Outside she deposited the trash bag in one of the large dented barrels that were lined up like tin soldiers at the rear of the former city-hall building and hiked up the small grassy embankment to the street.
Kathy had driven Bonnie, as well as two other friends, to the meeting that night. Kathy being Kathy, it was not unusual for Bonnie to be hiking home at 11:45 p.m. She didn't really mind. The streets were quiet, the April night air was warm and she liked to have a little think time to herself.
She had barely stepped out on the sidewalk when she heard a car engine start.
For a minute Bonnie thought Kathy had waited for her after all. She turned to look, but the car that pulled away from the curb was boxy and blue—not the fiery red Camaro Kathy's father bought her as a reward for passing her senior year at Custer High. Oh, well.
Bonnie continued down the sidewalk.
She walked a few more steps, but the car never passed by. The engine continued to rumble, and
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Bonnie slowly became aware that it had moved up directly behind her, keeping pace like a stalking animal.
Bonnie felt her heart quicken. Could someone really be following her?
Her feet suddenly felt like lead, and she forced them to move faster down the sidewalk.
The car kept moving behind her. It was running with its lights dim.
Bonnie's ears were ringing as she broke into a run, and the blood pounded faster in her head.
Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced left. She could just make out the hood of the car. One headlight stared at her like an angry yellow eye. Bonnie sucked in a nervous gulp of air, and turned her eyes straight ahead.
It was like a dream. Her head swam.
She couldn't look.
She had to look.
Bonnie stopped all at once and spun on the stalking car.
She recognized the woman behind the wheel. It was the nutcase who ran that religious camp on the outskirts of town. Esther something.
When Bonnie turned, the woman hunched down farther in her seat and slammed on the gas. The car lunged ahead—and Bonnie felt a wave of sheer relief as she watched the car take the next right turn and race off into the night.
Bonnie stood on the sidewalk for a few long seconds after the car had gone. As her body relaxed, she felt an uncontrollable shudder, as if someone had just dropped an ice cube down her bare back.
It was probably all perfectly innocent, she thought
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hopefully. The woman had likely mistaken her for one of her followers, out for a night stroll. They had strict curfews up there, Bonnie had heard.
By the time she reached the next intersection, she had convinced herself that it was all just a case of mistaken identity. She was about to cross the street when a figure stepped out from behind a high row of hedges at the corner lot and touched her arm.
Bonnie all but jumped out of her freckled skin.
It was that woman. Esther Clear-Seer. That was her name. The blue car sat silently a few house-lengths up the side street, its lights off.
Bonnie's heart pumped wildly.
"I'm sorry," Esther Clear-Seer said. She tapped her forehead with the palm of her hand and rolled her eyes heavenward as if she was the flakiest thing ever to come down the boulevard. "I think I probably scared you back there, and I'm really, really sorry. I just need directions, and usually I like to ask a man this late at night, but there's no one out around here for miles and, well, I saw you coming out of your little meeting..." She shrugged like a helpless sitcom housewife.
To Bonnie, the woman, who had been alternately laughed at and demonized by the local press, suddenly seemed more human.
She was friendly and scatterbrained and she continued apologizing profusely as she asked for directions to the police station.
Any concern Bonnie had immediately abated. After all, how dangerous could someone be if she was asking the way to the police station?
Bonnie pointed down Maiden Lane into the washed-out light cast by thirty-year old streetlamps...
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A hand snaked out, unseen, from under Esther Clear-Seer's jacket.
Bonnie's was just explaining the sharp left on West Street when the metal tire iron collided with the bar-rette at the back of her head. She crumpled like an aluminum can. Strong hands reached under her armpits.
A moment later the blue car was gone and there was no sign of Bonnie Sweetwater.
Virgin number one.
Chapter Six
Remo and Chiun rented a car at the airport in Worland, Wyoming, and headed south along Route 789 in the direction of Hot Springs State Park.
According to Smith, the ranch belonging to the Church of the Absolute and Incontrovertible Truth was located in the northwest corner of Wyoming, on the southern edge of the Hot Springs State Park, near the town called Thermopolis. The church owned several hundred acres of real estate in the area west of town.
Chiun had remained silent for most of the plane trip, stirring from his strange quiescence only long enough to shoo away the bevy of buxom stewardesses that had flocked around. They were ignoring Remo and fussing over the Master of Sinanju, who sometimes brought out the maternal instincts in women who generally looked as maternal as Anna Nicole Smith in crotchless panties.
It looked as though the car trip wasn't going to be any better.
There were times when Remo would have invited Chiun to clam up, but that was when the Master of Sinanju was haranguing him about some niggling little peeve. As far as Remo knew, this time he hadn't done anything whatsoever to tick off Chiun.
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"You didn't have to come, Little Father," Remo said when he could no longer bear the silence. He glanced at the Master of Sinanju, who was watching the aspens and cottonwood trees zip by in blurs of brilliant green.
"I did not have to sit at home, either," Chiun replied.
"You got me there," Remo admitted.
They rode on in silence for a few minutes longer before the Master of Sinanju spoke again.
"Remo?"