Almost Home

Beautiful ebony curls that straightened in the rain reminded Debra of a black lamb; soft gentle and shy. She had misunderstood that the smooth locks of hair were instead as silken as a great lion’s mane and every bit as distracting and misleading as their beautiful faces. Late evenings in the past months she had loved to run her fingers through them; stroking and caressing the hair as if her lover were an adoring little lap pet. He was never the man-eater in the soft candle light of those nights, not in the way that he was now, with the cool air of the Miami harbor whistling around them.

God, she had never been so wrong.

Cocoa colored eyes had looked so tender and so insightful when framed with black eyelashes. They had sparkled with endless love and understanding before, or so she had thought when she had cried her darkest secrets to him. Now, only now, as he spread his dark feathered wings and stretched with awful glee could she see that the gaze had been vulturine. He had gorged himself on her sorrow and kissed away her tears to drink in the pain and suffering.

This was her biggest mistake and she was going to pay in blood.

The way that Rudy’s lips had curved up into such a shy smile at the hospital had filled her heart with giddy desire. He had looked so noble and as humane as Mother Teresa when he had fitted a hand sculpted prosthetic to The Ice Truck Killer’s victim. She knew now that he was as perverted as they came; Tony Tucci was his own science project. Only God knew what kind of satisfaction he felt from replacing the limbs that he had once removed. He had never really been a compassionate healer; he was just a sick felon with an over active god complex.

This wasn’t the man she had loved; this creature was a demon possessed with memories.

She had wanted to throw him onto the floor and ravage him when he had slid over to her side and offered her a glass of chilled champagne. They had spent the evening together in a parking lot; drinking expensive wine straight from the bottle and tasting it off of each other’s lips. He had whispered his appreciation of her chocolate flavored lip-gloss against their kisses and made her blush with fascination when he caressed her cheek. Today he had asphyxiated her over the same golden bubbles and she had felt his arousal growing against the swell of her hips as he had done so, while he mocked her with a winsome smile and the bitter taste of menthol.

What a beautiful lie he had built up about himself; letting her believe he was a beaux ideal of humanity and charity. Maybe she even deserved to die for still wanting to believe in it.

Just one night ago those strong arms had embraced her and he had touched her in such a way with his hands that it felt better than any priest’s blessings. He had held her close to his beating heart and he had whispered of love and fidelity as they lay entangled in his satin sheets. This evening he had wrapped those arms around her in the same way and then he had brought them up to her throat to cut off the flow of air; like an unseen creature in the darkness of the night. He was nightmares made flesh and he had whispered of death and scorn while she struggled from his lap.

Debra didn’t know anymore if she wanted to be right about him now when her world was made so wrong by his masquerade. The one man who had ever really loved her had never really loved her.

Tears were falling down from her eyes, hot, painful and sore to feel slip past her imagined steel hold on her own will. Her heart was jumping up and down, pounding at her breast in fear. It was begging to be set free from her heaving, aching chest and she wondered if it would be worth it to throw herself into the water and just drown in the murky blackness before he touched her again. Would it hurt more to kill herself than it would to let her own stupid pseudo-moralistic belief in love do so? With or without assistance it was still suicide.

Rudy saw those tears sliding down her face from the corner of his dark eye and just like it was yesterday, he knelt down before her bound form and kissed them off of her cheeks. His lips were warm and inviting like summer nights but the ominous wound against his mouth forced the duality of his role upon her with even greater potency as his bitter coppery blood stained her cheeks in lines. They were folding over onto each-other again, blending themselves together in their passionate affair.

She hated herself more than anything that night. Everything about her was a failure to the police force, a failure to her father, even a failure to Dexter. She had been dead wrong about Dr. Rudy Cooper but she still loved him. He didn’t want her love, though; he wanted to cut her up into neat bloodless pieces. He wanted to make her into his Ice Princess.