Except I clearly see one goal: revenge.
For months, I’ve dreamt of watching this person bleed before me, of destroying the person who destroyed me. I pictured it over in over in my mind. Finally, thanks to the Bullet Man, I’m almost certain I found the baby killer.
First, I want to know why, and then, I’ll set myself free from this rage. Killing the killer will liberate me from the brokenness. Justice and retaliation drive me forward.
I glance at the stolen phone on the passenger seat before I park behind the squad car in my driveway. A picture of Kace and me, taken right after I took the pregnancy test, adorns his screen. For me, our happy smiles serve as a reminder of what we could never have again—at least not in the same way—but for him, it was a goal.
All this time, he had been working on getting back to this exact picture-perfect moment, without understanding time changes people. It eradicates sentiment and completely modifies all the fundamental principles of a person.
The guy in this photo wouldn’t have lied to me.
The girl in the photo would never have killed for revenge. Even with the bullying, she persevered unscathed and forgave, but nothing on this earth could ever make the new me forgive the person in my house.
Not even Kace.
Yesterday, I would’ve relented and allowed the unknown to harbor all my hate, but knowing the identity of the killer changes everything. It intensifies the putrid hatred.
Someone I trusted—who attended the memorial service, had the key to my house, and watched me fall apart—killed my baby, and now she was going to pay.
I swing the door of my car open and stick Kace’s phone into my back pocket. My purse and gun are tucked deliberately at my side. The walk up the small stone drive, surrounded by grass, takes an eternity. I deliberate on the most important moments of my life. Graduation, communion, academy, engagement—all shadowed in comparison to this very moment.
Confronting the killer.
She’s going to beg for her life. I’ll make her feel what my baby felt, over and over again. People don’t know, and Kace refuses to believe it, but babies feel pain, and Tyler felt pain inside me. I failed to protect him.
My baby, with perfect toes, cute nose, and firing synapses, suffered in my uterus.
The bullet pierced the placenta and tore through his stomach. He didn’t die instantly; he suffocated because that bitch shot him!
God, it makes sense now—most of it. Those damn pictures prove it all. She wanted me out of the way to be with Kace.
A niggling thought halts my hand, keeping it from turning the doorknob. Kace’s words fill my head, pounding against the crevices of my mind and battling my instinct. ‘After revenge, then what?’
After I torture her and make her suffer, I’ll put a bullet through her lungs and watch as she struggles to breathe. Then, I’ll pour water down her throat, teasing her with death, until the pain is so much, she’s begging.
Apologies are unnecessary. People who murder babies don’t deserve forgiveness. She’s a heartless, soulless killer, and I feel no remorse in the idea of ending her pitiful life before she hurts other people.
Retaliation isn’t release. More of Kace’s words flow through my mind, but this time they don’t stall me.
I twist the knob, knowing wounds never close, and I didn’t want them to. I’d rather spend the rest of my life in jail than live knowing I let the person get away with murder. Here, the Unborn Victims Law doesn’t apply, and the ‘born alive’ regulation for homicide still upholds. To be charged with murder in any degree would be a legal mess, mainly because nothing traced back to her, and unfortunately, I didn’t die too.
The only justice left for me was an eye for an eye, and I’d be happy to carve each of those eyes out one … by… one.
I throw the door to our modest home open. Kace’s blonde-haired partner, Stefanie Frank, let herself in with the spare key. She’s standing near the fireplace, holding a picture frame in her hands. My body revolts at the idea of her touching my baby’s 3D ultrasound picture.
I study her, searching for any sign of guilt for her moral transgressions in her posture. Nothing. Her shoulders are pulled back, her feet shoulder-width apart, and her body’s not showing any sign of discomfort.
I’d almost be tricked into believing her innocence. Like I had every day since the murder. Things I had noticed over time finally filter through the haze of feelings.
She smiled at the wake. Her face showed signs of happiness, even when she frowned.
The messages about trading partners.
Kace’s responses.
My blood pumps rapidly while I force my facial expressions to remain stoic. Being a human lie detector only works when I’m calm and focused, and when I have a baseline of natural behavior.
Condemning her to death requires a confession, so I can live with myself after, and so Kace and Cap can understand.
Gently, I close the door and brace myself for the act of a lifetime. Clutching my purse and gun close to my side, I saunter over to the living room.
It takes her a moment to realize she’s not alone. “Hey, Ellie,” she says, while placing the picture back on the mantle. The pitch of her voice remains monotone, meaning no excitement in seeing me here.
Of course. She expected Kace.
“Hey, Frank.” My pitch comes out perfectly, and the smile comforts the bitch. I glance around the room as I force my throbbing heart back into place. “Where’s Kace?”
“Oh…”
There it is. The drop in the tone and the slight slack of her jaw. I caught her off guard. I don’t give her much time to think. “Weren’t you two working on the case today? He told me about a new victim.”
“He did?” She stands behind the couch—the same one I’ve been sleeping on for months because of her—and eyes the pillowcase and sheets I didn’t put away. “You two are talking now?”
Technically she told me about the other body while I was in Cap’s office, but pissing her off is part of the fun. Plus, she knows Kace and I talked, but she’s explicitly referring to the last twenty-four hours. “Yeah, I saw him at the precinct.” Cover my bases, in case anyone told her I was there. “Didn’t he tell you?”
She flicks her eyes to the left and exhales deeply. “No.”
Her body shifts away from me, closing the nonverbal line of communication, and her eyes are plastered to the door behind me. She’s going to bolt.
“He texted me,” I offer, recapturing her attention. “He’s on the way over to grab some things.”
“Some things?” she repeats back to me.
Internally, I smile as she comes around the couch and takes a seat. But, externally, I put on a show for her and elicit the questions I want her to ask. I lower my gaze and twirl the pillow case between my fingers, drawing her attention to evidence.
“Are things not going well?” she asks in the intermittent space.
As if caught in action, I drop my fingers and swallow. “It’s been rough,” I confess with all honesty. “I don’t know how we are going to move on from this.”
Her eyes squint, and she leans back on the couch, distancing herself from the conversation as she scrutinizes me. The ‘we’ in my sentence triggers her. To test my theory, I exploit the possibility of Kace and me as a couple. Addressing our differences, I point out a fact everyone knows about her partner. “Kace is hard to shake. His optimism can be annoying.”