Love, Marie

Dear Kyle,

I miss you. I want you to come home. I need you to come home. It’s so lonely without you. The apartment feels so empty, so silent. It’s no longer the fun, energetic home that we used to have together. It’s a ghost home, in a ghost town.

Love,

Marie.

No, that doesn’t work, I thought to myself, as I re-read my letter. Promptly, I ripped it to pieces.

“This is never going to work!” I exclaimed, scaring my cat, Jazz.

I got up from my desk, and paced around the room. This whole long distance relationship thing was not working out for me.

“Why Jazz? Why did he have to leave?” I asked.

Kyle, my boyfriend of 6 months, had left last week for work. Somehow, I had this gut feeling that it was more than work that he left for.

I looked at myself in the mirror. I wasn’t model thin, but I wasn’t obese either. Did he leave me for someone prettier? Someone skinnier? Someone who wasn’t ill? Did he even leave me for another girl?

Somehow I was going to get him back. I had to. I know that I can’t live without him. He is my life!

The opening cords of Emilie Autumn’s “Shallot” rang out in my room. “Shallot” was Kyle’s ring tone. I hadn’t changed it since he left.

“Kyle?” I asked.

“Excuse me?” a male voice said. Defiantly not Kyle.

“Oh, sorry. I thought it was my friend calling,” I said.

“Well, ma’am, this is Officer Johnson calling from Mr. Weber’s apartment. It seems there was an… incident here. I’ve been looking through his phone to find a certain Miss. Marie Cherish. I believe that is you,” the officer said.

“Uh.. yes that’s me. What exactly happened?” I asked.

“Why don’t you come by the station in twenty minutes or so, and we’ll get everything straightened out there,” he suggested.

“Um, o-ok,” I replied.

“This can’t be good,” I mumbled to myself as I went to my closet to find a more suitable outfit.
____

Half an hour later, I pulled of to the Police Station and got out of my car. I adjusted my blouse and smoothed out my skirt. For once, I dressed rather normal, compared to my usual crazy clothes.

“I’m here to see Officer Johnson,” I said to the lady at the front desk.

“Miss Cherish?” she asked. I nodded. “Walk down that hall, last room on the right,” she said, pointing to the left.

“Thank you.”

I followed her instructions and knocked on the large oak door.

“Come in!” a voice similar to that on the phone called out. Gingerly, I pushed the door open and made my way into the large room.

“Hello,” I said.

“Ah, Miss Cherish. Pleased you meet you. Have a seat,” he gestured to the chair in front of his desk. Cautiously, I sat down and waited for him to say something more.

“Marie… I don’t want to drag you into this, but unfortunately, it concerns you too. Kyle murdered a young lady, we believe moments before he shot himself. He left a letter, along with his will on the table next to… where it all happened. The letter we have no opened, as it was addressed solely to you. The will however, leaves everything to his parents except for a specific locked case. We could not get into the case, and we believe that the key might be in your envelope, or that you already have it.”

“The case… he left me the case. I don’t believe it,” I said, utterly bewildered.

“Oh, so you know what the case is all about?”

“Of course I do!” I exclaimed. “His life is in that case!”

“Pardon?” the officer asked.

“Never mind, never mind, why don’t we just get the case and I can show you?”

“We have it here under custody,” he informed me.

“Well, let’s go then,” I said, rising from my chair.

I followed Mr. Johnson down a series of halls and corridors. We didn’t talk. It was dead quiet.

“Here,” he motioned to a glass door, “is where we keep valuable from houses where tragedies of occurred. It’s probably the least known part of the whole station. You are, by the way, sworn to secrecy about where it is.”

“Don’t worry. I can barely remember how to get here,” I assured him.

He pushed open the door and ushered me inside. I caught glimpses of objects: large and small; shiny and dull; new and old; broken and intact; valuable or not; everything was in this room. It was slightly overwhelming.

Mr Johnson led me to the far corner and pushed the case across a desk. Immediately I knew something was wrong. This wasn’t the right case. This was the fake one, the trap. The police fell for it. It was also the case that didn’t lock and didn’t even have a proper key hole. It was just painted on and would melt whatever touched it.

I slid it back to him.

“I won’t open this one. It’s not the right one,” I said.

“We searched the whole house. It’s the only one.”

“No, it’s not. I know this one isn’t the right one,” I countered.

“I’ll tell you again, this is the only one.”

“And I’ll tell you again that I don’t believe you,” I said, marching out of the room.

He didn’t even try to stop me. He knew what I was talking about and he knew where I was going to go. He was expecting me to go to Kyle’s house. However, I partially tricked him. I didn’t need to go to Kyle’s house to get the case, I had that at my house.

It was one of the few things Kyle had left with me. The case. I had no idea what was in it, he just said it needed a safe place to stay and that I’d know when I was allowed to open it.

I knew I’d made a mistake telling the officer that there was another case and that it contained his life. At least I’d done my part at confusing him.

Calmly I made my way down foreign roads to Kyle’s new apartment. He’d given me the key, but not the address. The address I’d gotten off a paper in Mr. Johnson’s office.

Oh my God! He’s gone! I mentally shrieked. With all the excitement it only dawned on me now that he killed himself. But why? And who was the girl?

I turned into the parking lot next to Kyle’s building and made my way to his apartment. I unlocked the door and turned the handle. The light flicked on without me even touching the switch: typical Kyle. Always modifying the electrical systems.

I crossed the tile flooring in the kitchen to the master bedroom and its en suite bathroom. I opened the medicine cabinet and found Kyle’s sleeping pills. I read the bottle and it confirmed my suspicions. I put the bottle in my bag, along with the jewellery box from his dresser. An heirloom, he had told me.

Quietly, I left, my senses on high alert to figure out if the police were here. Thank God they weren’t.

Back at my place, I set the jewellery box and the case on my bed. I tossed the sleeping pills there, along with paper, a pen, three candles and a pack of matches. I had a plan, and that plan was not going to fail.

Sitting cross legged on my bed, I opened the jewellery box, something I had never been allowed to do before. I knew the key would be in there. I just had this feeling.

Sure enough, the key was buried under dozens of chains and bracelets. No wonder I wasn’t allowed to look through it, there was probably millions of dollars worth of silver and gold in there.

The key opened the case, which was filled with more silver and gold and paper. The gold and silver this time were coins, seemingly from the Middle Ages. The paper… the paper puzzled me.

I read through it all, they appeared to be some sort of spell; Something about the sleeping dead. I knew Kyle would always appear to be dead, even though he was just sleeping. He had always put it off as his sleeping pills. Now I knew the truth, but what was I supposed to do with it? What was I supposed to do with all this gold and silver?

The answer came seconds later when there was a tap on my window. I looked over and saw Kyle.

“What?” I asked myself and I help him inside. “What is going on?”

“I didn’t die. They just think I did. It’s an old family secret, and a good way to get out of trouble. I’ll explain later, but we’re running short on time. Mr. Johnson is going to be over in about 5 minutes. I have a car waiting out there. This is going to seem really odd, but how fast can you burn the place down? We need to dissapear with no trace.”

“Um, I think if I light a few candels and catch some fabric on fire it shouldn’t take too long. What about all my stuff?”

“It’ll be in your head, forever. You can’t bring anything. Well, we have to bring the jewellery box and the case, but other stuff… not so easy,” Kyle said. “Hurry, I’ll be waiting in the car.” And with that, he slipped back out the window.

Hurriedly, I lit all candles I had and put them all over the apartment. Everything was starting to light on fire.

My heart racing, I sat at my desk and wrote a quick note.

Dear Kyle,

I know you’ll never get this, but I had to let go somehow.

Kyle, I love you. I’m doing all this for you, so we can be together. I’ll see you soon, because I’m sure they won’t be able to stop this once it’s started.

Goodbye, Kyle. Just remember me by my love.

I’ll forever belong to you.

Love,

Marie.

All along the bottom of the note, I wrote “Love, Marie.” It was sloppy, but it would do. I pinned it to my wall, where the flames wouldn’t get it too soon.

I slipped out the window, just as the flames started to get hot.

“Success,” Kyle said, as he zoomed off down the road, with me sitting next to him. “And just in time,” he added, as we saw a cop car going to opposite direction to us. I nodded in agreement.