Chapter 1

Evette Warwick walked down Union Street in Thornton, California, on her way home from junior college. She was nineteen years old and blonde. She was a natural blonde, although she had assisted nature with bleach since she had been fourteen. The effect had always pleased her in spite of the fact her mother had mentioned that it made her look cheap.

Evette was not tall, but she had a firm body that was very well put together. She was a little overweight, even though her waist was not out of proportion to the rest of her body. She had large breasts that filled out her slipover sweater. They did not sag, even though they might have on another girl who did not possess Evette's muscle tone. Her hips were broad and her thighs generous, even though her legs tapered down to calves that were almost slender and ankles that were nearly delicate.

She stopped and looked into the window of the variety store. She didn't know why, but she had always like the five-and-dime store; as much as she liked anything in Thornton, California.

It was a dumb town where nothing much ever happened, she thought. Her life was passing by and she wasn't getting much out of it.

Evette had no girl friends; she didn't like other girls and they didn't like her ... and Evette knew why. She took their men away from them when she felt like it.

Boys and men liked Evette. And she liked them. Her life was empty when she did not have a man, and one man could not keep her amused or happy for very long. She had to have variety in her life and that diversity was always in the form of someone new.

At this point she felt some regret for her vacillating affections. There had been one man, less than a year ago, whom she wished she had not thrown away. But now it was too late. He was engaged to a rich man's daughter and that was probably that.

Evette wondered if she could get him back if she really tried.

Then, she wondered if she would actually want him back once he returned. Perhaps it was sweeter the way it was now. From time to time she could feel the regret of having lost someone she cared for, and the pain of it was not altogether unpleasant.

Thornton was too damned far from San Francisco, she thought. It was too far from everywhere. There wasn't any real reason it should have been here, but it was (like so many other things in the world) here anyway.

It bugged her.

And it wasn't just Thornton either. Her mother, her stepfather, men she had known in the past and didn't like anymore, men making a play for her whom she had never been able to stomach, old men who moistened their lips and looked at her funny, practically all the women....

Almost everything bugged Evette. She needed change in her life, constant change, and it wasn't forthcoming in Thornton.

She was nineteen years old and she wanted her life to be one big joyride. She wanted excitement, action, fun. That was her reason for being, her purpose in life. She wanted a good time from life, and she could give a good time to others.

But nothing ever happened to Evette in Thornton, and it never would, she thought.

She was wrong about that, though. There was no way for her to know, but she was wrong because she based her assumption on what had happened in the past.

But something new was going to come to her. It would be a new experience, a sensation not felt before, an event that would not cause her boredom. A something that would as nearly fill her demands for excitement in her life as almost anything could.

Someone was going to kill Evette Warwick.