Killing Me Softly (#Wattys2016)

SEVENTY-EIGHT

SEVENTY-EIGHT

"Oh, God," Sondra cried, clutching her abdomen. By now, Red Rose Lane was flooded with stunned onlookers, clucking over their eerie neighbors, who had just disappeared in a bloody haze. Someone ran to assist the cab driver, while others swarmed over to Sondra, grabbing at her with a barrage of questions and concerns. Sondra heard none of it, her eyes still seeing the retreating brake lights of the cab carrying her sister away to certain death.

"My God, are you okay?" a short brown-haired man asked Sondra as he took in her bloodstained clothes. "Did you get shot?"

"Call, call the police, the police," she said, not hearing what the man was saying to her, not seeing him in front of her. She tripped over her shoes as she tried to wrench away from the endless voices and limbs crowding her.

"We need to get you to a hospital."

"Phone, police," Sondra muttered, frantic, babbling now. "Call the police. He's going to kill her; he'll really do it this time."

"Ma'am, the whole neighborhood heard that gunshot, so the police oughta be here any minute."

On cue, the squeal of sirens blasted down the street and three squad cars and one ambulance came to a dead stop in front of the little white house on Red Rose Lane. The ensuing minutes were like a merry-go-round spinning off its axis. Sondra was bombarded with questions from the police, prodded by paramedics and given bewildered, sympathetic glances by fluttering neighbors. The police sealed off the driveway while Sondra, refusing medical assistance, had taken refuge in the house.

The police interviewed neighbors about the odd couple who had lived on Red Rose Lane. Meanwhile, Sondra wandered throughout the house, soaking in the macabre scenes from the life Phillip had forced her sister to live along the way. The pristine and plain living room. The spare white box of a kitchen with its perfectly lined shelves of color-coordinated, alphabetized cans and boxed goods. The roast and cobbler still snug on the stove, the partly peeled potatoes starting to turn brown. The blank space over the bathroom sinks where a mirror should have been; the closets filled with frumpy, oversized housedresses and row after row of sensible flats and dresser drawers stuffed with every variation of flannel nightgowns possible.

Sondra found herself in Phillip's office, the locked door of which the police had busted open. The office was the only room in the whole house with any personality, which considering how sparse it was, wasn't saying much. There was a laptop on a bare wooden desk with a yellow legal pad next to it. A cup of pens and pencils rested on one corner and a phone and a page-a-day calendar sat opposite it. A three-shelf bookcase housed hulking volumes on anatomy, drugs, and psychology. There were two pictures on the walls; one of which Sondra guessed was Phillip's mother, and the other of Tracy when she was still Tracy. Sondra made her way back into the living room and dropped onto the couch. She wished she could go to sleep, wake up and find the whole thing had been a nightmare and that Tracy had never gotten mixed up with Phillip. A phone began to trill. It was Phillip's cell phone, which Sondra realized must have dropped out of his pocket during their scuffle. Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at it. Sondra looked down at the caller ID and her heart sank.