Page 44 of Saving Meadow

Becky.

The blueish hair was stained with blood and brain matter, but it was definitely dyed an unnatural hair color.

“Anyone have her ID?” I asked, looking around for a purse.

“Yeah. Lance has it.” Ben motioned to the side where Detective Lance was standing, speaking with a group of uniformed officers.

“Sorry to interrupt. Can I see her ID please?”

Without breaking his conversation with the other officers, Lance passed me Rebecca’s driver’s license.

It was her.

Sweet Becky from the coffee shop was victim number fifteen.

Damn! Meadow was going to freak.

20

For him… I’d do anything

Itried to go back to sleep after Nick rolled out of bed, but I couldn’t. I knew what today was. I’d thought about it all day yesterday. Nick hadn’t said anything about the day, so neither had I. It was like neither of us wanted to acknowledge the date. When the middle of the night call came, I didn’t need him to tell me another person had been killed.

I’d heard him come in a little while ago and he went straight to the shower. I decided to give him time alone and got up to start a pot of coffee. I had to go to work, but I still had a few hours. I didn’t know what the protocol for the FBI was. If he got called out in the middle of the night, was he still expected in the office at 8 a.m. or did they get to catch some sleep first? I also figured with his job and the things he saw, he probably needed a few minutes alone to scrub the images out of his mind, if that was possible.

I was in the kitchen trying to give myself a mental pep talk when I heard him come in. He needed me to be strong; he’d had a shit night, and if he needed to talk about it, I had to pull my big girl panties on and be tough. For him, for us, I could do anything.

He didn’t say anything when he walked up behind and pulled my back to his front and held me. Damn, I was happy he was home. He stood there for a long time, not saying anything. When he released me, I turned in his arms and threaded my fingers behind his neck, not wanting to lose the contact.

“You okay?” I asked.

“No. Come sit with me on the couch.”

“You’re scaring me. Did I…”

“No, baby. Please. Let’s go sit on the couch.”

I let go of his neck and let him move us to the couch. Instead of sitting next to him, he pulled me down into his lap.

“Shit, I don’t know how to tell you this.”

“What’s wrong?”

My mind was racing a mile a minute. What could he have to tell me that was upsetting him this much.

“This morning. We found another victim,” he started.

“I’m sorry, Nick. That’s terrible. The same as before? It’s the twentieth, so it’s her again?”

“We’re waiting on a few tests to come back to verify, but it looks that way. That’s not all. The victim, shit, the woman, it was Becky,” he told me.

“Becky?” I only knew one Becky. “No! It can’t be her. Becky, from Sam’s? She was leaving to be a school teacher. There’s no way it’s that Becky. Right?”

“I’m sorry, baby. It’s her.”

“No,” I denied again. “We just saw her at Sam’s. She was training the new girl. She was leaving. To be a teacher. Why? Why would anyone want to hurt her?”

Nick remained silent and let me cry on his chest, holding me tighter and tighter as the tears got worse. Why Becky? Why did she have to die, yet I lived? She was going to help kids; she was so excited to start her new job. Why was I saved? I was a nobody. I would never change someone’s life the way Becky would’ve. When I thought I’d cried all I could, I lifted off his chest, and his hand came to my scarred cheek, wiping away the last of my tears. Sometimes when I was with Nick, I forgot my face was blemished with the ugly mark. But not today. Today it was burning with the reminder of my connection to the killer, a stark memento that had someone not stopped her, she would’ve killed me.