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think I’m special at all, do you?”
    But now Lander’s asleep.
    I smile, lean over, and whisper in his ear, “But I am special, Lander. I’m special because I know who you are. You’re the guy who stands by your daddy and brother even when it means destroying someone else’s family. Even when it means taking a mother away from her daughter and locking her up for a crime she didn’t commit. I’m special because I know that. And I’m special because I’m the girl who’s going to teach you and your whole fucking family what karma is. You think I get excited during sex?”
    I roll off him and rise to my feet. “Just wait until you see me get off on vengeance.”

chapter five
    N ow that Lander’s out for the night I’m free to explore. I sit in his home office, in front of his computer, waiting for it to boot up. The keyboard is cool to the touch . . . just as the glass was cool against my skin when Lander pressed me up against the window.
    I shake my head fiercely and turn my attention back to the computer . . .
    The computer that is asking for a password before it will open up its desktop.
    Fuck.
    I try a few numbers, his birthday, the date of his college graduation. But they don’t work, and I can’t risk trying anything more. I turn the machine off. I hadn’t noticed a laptop in the place, and even if there was one, what were the chances that it wouldn’t be password protected too?
    I stand up, walk over to a file cabinet. But it’s mostly filled with things like cable and water bills. I have to assume that all the important stuff is filed electronically. There are a few cell phone bills that might be useful. I use my Android to take photos of each page, vowing to try to decipher them later.
    I start opening drawers. In the first I find a spiral notebook. Inside are notes from bank meetings, a few scribbles about new FDIC regulations, nothing that isn’t likely already public information. I sigh and look back to the open drawer . . . and that’s when I see it: a book that looks suspiciously like a journal.
    It seems unlikely to me that Lander is the kind of guy who would tell his secrets to a diary, but you never know. I put the financial notebook down on the desk and pick up the book. But when I open it I don’t find words—I find pictures, drawings that look like they were done quickly but are actually pretty good.
    They’re caricatures. The first one is of a woman with a perversely large bustline and dollar signs in her eyes. She carries a Chanel purse, peeking out of which is a little shih tzu or something with a diamond collar. The words Dogged Girl are written boldly underneath the image.
    Another is of politicians made to look like marionettes. That one’s labeled Thrusting Spell , whatever that means.
    There’s a drawing of a crying woman in a hospital gown, on her knees, clutching at the pant leg of a man wearing a crown as he tries to walk away, titled A Cad Feels Spewing Sorrow .
    And then there’s a drawing of a man in a suit, a nail sticking out where his heart should be. He stands arm in arm with a much older man whose suit pockets are turned inside out as he hands what is apparently the last of his fortune to a smiling boy with shark teeth. The boy looks like he’s going to eat the money being handed to him . . . Scratch that, he looks like he’s going to bite off the man’s entire hand. The title of this piece is actually pretty self-explanatory: Bite, Torture, Ruin .
    The weird thing is that the boy with the sharp teeth looks a little like Lander.
    The last picture I find is of a man who looks a lot like the older man from the last drawing. Except in this image, he’s the one with the sharp teeth, and he’s snarling down at a man who’s lying on his side, apparently sleeping and peacefully unaware of the threat looming overhead. The picture is rendered so we only see the sleeping man’s back. The title of that one is E’s Wolflike Indecency .
    Pretty dark stuff