The windows were dark but the flicker of a television appeared to illuminate the large picture window at the center of the house. Sweat was pouring from my pores and my pulse was pounding so hard that I could hear the blood throbbing through the veins in my wrists. I killed the engine and I coasted the car onto the concrete slab (that served as a secondary parking area) to the rear of the house and I eased the brake pedal to the floor which caused a high pitched squeal as the metal of the rotors ground against the graphite brake pads.
All sounds for me, no matter how suppressed, seemed amplified as though broadcast through a megaphone and the squeal of the brakes sounded as loud as if it had come from a train as it slid across the iron rails of a track coming to a stop. I hunched my body low in the driver’s seat as I held my foot to the brake; then I realized that the bright red glow of my brake- lights was illuminating the rear wall of the house and the shrubbery that adorned it. I placed the car in park and I lifted my foot from the brake and I waited to see if I had attracted any unwanted attention; but all was quiet.
I eased the car door open and I slipped out of the car and squatted and waddled to the shelter of the prickly shrubs against the house.
I scanned the rear yard for any sign of movement. Below and to the rear of the houses lay a large man-made frozen pond the size and shape of a basketball court only rounded at the corners. Beyond the pier lay a thicket of woods and briar through which could be seen the lights of other houses.
I waddled from the corner of the garage to the man-door at the center of the garage and I peaked into the window. There was a large late model navy-blue pickup truck backed inside so that the bed of the vehicle faced me. I waddled further along the rear of the house until I reached the window to the kitchen. Inside a dim light was cast across the vast grey granite countertops over and above several strings of maple cupboards.
I moved, my back sore at the base, a little more boldly and erectly, as I worked my way to the source of the flickering light, a large-screen television playing a basketball game which rested in the corner of the great- room with a dark plush carpet and white walls with a large stone fireplace as its centerpiece beneath a high vaulted ceiling. It appeared, though my view was obscured, that someone’s foot was sticking out from the end of the sofa. I drew a deep breath and then I stood up and tried to get a better glimpse of the sofa. The top of an adult head laid resting, eyes closed, atop a tier of pillows. Her husband Charlie, I supposed.
I squatted again and I moved toward a window which turned out to belong to one of the children’s bedrooms. A child was sleeping, or so it appeared, with its arm wrapped around a stuffed bear. My heart sank at the thought of the child being motherless. Amber may have been a royal cunt to me but she had been a doting mother to her children. I moved to the next window where the room was too poorly lit to see inside and on to the end of the house where through a set of sliding-glass doors lay the master suite which was lit only by a closet light. I could see a king-size brass bed and a large dresser and bureau painted white and a vaulted ceiling with a large ceiling fan positioned directly over the bed
I pressed on the handle of the sliding- glass door and to my relief and surprise it opened easily. I took off my shoes and I slipped inside. The room was warm compared to the chill air outside. I crawled up against the foot of the bed and listened for the sound of footsteps or movement but there was none. I crawled to the bureau which sat next to the entry door and then moved to the door and peered into the empty hallway before slowly closing the door and locking it from within.
Outside I slipped back into my loosely laced tennis-shoes and I scurried back to the car. I opened the rear passenger door and
Amber’s head slid down until it hung over the seat. I pulled her to me and hoisted her onto my shoulder and I walked slightly slumped through the rear yard.
I stopped dead in my tracks, sliding and almost falling, as I thought I heard Amber whimper, and I was about to drop her and run when I realized that it was the wind whistling in my ears again. I took a deep breath and then I trudged forward to the end of the house and slipped out of my shoes and into Amber’s bedchamber.
I stripped the bed of its quilt and pillows and sheets, tossing them onto the floor, and then I unrolled Amber’s stiff torso from the confines of the new blue blanket. She was still wrapped in the as yet damp bloody bed-sheet. I picked her up in my arms and I could feel her cold familiar and statue-like naked body through the thin cotton fabric. I laid her onto the bed so that her head faced the headboard and I unwrapped her from the bloody sheet. Amber was blue and ensanguined but her body was still beautiful. Her abdomen, the lines of her muscles highlighted by the creases of dried blood, was muscled and firm and narrow. Her breasts were flaccid but round and full. Her face, though frozen in a pained expression, was perfectly shaped in a soft rounded V with a recessed chin like you often find with models, and high cheekbones and those Beautiful blue eyes. Her hair, saturated in blood, appeared to be a mix of strawberry blond and red.
I stretched the fabric of the sheet to the corners of the mattress and wrapped them around the mattress as though I were making the bed. Then I covered Amber with the blue blanket that I had wrapped her in and then with the quilt that was previously on the bed and then I tossed the pillows onto the empty side of the bed stacked as though someone were going to sit up and watch television. I knew even as I laid Amber out on the mattress in specific fashion that the lengths to which I was going were excessive; but I wanted her to look as natural as a Beautiful dead girl could look. It was bad enough that she would be found murdered but I wanted her to at least be presentable. I think I did it more for her than for her family as a last gesture; the least I could do I supposed, and as long as I was taking such a great risk what was the difference. It would be obvious to any detective that she had been transplanted from the site of her murder. If nothing else it would befuddle them.
I crept to the bedroom door and placed my ear up against it and listened for life before unlocking it then I slipped out through the sliding glass doors and into my shoes and I ran to Amber’s car. Using the spray bottle of cleaner I dampened a paper towel and I wiped down every surface I thought I might have touched prior to putting on the rubber gloves, then I popped open the trunk. I pulled my bicycle out and closed the boot and I peddled down the gravel driveway toward the road. I knew that what I had done in leaving Amber’s dead body in her bed was not the right thing, but the right thing was not a viable option for me. And it was far better than dumping her body into a shallow grave; or in the drainage ditch as I had contemplated while I stood at the side of the road scared out of my wits, or into a lake to decompose and rot beyond recognition. At least by leaving her body in her bed for her husband to find I was giving them some immediate finality to Amber’s family and a body to bury that still resembled the woman that they loved. That Amber had turned into a heartless bitch to me and to Melanie was undisputable; but she had redeemed herself to some degree with the letter that she intended to leave for me granting me my freedom, and besides, Amber’s family did not deserve to suffer for her sins. And what I had had with Amber had not been all bad. The Amber that I had come to know through many a telephone conversation was human and likable. I would not have turned to her in crisis had that not been the case. And she had saved my bacon and put her self in harms way by aiding and abetting the fugitive that was me.