squeezes his eyes shut and rubs his temples. “I told him to fuck off. Said I’d kill him if he bothered her again.”
My mouth goes dry. I think I know where this is going and suddenly everything Crew has done makes sense.
“A week later she didn’t show up at the fair where we were performing.” His eyes get glassy. “She never missed a gig.”
“Crew,” I say. “You don—”
“I have to tell you.” His coffee cup has long been drained. He picks at a napkin, shredding it into pieces as his story unfolds. “I found her car. Her stuff was scattered on the ground. She was …” —his words drag on slowly as if he’s afraid of them— “gone.”
My eyes close, tears cascading down my cheeks. He looks utterly destroyed yet there’s still so much he hasn’t told me.
“A week went by without any word and no clues as to where she was, other than my telling the police about him. Then it was a Thursday. Her birthday.” He bites his bottom lip so hard he breaks the skin. Blood beads. “They found her body on her fucking birthday.”
I cry right along with him. I want so desperately to reach out to him, but I know he’s not ready for that. “I’m s-so s-sorry, Chris.”
Skin bunches around his eyes. “I haven’t told you the worst part.” He swallows hard. “He hadn’t touched her. The police speculated he was surprised by her condition. The only marks on her were from trying to escape the room he had her in.”
“Her condition?”
“She was …” He goes completely ashen. “She was—” His chair falls over as he bolts out of it. “Bathroom!”
I point to the door and he runs in and slams it behind him. For five minutes, between agonizing sobs, he retches into the toilet.
When he returns, pale and sweaty, I hand him a bottle of water. He nods his thanks and drinks.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes I do.” He finishes the water and sits again. He gazes at his notebook for endless moments. He leafs through the pages and stops. Tears stream as he pushes the notebook across the table.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
He nods.
Moisture clouds my vision as I read the song title: ‘Gone Too Soon.’
My throat tightens knowing this is a song about Abby’s death.
You were gone before I met you, taken dark into the night
Would have fought like hell to keep you, would have given my own life
It’s hell on earth without you, but I know we’ll meet one day
You’re gone too soon
Now you’re far away
I swallow a painful lump and read the second verse.
I visit you in the tiny grave, it’s all that I have left
Every time you fall upon my dreams is one more precious gift
Her face I place upon you every night and every day
You’re gone too soon
Now you’re far away
I shake in realization. Gone before I met you. Tiny grave. This song isn’t about Abby. I glance at his tattoo—the knife piercing two roses. Not one, two.
My heart sinks as I look up at him. “Abby was pregnant?”
He lets out an agonizing howl. It’s the most painful sound I’ve ever heard. I fall to my knees next to him, and he wraps me in his arms, his sobs shaking both of us. I stay there so long that my knees hurt and my feet go numb, but my pain is nothing compared to what he’s going through. What he went through.
Sometime later—I don’t know how much time has passed—he lets go of me, and I sit in the chair next to him. “You don’t have to say anymore.” I take his hand in mine.
“You have to hear all of it, or maybe I need to say it.”
“All right. I’m listening.”
He breathes in and out three times. Deep slow breaths. I know because I’m counting. “Like I said, the police think her condition freaked him out. Or maybe it confused him. After everything came out, they said he was delusional. He wanted her for himself. He fantasized that they were a couple. He was probably going to …” He pulls his hand from mine and rips at the napkin again. “He was probably going to rape her, but they think when he saw her belly, the sicko somehow thought the baby was his. He left her there. Locked her in his basement and went to work. After his shift he … God, Bria, he went shopping for baby stuff.”