Left To Die by Lisa Jackson

her nerves tightened and anticipation coursed through her veins.
    When she was finished, the altered image was a dead ringer for her long-lost first husband.
    Anyone can make someone look different. You’ve seen countless short movies of people morphing from one person to another. You’ve seen the before and after pictures of models on the covers of magazines. You know how to make an image change shape.
    This could be an out-and-out scam.
    But why ?
    And who was behind it? Mason, in Missoula?
    She shook her head at the thought. If Mason wanted to give her information, he’d just do it, call her up and give her the facts. And if he were trying to be sneaky, he’d mail the envelope from another town. He knew she wasn’t an idiot.
    But what about that new wife of his—Sherice? She always had it in for you. And his mother, Belle—that woman never did like you.
    It seemed far-fetched. She and Mason rarely communicated, and though Sherice, Mason’s receptionist, had outwardly despised Jillian when Jillian and Mason were married, now, since she’d become the second much younger Mrs. Mason Rivers, Sherice’s animosity had faded. Sherice had won the great prize of becoming a trophy wife. So why try to stir up trouble now?
    Jillian leaned back in her desk chair and tapped the eraser end of her pencil on the arm of the chair as she stared at the image on the computer. She heard a soft meow and then Marilyn padded through the open door and, spying Jillian’s empty lap, leaped onto it.
    “Hey, sweetcakes,” Jillian said, absently rubbing the calico’s head. “What do you think?”
    The cat responded by curling up in her lap while Jillian tried to figure out if her long-dead husband had suddenly resurrected and why anyone would want her to know.
    “It’s a problem,” she confided to Marilyn and knew in that instant that she couldn’t leave it alone.
    She had to find out the truth.
    If for no other reason than to clear her name.
    No matter what it entailed, how painful it happened to be.

Chapter Four
    Naked, I stand at the window.
    Alone.
    Waiting.
    While sand slips oh so slowly through the hourglass.
    The coming night is near, shadows playing darkly. A hollow wind, keening and savage, cuts through the canyons with the promise of death upon its breath. I hear its plaintive cry from deep in the cabin.
    It wants me , I think. It wants her.
    It’s as hungry as I am.
    Good!
    Feeling the ache, the low, insistent pulse, I peer through the windowpanes glazed in ice, frosted with blowing snow.
    Naked branches of the lonely trees rattle and dance, like skeletal arms raised in supplication to the heavens.
    As if God were interested.
    I feel the urge to step outside. The tug of the cold tempts me to languish in the caress of frigid gusts upon my bare skin.
    But it is too soon.
    I won’t let myself fall victim to that easy enticement. The timing isn’t right. Not yet.
    I have to be patient.
    Because she is coming.
    Unfailingly and without any inkling as to her fate, she is drawing near. I feel it.
    And everything has to be perfect.
    “Come on,” I whisper quietly and feel that sensual twitch deep inside at the thought of her: lightly tanned skin, dusting of freckles, wide hazel eyes and untamed hair a deep brown that shines red in the firelight. “Come the fuck on.”
    The knowledge that she will soon appear causes my blood to race, my mind to fire with images of what’s to come. I can almost taste her, feel the texture of her skin as she quivers at my touch. In my mind’s eye I watch her pupils dilate until her eyes are nearly black with fear and a dark, unwelcome desire.
    Oh, she will want me.
    She will beg for more of me.
    And I will give her what she wants…what she fears.
    Her last conscious thoughts will be of me.
    Only me.
    But not yet…I have to hold back.
    Tamping down my vibrant, exhilarating fantasies, I decide to savor them later. When the timing is right.
    With one last glance at the window, I walk to the table