Cruel Intent

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Sipping a cup of freshly brewed Colombian blend, Peter Winter sat on the couch in his spacious family room, inserted the DVD into his computer, and then waited for the slide show to appear on his fifty-two-inch flat-screen TV. He kept the “before” photos in a group by themselves, and he flicked through those first. The befores showed five slender blondes, each smiling sweetly into the camera-into his camera. Rita Winter, Candace Miller, Melanie Tyler, Debra Longworth, and Morgan Forester. The five of them looked enough alike that they could have been sisters. Their faces were remarkably similar, with wide-set blue eyes, delicate features, and flawless complexions. They all had straight white teeth and carbon-copy smiles-superior smiles, knowing smiles, cheating smiles.

In addition to their beauty-pageant good looks, that was another thing the five women had in common-they were all cheaters. Second, all of them were greedy, always wanting more-always requiring more-than they had been given. Finally, of course, there was the dead part. That showed up in the “afters”-in those, the women weren’t alike at all, except that they were dead and looked it; well, four of them did anyway. The first photo was a grainy copy of a news photo with the body already covered by a tarp. Peter had missed the opportunity to take his own portrait, but since then he had corrected that oversight.

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