He couldn’t be sure if he had done the job. There was the slim possibility Dr. Nelson had made it to shore and was still alive. Gary walked along the shore searching without the aid of a flashlight, hoping that he had killed his friend.
Hoping, above all, he would not disappoint Sharon.
With Sharon and Gary entwined like a vitrine of snakes, it didn’t take long for people to wonder out loud. Wet Canyon neighbors Ray and Candis Thornton were among those who could not hold suspicions inside any longer. What was happening up in Round House wasn’t right. A man disappears and his wife has a lover move in right away? Something was going on. Something ugly.
When the Thorntons ran into a couple friendly with Gary Adams, they finally said they thought Sharon and Gary had conspired to kill Perry.
“No,” the friend said. “It couldn’t be. Gary was in church the day after Perry was missing. He had his Bible with him and he was praying.”
Kindergarten teacher Candis discounted the image. She didn’t trust Gary Adams. Going to church was a ruse.
“He's like a wild man. He’d steal from you… and look you in the face and tell you how much he loved you. I’ve never seen anything like him. He has the most piercing blue eyes, so unbelievably evil.”
Husband Ray agreed. “His eyes are like two blue ice cubes. They are coldest blue I have ever seen.”
The eyes of a killer, he thought.
The woman in the sling-backs was also poison. Even Candis Thornton finally had to admit it. Yet she was torn. She still wanted to like Sharon Nelson. Candis was the kind of woman who wanted to see the good in people. There was enough ugly stuff in the world as it was.
If Sharon had kept her questionable escapades within the confines of Round House, that would be one thing. But over the course of her years in the Canyon, Sharon had proven she had no boundaries. A pattern had emerged. Dr. Nelson's wife was expert at befriending a couple, ingratiating herself and charming her new friends with stunning fluency.
Then, when the wife was sucked into a one-sided friendship, Sharon would have sex with the woman's husband.
“I know she's doing this beyond a shadow of a doubt,” Candis told a friend, reliving the life and times of Sharon Nelson. “I saw it happen two times. I just can’t believe how the woman is acting.”
At least, Candis could count her blessings. Her husband, Ray, had despised Sharon from day one.
Barbara Ruscetti met Nancy Adams at a Weight Watchers meeting and liked her very much. When she heard about Sharon and Gary messing around, Barbara felt a surge of sympathy for Nancy. Her husband was just another notch on Sharon Nelson's bedpost.
Barb would never forget a story she heard about the goings-on in Wet Canyon. It seemed Nancy wasn’t as much of a pushover as her reputation had it.
“The mailman was a good friend of mine and he said Danny had taken the mail out of the Adams’ box and put it into another mailbox and Mrs. Adams got very upset. So she went up to Sharon's house and told Sharon that if she didn’t keep her goddamn brat away from her mailbox that they were going to have him arrested. So Sharon and Gary's wife had a great big fight. And I understand it was a knock-down-drag-out. And supposedly, Gary went up to Sharon and told her not to ever touch his wife again. They supposedly were sweethearts! He was supposed to be living with her! But then the first move she made on Gary's wife, Gary was defending the wife, not Sharon.”
Another time there were more fireworks between Gary's women. Bolstered by her husband's promises, Nancy felt it was she that would stay Mrs. Adams.
Sharon was sure she was the one.
Nancy Adams fixed her eyes with the kind of steely stare the Other Woman dreads. Without a single word uttered, there would be no mistaking that she was about to tell Sharon to back off and keep away from her man.
The man is mine. He shares my bed, not yours. Keep your mitts to yourself, you bitch. You home-wrecking whore.
It was that kind of look.
“Stay away from Gary,” she said. “Don’t drop notes in the mailbox. Don’t do anything.”
Sharon didn’t say a word. She simply turned and walked away.
Living a life between two women had become routine for Gary Adams. Whenever he had the chance, he’d make up an excuse to leave the Dude Ranch and head up the ridge to Sharon's place. Nancy knew what was going on, but she couldn’t stop her husband. And while the draw had been the sex, Gary knew in time there would be money. Lots of it. As the days went on and her husband went out to visit or go to town, Nancy Adams was left alone to smolder. She was fed up.
When Gary told Nancy it was best for her to take their son and get a job in Denver, she gladly complied.
Though he had sought the separation, Gary, however, remained agitated. His nerves were shot like a rural road sign. He was falling apart and he knew it. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his wife and son; he needed Sharon more. Sharon was everything.