In a moment, dear reader, you shall learn of my most perilous trial, the outcome of which cannot be known until death delivers me to the threshold of my ultimate fate. First, let me assure you that I wasn’t always the creature you see before you, burdened by a multitude of sins. I was once an obedient and loving son. The journey from reverent child to wanted fugitive began with small deliberate steps as I followed my instincts out into the night.

I snuck into the processing room and caught Charles Marston coating the downstream side of the disgorger filter. That discovery changed my life. It was months before my father noticed the murky film the Saccharomyces bailii created on the surface of the sparkling wine. A week later they threw out every last bottle and I started hearing whispers about financial problems. It was still another month before my parents hurtled to their death in a car crash. They left me a bankrupt winery that I was forced to sell along with my childhood home. I was thirteen years old. I was alone. And I knew who was responsible.

Had I thought to bring a camera that fateful night, everything would have been different. They would have believed me: my parents, the police, the probate judge… I’d still own the winery today. I didn’t have a camera then, but oh how I made up for my youthful lack of forethought.

Criminals are creatures of habit and Charles Marston turned out to be no different. The police were handicapped by laws, procedures and a presumption of innocence or at least an attempt to keep up the appearance. I had no such encumbrances in my pursuit. I eavesdropped and spied. By the time I was eighteen Charles had perfected his craft. He had bankrupted three more wineries and bought them for himself. I had perfected my craft as well. I invested in high tech surveillance gear and spent my time reading news clippings and corporate filings. Lucky for Charles the victims never came together to discuss their misfortune, but my research led me to them. Their anger was easy to tap into and soon I made a series of allies eager to share what they knew of his scheme. I collected a series of contaminated bottles. Each had been pivotal in a Charles Marston takeover.

The night I watched Charlie Marston leave for college was the night I crossed the line from citizen enforcer to revenge-crazed psycho. I’d already learned that I could lead Charles Marston and his banking partner, Bill Caulfield, to their end by using their greed against them. I was ready to bring them down, but when I saw young Charlie tearfully leaving my childhood home, suddenly bringing these two men to justice wasn’t enough.

I lurked around campus and discovered the thing that meant the most to Charlie. He had a deal in the works to play pro football. I paid an opposing player $50,000 to end that dream and later I blamed it on Charlie’s father. I was as ruthless as Charles and Bill. I know now that I should have felt horrible, but I didn’t. It decimated the poor kid, but I convinced myself that he got what he deserved. The superstar fell hard. His girlfriend left and he turned to hard drinking. I made him my playmate. I showed him things he never would have seen without me and in return, he let me walk right into the family and rip it apart from the inside.

I’ll spare you the details, but know this: Charles and Bill deserved what they got and more. I hadn’t bargained for the collateral damage and that’s what’s weighing down my soul now. I was too blind to think it through. I conned Sebastian into scaring away the winery employees. He was angry that his father was fired and he signed onto my plan eagerly. He kept a lid on things so I could trap the Marstons in their own house. Thanks to him I tortured the Marstons and Deirdre for two days without interruption. He got a suitcase full of cash, but that proved too much for his conscience to bear. He foolishly brought it back and got busted.

I tricked a young husband and wife, Deirdre and Henri Deudon, into a violent confrontation that ended in her shame and his death. Deirdre would have committed adultery on her own, but I brought her husband to the scene in time to see her with me and Charlie. Deirdre will chase me to the end of the earth now, desperately trying to kill me as a sign of loyalty to her dead husband.

I paid to have Henri’s sister-in-law, Monique, killed just to confuse the gendarmes and get Charlie back to the United States. That was the lowest. I thought nothing of paying to have her shot. She left behind two kids and a husband that really loved her. If I’d been thinking, I would’ve walked away then, but I was still consumed by rage. All I could think about was catching Charles Marston. When I finally had him pinned to the kitchen floor, I pummeled him unconscious before I realized what I was doing. It was over too fast. Charles is dead now. If I could bring him back to torture him again (longer this time) I would.

As for me, I wasn’t supposed to live this long.

Charlie was supposed to kill me that night in the house. I had the perfect scenario planned. If he pulled the trigger, the police would find the evidence I left behind and arrest him for murder. There were enough pictures to link Charlie to everyone I killed and the houses we destroyed together. He should have been headed to jail, but instead of killing me, he tied me up and ran for the pictures. I’ll never know how he figured it out and I’ll never understand why he let me go. I wouldn’t have done the same for him.

Even tonight when I broke into his house to grab the money I hid under his couch, Charlie kept his cool. He stood there with a shiny handgun glinting in the lamplight and hid the telephone behind his back. He could have killed me. No one would have blamed him. No one but Charlie would have called the cops. And no one could have predicted what the cops were about to do to me. Charlie is watching, but it’s out of his hands.

Clean-shaven and neatly dressed, I look like a respectable college kid to a stranger, but the people of Westport will always see me as the lunatic with long hair and glasses that terrorized three families.

A Demon Awaits will be released in October 2008.

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