Page 68 of Fear of Flames
“That person would have to go through me first.” He kissed the top of her head and led her across the hallway to the bedroom. “Let me see who it is.”
The doorbell rang again.
“Do you get many visitors?” Michelle asked.
“Never.”
She took a ragged breath. That wasn’t the answer she was looking for.
Michelle reached for her own hands. They felt numb as if the circulation had stopped. Her body trembled as Fletch closed the bedroom door. Before it was fully shut, she saw him reach for his pistol from his holster. She backed away from the door, one step and then two. Her focus was on the doorknob. There was a small switch in the middle of the knob to lock the door. It wasn’t enough. Michelle knew without a doubt that the flimsy lock was insufficient to keep Fletch or possibly anyone from getting in.
Tentatively, she stepped forward and laid her ear against the door, straining to hear what was happening in the other part of the apartment. She even longed for the thin walls in the cheap motels.
Michelle heard voices, Fletch’s and someone else’s—a man’s—but she couldn’t make out the words. There was no yelling or gunshots. After a minute, she sat on the edge of the mattress. Her thoughts went to the press conference.
Lying back, she laid her arm over her eyes.
She was certain the night in Iron Falls had occurred exactly as she recalled. How could anyone suspect her of killing her father?
Her father probably had guns. As a retired policeman, she recalled he was always fanatical about gun safety. The only gun she owned at the time her father was shot was in a gun safe on the top shelf in her closet in Indianapolis.
Not only couldn’t Michelle have shot him, but she also wouldn’t.
Her thoughts went to her mother’s death.
After the explosion and her mother’s death, Michelle agreed to be questioned by the police. In her mind, she had nothing to hide. Yet, the more she was questioned, the less sure she was of her own memories.
Yes, she was upset that her parents weren’t home to greet her.
Yes, she canceled her last planned visit. It was because she was called in to work.
Yes, she chose to spend the night with her friends instead of going back to her home.
No, she wasn’t rebelling. Her friends called. She missed them.
Yes, she missed her family too.
Yes, she had access to the gas stove.
No, she wasn’t worried about her semester grades.
Yes, she was the last person to leave her parents’ home.
A kernel of uncertainty was all it took to make Michelle begin to question her own memories. Then came the psychological evaluations. She answered honestly about her childhood.
How did she feel about being an only child?
Fine.
Did she consider herself selfish?
Was that self-centeredness why she was upset when no one was home?
Michelle didn’t consider herself self-centered, jealous, dependent, or quarrelsome, or any of the qualities associated with an only child in antiquated psychological research. She didn’t like or dislike her lack of siblings. It simply was what it was.
The evaluating psychologist asked Michelle for her memories of her older sister. If she hadn’t learned of Sarah’s existence a few years earlier, the question would have thrown her for a loop. Michelle answered truthfully; she had no memory of a sister. Sarah died before she was born.
On Michelle’s currently overstressed brain, this train of thought was the beginning to a bottomless rabbit hole.
