Final Cut (12 page)

Bill smiled at the Wild. He held her gaze and realized for the first time how much she actually looked a bit like Nancy. She could have been Nancy’s sexier older sister. Absolutely.

“I wasn’t scared at all. Truth. I was ready to go home. I knew there would be challenges ahead for me and I was going to have to face many of them head on all by myself, but I was not scared. No I was not afraid of life.”

“Ok, that is good to know,” Wild said writing something down in her notebook. “So, when you awoke that first night on the couch and you were a bit disoriented, you made your way down the hall to get a blanket. Isn’t that correct?”

“Yes. I needed a blanket. It was a bit chilly that night.”

Bill was suddenly feeling foolish. The doctor was trying to lure him into a comfortable place where she could try to trick him into saying that he never really saw any pair of human ears falling out of his closet. But that was fine. He didn’t need the doctor to believe him. He just needed her to listen.

“Ok, and you grabbed the blanket and then what happened?”

“I already told you this,” Bill said.

“I would just like to double check my notes,” Wild said.

Bill laughed. “Doc, you aren’t going to get into my head to try and make me say that I did not see things that I did see. I saw that video. I saw that girl getting slaughtered and no one was there to do anything.”

“And you are positive that this was in no way a dream?”

“NO! Dammit! Doc, what are you trying to do here?”

“Why did you come here? Why did you tell me all this?” Dr. Wild asked.

“I had to tell someone. I had to tell someone who couldn’t lock me up for a murder I didn’t commit. I had to tell someone in case the same person comes after me. I had to tell someone to keep from losing my fucking mind! That is why I am here.”

Bill was aware that he was now shouting. He didn’t think the office was sound proof and he expected some security guys to come running in the place any second. But no one came. Bill had stood up to pound his point home and he now sat back down slowly.

Dr. Wild seemed a bit on edge and he was sorry that he was making her that way. Unloading all of the things that had been weighing on his mind so heavily the past few weeks had a cathartic purging effect on him and he honestly felt like he was starting to reemerge and find his true self again. It was all an insane trip, but he did not expect the Dr. to understand that.

“I understand. Have you tried going to the police with this? They would be the ones to call if someone has been harassing you and someone has been murdered.”

“I can’t go to them. Someone is really doing a number on me. They even had me thinking I was a killer at one point, but after I saw the brutality of that video I knew that it wasn’t me and I could never do anything like that to anyone.”

“Ok, I can understand that. But, what is your next move?” Wild asked.

“I’m not sure. I seem to have hit a standstill as to who was really the last person to talk to this girl before she was abducted. For all I know her best friend set her up or it was just a random psycho who decided to do something sick.”

“Again that is why I think we need to involve the police,” Wild said.

Bill almost yelled at her and screamed the word no, but he held his tongue. He felt his mask of sanity starting to slip. Something had happened to him when he let the reality of what he had been dealing with slip through his fingers and he found that he was still able to feel the pain of who he used to be.

He had come here to say what he had said. The Dr. was probably right about calling the cops, but it was just too risky. They hadn’t been able to come close to solving this murder. The bastard who set him up would love it more than anything if he called the cops to explain to them all why he was not the person who killed her despite having Daisy Fox’s ears and video footage of her being tortured that no one else in the world could have but the killer.

Bill was starting to make peace with the fact that he would probably never fully be able to let go of this, but he felt confident knowing that even if he could not obtain justice for Daisy then he could at least keep himself from going to jail. He just had to stay on his toes that was all.

“No,” Bill said. “I just can’t do that. Some things have to be handled by yourself,” Bill said as he walked out of the office of Dr. Wild.

“FINAL REVELATIONS”

“So, what do you want to watch tonight?”

The question stirred him from his thoughts, gently like the way his mother used to wake him up from school when he was a child. Bill rubbed his eyes trying to bring himself back to the real world once again. He was not sure exactly what was wrong with him, but he’d felt funny ever since visiting Dr. Wild.

His thoughts had been preoccupied with the fact that she did not truly believe him. He didn’t think she was going to believe him fully, but he expected a bit more support than he felt he had received. This experience just added to his hostility for headshrinkers. They were all the same really.

It was a shame because the study of psychology and the inner workings of the thought processes of people was rather fascinating to him and he had always loved reading about it, but when someone tried to put it into practice to diagnose everyone and basically just get them to talk about their problems and stop having bad thoughts then he felt like he had been completely ripped off. And he’d been ripped off yet again by Dr. Wild.

Well, he didn’t feel totally ripped off. He went there and said what he wanted to say so that now someone else in this world knew what he was going through, even if they didn’t believe it, and he no longer felt so alone. He hated to feel this way when he was sitting beside the woman he was falling in love with.

He had asked Teri to come over and spend the evening with him because he missed her and because he just didn’t want to be alone. Bill was tired of being alone. It was time that he had someone with him for the long haul. But was that person Teri? All signs were pointing to yes as far as he could tell.

“I don’t care. I just want to spend time with you. It’s your choice tonight,” Bill said with a smile. He leaned over and kissed Teri softly. Her sweet tenderness felt so inviting and so relaxing. It really did feel like home.

“Ok, I’ll pick. Are you ok?” Teri asked.

“Yea. I’m just really tired,” Bill replied. That wasn’t far from the truth. He felt like his eyeballs were going to catch on fire at any minute and his mind was going to follow a close second.

“Ok, but if you need me to massage your temples or anything just let me know. Those headaches the first few months can be brutal,” Teri said.

Ironically Bill had not suffered from any headaches. If he had been left alone then he would have been just fine. But right now he was with his lady and he was relaxing; that was all he wanted to do. That was all he wanted to think about and it was all he wanted to experience. Anything else in his life could wait.

“My head is fine, sweetie. I’m really just tired and still can’t sleep well. The whole thing is really doing a bad number on me and I’m feeling like I might be at my wit’s end.”

“Awww, poor baby. Just hang in there and it will get better.”

Teri’s voice was sweet and reassuring. Bill would never get tired of that amazing, soft, and gentle voice that Teri possessed. It was so soothing and motherly. It made you feel almost like you were a little boy spending the day with his parents and then something bad happened but your mama was there and she was always going to be.

Bill could sit and listen to Teri talk about anything for hours and just allow his body to relax to the soothing sounds of her sweet voice and her delicate and caring nature. He was starting to wonder how he had gotten so lucky to end up with such an amazing woman who loved him.

“I know. I’m trying,” Bill replied.

Teri scrolled through Netflix until she came to a silly sitcom about a talking horse that she liked. It was essentially an adult’s show, but it was childish and immature. Bill was not sure if he had ever seen a show that was acceptable for children and at the same time not acceptable for kids.

Bill held her close to him as he pressed his face against hers. Teri had the most delicate skin that he had ever seen or felt. It was like the most perfectly crafted silk that had ever existed. Bill found that when they were in bed together then he often would stroke her arm for hours on end when he could not sleep. He just wanted to catch a few winks at some point. Please… please…

Bill had considered taking some sleeping pills but everyone he talked to frowned on that. Apparently they were highly addictive but he didn’t really care. He just wanted some damn sleep. He knew that with everything that he was going through having quality sleep was of the utmost importance or he would never be strong enough to do what must be done for the day.

His phone dinged right then. At first he thought it was just another Facebook notification, but the notifications did not ding; they just vibrated. Looking at his phone now cradled in his hand he could see that someone had sent him a direct message on Facebook.

The message was from Andrew. For some unknown reason Andrew had never developed comfort with talking on the phone, or even texting although Bill had explained to him time and time again how texting and IM were really the same thing. For whatever reason Andrew was convinced that having a real cell phone would result in being excommunicated from the church.
It was an idiotic thought, but no matter how many times Bill had told him how flawed it was, he just would not get it through his head. The paranoia had set inside of him too deeply.

Bill often wondered how easy it was to brainwash someone that way and why some people were susceptible to it and others were not. Had he himself been brainwashed a bit by Daisy Fox’s killer? He doubted he would refer to it as brainwashing because he had his own ideals so strongly in place that he did not break his belief system for nobody.

Andrew just wanted to know if Bill would want to hang out and shoot some pool later. Bill replied back that he was probably going to crash after they finished watching a few TV shows or maybe a movie.

While looking at his phone’s main menu Bill noticed that he had just received a Facebook notification. He tapped on it and it was the memory of what had happened a year ago at the lake up in Tuska. It was a funny memory, one that Bill had not thought about in a long time.

Teri was suddenly interested as she watched him looking at his phone.

“Wow, this is classic!” Bill said.

“What? What happened?” Teri asked.

“Well, this is the cabin party we had last year at the lake as kind of a final fuck you to winter. I’m surprised that we didn’t do it this year,” Bill said. He wondered if his accident had kept people away. He had not really spoken to most of the guys in that group since camp the previous year, which had been a total blast. Bill had always felt that summer camp should be for adults who can properly appreciate it. No games and no work. Just fun and more fun. He missed hanging out with the old gang. It had hurt his feelings a bit when a lot of them did not check in and tell him how happy they were that he was ok and not dead after all. Not even a damn Facebook message from most of them. It kind of pissed Bill off a bit the more he looked at it.

“Hey, check it out,” Teri said. “There is Buzz.”

Bill looked at the old picture of his friend and noticed that the man was already shit faced and was holding two cans of beer in each hand ready to pound them down for the right photo op. Of course that was how he had the accident and had fallen too close to the bonfire when he tripped over some gravel when they were playing flag football, which was not a bright idea in and of itself for anyone to play ball that close to a fire.

Bill remembered that Buzz had burnt his hand pretty good up to the wrist.

The wrist…

Buzz always wore a huge wrist watch on his left wrist since the accident that concealed the burn scars very carefully. Most of his hand healed up fine, but there was just a softer spot on his wrist that had burnt pretty nasty and left an ugly looking scar. The rest of the group had teased him about it for the next couple of months, but of course they were glad that their friend was ok. Bill was the only one sober enough to drive so he took Buzz to the hospital with second and third degree burns and waited while the doctor pumped him full of pain meds and wrapped him up. Buzz had not been a happy camper for the rest of the trip.

Bill quickly tapped on Buzz’s profile and went to his photos and began to scroll through them. It was taking some time; it was completely insane how many pictures this guy had on his phone and how many pictures he had that were just close ups of his face (some selfies and some not).

“What are you looking for?” Teri asked scooting closer and watching Bill scroll through her brother’s Facebook pictures.

Finally Bill came to a picture that plainly showed Buzz playing some volleyball at his family reunion that his family had every year up in Cleveland. It was always a lot of fun and even though they were not family Bill and his parents had always been welcomed there. When he was a kid it was usually just him and he rode with Buzz’s family.

In the picture he was staring at Buzz was in the middle of the serve and you could clearly see the scar on his wrist as he brought his hand forward.

It was the same scar he had seen on the wrist of Daisy Fox’s killer in that video.

Buzz killed Daisy Fox.

“TIGHT SPOT”

Teri was looking at Bill like he was insane. She seemed suddenly frightened of him. For the past minute he had been looking at Buzz’s picture and saying to himself repeatedly “Buzz did it Buzz did it Buzz did it. It was Buzz the whole time” as if it was a mantra that if he chanted it enough times it would change history and somehow make it not true.

Bill felt like his head was going to blow and he struggled to take slow, steady breaths deeply into his diaphragm. His air supply was shaky and this was adding to his lightheadedness.