Brian Freeman - Immoral

"How do you know it didn't happen that way?"

Stride exhaled in disgust. "Please, no games, Andrea. Robin would have killed himself before he killed Rachel. We both know that. And you left a trail a mile wide. I tracked down the car you rented. There was blood and hair in the trunk from when you drove Rachel's body out to the desert."

"I wanted him to see her," she said bitterly. "He wanted her so badly. Let him have her."

"Tell me about it," Stride said. "I need the truth."

Andrea nodded. She nervously tucked a stray hair behind her ear and bit her lip. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

She stood up and came out from behind the desk. She stood close to Stride but didn't look at him. Instead, she stared at photos on the wall. Of her and Stride. Of her and Robin. She kept them up even now.

He smelled tobacco. She was smoking again.

"The letter almost destroyed me, Jon," she said. "I knew you and I were in trouble. I was already dealing with that. Or not dealing with it. And then to hear from Robin and find out what really happened-I just had to see him. I didn't go there to see her , for God's sake. That never even crossed my mind. I went to see him."

She turned back to Stride. "You were there. You saw what he was like. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe what she'd done to him."

"He did it to himself," Stride said.

"No, this wasn't his fault. Robin was always weak. I knew that about him. And Rachel saw it, too. She used him. He told me how she read his poetry and told him he was such a genius. How she made him believe they were meant for each other. But it was just another lie, and he swallowed all of it. Once Graeme was dead, she threw him out. She just cut him out of her life. She didn't need him anymore. It was like she was ripping his heart out. He started drinking, sliding downhill. He didn't have anything left to live for."

"Tell me about Rachel," he persisted.

"Yes, all right The crazy thing is, I never planned to see her. Robin told me where she worked, but I didn't care. I wasn't there for her. Robin and I talked for a couple of hours, if you can call it talking. He was too far gone. I couldn't take it anymore."

"So you went to confront Rachel."

"No, it wasn't like that. I was heading back to the airport, coming home. But more and more, I kept thinking about Rachel and what she did to us. To me. It's not like I consciously decided I was going there, but somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn't driving to the airport. I wound up at the club. I just wanted to see her, see what she looked like. Look into her eyes. When she came out onstage, it took me a minute, but I knew. I knew it was her. And she was everything that Robin said she was. Beautiful. And cold as ice.

"That was when I realized it wasn't enough just to see her. I needed her to look at me and admit what she'd done. So I waited in the parking lot and followed her. When I got to her apartment, I almost couldn't go through with it What do you say to someone you've never met who ruined your whole life? But I thought about Robin wasting away hi that trailer, and what our lives had been like, and I got angry all over again."

"Did she recognize you?" Stride asked.

"Oh, yeah. Right away. She laughed. She said if I'd come to take Robin back, I could have him now. And she knew all about the investigation. About me and you. She thought it was funny. 'I caught a husband for you and a murderer for him.' That was what she said. That we should thank her."

Andrea began crumbling.

"I don't know what-I mean, none of it was going the way I wanted. She had no regrets, no shame. She stared at me with those horrible green eyes like I was an insect. Something to play with and then swat away."

Stride saw Andrea's hands trembling. He wasn't sure how far he could push her before she lost control entirely. "What else did she say?" he asked.

"She lied," Andrea retorted, balling her fists. "All she did was lie."

"Lie about what?"

"About everything! I told her she had no right to break us up. Robin loved me." Her eyes narrowed to slits, almost reptilian. "And do you know what she said? She said Robin was going to divorce me anyway. He was so fucking easy to seduce because he could barely keep it up in bed with me. Making love to me was like humping a corpse. I couldn't get pregnant, because there was nothing alive between my legs."

"Son of a bitch," Stride murmured.

"That's when I knew. She wasn't lying. It was all true. I'd been the one lying to myself all along. About Robin. About myself. So I stood there, with this rage bubbling over like nothing I'd ever felt before, and all she could do was smirk at me. Like my life was a joke to her. Like everything she'd taken from me meant nothing."

"What did you do?" Stride asked quietly.

"There was a vase on the bookshelf. I grabbed it, swung it I wanted it to shatter. I wanted glass flying all over the apartment. But I didn't let go. I hung on to it, and it hit something. My eyes were closed. I didn't even know what I'd done. But I hit something, and then there was this heavy sound, of something falling…"

Stride had heard these stories too many times, from people he had arrested, from defendants pleading for mercy. He had hardened his heart to them. But not this time.

"She was dead. I couldn't believe it, but she was dead. I had killed her."

"Rachel's been dead a long time," he murmured.

Andrea stared at him, her eyes pleading. "I never expected you to be pulled back into this, Jon. You have to believe that. I never thought anyone would make the connection to Rachel."

Stride knew there was no gray area here. If they were in court, she would be guilty. But it occurred to him that Andrea wasn't entirely responsible. Neither was Robin. He, too, had to bear some of the blame. Maybe that was why he knew he could never give up the secret. Who would it satisfy?

"What now?" Andrea asked.

Yes, what now? he asked himself.

"Now we both have to live with it."

"I know what a difficult thing this is for you to do," she whispered. "To walk away."

"The truth is, it isn't difficult at all. I guess that should tell me something."

He was anxious to go now, to say good-bye, to be alone with his own guilt. But he knew he needed to tell her something, to give her something to hang on to. So that the past wasn't entirely a lie.

"Robin knew you killed Rachel," he told her, as he turned to leave. "He took the fall. He wanted us to blame him. That was for you, Andrea. He did it for you."

Stride realized he had nowhere to go. He was homeless in his own hometown.

He wound up on the bridge over the canal, standing where Rachel had stood on her last night in the city. Before she went home and planted evidence in Graeme's van. Before she stole Graeme's shoes. Before she met Robin waiting for her on a back street and lured him to the barn to play their little game.

Chase her into the meadow. Cut her clothes. Cut her skin. Blood. Fabric. Clues.

I played right into their hands, he thought.

Stride stared into the dark water, which barely stirred tonight under the cool lake breeze. He took hold of the railing with both hands and imagined Rachel balancing there. If a gust of wind had pitched her into the frigid canal that night his life would be very different today. Better or worse, he didn't know.

At least he knew Rachel's secrets. Except for one. He still didn't know why.

Why the game. Why the bitter war between Graeme and Rachel. It surprised him that Rachel hadn't left a clue, when she had dropped a trail of bread crumbs for everything else. Unless the cryptic postcard was her message to him. He deserved to die.

Stride turned and leaned against the railing, watching the cars come and go between the city and the Point. He reconstructed the timeline in his head, now that he knew Robin was the missing link. He thought about Rachel sitting in Robin's class in September. Launching her plot.