I rounded the car and closed the rear door with only the least bit of resistance and then climbed back into the drivers’ seat. I reached back to the rear door and I rolled up the window with some difficulty as I bumped Amber’s head with each rotation of the handle. Then I backed the car into the garage and opened the trunk again. I grabbed the lime- green ten-speed bicycle that Melanie had convinced me to buy (it was on sale for ninety- nine dollars at the local department store) so that we could go riding together in the spring and I folded it into the trunk and tied the hood as close to closed as I could get it with the front wheel of the bicycle protruding and then I closed the garage door behind me.

Once back inside the house I went to

Sarah’s bedroom door and pushed it open. Sarah was sitting on the edge of her bed.

“What were you doing with Amber’s car?” She didn’t bother to look up. She was mocking me with her indifference to the trouble she had caused me.

“I think you know damned good and well what I was doing.”

Sarah looked up and feigned shock.

“Get out into the kitchen and eat your breakfast.” I said with authority so as to reestablish my position of power over her.

I had to microwave our food to make it edible and still the French-toast which I had labored over was chewy and bland and the yokes of the eggs, once soft inside prepared sunny-side up were thick and dry. We ate in silence as I am sure that Sarah could sense my anger at her behavior.

12

Sarah was a murderess; a sociopath; a serial killer. She would kill and kill and kill for the rest of her life whenever she felt that the circumstances called for such action. She held no value for human life save for her own. She was probably also incapable of love. She was capable of affection, of that I was certain, but as a sociopath she would be incapable of love.

That did not change my feelings toward her. I loved her more than life itself. She wasn’t even my flesh and blood, and yet I loved her as if her soul were conjoined with my own. I knew that I would do anything for her even as I sat brooding over the bind she had gotten me into.

But I dared not confront her. I was resolved to clean up her mess and move on. I couldn’t undo what was already done. All I could do was deal with the situation as pragmatically as possible. I sat on the couch massaging Melanie’s little bare feet waiting for the fearful cover of darkness to fall down upon the earth so that I could return Amber from where she had come. I was sure that her family would be missing her. She had been away from her home for over twenty-four hours. And now that I had more time to consider the mission that awaited me I realized that returning Amber to her home might prove to be a very difficult task. The obvious dilemma of overcoming my fear of the dark aside, there was a good chance that Amber’s family might be huddling in their home in the hopes that she might return. At first I had estimated that they would be at the police station or out searching for her; but this would be unlikely. In all of the police dramas I had watched on television the family was told to stay at home and stand by the phone in case the missing person phoned or returned.

That Amber’s family was concerned there was not doubt. Her cell phone, which I had in my pocket set on vibrate mode, had rung incessantly since noon. Her sister was no doubt still covering for her, but was trying to reach her to find out what had become of her. Her husband had also called several times according to the caller I.D. on Amber’s cell. Every time her phone buzzed in my pocket I jumped like a nervous cricket. I reached into my pocket and turned the phone off. I could not wait to dispose of the cell phone.

Sarah played innocently on the floor with the dollhouse that Amber had bought her for Christmas. I wondered if she had chosen to play with that particular toy on purpose as a sort of snub to Amber. Sarah never gave any indication what-so-ever that she had done anything wrong. She had to know, for God’s sakes, that I couldn’t help but notice a bloody corpse lying next to me in my bed. I drew a deep breath and my eyes teared up at the thought that she was capable of being so unfeeling; so inhuman. Her outward appearance was so innocent. But her behavior was unequivocally disturbing; from her attempt to simulate intercourse with me to her brutal execution of Amber. She was the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing and my heart broke at the realization that she was as capable of barbarism as she was of affection.

And who was at fault? I was. I had made her into the monster that was she. My espousement of her had no doubt caused her confusion and her confusion had led her to brutality and her appetite for blood had been wetted as a result of her jealousy and murder of Catherine. All things stemmed from me. There was no chemical imbalance; no birth defect; no hormonal disproportion. I was to blame. And her life, as a result, would be a painful and short lived affair because eventually she would be found out. The baby that I once held in the palm of my hand, who once laid her head on my chest and slept to the beat of my drumming heart, was a child no more.

The sun that had earlier cast a short beam of light onto the floor through the living room window grew visible from where I sat as it washed the room in a blast of yellow splendor. I adjusted the blanket to shield Melanie’s eyes from the glare in the hope that she would sleep until after I had left; but when I rose from the couch she opened her mouth in a deep yawn as she stretched her legs and extended her toes and blinked her eyes open.

“Where are you going?” she croaked, parched from so many hours of sleep.

“I have to go to work.” I had been mulling a variety of excuses and this was the only lie that I could produce that would preclude her accompaniment.

“But it’s Sunday.” She extended her yawn as she sat up. Her face looked much better than it had earlier, her skin was smooth, no longer baggy about the eyes and her eyes were no longer bloodshot, and neither were the muscles in her face disfigured with tension and rage. She looked as pretty as the day I had first met her. “Who works on a Sunday?”

“Tony called a little while ago. There is a problem at a house we finished wiring on

Friday. The customer lost power to half of their house, so we have to fix it. Their refrigerator doesn’t work and neither does their furnace.” I shrugged, and as a contagion to her yawn I opened my mouth and evoked my own expressive drowse.

“How long will you be gone?”

“I don’t know. How ever long it takes to restore their power. Can you keep an eye on Sarah for me?”

“Sure honey,” she extended her hand and I tugged her up into my arms and I kissed her as she pursed her lips to shield me from her stale sleepy breath.

I hugged Sarah and kissed her forehead and then I looked into her eyes and searched for the innocence that had once lived within her pretty blue eyes but I saw only coldness. I forced a smile, “You be a good girl for Melanie.”

“I will. I like Melanie.”

How reassuring, I thought.

I waited until Melanie retreated into the bathroom before I left so that she would not see me leave in Amber’s car and then I donned a pair of rubber kitchen gloves and climbed into the car and made my way down the street and toward the highway to a route that I had mapped out earlier. I hoped to arrive just as darkness fell to limit my exposure to night. If I had waited until dark to leave the house I knew that I would have lost my nerve.

During the almost hour-long drive from Wichita to Hutchinson the night grew dark and the radio and the dashboard light were my only distractions. The radio played a mixture of

Motown oldies but the song that seemed to stick in my mind was the howling deep voice of Sachmo as he sang “What a Wonderful World”.