Trapped With A Killer

Chapter Twelve

My mother was always a sensitive woman. I never knew how she managed working at a law firm, but maybe she was better at keeping her emotions controlled when she was on the job. At home, she bore her heart on her sleeve. After my father died, she was a wreck. My mother had loved my father deeply, and that only meant that his passing destroyed her to her core.

It was a hot summer that year. I remember my clothes sticking to my skin as I sat outside while my mother had one of her crying fits. I had given up trying to comfort her. Nothing I did or said seemed to make a lick of difference. So, I had taken to waiting outside instead.

Our neighbor Mrs. Sheley would pass by while she walked her dog, and she would always stop and let me pet Roger, her border terrier she had named after her late husband.

"What are you doing out here in the heat?" she'd always ask, wiping her own forehead off with a floral patterned handkerchief. I knelt and let Roger lick my face.

"I like it out here," I'd answer.

"Well you should go play with some other kids your age if you're going to be outside. Children need good friends," she'd say before walking off. What was it about adults and them wanting to have the same conversation over and over again?

Besides, I had a good friend. Quinn and I didn't see each other as much over the summer when we were out of school, but I'd go over to her house any chance I got. Which wasn't much as I never liked to ask my mom to drive me across town. Not when she couldn't even get herself out of bed.

One day I was bored, and I made the trek across town on my own two feet. I crossed two major roads, and it took me a long time on my short little legs. Once I made it there Quinn's mother was appalled that I had done something so dangerous, and to my frustration she drove me back to my house. My mother hadn't even noticed I had left.

Eventually my mother returned to work, and I was stuck with a babysitter. Barbara was a high schooler with a sour attitude who didn't like children very much, as far as I could tell. At first I would bring her a book and ask her to read it out loud to me, but she'd scoff and tell me to watch some television instead. She didn't particularly care what I watched on tv. Which is how I ended up watching adult shows that I was far too young to be viewing.

My favorite shows were the detective ones where they would solve a violent crime. I would get entranced by their hunt for clues and race to catch the bad guy. Things were simpler in those shows. There was an evil to fight against. There wasn't some nameless illness or honest mistake. There was always a person with a motive who could be stopped.

I started dragging Barbara to the local library where I checked out any mystery I could get my hands on, and I read true crime novels like they were bedtime stories.

I lost myself in those books and television shows. When my mom was drinking or crying or, as was often the case, doing both, I could sift through the catalog of crimes and mysteries in my head. While other children were playing with dollhouses, I was arranging pretend crime scenes.

I would sit and tell Quinn all about the grisly cases I had read about that week, but one day she burst into tears saying she didn't want to hear these horrible stories anymore. She said that she would go tell her mom about what I was reading and watching, but I promised to buy her any candy she wanted if she didn't tattle. I knew that I was doing something that adults wouldn't approve of, but I didn't care. It was the only thing that I was truly interested in after my dad's death, and I wasn't going to let some stupid grown ups ruin my fun.

As I was setting up a fake murder scene with my dolls and stuffed animals (this time it was the panda who had done it) I knocked over a pile of books. At the bottom of the stack was The Hobbit. I flipped until I found my dad's favorite leather bookmark. We had only gotten about halfway through the story before he went to the hospital.