by Tilty Edin
“Come back to the boat?” he asked.
"If you tell me what's going on."
"About what?”
"What are you hiding from me?" she probed.
"Hiding from you?" he asked. "Leanne, please. Listen and look at yourself."
“Myself?" she asked. "Why don't you tell me about why you're becoming so distant?"
"I'm only as distant as you think I am," he said. "Think about it. I'm not the one jumping out of boats here."
A cold current of water wrapped around their legs, pulling them farther from the boat.
He pulled her closer to him. "Will you forgive me?" he asked. "For being too rough? For not protecting you at the bar? I'm sorry."
She wrapped herself around him as the waves rolled. "Fine." She coughed. "I forgive you."
“Let’s swim back,” he said, holding on to her as tightly as he could, knowing very well that soon enough he'd have to let go.
36
5:50pm
The drive was long, but Tod was determined, and within a day he and Leanne arrived back at his house by the night. They unpacked, brought their stuff inside and washed up together, tired and silent.
Tod grabbed her hand and kissed her cheek quickly. "I have one last surprise for you," he said.
She shrugged. “I don’t know about anymore of your surprises.”
"Are you hungry?” he asked.
“Starving.”
"Get ready then," he said. "We’re going somewhere. No where real fancy or anything, but nice.”
She gave him a short embrace. “Fine,” she said, and hauled her suitcase to his bedroom to sort through her clothes.
After they got ready, with some reluctance they got back in the car.
Tod drove off a little too fast until the sparkling lights of downtown came into view.
"So where exactly are we going?" she asked.
"You'll see."
After the car was parked, they found themselves walking down a very familiar street misted with soft rain drops.
Leanne stopped him as they walked, bringing him to a dark and sheltered alleyway. She held his face and kissed his lips. "I think I know where we're going," she smiled.
He did his best not melt into her eyes or reveal the saddening truth in his own. “Let’s go,” he said.
They walked to a very familiar restaurant, which for a weekday wasn't busy. Tod requested the same table Leanne was last seated in. They sat across from each other, just in the way they did before.
Tod noticed she looked more beautiful in more confidence. And it made the moment all the more harder for him to bear.
A waiter arrived. "Can I start you two off with any drinks?"
Leanne smiled delicately, "Sherry, please."
"Brandy and ice," Tod added.
The waiter nodded and dashed off.
Leanne looked at Tod, exchanging almost bewildered glances. Despite the setting and the circumstances, it wasn't hard to tell something was off.
She leaned into the table, slowly, casually, alarmingly. "What do you have to tell me?" she asked.
Near, but not complete cluelessness written all over her eyes. He stiffened. "In the end, it’ll be good news,” he said calmly.
They stared at the menus for a while, though neither of them had much of an appetite anymore. He cleared his throat and finally looked up and into her eyes. He couldn’t keep much from her anymore.
"Leanne,” he said. “I thought here, where we began, might just be the best place to end, ."
Her face went pale.
His felt his organs; mind and cells stop working for seconds at a time. His stomach twisted. His mouth went dry.
She pressed a hand against her lips, then said, "I don't know what to say."
The waiter came back to their table, setting down the drinks.
"Are you ready to order?"
"I think we need a moment," she said, not taking her glaring eyes away from Tod.
The waiter glanced at them suspiciously and went off.
"You should be very honest with me," she softly demanded. "Don't leave me wondering."
He lowered his head slightly, eyes faltering.
"Because I'll be wondering for the rest of my life."
He almost wanted to tell her she'd be fine. That she'd move on eventually, but it would never be that easy. They were always deeper than that, from the very moment their eyes met - A time he knew she seemed to think happened at the fruit stand. A moment she thought he couldn't remember, but he could.
Only he knew how he caught her eyes long before that.
He inhaled a deep breath, remembering the first night they met clearer than he ever had. It was so unblemished; he could clearly see the specs of grey in her smokey eyes, the exact tone of lipstick she wore. He could see the way she moved in exotic lingeie. The way her hand briefly touched his as if he had a swinging chance at being with her for as long as he lived.
She sighed. "So it had to be here, in public?" she asked.
He was abruptly dumbstruck.
"We couldn't have a little more privacy? Somewhere I could cry at least."
His lowered his gaze.
"Say something."
He hated seeing the pain in her eyes, but it shown through every part of her. His fists clamped, hard, feeling only anger. As regret and remorse were feelings he never grew accustomed to.
Say the damned lie.
"I'm moving to Florida," he blurted. "Sandlers is making a new port for rental boats. So, I'm going to have to drop everything and move. The deal is good and I’ll be getting financial help with school, but it’s more than that, Leanne. I need some time away from my Dad’s house. You know, I’ve been thinking about what you’ve been saying about your mom and her relentlessness to move on. And now it’s getting me down, the memories left here. I mis my Dad, but I need to move on and start over. And I don’t want you to ever have to think about dropping everything here to be with me."
She watched him intently, from every twitch at the corner of his mouth to every feeble eye and body movement.
"Here is where you should be," he said. "This is a good place for you and I think you'll have that company thriving."
"You don’t know that,” she said.
The sudden distance in her eyes and voice crushed him far more than her words.
"Think about our lives a little more seriously," he insisted. "Maybe it can’t always be so convenient."
She lowered her gaze. "I have a question."
He took a sip of brandy. "What?"
“Did I mean anything to you?”
His eyes flashed. “You mean the world to me,” he said. “But Life’s not fair, remember? And you mean so much to me that I'm not willing to put your life in any more jepordy.”
She grabbed her purse. "You know, love is about comprimises. It's about gaining and losing," she said, rising from her seat. "Pardon me, I'm going home."
"Leanne, please.”
"There's no reason we still can't be together somehow," she said. "So for you to say that, it's just. It's completely strange to me."
Tod stood up. "Leanne, just let me explain."
A tear fled down her beating red cheeks. She grabbed her coat and left the building.
He followed her outside. Rain poured, but she didn't bother to put up her hood. She was almost out of sight when he grabbed her shoulders and turned her around. She tried to struggle free but he pulled her in close and held her until the struggling stopped and her body temporarily gave up.
"I'm so, so sorry," he whispered. "Just know this, Leanne, whatever I do, it's because I love you."
She looked up to him and backed a step away.
He felt his heart implode inside his chest. "I’ve always been so crazy about you, Leanne," he said.
She glowered. "I see the look in your eyes," she said. "They’ve become glass walls to me.”
He stiffened.
"You're not telling me something," she said for the last time, u
ntangling herself from his arms and backing towards her car. "And you wouldn't tell me. Even if I cared to let you explain."
He dug his hands in his pockets, searching for a cigarette. His expression, unmoved.
"What is it?" she asked. "Another woman?"
He winced.
She shrugged her shoulders. “I don't know. Is it?”
His eyes wandered to the street they fell in love on. His weak knees wanting to give out. This time it would be him doing the collapsing.
"Tell me," she pleaded.
"I told you Leanne," he stammered. "I'm moving."
She turned away from him, giving him one last look of desperation before flagging down a Taxi.
37
2:20pm
Sunlight danced through the trees and grazed along the green grass. Such a day made it hard for Leanne to believe not even hours ago she stormed into her apartment, soaking wet from the rain, livid, outraged and heartbroken. She cried for a long time, staring hopelessly out a window of city lights. Waking up was even worse. It felt as if a train had hit her, not once, but twice.
She called in for work and only after a shower, realized she forgot her bags back at Tod's. Certainly she didn’t want to hear his voice or see him anytime soon. At least, not for a long time. So she hit the road knowing he'd be at work by the time she pulled into his empty driveway and sneaked up to his front door, digging out the spare key from under the welcome mat that she somehow remembered while drunk.
She glanced around the neighbors lawns. No one seemed to be out. Not a car rolled by. A frigid coolness rushed through her the moment she stepped in the house. It was so quiet, a deafening sort of quiet. She could hear the trees rustling in the neighbor's yard as she sauntered down the hallway and turned to his bedroom door, shut tight.
Her fingers wrapped around the knob, pulling it open slowly to see the suitcase and a small pile of clothes still right where she'd left them, lined in the shadows from the blinds. She folded the clothes, piling them neatly on top of her suitcase when she caught a glimpse of something unusual from his closet left open.
She ignored it, but her curiosity was stirring something fierce.
I don't care anymore, whatever his reasoning.
But she looked at it again and imagined another woman in this room.
She walked over, slowly, as if it were beckoning her.
She turned back toward her clothes.
What am I doing? I don't care anymore. You can't. For your own sake. Just get your damn stuff and get out.
All packed up, she started rolling the suitcase out towards the door, her eyes glaring at the closet all the while when she saw an off white object, sticking out from a fallen sweater on his closet floor. Her eyes narrowed and she couldn't help herself anymore. She moved into the closet and unfolded the sweater to a long, narrow bone, not entirely washed, and in the dark, beside her, sat the hallowed eyes of a human skull.
She got up.
But why he would have it there, in his closet, of all places?
A feeling hit her. Strange, gut turning and uneasy like the first night she'd ever been there.
She started to dig further into the closet, pulling out pieces of woman's clothing that weren't hers.
She laughed desperately through small tears. "Men can't hide anything," she said to herself.
A purse curled up in the closet corner. She pulled it out and rummaged through it, taking out a wallet, wads of cash and credit cards.
She threw the purse and stood up, shaking.
Unbelievably mad.
At least I should at least get her fucking name.
Her eyes swelled with tears as she reached back to get the purse. She pulled it back open and took out a credit card, and written in silvery letters read the name.
Aria Moore.
Her hands shook flamboyantly against her died up lips.
She dropped the wallet.
I remember that name.
She picked it back up and pulled out the ID. The face on the card made her remember enough to drop the wallet again, back away and trip over her suitcase.
She sat there on the floor, heaving in and out, paralyzed in some sort of fear one hoped to never feel a lifetime, staring up at the ceiling.
She recalled Officer Wilson's voice in her head, “Are you sure you haven’t seen Maria Rodriguez last seen at the Getaway Resort Bar?”
She gulped. She started speaking to herself outloud. “Maria went downstairs. Where Tod went. Then Tod, He...” She tried to catch her breath. “My boyfriend," she said quietly to herself. "The man I love. Tod Hagen. He’s a serial killer. He lives here. Right here. In in his house, and I've probably kissed his lips about a thousand times.”
Her body unlocked. She struggled to hold herself up. She couldn't help it. She looked back to the closet, hearing voices.
Ignore the damn closet. Ignore everything. Leave.
She was half way out the bedroom door when she could hear a car pull into the driveway.
Her heart rate sped up. Almost enough to stop it completely.
She crept up to the blinds, pulling one down slightly to see Tod bounding out of his car after suspiciously inspecting hers parked right beside it.
She backed away, trying not to trip this time and ran to the second bedroom she'd never been in.
Surely it must have a window.
She yanked the room's door open. It must have been the coldest room in the house. She shut it tight behind her, wishing there was a lock. The smell inside was a faint hint of something putrid. She glanced at the off-lime color paint coating on the walls. The floors were hardwood, piled high with boxes, both cardboard, but mostly plastic.
She leaned up against the wall, panting.
She looked beside her. Another skull lay on the floor. Long hair's still attached to the flakey scalp.
She didn't look again. She didn't want to scream.
She could see bolts on the foggy windows in front of her and looked everywhere for something heavy to smash them with. A hammer. A crowbar. Anything.
She crept up to one of the plastic boxes and lifted it open to gallons of coppery reeking red blood, and the only thing that could take her mind away from the gruesome sight was the sound of the front door open.
38
4:00pm
The room spiraled. Each blood curdling step towards the door in that awful silence shook her like an earthquake. She was struggling for somewhere to stand. Somewhere, some ground to hold onto in her mind. There was nothing. No way she could escape with any stealth. She would have to face him.
She looked at the skull beside her, lying on its side, gawking. Every horror movie played in her memory at once, but out of all of them, it was hard to fathom the one she was living was by far the most terrifying.
Scream. Run. Cry. Where did that get any of the victims? This killer knows me. He loves me.
Her eyes swelled. The only good sign she could think of was that he never tried killing her before. At least that much she knew to be true.
Another sound of a step sent her flying back further into the wall.
Don’t do or say a damn thing he’d expect.
She nearly felt him now. She could hear his hand sliding along the walls.
"Leanne, are you here?"
She glanced to the hopeless dusty window. "Yes," she said stiffly. Her trembling hands touched the door knob. She twisted it just before he did, and to her it felt like opening a door to hell.
Tod stood in the shadowy dark, staring intently her still, calm gaze.
Her mouth slightly lowered. “I came to pick up my things,” she said.
He looked unmoved. “What were you doing in there?" he asked without a trace of emotion in his voice. He stepped closer. “You should have asked me before coming here," he said. "There's a lot here you wouldn't understand."
"No," she said, bravely as she could. "I should never have seen this."
"You don't need to see this, Leanne," he said. "You only
ruined a bit of your life by coming here."
She looked straight at him. “This is what you were hiding?" she asked.
She could see rage. It spewed somewhere deep in his belligerent eyes. "If you asked, I would have taken your stuff back to you," he said.
"Well, sorry for breaking into your house," she said.
He blocked her off from the hallway. “What will you do now?” he asked.
Her eyes went wide. “What will I do?” she asked. “Tod, what will you do?”
He shifted his weight.
“We have to do what's best,” she said. "Whatever that may be. But lying and hiding this all from me is no way to do that."
He wiped his stone face with his hands.
“I want to help you," she said.
The way he smirked made her stomach turn.
"Help me?" he asked. "Why?"
She looked around, then said, "Because I don’t know if anyone else can.”
He took a deep breath and just sulked back down the hall.
She followed him, feeling undefeated. Facing him was far better than running for the window, but far more terrifying. He was still the same person she knew before she knew he was a killer, and yet completely different. He was a mystery. One she couldn't understand and knew now that she never would.
She watched him lean up against the wall, giving an expression of trying to make an important decision on what he must do.
Her heart tore as it raced.
He’s a serial killer, and is he still the love of my life?
She leaned closer towards the front door to escape. “I never expected to see you again last night,” she struggled to say. “But I never in my life would have expected to see this.”
He casually walked to the fridge, poured a glass of orange juice and smiled. “Surprise, surprise," he said. "And now you know."
Her jaw dropped.
"I don't know," he said. "I just thought, you know, you might be better off if you didn't know I liked to kill people.”
She stepped further towards the door until her hand reached the knob.
“Aren’t you going to get your stuff?” he asked. “You've ruined years of your sanity for it, didn’t you?”
