That was what confused Delores the most…
Why?
She wiped at her eyes. Sweat mixed with tears and the inevitable grief.
“I don’t know why I did it,” she whispered to the teddy bear and the hot dead air inside the car.
Michael had said she’d been like a woman possessed. That she had flipped. Lost it! That the woman he had fallen in love with had vanished before his eyes. He said he’d told her he was leaving her, that he was tired of her selfish ways, and that had been the end of everything that had come before…
But it was all a blank.
A void in her memory.
A gaping hole that all her memories had been sucked into.
It had happened before. Before they’d gotten her medication correct. The highs and low’s sorted correctly in her mind.
Memories came and went like birds, flitting in and out of the open windows of her mind. They were a blur of sense and nonsense, of light and dark, of color and shade.
But this! This was something else. She’d never harmed another person. The thought had never even crossed her mind. And her children of all the people in the world.
“Why?” she begged herself. But the answers continued to allude her.
‘Because you couldn’t bear to be without us. Because you wanted to hurt me. Because I was moving on from you. Because I had found someone better than you. But I never meant to hurt you, Del. I loved you, and I never ever thought you’d hurt our babies.’
So many answers. But none made sense to her fractured mind.
But then, could murder ever be made sense of?
Chapter Fourteen
Elijah
Paul stood by the bubbling coffee pot in the corner of the station.
He poured two coffees—one for himself and one for Elijah. Worry etched across his face and his hair was dishevelled from running his hands through it constantly. Doubt was nagging in his gut. Something wasn’t right with either man’s story, of that he was certain. Things were being kept from him.
Mr. Stanton had gone to take the children to school and had told Paul that he would be at work for the rest of the day. He seemed worried, frightened for his wife’s wellbeing, yet it was strange that he felt okay to go to work at a time like this.
He’d brought the notes into the station with him, and they were currently being analysed, but Paul had immediately recognised the handwriting to be Elijah’s. They’d worked together for more than enough years for it to be identifiable to Paul. Besides that, Elijah’s handwriting was very distinguishable, with long tails on his y’s and g’s and long slopes crossing his t’s.
The notes were as Mr. Stanton had described. But the thing that had struck Paul the most was how the voice of Elijah in the letters was so foreign to him. The man that he knew didn’t speak like the one in the notes. And that was what puzzled Paul the most.
“How’s it going in there?” Officer Miles joined him at the coffee machine, pouring herself a cup.
Officer Miles was pretty in that bewildering, breath-taking sort of way that some women seemed to have. Strawberry-blond hair, pale blue eyes and paler skin. There had been a time when Paul had lusted after her in ways he was ashamed of admitting. The feelings had been reciprocated and Officer Miles—Annie—had made it clear that if he were to try and kiss her his advances wouldn’t be unwanted.
And so they did, and a brief affair ensued.
When all was said and done though, Annie was married and so was he, and their affair consisted of only one encounter before it ended. Both of them returned to their partners, both of them happy in their unhappy marriages. Eventually Annie’s husband had gotten a promotion, and she began to seem happier, more settled with her life.
Paul’s marriage, however, continued to grow staler by the year. His wife didn’t trust him, heavy doubt setting in, but not enough to make her leave him, though she watched his every move. Two years on and that time in their lives was a distant memory, dusty with ill remembrance. But Paul, every once in a while, still wondered what would have happened between Annie and him had they continued with their affair and perhaps had even left their spouses.
“It’s awkward,” Paul shrugged, his thoughts going back to Elijah’s small yet similar shrug. “But,” he paused, still working through his own judgements.
“But?” Annie pressed.
“He seems genuinely distraught about her disappearance.”
