Bonus #4: Andrea goes to Las Vegas

Warning: Don't read these scenes unless you've already read the book! These scenes give away many of the secrets behind the twists and turns of IMMORAL.

Andrea felt eyes following her as she picked her way nervously through the club. This was a place for men, occasionally a daring couple, but never a woman by herself. She felt her skin burning with embarrassment as they seated her in an empty chair next to the runway, with all the men around her watching with ugly grins.

A waitress came up beside her, shoving her half-naked breasts almost in her face, and leered at her as she took her drink order. Andrea asked for a soft drink. The waitress told her the price was seven dollars, and Andrea gave her ten, just to make her go away.

The noise was excruciating, making her want to cover her ears with her hands. It thumped with a heavy dance beat, pound pound pound, so strong she could feel it vibrating in her chest. The lights were no better, strobe lights that flashed on and off like a machine gun of black and white, giving the motions of everyone in the club a helter-skelter, slow-motion look, as if she were under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug.

Why was she here, in this God-awful place?

She should have been at the airport, waiting to take the midnight flight back to her sister in Miami, and then the Monday morning flight back to Minneapolis. She should never have come here. But without even asking herself why, she bypassed the airport and stopped at a gas station to get directions to the strip club where Rachel worked. The attendant told her from memory, and he gave her a look that said, What do you want there, honey?

But here she was.

Why?

She heard the music grow even louder and heard a voice on the microphone shout something she didn't understand. Barely looking up, Andrea saw a redhead strut down the runway, barely dressed in black lingerie. The girl flirted with the men one by one and gyrated as they stuffed her g-string with bills, sliding them in and trying to graze her bare skin as they did. Andrea didn't make eye contact. She didn't want the girl to see her or play games with her, which would only incite the crowd further, so she just stared down at her drink.

Mercifully, the girl ignored her.

Andrea tried to block out everything around her. And she thought about Robin.

When she went to the post office box he used as a return address, they all remembered him, and one of the workers knew him well enough to know where he kept his trailer. She followed the directions into the desert, but when she found the ramshackle trailer parked like an abandoned car on the edge of the frontage road, she assumed she had taken a wrong turn.

But no. The sign said Jerky Bob. That was Robin's nickname in grammar school, because his dad made homemade jerky.

Inside, she barely recognized him. His appearance horrified her. The slim, handsome man she had married had devolved into a wasted shell. His mind wandered in and out. She expected him to be ashamed of who he was, but he wore his decay like a badge of honor, as if he had finally found a grotesque way to be truly unique. Andrea could barely keep herself from crying in front of him. She thought about the dreams they had shared and how good they looked together in the early days — and how all of that was gone.

All Robin could talk about was Rachel. He didn't seem to care about the past, and he couldn't see what the girl had done to him. His obsession was alive and well. Andrea tried to talk Robin into coming home, where he could get a real job and put his life back together, even if it meant lying about what had happened to him. But it meant leaving Rachel, and he wouldn't do that, despite the fact that she had thrown him out, that she had never loved him, and that she wouldn't see him anymore.

They talked for three hours, until it was dark outside, and they had nothing left to say to each other.

When she left, his mind focused long enough to say again, "I'm sorry, Andrea." She knew he was ready to start drinking again. Andrea bit her lip and hurried away, wishing she could put the scene out of her mind. But she knew that, deep down, she still loved him, and she felt a bitterness creep over her unlike anything she had ever experienced. It was as if Robin had transferred his obsession with Rachel to her. She kept thinking about what that girl had done to them.

So here she was, drawn by a strange need to see Rachel in the flesh.

Andrea nursed her cola for an hour, then ordered another. Two more girls came and went on stage, but Andrea kept her nose buried in her drink, not inviting attention. The men in the audience, with other things to distract them, lost interest in her. She was invisible.

The longer she watched, the more she thought about leaving. For all she knew, Rachel wasn't even working tonight, or had started working somewhere else in the time since Robin had last seen her. Andrea could be sitting here for nothing, expecting a girl who wasn't going to show up. And for what? But the sign outside still advertised Christi Katt as one of the dancers.

She glanced at the next performer, an Asian girl with petite, conical breasts. The girl couldn't be more than eighteen. Seeing these girls made Andrea feel old, aware of every wrinkle, every gray hair, and every pound that hadn't been there twenty years ago. She wished she could turn back the clock and go back to how it had been in the beginning, when she and Robin were in love, when the biggest worry in her life was turning thirty. Instead, her life — their lives — had eroded year by year. The promise of those days had been stolen away. She felt deeply depressed, contemplating how far they had fallen, she and Robin.

And all of it, all the blame, could be laid at the feet of one person.

Just as she was giving up and getting ready to leave, Andrea heard the announcer again, competing with the blare of music in the club. She made out one word this time.

"Christi!"

Andrea stared at the far end of the runway, where the spotlight illuminated a blonde girl emerging through the curtains. The girl stood motionless, tall and sensuous, letting the crowd admire her and smiling slyly as the screaming grew to a fever pitch. Her eyes were like laser beams, searching the faces. Andrea remembered what Robin said in his letter, about how Rachel's eyes made him feel like he was the only man in the universe. Every man here, as her eyes lit on them, must have felt the same way. She was magnetic.

There was no doubt. It was Rachel.

If she hadn't known to study her features intently, she would never have made the connection. Andrea had only seen the high school of photo of Rachel, printed over and over in the newspaper when she disappeared. The hair was a new color. The face was more mature. The body was that of a woman. But it was Rachel. Very much alive.

She wore a black halter top, from which her full breasts partially overflowed, and tight-fitting black leather short-shorts. Her body glistened like gold, from a sprinkling of glitter on her skin that caught the lights. She strutted gracefully down the runway on spiked heels, using the brass poles to squat and spin, wiggling her tight butt at the leering men inches away. She was limber enough to extend one leg flush up against the pole, while she leaned back, her hair tumbling to the mirrored floor. Slowly, as she approached, she shed her meager clothes. She reached under the fabric of the black halter and ripped it upward, pulling it off as she raised her arms over her head. Her bare breasts stretched into perfect ovals, dotted with gold flecks and exposing a tiny heart-shaped tattoo. Rachel spun the halter around her fingers, causing her breasts to jiggle, then let the garment fly into the audience, where men leaped for it.

Half-naked now, she came closer.

Andrea forgot to look away. She kept staring, transfixed, as if she were watching a corpse rise from the dead. Their eyes met through the pulsing strobe lights. Andrea saw Rachel's face register a flicker of surprise at seeing a woman by herself amid the male crowd. Andrea didn't know what message her own face sent, whether it reflected fear, curiosity, or maybe even a hint of desire. It didn't matter. Rachel quickly chose her as a prop for her performance.

She bent at the waist, letting her long hair caress Andrea's face. Then she swept her hair behind her back, where it continued to escape, falling in loose strands. Her breasts, unnaturally large, dangled in front of Andrea. Rachel cupped them and held them in front of her, forcing her to look at them. She brought them so close that Andrea feared that Rachel would actually graze her nipples across her lips. But no. Rachel straightened up and began a rotating grind with her hips, thrusting her crotch back and forth, again tantalizingly close to Andrea's face. Her fingers tugged slowly on the zipper of her shorts until they peeled away in two flaps, leaving her with only a flimsy g-string clinging to her hips. Andrea wanted to look away, but she was strangely fascinated. She could see beads of sweat on Rachel's skin, the taut tendons of her legs, and the barest glimpse of her shaved mound underneath the g-string. She felt hypnotized, like someone trying to follow the hooded head of a cobra.

Rachel sank to her knees. She arched her back, stretching, her head falling backward and her hair tumbling onto the runway. Andrea saw her tight stomach and her breasts jutting from her narrow frame like twin ripe grapefruits. Her legs slipped apart, exposing more of her crotch. The men around them, watching intently, screamed their approval. Rachel languidly came back to her knees and rose off them, swaying her hips. She draped her arms over Andrea's shoulders. With a fierce grip, she pulled Andrea closer and bent so that they were eye to eye, nose to nose. Rachel licked her lips with her tongue and then, grinning, licked Andrea's lips, too. Andrea felt dizzy, overwhelmed by the noise, intoxicated by Rachel's floral perfume. Some part of Andrea wanted it to go farther, to have Rachel kiss her and to be able to touch her. She needed to understand why Robin had left and why Rachel had been able to seduce him. What was this girl's power? But just as she was beginning to fathom it, with the moistness of Rachel's tongue still on her lips, Rachel was gone, moving on to her next helpless victim down the runway, leaving Andrea alone, taunted by laughter and catcalls.

Andrea grabbed her purse and hurried from the club, feeling dirty. She heard shouts from the men, directed at her, and her face stung with embarrassment. She kept her head down, not looking up until she was back outside on the warm street. The neon of the club sign bathed her face in a red glow.

She found her rental car and locked herself inside. She was breathing heavily, and her face was flushed. Again she told herself to forget all of it, to return to the airport and go home. She had seen Robin. She had seen Rachel. What more did she need? But Andrea knew that if she left it like this, Rachel would have won again, and Andrea would never have the satisfaction of confronting her.

Andrea adjusted the mirror and brushed her hair, regaining her composure. She drove behind the club and parked, with her lights off, in a spot that gave her a clear view of the club's rear door. Every half hour or so, a young girl would emerge, cast her eyes nervously around the dark parking lot, then scurry to one of the parked cars or to the bus stop on the street. Andrea waited two hours, until it was the middle of the night, before she spotted Rachel. Unlike most of the other girls, Rachel gave the lot no more than a cursory glance before marching to her rusting Cavalier.

As Rachel sped out of the lot, Andrea followed.

It wasn't hard to do so without being noticed. Even at such an early hour, the Vegas streets were crowded, and the lights were bright enough that she could readily distinguish Rachel's car. The traffic also prevented Rachel from driving fast enough to leave Andrea behind.

Andrea dogged Rachel's path for twenty minutes. When Rachel turned onto a quieter side street near the airport, Andrea lingered, watching the Cavalier's taillights, but keeping a safe distance. The area was run-down. Most of the houses had bars on the windows, and the streets were parked with old beaters that no one would bother to steal. She watched Rachel turn into an apartment complex that looked like a motel. Andrea switched off her lights and drifted to a stop on the street, where she could see the parking lot. Rachel got out of her car, walked to the far end of the complex, and climbed the stairs to the second level. Andrea counted the doors to be sure she knew which apartment belonged to Rachel.

She pulled into the parking lot and found an empty space near the first-floor doors.

Her heart was thumping in her chest and in her ears.

She got out of the car and looked around fearfully, not wanting to be seen. The complex was quiet and deserted. She walked softly along the corridor that led beside the doors of the apartments, occasionally hearing the muffled sound of a television, or a loud snore, or the moans of a couple having sex. She stopped dead in her tracks when a door suddenly opened in front of her, and a little girl in a long white dress slipped outside, closing the apartment door softly behind her. She was Indian, with long, straight black hair and a red dot on her forehead.

"Oh!" the girl exclaimed, seeing Andrea. She turned to run back inside, but waited when she realized that Andrea looked harmless.

Andrea smiled at her. "You're up late," she said. She figured the girl was about ten years old.

"It is cool at night," the girl said. "During the day, it is too hot. I like it to be cool."

"Me, too," Andrea said.

"There are not many stars out tonight, though," the girl added. "That is too bad."

Andrea patted her head. "Don't stay out late by yourself, okay?"

The girl nodded. "Okay."

Andrea smiled and went past her, finding the steps that led up the second floor. Seeing the girl, she felt a pang of disappointment again that she had never been able to bear a child, not with Robin, not with Jonathan. Maybe, if God had given her the chance to have a baby, things would have turned out differently. As a father, Robin would have been less likely to fall prey to Rachel's evil charms. It didn't seem fair, when so many women who were terrible mothers could get pregnant so easily, that she, who would have been so loving, was sterile.

She wondered if Robin had ever impregnated Rachel and whether the girl had had an abortion. She hadn't asked Robin that question, because she didn't want to know the answer.

Andrea found Rachel's door.

She raised her hand to knock, her knuckles curled into a fist, but she stopped short, suddenly unsure. She had dreamed of confronting Rachel ever since she received Robin's letter, but she was nervous, knowing that Rachel was really there, on the opposite side of the door.

What would she say? She had considered and rejected a dozen different opening lines, and now she realized she had never decided. What do you say to someone you've never met, someone who ruined your whole life?

As she thought about what Rachel had done to them, Andrea felt her anger coming back, and with it, her courage. She knocked sharply on the door. A few seconds passed silently, and she knocked again. Andrea heard the rattle of the lock, then saw the door crack open a few inches. The young woman's face, shadowy and backlit, appeared in the narrow opening. A trace of the sensual aroma that had enveloped Andrea in the club wafted out into the corridor and made her dizzy again. They were about the same height, facing each other only inches apart, just as they had been earlier. The girl's cold green eyes narrowed in suspicion as she recognized Andrea from the club.

"What do you want?" she demanded, inching the door closed.

"I want to talk to you," Andrea said.

The girl in the doorway shook her head. "I'm not into freak shows, all right? What I do in the club is an act, nothing more. If you're looking for a girlfriend, look somewhere else."

She was about to close the door. Andrea spoke quickly.

"I know who you are... Rachel."

The girl froze and studied her carefully, obviously looking at her face and wondering if Andrea was someone she should remember. Did she know her? Did she place her? Andrea wasn't sure. Rachel gave the tiniest of shrugs and opened the door wide for Andrea to enter. Feeling faint, Andrea stepped inside. She heard the door close behind her and then felt Rachel brush past her, proceeding into the apartment's small living area.

With her back to her, Rachel asked casually, "Do you like the blonde hair? I think it suits me."

Andrea didn't know what to say. She followed Rachel and stood uncomfortably in the middle of the apartment.

Rachel turned around. For the first time, Andrea saw her face in full light. She couldn't deny that Rachel was alluring, with her once-black hair now blonde, falling gracefully over her shoulders, and her angular face perfectly made-up. Her white tank top, with a plunging neckline, fit snugly, as did her black jeans.

Rachel followed Andrea's eyes. "New boobs, too," she said. "My tips went up forty percent after I had them done."

"I thought you'd be surprised," Andrea said, cursing herself as her tongue got caught up in her words.

"Well, I knew this day would come sooner or later," Rachel said. "If you're thinking of blackmail, forget it. I don't care if people find out I'm alive now."

"That's not it," Andrea replied.

"Then what do you want?" Rachel asked.

Andrea took a deep breath. "I'm Robin's wife. Ex-wife."

Rachel's lips curled into a nasty smile. "Well, well. The woman scorned. So what — do you want him back? Hell, you can have him. He's a real prize in his current condition."

She laughed derisively.

"You did this to him," Andrea told her angrily.

"Oh, so you've seen him? Lucky you. I hope you gave him a kiss for me."

Andrea opened her mouth, furious, but found herself speechless.

"You must be here for your wedding gift," Rachel added with a wink.

"What?" Andrea asked, not understanding.

Rachel gestured toward a vase sitting on a nearby bookshelf. It was finely-cut crystal, heavy and out of place in the drab apartment.

"I heard you married the detective who was so earnest about finding poor little lost Rachel. Robin had his heart set on sending you a wedding gift to make up for all your suffering. I told him to fuck that. He wasn't going to blow our cover just because you found somebody new to crawl into your bed."

Rachel grabbed the vase off the shelf and dropped it casually into Andrea's arms. Andrea clutched it to her chest.

"Take it," Rachel said. "I bet your detective will be amused to find out who gave it to you. Seems to me you should both be grateful. I landed a husband for you and a murderer for him."

"But it was all a lie!" Andrea protested.

Rachel's face turned cold, and she jabbed an accusing finger at Andrea. "Don't lecture me about lies, not until you've been where I've been. You and your perfect little suburban teacher's life. For you, a bad day is when the copy machine breaks down. For me, it's when some drunk pervert tries to rape my ass in a parking lot."

Andrea shook her head. "You don't feel guilty at all, do you?"

Rachel marched up to her. They were almost nose to nose again. "Guilty? Why the hell should I feel guilty?"

"Think about the lives you've destroyed!" Andrea retorted. "Your mother nearly killed herself after you disappeared."

Rachel nodded. "She couldn't even do that right, the little bitch. But at least she survived to settle the score with Graeme. That was sweet."

"Rachel, I know he did terrible things to you — but to see him killed... "

Rachel's green eyes flashed. "You have no fucking idea what he did. And if you knew, you'd understand why I have a clear conscience."

Andrea needed to hear something, anything, some whisper of regret for what Rachel had done. She couldn't walk away with nothing. "A clear conscience? What about Robin? He was nothing to you. You used him up, and you tossed him aside. Have you seen him? Do you know what's happened to him? I loved him, Rachel. We had a life together. You had no right to take it away."

"So that's what this is about," Rachel said, leaning closer. "You can't believe how easy it was for me to take your husband away from you. You want me to cry and apologize and beg for your forgiveness."

"I didn't deserve what you did to me. To us. We had a beautiful marriage until you came along."

"You had nothing," Rachel hissed. "Stop living in dreamland, honey. I gave him just what he wanted. What a gullible fool — so serious about his crappy poetry, so fucking easy to seduce."

"You had no right," Andrea repeated bitterly.

"No right? Get over it. He wanted me, not you. He would have done anything I asked. He was bored to death with you."

Andrea was shocked. "You're a liar."

Rachel grinned. "A liar? He used to tell me what a great fuck I was and how he could barely keep it up when he was with you. He said making love to you was like humping a corpse. No wonder you couldn't get pregnant, he said. There wasn't anything alive between your legs."

Andrea felt sweat on her palms. She was crumbling, crying, more violated than she had ever felt before. She had never met anyone who could wound her so skillfully and callously. She didn't want to give Rachel the satisfaction of breaking down, but tears began slipping down her cheeks anyway. The tears were mixed with frustration and fury. She wanted to rip the vicious, triumphant grin from Rachel's face.

"Poor baby," Rachel told her. She brushed her lips against Andrea's ear and whispered to her. "So how's your latest marriage going?"

Andrea winced. The heartless, heartless bitch! Rachel's green eyes danced with delight as she saw that she had scored another blow. She was enjoying herself, relishing the pain she was inflicting. A serial killer, that's what she was. A killer of souls.

Rachel eased away. She ran her tongue over her white teeth and gave Andrea an icy smile. "I think it's time for you to go."

She dismissed Andrea with a toss of her hair.

Time for you to go. As if she were an insect to be swatted away, someone of no consequence, just a toy for Rachel's cruel amusement. Something inside Andrea bubbled over. Her jaw clenched, her teeth clamping together. She turned on her heels, ready to stalk from the apartment, but her fury wouldn't let her go. It was a living thing inside her. She felt a scream well up from her chest, but when she opened her mouth, nothing came out, only the pounding, silent roar of her heartbeat. All her failures, all her desperation, had a focus now, embodied in the image of Rachel's smug, infuriating face. Laughing at her. Tormenting her. Daring her to strike back.

She held the heavy vase so tightly in her hands that her knuckles were white. She stared down at it. In the thousands of crystal angles, she saw her own reflection, a defeated woman whose dreams had been snatched away.

By her. Rachel. Stolen without any remorse.

Andrea squeezed her eyes shut. She took two steps backward, and without looking, without aiming, she swung the vase in a vicious arc, causing a whistle of air like a flute. She wanted to let go, to send the vase flying, crashing, colliding into a wall, shattering into sharp fragments that would sprinkle the apartment in a rain of glass. But her fingers clung to it in an iron grip. Half-way through its circle, the vase thudded into something, sending a shudder through her body. She heard nothing, not the crash of glass, not a scream of protest from Rachel, just a quiet puff, like someone exhaling. A second later, the ground shook with a tremor as something dropped heavily to the ground.

She opened her eyes and saw Rachel face-down on the carpet, an ocean of blood gushing from her head, turning her blonde hair crimson. Andrea's hand flew to her mouth. The vase slipped from her fingers to the floor.

"Oh, my God," she murmured. She bent down, helpless, wondering what to do. "Rachel?"

Rachel didn't answer. Her green eyes were open, but empty and unmoving. Andrea put her hands on the girl's head, wanting the bleeding to stop, trying irrationally to hold it in. But the blood kept on, forming a ruby pool. It took Andrea a long, frantic moment to realize that, this time, Rachel was really dead. She had killed her.