McKuen’s Revenge Read Online Free PDF Page A

There’s so much of her, oh that long, long tongue. Just want to let her devour me. The kiss lasted all night.
    Jen felt herself getting moist and snapped out of it, the station noise dying down. A door slammed in the distance. A phone rang.
    She focused on the report. Pretty good. Another pass through and make it perfect. Perfect for Coil, and perfect for her most excellent goddess lover. Her desk phone rang.
    “SMPD Detective unit, Delaney.”
    _____
     
    Morning sunlight peeked through the fog. Courtney ate a bowl of cereal and clicked on latimes.com. A year or two ago she never knew what was going on. In fact, she never thought to care.
    She’d bought a Mac Book and used it to learn geometry and surf around looking for interesting things, but she’d become hooked. There was so much out there.
    She barely hung on to the bowl.
    A murder, at that hotel? She read the article.
    The dead person was discovered at about nine thirty. When did she pass the hotel and see the blond girl, maybe nine o’clock? She saw the blond girl shoot a man a week ago and then she saw the same girl leave the scene of a murder? Oh!
    Her head was spinning. She had to tell somebody. Where’s that cell phone? She punched Tamra’s number. The call didn’t go as hoped. Tamra encouraged her to do what she thought was right.
    “Courtney honey, it’s your decision. You know people do bad things. Follow your heart.”
    “Should I go tell the police what I saw?”
    “If you want to.” Finally Tamra had to go and they hung up.
    Courtney spiraled down, down, down, the conflicting thoughts too hard. Afraid to get involved, she knew it was the right thing to do. She walked through her studio, arguing. Then she stopped, trying not to talk to herself so much.
    Spending five days making a small vase was so much easier than struggling with what she saw. But the first murder tormented her and then she saw the blond girl leave that hotel. She sat down and stared at the screen, not seeing. And decided.
    She changed out of her overalls, put on jeans and a jacket and brushed her hair, then drove up Lincoln Boulevard in the vanishing mist. There was parking space near the police station. It wouldn’t take long.
    She presented herself and waited. A uniformed officer appeared behind a Plexiglas window and asked if he could help her. She nodded, but didn’t know how to say it.
    He was looking at her curiously. People often thought she was odd. Sometimes her eyes didn’t track right, sometimes she stumbled over her words. Especially when intimidated, like now.
    As she was about to tell her story, she saw movement. The blond girl walked behind him, carrying a folder. She looked like she knew where she was going.
    Oh, oh, oh—she’s a police officer!
    Courtney couldn’t talk. It was hard to breathe.
    “Miss? Are you all right?” the officer said.
    She whirled and ran out, scared and confused. Now she really needed to talk to somebody. But who?
    At home, she sat at her workbench. What to do?
    Do what she did best. She found a pane of glass, and spent hours painting the girl’s face, perfectly, realistically. Every face is different, and Courtney could paint one as if it were a photograph.
    When she was done, she laid the pane on a piece of black paper, then on a piece of white paper. She took it outside and inspected it in sunlight. It was the blond girl. It was exact.
    Someday she would know how to use it.
    _____
     
    The breakfast table overlooked Santa Monica Canyon, endless sky falling to the ocean. Amy and Steve McKuen sipped coffee, studying twin iPads she bought them last Christmas.
    “Shit!” McKuen said. “Uh, sorry honey.” She looked up from a review of The Barber of Seville .
    “What?”
    “Um, well…”
    From how his eyes tracked she could tell he was debating whether to share his thoughts. She gave him a mock scowl. He’d better say what he was thinking.
    “Oh, an article about a murder in Santa Monica,” he said. “That big old