Something Missing (Updated Weekly)

Chapter 8 - Hide It

For twelve years, Sandra had dreamed this day would come.

She had seen it play out in her fleeting happy moments and her worst nightmares. Sometimes she had killed the man standing in front of her, rubbing his cheek theatrically, as she clawed at the air with her dirty fingernails. Sometimes she had stopped him right as he was about to take her sister's life. She had pulled her sister away. Then she would wake up and Frances was still dead.

Occasionally, in her dreams, Sandra herself was the one who died.

'You murdered her. Admit what you did,' she screamed, her voice hoarse from shouting. She kicked out at a nearby table in rage. An old man was sitting there, saying nothing, doing nothing. How could he, when her sister was dead and she was standing in front of the man who killed her?

A teapot slid to the floor and shattered.

'Leave him,' Rita gasped, her tight arms crushing Sandra's belly, constricting her breathing. Sandra elbowed her in the face but Rita held on with enraging tenacity. If she cared about justice, she would let her do it, she would let her smash his face in, Sandra's mind screamed. Near the counter, a waitress was crying in shock. The floor was scattered with shards of ceramic and spreading pools of tea and water.

'You're worth more than this,' Rita panted. 'Don't ruin your life for him.'

'He's already ruined my life! He destroyed my whole family!' Sandra spat, hot tears running down her face. He was talking to the woman at the checkout now in the soft tones he used when he wanted to manipulate someone. He had pulled the wool over Frances's eyes so many times. All the affairs. All the lies. Why couldn't anyone see what kind of man he was?

'...Sandra is deeply disturbed,' she caught him intoning sorrowfully.

The woman at the counter wasn't fooled, praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! Her voice shook with the same anger Sandra felt boiling inside her. 'Get out! Don't come back. You're banned.'

Rita loosened her grip, her hand still on Sandra's coat. She was saying a bunch of words, trying to be comforting.

As if Sandra was a child that had misbehaved, or a dog.

'My wife's tragic death was hard on us all, but especially Sandra, who already found life difficult,' Jon drawled in a sincere, obsequious tone. Sandra pictured herself dashing his face on the counter, bleeding out with a fork stuck in his neck. One day. One day. 'I do apologise. Let me pay for some of this damage. How much was the teapot?'

'No. Out or I call police,' the woman yelled, pointing a finger at Sandra. 'You too. Go.'

'Let her wait until they've gone.' Rita's hand momentarily let go of Sandra's clothing, then nudged her towards a group of seats where a thin, tanned, bearded man in glasses was sitting. So a Spanish detective was as bad as all the English ones, she thought as she stepped towards the sofas, seeing her as just a grieving family member, someone to pity. 

Sandra lowered herself into a sagging armchair, perched on the end, ready to erupt. She thought of the useless family liaison officer she had had, the one who had broken the news he was being released, all that claptrap about how she knew 'you'll find this difficult, but we're also disappointed by this outcome.'

As she caught her breath, her eyes fell on the book which the man - Rita's husband, she guessed - had open on a random page. The parts Sandra had forced herself to read in the lobby gave her goosebumps. She had stared into the mind of a psychopath.

'Do you want me to get you a drink?' Rita said gently as she took out her purse, a distraction to Sandra's thoughts as her eyes roved the back of the cafe. 'Then I can walk with you to the door.'