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“She’s dead, of course. Right?” I whispered.
“Listen,” he said. “Please listen…” But he trailed off.
“Did you rape her?”
“God no!”
“She’s all taped up. Why did you do that?” My voice was small and faraway.
“I didn’t do that. Let me explain.”
“Okay. Explain.”
“My family was staying at my aunt’s in Red Wing, and I decided to go out for a drink to get a little space. I ran into John Spade at the bar. I knew him because we both worked at the same landscaping company the summer before I went to college. He was my supervisor. It was just bad luck that I ran into him. He was nuts, just kind of a freak, and I knew that. I didn’t know he was… you know, crazy.
“We started drinking and then we started driving around in his truck. It was late, probably close to midnight, and he saw a little car with a guy and a pretty girl in it.
“John started to drive really close behind them. It was raining, well, sleeting really, and it was really slippery out. His truck had one of those row bars on it and he turned the lights on. It lit up the whole road. I think he was just trying to mess with them, but they lost control. They started fishtailing and everything was really bright, and we were up in that truck, just watching it happening.
“The guy got thrown from the car, but when we pulled over and looked, he was still alive. I wanted to go get help, but John hit him on the head with a rock. I don’t know why he did it. The girl had her seatbelt on and she was fine. Not even a mark on her. Then John grabbed her and started tying her up with a roll of tape he had in his truck. I told him to stop. I was so drunk it all seemed like a bad dream. He put her in his truck and then he pushed their car into the river.”
“He pushed their car into the river?” I interrupted. “With his hands?”
“I helped him do that,” said Adrian. “I had to. I didn’t know what he would do to me if I didn’t help him. The car was on a hill and it just rolled right down in. The sleet had turned to snow and it was like a blizzard. It was all such a bad dream.
“I told him to leave me there and I would walk back to the bar, so he left me. It was snowing like crazy, the whole way back. It probably took me two hours to walk back. I was afraid someone would see me but it was late and there weren’t any cars. I almost froze to death. Finally I made it back to my car and went back to my aunt’s. Everyone was asleep so I went to bed. It was the worst night of my life. I just put it behind me.”
“You didn’t tell anyone? My sister was still alive! You could have saved her!”
“I watched him kill your brother. I knew she was dead too. And I was drunk and scared. I was only twenty-one. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted it to be a bad dream.”
“You wanted it to be a bad dream.”
He nodded.
“I can’t be with you anymore,” I said.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do too.”
“We’re talking about the worst night of my life. No actually, what happened in Minneapolis a few days ago may have been the worst night of my life. But I am not a bad person. You know that.”
“So how did you and I happen to end up married?” I asked him.
“Fate.”
“Stop telling lies.”
“I’m not.”
“You came to Border’s to see me. Was it just some kind of sick curiosity?”
“No. I started there because I needed money. When I found out who you were I thought it was the most bizarre thing in the world, but I fell in love with you and it felt like the right thing. It even made me believe we were supposed to be together. A coincidence like that is too much to not be fate.”
“Right.”
“I’m serious.”
