Tears of frustration and disappointment clouded her eyes as she approached the car she’d left in the warm Texas sun nine hours ago. One turn of the key and the lock shifted. Her hands burned as she gripped the door handle and entered the steamy interior where the rest of her energy was sucked away.

Justice is not fair.

Sierra instantly remembered what had brought her scurrying to Courage County in the first place. One night, almost a year ago, she had asked her husband, Tony, to stop at the corner market for milk after they both had worked long days in Houston’s metropolitan beehive. Two gang members had killed him for twenty dollars in cash. Those boys had never been caught. What kind of justice was that?

Like an urban refugee, Sierra had fled to the small west Texas town of Riverbend to start life over, to heal.

Sierra’s throat closed, and a cottony hum filled her ears. Food, she thought, I have to get food. She much preferred to go straight home to bathe away the courthouse grime and political excrement of the past few work weeks, but she had promised to have dinner with her elderly friend, Gussilee Taylor, who owned an antiques barn on the outskirts of town.

Before making the fifteen-mile drive, she would gulp a couple of aspirin with a drink from the new fast food franchise in town. She smiled at the thought of the cool lemonade or iced tea waiting for her in the soft light of Gussilee’s big barn, the rocking chair where she could slip her shoes off and rest her feet on a hassock, and the dinner of garden-fresh vegetables. Gussilee seemed to have the knack for making background noise go away.

Sierra palm-patted the steering wheel, then started the car after several unsuccessful attempts. She lifted her head to look at the people fleeing the majestic courthouse on the square. Attorneys and their clients, the accused with their guards, a television news woman confronting the teenage victim’s parents. How do you feel…?

From a safe distance, she watched her boss, Janet, the D.A., chat up her new campaign manager who had started work yesterday. She reminded herself to steer clear of him. He was Janet’s paid spy.

Sheriff Sam Cahill eyed her from the courthouse’s wide porch, tipping his Stetson at her as if to send her a secret message. Chills of revulsion coursed through her. She hated how he bumped against her with his belly paunch when they were in close quarters. She hated how he seemed to be lurking around every corner. If he did any police work, she never saw it, but then, gossiping was a key communication strategy in law enforcement around here.

Without another thought, Sierra slammed the gear into reverse and shot out of the parking space, right into the path of a blood-colored van.

Chapter 3

Brakes screeched, a horn blared, curses filled the air. Sierra’s body jarred against the steering wheel. In an instant, she knew her insurance deductible was too high.

She wasn’t hurt, but she couldn’t lift her hand to open the car door, couldn’t urge her body to move. Why?

Shock or the coming confrontation? She groaned. Devoid of the courage she needed to face the raging block of a man who had stopped traffic and was making a scene behind her as he examined his dark red fender. Five eleven, of stocky build, with pale skin, no tan, as if he’d never been exposed to the sun. Anger flushed his skin red, suffusing his face all the way to the roots of his receding blond hairline. He kicked her bumper harshly, the sound driving Sierra out of the car when nothing else could.

He shouted that this was her fault. His hands squeezed into fists.

Overcoming her inertia, she trudged to the Jeep’s rear end, sheepish for having caused the accident.

Damn woman driver, he yelled. Ever think to look behind you before you pull into traffic? You putting on lipstick? What the hell?

Finally, his insults dwindled away, but his hateful glance assessed her up and down, causing goose bumps to break out on Sierra’s arms despite the Texas heat. The man’s stare seemed to pull her toward him, leaving Sierra’s shattered pieces to reconnect in the space of a moment that felt like an hour.

I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I’ll pay for the damages, she offered.

Damn right you will.

Banker Ross, you be nice, called an obese woman from the van’s front passenger seat as she attempted to lift her massive elbow from the open car window.

Stay in the car, Franny. I can handle a fender-bender without your damned supervision.

Is the lady hurt? Sierra asked.

Naw, she ain’t hurt, Banker answered but his eyes never left Sierra. His stare undressed her, made her feel exposed.

Sierra removed her sunglasses, rubbed her slender neck loosening the tension in her shoulders.

A few cars and trucks stacked up behind them, horns bleated.

Someone touched the middle of Sierra’s back from behind, and she jumped. Kyle Mullins, Janet’s new campaign manager, took a wide stance, looking like he could handle any intimidating situation. Need some help? he asked.

No, no problem, thanks. But under Kyle’s watchful gaze, she relaxed enough to consider the picture she made with flyaway hair and sweat dripping into her eyes.

Kyle examined the dark van’s right front fender. Just a scratch, he told the driver.

Banker Ross blew himself up like an inflated balloon, held his breath, then made a visible effort to calm down in front of the newcomer. No big deal, I guess, he growled, but it shouldn’t have happened.

Should we exchange insurance cards? Sierra asked.

Franny drummed on the van door. C’mon. Get in the car, Banker. We don’t want no trouble.

Banker’s double-take glare bounced off the two women. Scowling at Kyle, he said, Women! Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.

He dusted imaginary dirt from his green and yellow plaid shirt, tipped his cowboy hat, and added, No harm done, I reckon. Boots on the running board, he pivoted into the van’s driver’s seat like a long-haul trucker. His hungry eyes swallowed Sierra whole before he drove away.

Kyle turned to her. Sorry about that. Bad way to end an already upsetting day.

He was giving her an opening to discuss the grand jury’s No Bill, but she declined to gossip, believing anything she said would probably get back to her boss.

Thanks for your help, Sierra said. No harm done, I reckon, she mimicked the fleeing driver and cracked a smile.

Kyle said, Don’t worry about the dent in your bumper. It’ll never show for all the dust around here. He opened the car door for her.

Fleetingly, Sierra thought she should offer to buy the new guy coffee or a cold drink, but Gussilee was waiting and Sierra really wasn’t in the mood to be pleasant.

See you on Monday, she said quietly, starting the Jeep again.

Kyle held up traffic so she could reverse out of the parking slot. He slapped the Wrangler’s rear end as she pulled onto Main Street. Sort of like a cowboy slapping a filly’s flank to send her on her way.

Sierra dismissed him with a wave, thinking only of grabbing a cold drink and swallowing a couple of aspirin before starting the long trek toward home.

Chapter 4

As Banker and his wife, Franny, drove away, he straightened behind the steering wheel and said, Damn good thing I’ve got such strong reflexes.

Yes, hon. Her plump fingers massaged her neck. Got a kink in my shoulder, though.

If you weren’t so fat you could wear a seatbelt, you wouldn’t have been hurt at all, he snarled.

Franny stared out her window, eyes misting. From somewhere, she dredged up the courage to say, We were going out to dinner, remember? I’m hungry.

You’re always hungry. He flipped on the turn signal for the plastic-looking fast food restaurant that had newly opened in Riverbend.

Can’t we please eat somewhere else, Franny begged, tentatively patting his arm. I’d like a nice green salad. I’m starting a new diet. For you, she said.Banker jerked his arm away. Give me a break. No green salad is going to do you any good now. He wheeled the car across traffic and into a handicapped space, the only privilege afforded him because his wife was so overweight.

Franny’s short, thick legs pumped for the ground while she struggled out of the van, wishing her husband was still the gentleman he used to be, opening doors for her, holding her hand. Franny supposed she had only herself to blame.

In the rear view mirror, Banker noticed the green Jeep turn into the parking lot. Seems the pretty woman from the courthouse was following him.

Hot damn! He knew he had made an impression. He jumped from the van and moved to stand at its rear. As the woman drove past, he formed a gun with his thumb and forefinger and fired a salute at her. She gave a two-fingered wave as she proceeded to the drive-in order box.

Banker’s heart fluttered. After all, he had treated her with extreme courtesy. He had been the ultimate gentleman. She must be new in town, or he would have heard about her, noticed her. Coltharp’s Hardware, which he managed, sat smack dab across from the courthouse on town square. He smiled to himself as the Jeep disappeared around the corner. He would see her again. Definitely.

He smoothed down the collar of his shirt and acknowledged, the prettiest girl in town is giving me the eye. A pressure tightened in his groin. It had been a long time since he had been so moved.

Come on, Franny, hustle, he groused, as he waited under the awning for his wife to cross the hot pavement. She huffed and puffed, sweat glistening on her blotched face.

Holy crap, she looks awful he thought. Damned shame what she’s done to herself.

Franny preceded him inside and chose a sturdy booth against the wall next to the children’s playground. Banker waited till she was settled, facing the room, before he hustled to place their order, irritated that she always forced him to sit with his back to the door.

Franny insisted that ladies always faced the outside so they could see the action without being obvious. As if she was a lady! He found nothing wrong with turning his head and staring when he saw