Within Temptation (7-chapter excerpt)

Chapter 2: Hell Freezes Over

CHAPTER TWO

Hell Freezes Over

--TRACE--

I’d busted my chin. Almost witnessed a vehicular homicide. Quite possibly incited a lynch mob, and had alienated my brother- in-law. Then there were the five stitches, tetanus shot, and X-ray that had put me in debt for close to a grand. All this and I’d been free less than a day. When would this nightmare end?

I sat in the lobby waiting on my cab. Thanks to the snow, ER patients from Willow’s Corner, Temptation, and New Dyer were crammed together like crayons in a box. Between the crackling intercom, the coughing, and the wailing babies, I couldn’t decide which was worse: Temptation Memorial or prison.

My cut ached and my head felt like somebody had hit me with a shovel. I couldn’t wait to get out of here. ‘Course, the place was abuzz with gossip. The gaping and finger pointing started minutes after I’d signed in. Doctors and nurses, up to their elbows in patients, snuck peeks while exchanging whispers from behind their clipboards.

Nosy sons-a-bitches.

Boredom made me remember Icky’s tabloid—The Dirty Dish. I grabbed the damp magazine, peeled the pages open, and read the stupid headlines topping the pictures of stars, weirdos, and wannabes.

Then I saw it.

On page seven.

   

Society Scoop
By: Erica Davies, Senior Editor, The Dirty Dish

Darlings, twelve years ago Tracemore Dawson—the notorious “Butcher Boy” of Temptation, West Virginia—was convicted of second- degree murder in the stabbing death of Lilith Bradford. The victim, a former beauty queen turned interior decorator, was the widow of advertising magnate Harrison Parker Bradford.

Labeled a crime of passion, the case can still trigger a debate among the residents of this sleepy little town. Officially, 18-year-old Dawson worked as a handyman and chauffeur on Bradford’s multimillion-dollar estate. He also moonlighted as an exotic dancer at a few of the local nightclubs.

Some say he was Bradford’s glorified boy-toy. Others are convinced he’s a cold-blooded sociopath. There’s also the lunatic fringe who call him an avenging angel. They say Lilith “Mommie Dearest” Bradford only got what she deserved.

Charges of child abuse were leveled against Bradford at the time, but her 14-year-old daughter Shannon claimed they were false. The teen was the prosecution’s star witness, and her taped deposition helped convince a jury to return a guilty verdict.

As I reported last spring, Shannon Bradford, now a 26-year-old realtor, is engaged to former Dawson prosecutor Darien Montgomery. “Dashing Darien” as the press so aptly named him, is currently defending pop idol Kidd Mann in a scandalous murder trial that has rocked Hollywood to its core.

This doesn’t mean Montgomery skips playtime. On the contrary, a source claims he and Bradford are diehard swingers who dabble in S&M. The kinky stuff aside, their 22-year age gap does push the May- December envelope.

But what’s a little cradle robbing between satyrs?

Since Bradford’s cousin Mead is the frontrunner in the state’s gubernatorial race next year, one can only wonder if these juicy distractions will affect his campaign.