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Kate knelt on her bathroom floor and hugged the toilet as her whole body tried lurching out the fact that she’d just murdered a man in cold blood.
Her life was over.
She spent an hour on the floor until her body began to shiver. As she pulled herself up, she inadvertently looked into the mirror and gasped at the horror that was her face. Blood smeared dry across her cheeks, her hair a rat’s nest of fury.
The fresh memory of her wiping Sal’s bloodied remnants from her mouth returned. The first of many such visions, she imagined. With this recollection, came more lightheadedness, more nausea.
She couldn’t get into the shower fast enough. She stripped off her clothes and left them in a heap. The hot water blanketed her body in warmth and soothed her frayed nerves. She scrubbed harder than necessary, watching as Sal’s dried blood rinsed down her body and spun around the drain.
After her shower, Kate put on her robe and slippers, and wrapped her wet hair in a towel. Next, she brought a bedsheet to the floor and kicked all of her bloody clothes and the rug beneath them onto the sheet. She wrapped it all up, hurried to the washer and tossed it all in. She’d wash it all again when that cycle was complete.
Once that was done, fatigue set in. Kate climbed into her bed, snuggled deep under the covers, and turned off the bedside lamp. Her pulse thumped heavily in her neck down to her fingers and toes, as she tried to relax and calm her nerves. With the weight of her predicament falling heavily across her body, sleep was elusive. When she finally succumbed to her fatigue, nightmares of bloodied faces consumed her dreams.
First, Marco’s bloodied head, lifeless on the steering wheel. Then Sal’s jaw exploding over and over, each time, the gun’s blast getting louder and louder. And then, Renzo’s weak voice as he tried to tell her what happened despite the gaping hole in his chest. She fought through the muddied dreams, wishing they’d stop, but it was as if they were on a loop. Those three visions, repeating, over and over.
The only change in her morbid dreams came just as morning’s light began peeking through the blinds.
Eddie’s face.
It was so close to hers. He was shaking his head and talking to her, but she couldn’t understand his words.
Kate bolted upright, out of breath. The clock read ten a.m. She forced herself out of bed. She had work to do. Her first task was to clean the blood from the rental car and then get it detailed and returned. She’d rent a new one at a different location.
When Kate returned home with a different car, she flipped on the TV, anxious for any news of the discovery of Sal’s body. She flipped channel after channel and checked her phone incessantly, but nothing showed up.
She was tempted to drive over near the area, but knew that was stupid. She stayed in the house, sitting in the recliner, numbly watching TV, sometimes walking the floor, sometimes peeking out the window. Paranoia had moved in and followed her everywhere.
She flipped on the six p.m. news. Still nothing about Sal, but there was a story that piqued her interest and rattled her nerves.
A woman believed to be the girlfriend of the missing O Jackson had been gunned down outside her Minneapolis home. No suspects.
Eddie had succeeded with his vendetta. Micola’s death had been avenged. Kate shook her head. She knew how he’d felt. That urge to settle the score. She’d felt it too. Still felt it. Things weren’t finished. It was an urge that couldn’t be quelled whether she liked it or agreed with it.
