Nobody liked him anyway. He had never had a real friend. Everybody said Cody had been his friend, but Cody had only been his friend because he was afraid of Dennis and it was smarter for him to be Dennis’s friend than not. Stupid little cockroach. Dennis had showed him.

Miss Navarre didn’t like him. But she came to see him anyway.

Dennis knew she had married the FBI agent, but he wouldn’t call her by her married name. She would always be Miss Navarre to him. She was trying to help him. Nobody else wanted to help him. Everybody else wanted him to go to prison and rot there for the rest of his life. He had heard people say over and over that there was no fixing what was wrong with him.

But Miss Navarre was trying to help him.

Sometimes he dreamed about Miss Navarre.

Sometimes he dreamed about doing things to her. Bad things, dirty things.

Dennis knew all about sex. He used to like to go around at night and look in people’s windows. He had seen all kinds of people do all kinds of things to each other: men with women, women with women, men with men. A lot of it was gross, but he got excited anyway.

He had watched Miss Navarre with the FBI guy do it on the back porch of her house. He had never thought of her doing anything like that. She was a teacher. He never thought of teachers having sex or having to go to the bathroom or farting or anything like that. It made him angry that she wasn’t as perfect as she pretended to be. She was just a slut, fucking a guy on her back porch.

But she came to see him.

She tried to help him.

She was pretty.

She was a whore.

He closed his eyes and remembered what he had seen, what he had heard, the sounds she had made.

She would come to see him again tomorrow.

He would dream about her tonight.

Chapter 19

19

They made love slowly, sweetly, gently. He touched, she sighed. Lips clung, tongues tangled. Her breath caught, he groaned, she gasped. They whispered and murmured, “I love you ... I need you.”

Anne slid her hands over her husband’s muscled back. She ran her foot up and down the back of his thick calf. She loved everything about him. She loved making love with him. She loved his strength, the size of him, the warm smoothness of his skin. She loved the way he smelled, the way he tasted, the way he filled her, the way he moved against her, the way he held her.