Chapter 23
“Robert what are you doing?”
He stops the car. I have no idea where we are, I had fallen asleep and it is past sunset and all that meets my eyes is the ten feet of road that is lit up before the car. Different shades of darkness meet my eyes as I look over my shoulder and turn back around.
“Why did you stop here babes?” I run my hand over his shoulder blade and down his arm, I can feel all the muscles tense and alert. I keep my tone calm and steady, his behaviour was more then unusual. “Babes?”
My questions are met with dead silence. He has no answers as he sits there both hands clenched tight on the wheel. I run my hand up and down my arm again as I try to release some of his tension. I lean over and I kiss his check then his ear and follow my lips down to his neck.
“I didn’t mean to do it…” his words come out through his clenched lips in a low whisper.
“Do what?” I ask him, my own voice coming through my lips in a whisper.
“Kay…” his words come out even lower then they had previously. He was in a daze and his words were meant for someone else, he was not focused on me or the present situation.
As Robert sat next to me in a blind glaze everything came into focus in my mind. Kay had a date and she never came home. Kay had a date with a real charmer who had a girlfriend. Kay had a date with someone who she had leverage over, she had told me that, she had “his balls in a vice”.
“She had a date with you the night she disappeared…” I sat back in the seat, my shoulders and body tense. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and took notice. The palms of my hands grew clammy. I stare straight into the darkness, I could not even see him out of the corner of my eye.
“Yes,” his voice came out of nowhere, his trancelike state broken.
“I don’t remember all that happened. It kind of comes back to me in pieces. I was still with Jen at the time, I know our relationship was rocky but I love her, well I thought I did anyways…Kay had a way of making me feel good and secure, I felt like I could tell her anything. I did.”
I felt like I was in a movie I was an actress in the scene where the murderer confesses to his crimes and for one split second you feel a pang of sympathy. I sit paralyzed in my seat, the man that I am in love with was telling me his big dark secret.
“…she was gonna tell Jen. She was going to tell my boss about the money I took. It’s not like I wanted to stop seeing her or anything, I was happy with the way things were. She just wanted to ruin my life….I didn’t mean to do it…” He broke down sobbing, he threw his chest forward into the steering wheel and wrapped his arms around it, hugging it for dear life.
He had been living in shear torment. His face was red and wet from the tears, he looked tired and worn out, as if he had all this on his chest and it was slowly eating away at him.
“I don’t know why anyone would just want to do that…why would you want to hurt someone,” his words came out muffled between the tears and the sobs. I searched through my pockets and found him a tissue. I handed it to him but kept my distance, I hate myself in this moment for feeling pity for him. I hate myself in this moment for not seeing what was so obvious.
“We started fighting… I don’t know who started yelling first but she just kept shrieking and shrieking…I just wanted her to shut up, I just wanted to think, I just wanted things to stay the way they were! I was going to lose everything, I told her everything, I trusted her and she was treating my life like a big game!”
A few moments of silence passed between us. I sit with my back pressed up against the passenger side door my eyes keeping Robert in view at all times. They began to grow sore.
“Everything is black, I have tried to remember what happened, I really have, I have tried and tried and tried…”
“What do you remember” the fear comes through in my voice as it croaks out.
“I remember her face wet from the grass, her hair matted and knotted. Her eyes glazed over and lifeless, yet all the while she was staring at me, condemning me, she would never let me forget what I did!”
Robert was no longer looking at me, he is yelling and his face had turned red as he relived the experience over in his mind.
“Rob, why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“Because I killed her!” His face is still red and his eyes are blood shot as he glared at me, his face was drenched in sweat.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you…but it looks like this is eating you alive, hun, you have to tell someone.”
“I’m telling you! You’re someone! That is why I’m telling you, because it is eating me alive!”
His voice rose and the tension grew in the vehicle.
“Let’s go back to your place and we can talk about this. Please don’t yell at me, you’re scaring me.”
I keep my voice calm and monotone. I do not use any hand movements or raise my voice, as thinking back to my dream it had set Rob off.
“I don’t want to go back to my place,” his voice was deep and dark as his eyes stared holes into the center of the steering wheel.
“Why not?” Even as the words escape my mouth, the darkest thought emerges from my mind, he is going to kill me. That is why he has taken me out here, he plans to kill me.
“I need you to say that you love me.”
“I love you.”
“I don’t believe you.” He reaches over and grabs my arm and squeezes.
“Robert, you are scaring me. Please let go of me.”
“I can’t…I don’t trust you.” All expression dropped from his face, his eyes grew cold and he just stared me straight in the eyes.
“Why?” the question falls out of my mouth between the sobs, I could not help myself as I attempt to push back the tears, they roll out uncontrollably, streaming down my cheeks and damping the top of my blouse.
“Remember that day, when you came to me with your weird dream? It’s like you knew, it’s like you were there…I was ok, and then you brought it all back to me…It’s like you wouldn’t let me forget about it! I just want it to be all over! I need everything to stop inside my head!!!” His voice grows louder and his anger is evident. His face is beyond red, I had seen him like this before – in a dream.
“I thought I could make you forget about the dreams and we could be happy.”
“Robert, I can forget. I promise you I can forget, we can forget together, we can be happy.” I slide my hand behind my back and grip the door handle.
“No we can’t! She will never let me go! She will never let you forget!” He lungs forward at me grabbing both my arms firmly. I press my legs against his chest and throw him back with all the power I possess. I fall out of the car into the grass and run towards the line of trees. As I run the sky lets out a crack of thunder and rain starts to pour down. It’s cold and wakes my body up.
“Fi!” I can hear Robert yelling my name out behind me.
“Fi!” His voice sounds stand and alien to me.
Once inside the shelter of the trees, I drop to my hands and knees searching the ground for anything.
“Get up!” His voice comes from behind me, stern and loud. I turn, he is standing before me, fists clenched, water dripping down his face and body, his hair sticking to his neck.
“Get up!” He yells his command over. I tremble as I raise to my feet.
“I love you Fi.” Tears stream down his cheeks. “I love you Fi.”
“Robert, you don’t have to do this.” I can hear the sheer terror in my voice.
“Yes. Yes. I do.” He wipes his tears away and even through the dark I can see the whites of his eyes as he fixates on me.
The next few seconds of my life seem to last an eternity. Robert lungs towards me and knocks me hard to the ground. His arms are wrapped tightly around my waist and tighten as I gasp for air. His weight on my body makes it impossible for me to leverage my legs. I bring my arms down hard, I have found a rock, and I hear it crack against his scull. His body goes limp on top of me. I roll him off.
Tears stream down my cheeks and I let the rock fall next to me. I just want to lay there in the dirt and cry, but I know I can’t.
“I’m sorry. I love you.” I push myself up and run back to the clearing. I can still see the outline from his car in the distant. I relax back in the seat and lock the doors. I call the cops and wait.
Over the next few days a lot come out. I read bits and pieces in the news and a few officers fill me in. Close to where they found me, the dogs discover a shallow unmarked grave, dental records prove it was Kay. They search Rob’s apartment and find her purse and keys, with my testimony they tie him to the murder. They never tell me that they found his body, but a small blurb in the local paper talks about an unidentified male body found in the forest by the murder sit of Kay Pearson and I join the dots. After that night the dreams stop and I could almost feel her watching when we buried her later that week.