‘…and you killed them…’
“No!” Delores sobbed.
‘…yes…’
“But what if I can’t do it?” she sobbed harder.
‘…you can, and you will…’
Delores tipped the pills into her hand, her gaze on the breath-taking view in front of her, her mind lost in the past.
‘…don’t make me suffer anymore for what you’ve done…’
She tipped the pills into her mouth and swallowed them.
‘…how could you do this, Del’? How could you?…’
She nodded, swallowing more tablets, the dry bitter taste of them clinging to her throat stubbornly.
‘…don’t let anyone know who you are. Don’t speak to anyone. Don’t exist…’
She unscrewed the lid from the bottle of water and took a long drink, the cool water dislodging the stuck pills. She tipped out bottle after bottle into her palm and swallowed them down.
‘…you’re nothing, Del’, you’re nobody. No one will miss you. Everyone will hate you after what you’ve done. You’ve killed our children, Del’, you’ve killed our children…little Anabel and Owen, so innocent, so beautiful…look what a monster you’ve become. Your parents would be so disgusted in you.’
She ran to the car, dropping her things in the footwell, tears streaming, heart thumping, and her mind spinning. She’d picked up more tablets today, a new prescription. He’d packed them all for her. Good, she thought, more tablets to end all of this.
The world began to spin, and her mind grew numb. Somewhere in the distance people laughed and the world continued on. And somewhere in the here and now, Delores drifted away on a cloud of grief, lost to this world and happy that the madness was over.
Chapter Seventeen
Elijah
Elijah rolled out the map on his dining room table.
He put a heavy ornament on each corner of it to keep it flat, and then he got his pad and pencil.
He realised his mistake, the errors in his judgement. Elijah was a good policeman. He was sharp and thought outside of the box. He could read people better than anyone else in the station. And yet, so far, he hadn’t put any of these skills to good use. Instead he’d brooded and worried, like the husband or the father or the partner of a victim would do. He pushed his feelings to one side. His love for Delores was swept into a black hole. Because right now, what he needed was Officer Schiver, not Elijah the lovesick fool.
Elijah wrote down all of the facts that he could think of; things he knew for certain to be true. He listed the times and dates, including names and places of things he thought would be relevant. And then he wrote out a character profile for Delores.
Delores had always been open and honest with him about her condition. She’d struggled with Schizoaffective Disorder for many years she’d told him, but it had been manageable. At least until recently. He’d seen first-hand how she could get when she didn’t take her medication, and the difference it could make to her ability to function on a day-to-day basis. In the weeks leading up to her leaving Michael she had acted as if she wasn’t taking her tablets. Her moods grew darker and more irrational. Yet Elijah had witnessed her taking them on more than one occasion, so what had changed? What had made her break down like that?
Off her medication, she was jumpy, depressed, and would stop talking and stare off into space mid-conversation. At times when he wasn’t in the room, Elijah could have sworn that he had heard her talking to someone. He’d become more and more worried about her, begging her to go and see her psychiatrist. Deep down he had known that something wasn’t right.
He had fallen down the rabbit hole and Delores was at the other end. Together he tried to help her ride the black tide of depression that was slowly swarming her, stealing the woman he had grown to love right before his eyes. But he was powerless to stop it. Any of it.
The last time he’d seen Delores, he had followed her home without her knowledge. Jealousy and worry sparked his suspicions.
She had arrived at home at exactly 12:19pm. Elijah knew this because he remembered glancing at his black leather watch. She had sat in her car for exactly three minutes before Michael had opened the door to their house. He had stood there, staring out at Delores without saying a word, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the collar to it unbuttoned as if he’d been cleaning. Delores had gotten out and walked up the gravelled path towards her husband just as silent.
Michael hadn’t looked angry, or concerned. Rather, he looked indifferent to everything. Delores however had been shaky and unstable, her steps faltering as she looked around her several times. Michael had ushered her inside and with one final look up and down the street, he had shut the door.
Elijah had waited, with his windows down and his seatbelt off. He stayed there for twenty minutes, thinking that there would be the inevitable shouting or things breaking coming from inside the house at some point as Delores broke the news of her infidelity. When Elijah was greeted by nothing save for the sound of the breeze rustling through the trees that lined the road, he clipped his seatbelt back in place and drove home.
And then he had waited.
And waited.
