The Widow

CHAPTER 5

I can see his eyes as I pull the trigger.

I thought he’d be too far away, but I can see them. Wide open. Defiant.

Knowing.

He says his wife’s name, but only I am close enough to hear him above the waves and wind.

“Abigail.”

He calls her name because he loves her. Not because he believes she’s the one who has just shot him.

He knows it’s me.

That bothers me sometimes, still.

Other times, I’m glad.

Yes, it was me, you arrogant bastard.

As I pull the trigger a second time, I think only that finally I am free, finally I am safe, finally I have done what I needed to do.

I don’t think that his wife will hound me forever.

I don’t think by pulling the trigger I have sentenced myself to another kind of prison and torture.

Seven years.

Abigail will never quit. I could hear it in her voice the other night, on the phone. While she was having dinner alone on her wedding anniversary. Those solitary annual dinners are her tradition.

I picked that night to call on purpose.

I’m not a monster. I don’t kill indiscriminately.

I kill to solve problems that cannot be solved another way.

I kill because I’m left no other option.

I kill without pleasure.

But I also kill without remorse.

Abigail.

He loved her.

She loved him.

What did Chris know of love?

What does Abigail know?

She will know of love in the end.

That I promise.