He ran his eyes over his father’s cache of equipment, most of which he’d already seen. Only one item looked unfamiliar: a headset connected to a small metal box. A decal on the box indicated a brand name. Max picked it up. He tried to sound out what the headset and box were all about.

DigiALTAVOICE.

The word was hard to sound out, and Max set the device down again next to his father’s computer.

“Max, I need you to turn on the water,” his mom called from the yard.

He saw the disk he wanted and grabbed it.

“Okay, Mom!”

Chapter Forty-six

March 21, noon

Key Peninsula

Melody Castile drank some wine and stared and let the warmth of the alcohol take her back in time. A face stared dead-eyed back at her. It was the visage of a toy, merely the representation of a woman. A doll. She applied some mascara to the eyelashes and quickly learned to use the gentlest of motions. Too much of an upsweep and the lashes would slip from the lids and stick on to the tiny bristles of the little round brush. The face was cold and firm, and she worked slowly to make sure that the blush looked all right.

This is like playing dolls, she thought, feeling a smile creep over her lips. It surprised her a little. What she was doing to please her husband was not something that could easily be explained. It was her way of giving him a gift, a “pretty joy,” as she called it. She fiddled with the woman’s mouth, inserting a six-inch section of broom handle that she’d sawed off expressly for that purpose. She worked the jaw, slightly stiff and very cold.

“You have no idea how much fun you are. How good you are. You’re my baby’s little whore. Do me proud,” she said, stepping back to regard her handiwork. “My, my, you really are a pretty thing, if I do say so. And I do.”

Melody gathered her things from her worktable and straightened up the mattress in the Fun House bedroom.

This is going to be so good, she thought. He’s going to be so pleased.

She sipped more wine and imagined a conversation that she was all but certain would take place. Someday. She wasn’t sure exactly when, but someday.

“Tell me about the head, Melody.”

“You want to know about that, don’t you? Everybody does. I don’t really see what the big deal is. It’s just a head.”

“What did you do with the head?”

“You already know.”

“Yes, but I want to hear from you.”

“I’m sure you would. I’m sure you would like to know every juicy detail. Maybe you’ll want to write a book someday. Say some shit about me or Samuel. Get some money.”

“This isn’t about a book. Or money. It’s about the truth.”

“So you say. Okay, I’ll play along. I’ll accept that you want the truth for some sick, twisted reason.”

“Whatever you say. Just tell me.”

“It was just for fun. Just something to do. I’m sure you’ll try to pin all sorts of meaning to it. But you know meaning is what boring people come up with to explain why their lives really don’t suck. Why they are better than everyone else.”

“The head. Tell me about it.”

“I’m getting there. We just thought it would be fun. I painted her up like a little doll, and she gave Sam a blow job whenever he wanted. I’d hold the head and work it up and down on him until he came. I know it sounds nasty, but we had fun.”

“Tell me about the makeup.”

“I did it for him. And I will tell you, it wasn’t easy. He’s pretty picky. I had to get it just so. You have no idea how many times he made me haul that head back to the worktable and redo it.”

She started to laugh.

“You think this is amusing.”

“Don’t you?”

“Not really. How did you keep it? Preserve it?”

“You know we kept it in the freezer. I defrosted her by running warm water over her and painted her up and gave my man what he wanted. He always would say, ‘Shut up and suck,’ and, of course, she didn’t say much at all.”

“How often did he have sex with the head?”

“I don’t know. Ten times. He even took it into the shower a couple of times and played with it in there. Everything gets boring after a while. Even certain kinds of sex.”

Melody downed more wine and tried to think her way through all that she was doing and what was likely to come.

“You don’t understand him, and you never will,” she said aloud, her eyes seemingly incapable of landing on any single place. She tried to focus on her face in the mirror, but the commands in her head seemed to distract her. “You don’t understand how it was.”

She smiled. She tightened her fists, balled up like weapons. She relaxed.

“Not everyone is the same,” she began again. “Not everyone feels the same needs. Sometimes a man’s needs are outside the norms. But that doesn’t make them wrong, you know.”

She tilted her head. She imagined right then that she’d be able to pull out some charm, something that would sway the listener when the time came to tell her story.

Whenever that was…it had to be done right.

Sam Castile let out staccato laughter as a puffed-up journalist on the Discovery Channel prattled on about how serial killers like to relive their crimes by amassing souvenirs of items that belonged to their victims.

“They frequently get aroused by touching-fondling, if you will-the reminders of their kill,” the man said.

Sam turned to his wife as they snuggled in bed. “What a moron.”

“I know what you mean,” Melody said. Her affect was blank, but she tried to imbue her words with a touch of indignation.

“You’re my lioness,” he said. “I bring things to you sometimes, just for love.”

She touched the silver chain that hung heavy around her neck. It was all that he allowed her to wear. She knew then that love had nothing to do with their relationship. It was parasitic all the way around. She preyed on him. He preyed on her. Together, they were a force to seek out others who could be drawn, albeit unwillingly, into their game.

“My fantasies are not about an object but the intangible,” he said hotly into her ear. “You know what turns me on. What makes me hard.”

She knew, of course. Fear turned him on.

Yet, he did keep some things from those who didn’t win the game or who bored him. Or displeased her. High up in the garage rafters was a bright yellow canoe, its floor stained with blood. In the kitchen drawer, under the mess of things for which there was no defined storage place, was a cell phone with numbers, starting with the 604 area code, captured in its speed-dial directory.

Chapter Forty-seven

March 26, 8:15 p.m.

Key Peninsula

His father was out in his shop and his mother was preoccupied with something in the computer room. Their warning, threatening as it had been, had done little to stop Max Castile’s desire to ferret out the source of the noise he’d heard coming from the mobile home. He lingered in the doorway of the main house, looking at his mother as she clicked through Web pages and answered e-mail. A glass of Chablis sat next to her mouse. It seemed as if after every download she took a sip.

Max pulled the door closer to its frame and returned to the kitchen, where he retrieved the flashlight from the drawer and padded across the lawn. He moved as silently as he could, not wanting to stir a leaf or snap a twig. He did not turn on the flashlight. He planned to use that once he got inside. He’d seen where his folks had kept a spare key, in the hollow of a plastic “rock” that had been set there for that purpose.

He fumbled for the rock in the dark, finding it after a couple of tries.

The key went into the lock, and he turned the handle.

The foul air hit him hard. It smells like a dirty diaper, he thought.