Reprisal

July 21,1984

Carol caught him at the front door.

"Aren't you even going to say good-bye?" she said.

During the past two years Jimmy had sprouted to the point where he was now taller than Carol. Slim, handsome, he looked down at her the way a cat might glance at a plate of food it had no taste for.

"Why? We'll never see each other again."

Jimmy had somehow worked a change in his birth records back in Arkansas to show that he was now eighteen. He'd hired a shyster from Austin who'd obtained a court order that had forced her to turn most of the fortune over to him. He'd treated her as so much dirt these past few yeas. So many times she had loathed her son, hated him, feared him. Yet something within her cried out with loss at the thought of his leaving.

"I've raised you, cared for you for fifteen years, Jimmy. Doesn't that mean anything?"

"It's the blink of an eye," he said. "Less. And why should you worry? It's not as if you haven't profited in that time. I've left you millions of dollars to play with."

"You don't understand, do you?"

He looked at her quizzically. "Understand what?"

They stared at each other and Carol realized that he really didn't understand.

"Never mind," she said. "Where are you going?"

"To settle an old score."

"With that red-haired man you keep looking for?"

For the first time, his face showed emotion.

"I told you never to mention him!" Then his face softened into a chilling smile. "No. I'm about to renew an old acquaintance."

He left. Not a touch, not a smile, not a wave, not even a shrug. He simply turned and walked out to his waiting sports car.

As her Jimmy drove off, Carol began to cry. And hated herself for it.