Broken Mirrors

Chapter 10: The Queen of Hearts

I would remember this moment for the rest of my life. It could have been her eyes that told the story. Only, I had seen this all before. I could see every secret that she held; all her dreams, all her ambitions, laid out in front of me. Yet, as I stared into her once vivid, dark, green eyes, they were now cold and dead. All the life had been drained out of them. She didn't even look like a person to me anymore. I felt nothing.

"You shouldn't be here," Parker said, pulling me back.

"I want to be here." I said, shaking him off.

"You shouldn't be here!" Parker shouted again, grabbing me by the shoulder.

I brushed him off again.

"Come on, man," Parker said grabbing my shoulder more forcefully and turning me.

I turned and pushed him, hard.

"I want to be here!" I yelled.

The crowd that had gathered was now looking at me and I felt like I was the one on display. Lloyd came over to where we were standing.

"Parker," he began. "Get him out of here."

Parker bear hugged me and pulled me away from the scene as I tried to kick him off.

"Let me go!" I yelled.

"You don't need to see this!" he yelled back.

Photo flashes snapped and sirens wailed in the background but seemed to fade.

The smell from the landfill didn't even seem to faze me. My gaze remained fixed on the scene, but something still wasn't right. Everything seemed like it was in slow motion.

There on the ground, laid Amber Faraway, a Queen of Hearts playing card resting on her body.

♣ ♣ ♣

Parker had put me in the car and put a shock blanket around me until the crime scene unit was done with their sweep and the scene was cleared up. I watched them bag up Amber's lifeless body and carry it away from the scene. It was only the day before that she had left me.

When we got back to the station it was later in the day. Parker didn't say a word to me since he had put me in the back of the car. We sat silently at our desks before he finally stood up and walked to the locker room.

I heard him yelling into the air and the sound of punches against the lockers. I calmly sat there and filed paperwork. A few more hours went by and it was night. Everyone had returned from the station including Finley who had arrived to give the forensic report.

"The victim is Amber Faraway, fourth digit of the right hand has been amputated, postmortem, no sign of it at the scene." he sighed and looked up at me. Then he tried to get through the rest as quickly as possible without taking a breath. "Tox screen was negative. There are signs that she was recently sexually active, but no signs of assault. No DNA evidence was found on the body. Cause of death was strangulation. Victim presents with ligature marks around her neck. She was killed earlier this morning, Maybe around 4 am. The only other piece of physical evidence was the Queen of Hearts playing card found on the body."

I could feel the eyes of everyone in the room staring at me. Sympathetic stares. Only it was like that fake sympathy that people give you at funerals. I thought back to my father's funeral. All the strangers that came up to tell me how sorry they were for my loss but none of them really cared. Even at seven years old I could tell that they were trying to save face. They were just glad it wasn't them. Nothing that anyone could say would change the current circumstances.

Parker came back into the room and sat down across from me without saying a word. His knuckles were bruised and bloodied.

"One eyewitness reports that they saw a red sedan leaving the scene early this morning." Hanson stated.