Page 51 of Shiver

She shuddered as the images barraged her. “His wide, unblinking eyes were staring at me. I screamed and tried to back away from him, but I couldn’t move. My hand had landed in the bowl of raspberries, squishing the berries. I tried to wipe them off on my blouse, but there was blood all over me. Tommy’s blood.” She swiped at the tears running down her cheeks and nestled deeper into Riley’s lap.

He held her and murmured in her ear. “It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t okay, it would never be okay. She knew that now. “Stones crunched behind me. I scrambled to my feet and there he was watching me.”

“The man in the sketch?”

She nodded. “The look of the devil Papa had always preached about glowing in his eyes. A large rock covered with blood was clutched in his hand and his lips were curved in a triumphant smile.” She stiffened. “Oh, God!”

“What?” he clutched her tighter.

“I remember what he said to me.” She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, just kept hearing his voice whispering in her mind.

“Peekaboo.”

Suddenly, she was a child again and, like the proverbial spilled milk, the images wouldn’t stop flowing. She’d turned and ran up the bank of the river and into the northwestern woods she knew like the back of her hand. “No matter how fast I ran, every time I’d turn he was still behind me. After a while, I was so tired. I stopped to lean against a tree and slid down its trunk.”

She took a deep breath. “Then I saw him. He was still holding the bloody rock in his hand, still smiling. He wasn’t even breathing hard. I remember being so scared, I remember freezing as his eyes met mine. ‘You can run little girl, but you can’t hide. Not from me.’ Those are the words he said to me. The words I keep hearing again and again.”

Just like last night.

She clenched her fists and forced herself to continue when all she really wanted to do was get into her car and drive far, far away. “I ran in so many directions, I was no longer sure where I was, or which way was which. I remember the river looming ahead of me. I remember thinking if I could just reach the river’s path, I could follow it back home. Back to Papa. But I slipped on a patch of wet pine needles. The pain in my left ankle almost brought me down, but I knew I couldn’t fall. I knew if I did, I wouldn’t be able to get back up. So I kept running, no longer caring about the path or the pain.”

She hesitated.

“Go, on,” he encouraged. “You’re doing fine.”

“As I reached the river, a large hand grasped my shoulder and pulled me backward. I fell to the ground. The impact knocked the air from my chest. Pain sliced through my head. Something wet and sticky ran down the side of my face.”

She touched her cheek. “I begged him not to hurt me. He leaned over me, his face coming closer. Then blackness swallowed the light. The last image I saw before succumbing to the darkness was a glint of red laughter shining through obsidian eyes.”

The eyes of the devil.

“Those are the eyes I saw depicted in the sketch of Michelle’s killer. It’s him. He killed Tommy.”

Riley stared at her, unblinking.

“I know it sounds crazy, it is crazy. This whole situation is crazy. What’s worse is that’s all I can remember of that day. They said they found me in the forest with the murder weapon in my hand. But I can’t remember what happened. I don’t know why he let me go. I don’t know why he didn’t kill me, too.” She let out a deep breath, trying to fight back the tears that were threatening to overwhelm her.

“Why have you kept running? Why haven’t you let somebody help you?”

“Who? The police? I can’t take that risk again.”

“What risk?”

“That they’d lock me up.” She clung to shoulders that felt strong enough to hold up the world, but were they strong enough for her and for what the future may hold? “I can’t go through that again,” she insisted. “I can’t have everyone calling me a killer.”

“They won’t.”

“Tommy’s parents believed I killed him, and so did mine. The police just wanted the case solved. They took the easy way. They didn’t care whose life they were ruining or whose dreams they destroyed. Chief Marshall was so certain it was me.”

Riley cringed at her words.

“Please, Riley. Don’t make me go through that again. Let me leave. I’ll be more careful. I won’t let him find me.”

Her eyes pleaded with him and as much as he wanted to help her, he couldn’t stand the idea of her out there on her own with a madman on her heels. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” Tears spilling onto her cheeks broke his heart. “You can’t keep running and hiding,” he said. “You deserve more, you deserve a life.”

“I can’t stay. He almost killed you last night. He’ll be back again.”

---