She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [85]
“The first time I had sex, I was a little girl, and my father was raping me,” Celeste screamed back. From that point on the session became less about Kristina than Farley calming Celeste’s hysteria.
Soon, Celeste became comfortable with the fact that the girls had boyfriends and that both Christopher and Justin often stayed overnight in their rooms on the weekends. In fact, she’d goaded them, threatening to switch their birth-control pills for aspirins to trick them into getting pregnant. Celeste wanted a baby, she said, a new child now that they were grown. She didn’t care who had it for her, Kristina and Justin, or Jennifer with Christopher; she even tried to convince Amy to have a child with Jimmy. At times she offered money, up to a million dollars. “We ignored her,” says Justin. “We did that with a lot of things.”
Still, Celeste rarely agreed to let the teens stay at the lake house alone, especially if Jennifer was the one who asked. All the teens knew that Celeste held a grudge over the years Jen had chosen Craig over her. “If I asked, she’d let us go,” Christopher says. “But if Jen asked, the answer was almost always no.”
Although it seemed odd, Jennifer didn’t dwell on her mother’s offer of the lake house. She was pleased. With Christopher attending college in San Angelo, Texas, four and a half hours away by car, they saw each other only on weekends.
“That’d be great,” Jen said, meaning it.
That settled, Celeste turned her attention to Kristina, saying, “On Friday night I want you home by midnight. And Justin can’t sleep over. I’ll need your help.”
“Why?” Kristina asked, less happy than her sister at her mother’s plans.
“Because I said so.”
Disappointed, Kristina didn’t ask anything else. If Celeste needed her help, she assumed it was to pack for the trip. They’d all noticed that Steve was packed and ready to go, but Celeste had yet to start a single suitcase. Even Justin had offered to help her a couple of days earlier. Celeste had turned him down, saying there was plenty of time. What they didn’t know was that while Steve had written “Leave for Europe” on the coming Sunday in the family planner, Celeste had made no such entry on her personal calendar.
“Okay,” Kristina said. “We’re going out to dinner with Justin’s parents. Then I’ll come home.”
“Good,” Celeste said. “Then it’s all settled.”
The following day, Thursday, Celeste called Tracey often, finalizing plans. “Steve will be gone tomorrow,” she said. “You can come over and walk through the house. I’ve got it all figured out. Are you doing what we planned tonight?”
“Yeah,” Tracey said.
Although they had plans to see Lily Tomlin perform, the tickets would never be used. Instead, Tracey’s job was to make sure she and her shotgun were prepared.
As instructed, after work Tracey drove northeast of Austin, to a shooting range. She pulled her .20 gauge out of its beige case with brown trim and motioned for the attendant. Moments later skeet arched overhead. Tracey concentrated, pulling back the trigger and watching them shatter in midair. The entire time, as she worked her way through a full circuit, she thought about what she’d be doing. She’d stopped hunting years ago because she didn’t like killing animals. Now, she was preparing to kill a human being.
“How’s the shotgun working?” Celeste asked when she called that night.
“Fine,” Tracey said. “No problem.”
“I’ll call tomorrow,” she said. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Tracey said, but in her stomach she had a sinking feeling. She knew that no matter what happened, the next few days would change their lives, forever. Celeste said that after the murder they’d have to remain apart until the investigation was over. “Then we’ll live together, at the lake house, you and me.”
Tracey didn’t believe it. She sensed that the fallout would be so great