Who murdered Mitch?

Every time Reva closed her eyes, she saw Mitch.

Saw his knees pressed against the side of the carton, rising up over his bowed head.

Saw his shoulders sloped forward in the carton, arms hanging limply at his sides.

Saw the back of his neck, so pale. His shiny black hair, usually so carefully brushed, matted against his head.

Saw the dark stain on the back of his shirt. The puddle of coagulated blood on the carton bottom, soaking through his jeans.

Saw the knife handle, the tiny gleam of blade protruding from it, placed so perfectly, so symmetrically in the middle of his shoulder blades.

Every time Reva closed her eyes, she saw all of this.

And when her eyes were open, she couldn’t see clearly, couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t think of anything else.

When the police questioned her, two soft-spoken police officers, one not much older than Reva, she couldn’t think, could barely speak.

Why would anyone murder Mitch?

Why would someone murder Mitch and gift wrap him for her?

Reva had no answers.

And there was Lissa, leaning her head on the glass of the perfume counter, sobbing and smearing the glass with her tears.

She couldn’t help the police, either.

After the questions, after what seemed like hours of police milling and poking around, after the photographers, after the reporters, the paramedics, the hushed crowds of muttering onlookers, after the bent, lifeless body had been covered and carried away, and the carton had been dragged away, leaving a wide scum of blood in its wake, Reva still saw the body, still saw poor, slumped-over Mitch.

She remembered kissing him in the stockroom.

She remembered Lissa breaking in on them.

She remembered laughing at Mitch after Lissa broke up with him.

And she saw Lissa, her face red and puffy from crying so long, cast an accusing glance at Reva.

Accusing. Deserved.

I owe Mitch an apology, Reva thought. But it’s too late. Too late to tell him I’m sorry.

And for the first time in years, Reva felt like crying.

Felt like it but still managed to hold the tears in.

“Go home,” her father said gently, his warm hands on her trembling shoulders. “Shall I have someone drive you home?”

“No. It’s okay. I’ll be okay,” she said, reaching up to squeeze his hand.

I’ll never be okay, she thought.

At home that evening she kept seeing Mitch, kept apologizing to him in her mind.

That night she forced him away, forced herself to fall into a deep sleep. A sleep of troubling dreams, complicated and violent.

Just before two in the morning Reva sat straight up, wide awake. “I know who killed Mitch,” she said aloud.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20