Redemption Rains (2 page)

“Ok, lady, I’m going to have to go
down that dirt road and check this out," he took Elizabeth by the
arm and turned her toward his car.

“No! You can't leave me here! What if
something happens?" She could taste the blood in her mouth, which
came from her biting her lips. The metallic residue made her
nauseous with fright. "Can't you just call for backup or something
like that?"

“Lady, you'll be all right. I'll put
you in my car and I'll only be gone a minute." Elizabeth showed
resistance but the officer was able to open the back door on his
patrol car and press her into the seat.

"You'll be perfectly safe," he said as
he shut the door and headed back the way Elizabeth had
come.

In a trance like state, she watched
the officer fade into the dark. OK, don’t go crazy, girl. She
thought to herself. You are perfectly safe in this vehicle and
those goons are probably long gone by now. She restlessly rubbed
her damp hands on her skirt. Looking down, she noticed for the
first time that she had lost a shoe on her harrowing excursion. Her
toe was pointing through the hole in her stocking, which ran up her
leg and disappeared underneath her skirt.

Lights flashed into the
window bringing her out of her preoccupation. Elizabeth looked out
the passengers’ window in fear. She watched a black sedan drive
toward the patrol car. She felt as if everything moved in slow
motion as the huge car pulled along her side of the car; the tinted
driver side window gliding open in one smooth motion to reveal the
man who had shot the man now lying in the road dead. She looked him
straight in the eye, and could not pull her vision away. Slowly,
the man raised his hand and that is when Elizabeth knew that she
was going to die. He was going to shoot her the same way he had
killed the unknown man. Elizabeth felt the air rush out of her
lungs and her body grow cold. Her mouth opened as if to scream, but
no noise came out. She witnessed the man curve his hand and point
at her as if he were firing a weapon but his hand was empty.
You’re dead!
The man
mouthed.

CHAPTER 2

The noise was unbearable. There was no
order in the place. The police station was crowded with every kind
of criminal you could think of, and then some. Elizabeth looked
around her, seeing the different people, but not seeing them. The
fear that she had felt when that man looked at her and said those
words was the worst thing she had ever experienced. She knew that
she would never be able to close her eyes again without seeing that
face. Black beady eyes in a face that was round as a grapefruit and
as red as an apple. The promises that was reflected in those black
eyes were one of death; cold, hard death with no mercy. So why was
she sitting here, instead of dead? That is a question she had asked
herself almost a thousand times since that window had slid closed
on the nightmarish face.

She guessed she had Officer Kelly to
thank for that. He had come back in time to witness the sedan
pulling away from his patrol car. He was there when Elizabeth
finally found her voice and started screaming. After that, it
became a blur of flashing lights, rain, and endless questions from
endless policemen.

“Mrs. Windsor?” Elizabeth jumped when
the question was voiced. “Mrs. Windsor, I have a few questions for
you and then we can let you go home.”

She looked into the face of the man
who was finally handing her salvation. She would be able to leave
this noisy, crowded room that smelled of alcohol and urine and go
home to her quiet apartment.

“Yes, I’m Elizabeth Windsor,” she
raised her large frame out of the too tiny chair. For a moment she
was afraid she would get stuck, but with a little effort she was
free and standing. The man held out his hand as if to help, but
then backed away.

“I’m sorry we have made you wait here
for so long, but we need to just double check everything. Now,
let’s go over this thing one more time. You were on your way home
when your tire blew. You didn’t have a jack so you decided to walk
down a dark road to a house,” this was said in a voice that held a
touch of disbelief and a truckload of cynicism. Elizabeth stepped
back from the man with a look of consternation on her
face.

“For your information officer, I am
not stupid and I don’t want to be patronized. I am aware of the
careless thing I did, but that does not make me a criminal and I
will not be treated as one,” this last was said in her haughtiest
voice. She raised her eyes to meet the man facing her. She had to
tilt her head back to look into those steel blue eyes. She breathed
and took another step back. Dark, short hair topped a high
forehead, which led down to those blue eyes. Elizabeth held her
breath for a moment, afraid to move.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Windsor,” he grated
out. “It’s not officer, its Detective Kane and I am the one
investigating this homicide,” the full lips tilted down in a frown,
causing little dimples to appear. She knew that if he smiled those
dimples would only grow. And the nose that was long and strait
flared slightly, causing Elizabeth to suck in another breath of
air. If she didn’t stop staring, she would deservedly be labeled an
idiot and locked away with rest. Elizabeth closed her mouth and
stood a little taller, trying to regain some composure.

“Now, Mrs. Windsor, if I could just
get you to look over this information here and sign the bottom, I
will be happy to leave you with the officer who will drive you
home,” the detective pulled out the sheet from the file he was
holding.

Elizabeth looked over the file that
documented her plight that night. She suddenly felt very cold and
tired and wanted to go home. Signing the bottom of the draft, she
backed away and into the man standing behind her. Detective Kane
reached and grabbed her arm to steady her. Shocks of electricity
ran up her arm originating at the point where Detective Kane’s
long, slim tanned fingers grasped her. Elizabeth looked into his
eyes with shock as he let go of her with the reaction of someone
being burned. For an instant, Elizabeth saw disdain flash into the
detective’s eyes and then it was gone, leaving a dull, empty
reflection in its place.

“Thank you Mrs. Windsor,” Detective
Kane said as he turned away from her. “Officer Burns here will take
you home.”

And with that he was gone; walking
away from her with no more thought. Elizabeth glanced down at her
appearance and realized what a mess she must present. Hair
plastered to her head from the rain, makeup running down her face,
her clothes splattered with mud and missing a shoe. No wonder he
looked at me like I was trash, I look like trash, she thought as
she followed Officer Burns out of the police station and into the
rain, again. Would this night ever end?

A little more than two hours later,
Elizabeth found herself sitting in her apartment wearing her
favorite flannel nightgown, wrapped in a blanket, sipping that long
awaited hot toddy with a fire blazing in front of her. She was
exhausted, but sleep would not come; knowing that she would not be
able to close her eyes again without seeing the vision of the men
on that dirt road and the events which followed. They had reassured
her at the police station that she was most likely not in any
danger. Those men did not know who she was so they did not impose a
threat. But this did little toward making her nerves calm. With
every noise she jumped and could feel her heart rate speed
up.

When the phone rang, she almost
dropped the glass in her hand. Starring at the phone, not knowing
whether to answer or not, Elizabeth glanced around her apartment.
On the tenth ring, she lifted the receiver. “Hello?” she asked in a
breathless whisper.

“Lizzy? Where in the world have you
been? It’s almost two in the morning,” her mother’s accusation came
over the line. With a sigh of relief, Elizabeth grabbed the
receiver tighter, picked up her blanket and sat back down on the
couch. If she knew her mother, whom she did, she was in for a long
bawling out.

“Mom, I had a little mishap on the way
home tonight,” this led into a detailed story of Elizabeth’s trip
home that would have been shorter if her mother had stopped
interrupting with comments such as “that was stupid to go down that
road” and “how could you have lost a shoe? Do you know how terrible
you probably looked?” No, her mother never was good at soothing her
spirit. She didn’t know how to utter soothing words; she only knew
how to yell absurdities such as these.

After almost an hour of listening to
her mother’s tirade Elizabeth broke in and explained that she was
not feeling well, she had her cold from the previous days. This cut
her mother off abruptly giving Elizabeth a chance to break off the
conversation and hang up after a promise that she would come by the
ranch tomorrow; for more ridicule, no doubt. Elizabeth put down the
receiver and looked around her apartment again. For some reason she
felt better after talking to her mother. It was probably the
yelling that made her feel human again.

Deciding it was time to try and get
some sleep, Elizabeth flipped the switch on the wall, which turned
out the lights in the living room. Just as she was walking through
the hallway leading to her bedroom, she heard the loud sound of
glass braking. She froze where she stood. For the second time that
night Elizabeth felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of
her. Stepping into the shadows, she heard what sounded like someone
climbing through her kitchen window. I can hear it now, she thought
to herself, my mother will be telling everyone at my funeral how
she told me not to be so lazy and live on the second floor, it
would be safer and I would get little exercise. Laughter escaped
her. She must be hysterical.

Stepping quietly into her bedroom, she
picked up the closest object she could find, the free weight that
she kept by her bed, and turned back toward the hall. She heard the
shuffling of feet coming toward her and then it stopped. The
silence was suffocating. Then, the feet retreated back toward the
living room and the kitchen and then came the sound of the kitchen
door closing. Elizabeth released the breath from her lungs, just as
she smelt the first wave of smoke. Whoever had broken into her
apartment had started a fire and now the entire hallway was
enveloped in a raging inferno of flames and black smoke.

Turning quickly, Elizabeth retreated
into her bedroom and slammed the door shut. She ran to the phone on
the nightstand and dialed the emergency number. There was no dial
tone. The line was dead. Did the culprit cut it, or had the fire
already eaten away at her only line to safety? Stepping in front of
the window, Elizabeth twisted the lock and grabbed the seal,
raising it. Without a second thought, she flung her large body
through the frame feet first and landed on her knees in the grass.
She looked over her shoulder and could see the smoke billowing out
of the window. Afraid that it would spread and endanger the other
tenants in the complex, Elizabeth started running for the building
across the street.

“Open up! There’s a fire! We need to
call the fire department! Is anyone there?” Elizabeth pounded on
the door, anxiously waiting for it to open. Seconds ticked off.
Seconds that felt like hours. The door opened and Elizabeth looked
at the old lady standing there in her housecoat and
rollers.

“I live in the apartment across the
street and it’s on fire. Please, call the fire
department.”

The lady looked over Elizabeth’s
shoulder in fright and turned, running toward the phone. Not taking
the time to breath, Elizabeth turned back toward the apartment and
started knocking on doors trying to wake the residents up and get
them out before the smoke spread along with the fire. As she
approached the last door, Elizabeth heard a loud explosion. The gas
line had exploded in her apartment sending waves of heat and debris
soaring through the air. Elizabeth ran for cover, just avoiding a
fragment of what looked like her kitchen table coming at
her.

Standing on the curb, 45 minutes
later, Elizabeth looked at her home. Some home. Now all it amounted
to was a pile of burning embers. She’d lost everything. She was a
mess. All she had was her flannel nightgown, nothing else. All was
lost in the fire. Tears ran down her cheeks leaving wet trails on
her soot-covered face. Her hair was sticky from sweat and matted to
her head. Her life could not be worse.

Turning her head away she caught sight
of a black sedan parked two blocks down. The hair on her neck stood
up and her knees started to buckle. Fear gripped her by the gut and
held her in that one spot. She had known that this was not some
coincidence; her being burglarized on the same night she witnessed
a grizzly crime. But the truth did not occur to her until she saw
that car. Elizabeth was not the type to faint; until tonight. That
was Elizabeth’s last thought as the ground came up to meet
her.

CHAPTER 3

Embarrassed beyond belief, Elizabeth
took the cup of water that Detective Kane offered her. She could
not believe that she had fainted, fainted at the feet of the
imperious detective. She was sure that this only lowered her status
in the Detective’s eye

“I’m so sorry; I can’t believe that I
did that. I have never been the kind to just faint like that. It
must be the smoke or something.”

“Yes, or something,” the detective
said with a vague look in his hooded blue eyes. “If you are feeling
up to it, maybe we can get you back to the station and try and sort
through this matter?”