Julie Franconia didn’t usually get to set these things up the way she wanted. Far from it. She didn’t have that much experience, but the few times she’d tried something like this, it had seemed that her fantasies usually got lost in the jungle of some man’s choosing. That’s the way it was the first time with him, too.
But this time his message said that she got to pick the time, the place, the setup. He just wanted to “control the mood.” The last time with him was the best ever. He’d taken her over the moon. The mood? He could have the mood.
That’s not all he could have. From the moment she’d spotted him at the RCA Dome, she’d been dying to make him hers. It had turned out better than she could have hoped.
She fit the headphones on her head and snapped the tape into the Walkman.
Beethoven.
An otherworldly voice-over said, “You have twenty minutes to get to the campsite. That’s all. Go, baby.”
Her heart was swollen. Anticipation. Pure anticipation.
Beneath her hiking clothes she was all silk. Everywhere.
Everywhere.
She knew the spot; she’d picked it carefully. Morgan Monroe State Park, north of Bloomington. A favorite trail. She wouldn’t have any trouble getting there in the dusk light. Getting the tent up? She could do it in three minutes.
The piano concerto ended, and some old rock ’n’ roll filled her ears. She thought maybe it was the Animals, but she wasn’t sure. That was before her time.
Before his, too.
“Okay, babe, get the tent up. Hurry. I can’t wait. I’m close by; can you feel me? Can you? I’m watching.”
She threaded the fiberglass poles. One, two, three. The tent was up.
“Into the woods, to the west, ten steps. Go on now.”
Her hiking boots sank half an inch into the marshy soil. She smiled as she saw the picnic basket.
“Now set everything up in the tent. Everything.”
She did.
Wine and chocolate. Two cans of whipped cream. A disposable camera. It didn’t take too long to set things up.
The music changed. The Doors.
Jim Morrison sang,This is the end, my friend, the end.
And it was.
When the police found Julie’s body, they concluded that she was a hiker who had been pulled off the trail and shot by a madman.
Her body wasn’t in a tent.
And she wasn’t surrounded by a picnic of wine and sweets.