"What?" Cherie ventured.
"I'm going to do the right thing but my dad is going to take it wrong," Lewis revealed his plan. "I'm going to take your route until your hand is well enough to grip the wheel without springing a leak. The road is treacherous this time of year. The truck has snow tires and you got your chains but what if something darts in the road and you lose control because your grip is weak?"
"Skipper already gave me the rabbit speech. Never jerk the wheel to avoid a rabbit. Never swerve because of a cute little God damned squirrel. Develop a heart of stone. Feel that little skull pop under your tire and stay the course. Otherwise you could die alone in a ditch or maybe take a bus load of school children with you. Pull over when it's safe and cry for the little rodents if you have to, but flatten them every time. Flatten them till they could skip across the lake like a stone," Cherie recited the speech.
"He gave you the skipper rabbit speech. Good. I taught him that. Anyway, you stay home and get some rest. Don't chop firewood or anything strenuous. I'll check on you after work," He winked. Before he left he stopped to admire the roll-top desk. "I used to have a desk like this. Dad got rid of it to make room for Skipper's stuff after I left. Nice desk. Full of secret compartments. Well, I'm off. Be good."
Cherie soon got bored and decided to finish what she'd started the day before only this time she went out to the shed to get the work gloves she'd seen in the tool box. She saw footprints in the snow leading to the shed and back out to the road. Now she knew why they locked the shed. It wasn't just the bears, unless the bears around here wore boots.
She unlocked the roll-top desk with the tasseled key that she'd found in one of the drawers. It really was a nice desk. She left her journal and notes safely locked away. It was easier to write down her thoughts if she knew no one would see them. She'd been exploring a hidden compartment, like Lewis mentioned that his former desk had. One of the cubbyholes wasn't as deep as the others. She felt a knob and pulled it. Nothing happened. She turned it and something came down like a guillotine and cut the bejesus out of her hand. This time she proceeded with patience, caution, tools and very thick work gloves. After some time she found a way to slide out the hidden razor. She used salad tongs to remove the false wall and the little box behind that. She opened a can of beer and sat staring at the little box for a long while. The whole damn house would probably be blown to smithereens when she opened it.
Nothing could have prepared her for what was in that box. She couldn't stop pacing. She couldn't stop shaking. She wanted to scream but didn't dare. Strange animal noises came out of instead. She sounded like a mad woman. She thought of the wolf she'd seen in the road and the lady's hand in it's mouth. She squirmed to cope with bolts of cramps and nausea and threw up before she could make it to the sink.
She pulled herself together and carefully put the Polaroid prints back in the box so as not to leave her fingerprints on them. She drove thirty miles down to the city and from there mailed the photos to the police. Afterwards she went to the main branch of the library and searched for hours through reels of old newspapers for a photo of a missing woman last seen wearing a burgundy colored coat with a fur trimmed hood. She couldn't find the woman. She would keep looking but she wouldn't let anyone know she was looking.
"We have to stay out of this," she said out loud.
"Did you say something?" the librarian appeared from around the stacks.
"No. I was just reading," Cherie replied.
"The library closes in ten minutes," the librarian whispered.
"Yes, ma'am," Cherie gathered her things and prepared to leave.
On the long drive home she could not stop thinking that she had probably just slept with a serial killer.
She went to bed and waited for the phone to ring. She knew he would call. She knew he probably had called several times when she was gone. Finally the phone rang. He wanted to know where she'd been.
"I got cabin fever and took a drive," she answered.
"You can't handle one day off? Don't let dad find out you are like this, he'll run you ragged. Hey, are you alright?" Lewis sensed something had changed. She sounded like she despised him.
"I'm fine," she searched for the words she needed to say.
"You don't sound fine," he was worried.
"Lewis, last night was a mistake. We can't see each other anymore. I don't want to be in a relationship with anyone at this point in my life. You of all people should understand," she hung up the phone.
He gave her some space. He didn't call her for the rest of the week. Friday night he showed up at her house with fresh roses. It was freezing outside but the top was down on his Triumph. He left the headlights on and the motor running and his car cassette tape player turned up full blast.
Great clouds of steam came out of his mouth as he sang along with Frankie Valli And The Four Seasons and made a fool of himself dancing in the snow. When he gestured towards the moon and did the twist, he slipped on her sidewalk but got up without missing a beat.
The lights went off in her house. She didn't open the door. He left the roses on her porch. In the morning she received a call from Tina asking if she was well enough to return to work, that Lewis had left town and was probably never coming back. Tina was secretly glad that the romance had blown up. Her depression lifted and it showed in her voice.
"This is the very thing I was trying to warn you about. Office romances never end well," Sam Masterson put his hand on Skipper's shoulder. Skipper nodded but his mind was already focused on the fact that he'd been given a second chance to win Cherie's heart.
~ To Be Continued ~
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