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“Mandy? Mandy, you’re order’s ready. Mandy !”

Lillian flinched and snapped her attention to the counter. The acne-ridden teenage brat wearing a lip ring and a vial and a half of eyeliner stared pointedly at her. “You’re order’s ready, Mandy.”

Right. Mandy was the name she was using now. She got to her feet and strode to the counter, forcing herself to wear a sheepish smile. She fought even harder to make her tone of voice bouncy when she said, “Sorry. I kind of spaced out there.”

The brat smiled. “No worries.” She turned away, making sure that Lillian saw her eyes roll as she did so. Lillian watched her for a half-second before forcing herself to turn around and carry her basket of burgers and onion rings back to her table.

She made it halfway before a family of three that weighed as much as a family of eight sidled in.

The whale of a mom and the elephant of a daughter ignored her.

The hippo of a husband stared at Lillian with that amused sneer that only the hugely fat could wear and waited for her to do something about it.

God, if only she could. Maybe she would when she was finished with Faith. She had thought about what she was going to do once Faith Bold was dead. Most of those plans revolved around breaking Frank out of prison and the two of them traveling blissfully around the world killing people.

She smiled at the hippo, and something in that smile must have leaked her true nature through, because the hippo paled and shrank back, smile gone.

Satisfying as that was, it wasn’t good. She needed to stay hidden, and that meant not staring down tubs of lard over a plastic bench at a cheap diner in the middle of West Toothrot, New Mexico. Or whatever this town was called.

She took another seat and started in on her food, which was thankfully at least passable.

As she bit into the burger, she dreamed of the day when she and Frank could return here. She would find the Fat Family, and she and Frank would take turns slicing pieces off of them. Maybe they would boil the fat in front of the family and toss it back into their faces. Melt them slowly.

Assuming she didn’t end up in jail first.

She felt the buns give under her fingers as they started to clench and made herself relax. God, it was so hard to focus on being chill all the damned time. It wasn’t fair. How did normal people do this, anyway?

Well, that was easy. They were normal. They didn’t have urges like she and Frank did. They didn’t take joy in taking lives. Lillian thought that was because most humans had evolved to be sheep. Sheep didn’t imagine the joy of the kill the way wolves did.

Lillian had been a moment away from the ultimate joy. She had been so close to fulfilling her promise to West, to sending that bitch Faith Bold all the way to hell. She could hear Faith’s skull crack, feel her head cave in, taste the blood and brain that splashed up from the blows.

So close. Then her damned partner, the bumbling but lucky-as-hell chimpanzee Michael Prince, had shown up, and she’d had to flee.

Now she was on the run, waiting every day for her picture to show up on the television next to a story about how Faith had bravely resisted the attack of another serial killer.

Faith had seen her face. Michael hadn’t, but he wasn’t really important.

He was the Mr. Magoo of the story. Blind as a bat but lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time.

Faith, though, she was smart. Frank had said so.

He had admitted that Faith was cunning and vicious and determined to put a stop to him at all costs.

That determination, that drive, was what drew him to her.

He knew that behind Faith’s bravado was a powerful fear, and behind that fear was understanding that she wasn’t good enough.

No matter how hard she tried, she wasn’t good enough to stop him.

Except she was. She wasn’t good enough to do it herself, but whatever temptation she exuded was enough to prompt Frank to act foolishly. He should have killed her. He should have shot her instead of trying some bullshit attempt to get the chimpanzee to kill her boyfriend.

What was it about her? She really didn’t know. It couldn’t be sexual attraction, because she was as cookie cutter as you could make a woman. Blondish-brown hair, average figure, brown eyes, no lips, no hips, tits… well, okay tits, but not enough that Frank would go stupid over them.

Maybe it was the cunning and viciousness. Faith wasn’t a sheep. She was a wolf, but she was protecting the sheep instead of eating them. She was a sheepdog.

Yeah, that had to be it. Frank was a wolf, and Faith was a sheepdog. They had a natural enmity—a natural rivalry that could only end with one of them victorious.

She finished her food and headed out of the diner. On the way, she dropped her basket upside down on the hippo’s food. The whale and elephant started to bleat, but the hippo hushed them up and sat warily until the predator left the diner.

That was stupid, but whatever. If Faith was going to identify her, she would have already. Lillian’s picture hadn’t shown up anywhere on the news, so it wasn’t going to. She would have to leave West Toothrot, but that was okay. This place sucked anyway.

Maybe she’d go to Los Angeles to pass the time for a little while. There was a lot to do there, and if she got really antsy, well, who would miss a few homeless people?

She'd lay low for a little while longer, then head back home.

Maybe this time, she'd kill the chimp instead of the sheepdog or the actual dog.

That would take away the dumb luck hex that F was protecting Faith.

Then, Lillian would bring a gun instead of a hammer.

It wasn't as satisfying as the hammer, but if she killed Turk and then shot Faith in the spine or something, she could keep her alive while she bludgeoned her to death.

She got in her car and drove away. The car was a 2008 Toyota Corolla S.

There were about a million of them on the road and for good reason.

It had two hundred fifty thousand miles and would probably run another two hundred fifty thousand before the little Toyota four-banger finally shit the bed.

It was about as exciting as a math class and about as noticeable as a blade of grass in a field. Which made it perfect for her.

That was what made her better than Frank.

She’d never say that to Frank’s face, and she’d never act like he wasn’t good enough for her, but when she really thought about it, Frank’s inability to stay hidden was his downfall.

He tried, but he couldn’t help himself. He needed people to know how smart he was.

Lillian only needed one person to know. Well, two. Frank and the bitch she was going to kill for him.

She wondered what Frank was doing now. His sentencing was going to take place in a few weeks.

He had been found guilty a second time, and the defense’s motion to find another mistrial had been dismissed with prejudice.

Lillian looked that up and found out it meant they couldn’t file that motion ever again.

The judge had finally grown tired of the media frenzy and was no longer humoring the defense’s desire to expose the FBI’s mishandling of the case.

He was going to get life in prison, she was sure of it. When that happened, he would be sent to Florence. There would be no way to break him out once he was there. That’s where they kept terrorists. It might as well be Guantanamo Bay.

She needed to do this before he was sentenced. She needed Faith Bold to be dead and Frank to be free before he was sentenced.

The wheels of her Corolla squealed in indignant protest as she whipped the car around and started back East. Screw California. She was going home now. She was going to deal with Faith once and for all.

Then she would show Frank that the only woman he should be obsessed with was Lillian Martin.