Killing Me Softly (#Wattys2016)

EIGHTY-SIX

EIGHTY-SIX

She ran straight for the highway. Maybe she could flag someone down, get them to take her to the police. The bottoms of her sensible flats were slick and she skidded across the gravel in the parking lot, landing on her butt. She scrambled up and, limping, started to run again. It had been so long since she had run that, at first, it hurt. Her lungs were greedy for air and she clutched the painful stitch in her side. The hem of the housedress slowed her down some, so she gathered it in her fingers and lifted it until it bunched around her thighs. She pumped her other arm rapidly and soon, her body began to cooperate, remember, that they had done this every day for years, that this routine wasn't so strange.

She flipped her head back to see Phillip staggering after her, the gun clamped in his hand. She looked straight ahead and tried to find the entrance ramp to the freeway, but it was too far. She saw what looked like a forest in front of her and darted into it. Her mother made her join Girl Scouts when she was a kid and she had aced the survival portion. Tracy laughed out loud. It felt so good to have memories again, memories that she could make sense of, that she could identify. She couldn't see Phillip anymore and wasn't sure what had happened to him.

The twigs and grass crunched beneath the soles of her feet and she could hear water. She crouched down as she inched toward it. She ran toward what she realized must be the Mississippi. Her fingers trembling, she yanked the housedress over her head. She grimaced as she looked down at the industrial strength bra and panties Phillip made her wear. Nothing at all like the pretty, flimsy things she used to parade around in. She flung the shoes off and was about to step into the water when she heard Phillip's voice.

"Tracy! Tracy, please, I had no choice. You'd hit your head on that stupid table in the hallway and you wouldn't wake up. I thought you were dead and no one would believe it was an accident."

Tracy stopped, listening to him. She could hear him sobbing, trying to catch his breath.

"I was just going to wait for you to wake up to make you understand that I didn't mean to hurt you. Then you woke up and asked me who you were and where you were."

He started laughing and crying all at the same time. "And in that one moment, I saw a chance, a chance for us to start over. I thought if I nursed you back to health and showed you how much I loved you and how much you meant to me, you wouldn't leave."

"So I carried you out to my car. I left you with Keegan. And then I killed you."

By now she'd hidden behind a tree, alert and listening for the sounds of his feet snapping against the twigs and brush along the ground. She swallowed, waiting for him to finish the story.

"And I fooled all of them. Every single last one of them." He chuckled. "It was lucky, really, the way it all worked out. I had decided to come home. My car was parked in back of the hotel, so the surveillance camera never saw me leave, which was good when the cops checked my alibi. They saw me come in from dinner and leave for the convention hall the next morning." He laughed. "God. Who knew that would work out to my advantage? Sunday night, I called Cicely in a panic saying that I hadn't heard from you and was calling the police. I drove back to Chicago and played the part of the frantic husband searching for his missing wife. Cooperated with the police in the investigation, was cleared from any suspicion right away since so many people saw me at the convention." Phillip laughed again. "No one ever suspected I had you tucked away in Berwyn of all places. And then... Carol."

Tracy blinked and scrunched up her face, remembering something Sondra had said at the house. "Carol?" she mouthed to herself.

"God, she looked just like you. You could have been twins. She used to come into the pharmacy all the time. It was funny though. I wasn't attracted to her. And then you came in that day and I fell in love right then and there. And then I remembered. You were the same height, same skin tone, weight... I knew I had to do it just right so they would think it was you. I forced her to get in the car with me. We drove to Belmont Harbor. I made her put on your clothes-even your underwear-your wedding ring and then, I... got rid of her face."

Tracy choked back silent tears as she waited for him to say what she already knew to be the horrible truth.

"I smashed her face in with a rock. Just enough so it looked like it could be you, but not so much they would have to do any DNA or anything. I tossed your wallet near the body-took out all the cash, but left the license in there. We had a big blizzard that night. She wasn't found until Friday. They called me to make the ID. And I did."

Tracy was suffocating on her tears as it sunk in what he was saying to her. He had killed another woman to cover up that he had kidnapped her.

"Don't you understand that I had to? I couldn't have them looking for a body for God knew how many years. I had to be with you so we could start our new life. I had to let everyone think you were dead. Don't you understand now what I would do for you?" He stopped talking and Tracy strained to hear him. His voice still sounded far away. She blinked her eyes and searched for his silhouette in the darkness.

Tracy looked to her left and saw she was just steps from the river. There had to be a park or campground nearby. It had been ages since she'd been swimming but she thought she could probably make it. Taking a deep breath, she crept toward the water, silent moans of terror and disbelief racing through her body.

Suddenly Phillip let out a tortured howl. "God!" He carried on with his one-sided conversation. "You wouldn't even take my last name."

She looked behind her as she remembered that conversation. She had told him how much it meant to her to keep her name since there weren't any brothers on her father's side of the family.

"Well, what about my name?" Phillip screamed, enraged, as if he too was thinking back on that conversation. "You were my wife. You cared more about everyone else than you ever cared about me!"

Tracy stopped, keeping her ear cocked for him.

"Oh, God, Tracy..." Phillip said, his voice suddenly soft. "That day you came walking into the pharmacy, those little high heels you had on, that pink shirt and that perfume that smelled like the sweetest flowers I've ever known. You were just... you were so beautiful. Never in a million years did I think I had a chance with a woman like you. But I thought, why not? Take a chance-even though I never take any chances. I couldn't believe it when you said you would go out with me. And then when you kept going out with me... I kept waiting for you to leave me. Every day, I lived in fear that you would leave me and it just... it made me crazy."

Tracy sniffed. "If only you had trusted me," she whispered to herself. "We would have had a chance."

"You didn't leave me any choice. You started being so secretive and I knew, I knew I was losing you."

Tracy dipped her toe in the rushing waters of the river in front of her. "Now or never, girl," she muttered as she filled her lungs with a huge swallow of air and jumped in. It was like diving into a huge tub of ice. There was only darkness underwater and she finally had to come up for a few breaths. She poked her head through the surface and looked around. She wasn't sure what direction she was going in, but she began to breaststroke, her arms and legs moving in perfect smooth unison, slicing through like a propeller in the water. That had been her best event. She turned her head to the side for a spare breath and saw Phillip running alongside the bank, waving the gun at her. He must have heard the splash. She stopped and ducked beneath the bobbing waves and began to butterfly underwater so he couldn't see her. She had gone several feet when she thrashed her arms above her head in an effort to make it to the top. Heaving, she smashed her head into the air, gulping, gasping for oxygen. She looked around and didn't see Phillip. She rubbed her eyes and circled around, searching for him.

"Keep going," she said as she submerged herself once again beneath the water. She continued to swim with as much force as she could find, pushing herself to go as far as she could. Finally, neither her lungs nor her limbs would carry her any farther. She would have to chance getting out. She waded to the shore where she collapsed on her back among the rocks and twigs. She placed her hand over her forehead, violent coughs shaking her insides. She shivered in her wet underwear, but her entire body was on fire from the physical torture she'd just put herself through. She opened her eyes and saw Phillip standing over her.