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But only for a while.
Keep moving. Just keep moving.
Don’t panic. Donotpanic.
Next time,I think,thenext time you won’t be so lucky, Kristi Bentz. Stumbling, I hurry through the shadows and rain, dodging the few people I come across.
Still grasping my knife in one hand, I reach into a pocket with my other and rub the stones of a well-worn rosary. Praying, I cut down alleys and side streets, moving steadily forward. My heart is thudding, my jaw painful, but the glorious rush of adrenaline keeps me racing forward, putting much-needed distance between the cathedral and me.
Thankfully, because I took the time to find out, I know where the street cameras are located and keep my head low.
Under my breath I whisper, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. . . .”
And then I disappear into the night.
CHAPTER 2
“Jay,” Kristi cried. “No, no, no . . .” Someone was tearing her away from her husband. She had to talk to him. To explain. To tell him she’d made a horrid, horrid mistake. To let him know that she loved him. Had always loved him . . .
Forgive me. Oh, Jay, please, please forgive me.
But she couldn’t get the words out.
Couldn’t focus.
Was drowning in the rain.
“Get her into an ambulance!” she heard over the sluice of water gurgling in gutters and downspouts.
With an effort, Kristi struggled to sit up against the building. She was wet, her head aching, attempting to stay conscious, wanting to give way to the blissful blackness of not knowing, of being oblivious to this garish, harrowing night. She slumped again, her voice failing her, the dark night swirling around her, the palpitating sadness reverberating through her. “I have to be with him. Oh, please, God—” And then she let go, was vaguely aware of the cop giving orders. She felt her body being lifted and was barely able to hear voices and feel movement, heard the scream of a siren, though it was faint. “We’re losing her,” she heard, though the voice was distant, almost muffled.
She was in an ambulance? Was someone talking to her?
“Mrs. McKnight? Ms. Bentz. Can you hear me? Stay with me, now. Kristi? Kristi?” But the sound was far away, as if it were coming from another universe, and she was floating, gone again, giving in to the sweet unknowing, letting the grip of welcomed blackness surround her.
* * *
Over a week passed.
Kristi Bentz McKnight shivered. She was a widow.
And was barely aware of her father’s arm as it tightened around her shoulder. She should have felt pain from her wound, but she didn’t as she stood in the dismal cemetery. She couldn’t feel, couldn’t think, could only stare at the grave site where her husband was to be entombed. Numb to the October weather, heedless of the wind and prayers intoned solemnly by the parish priest, she waited, feeling nothing. Friends and family had gathered, all in black, all with sorrowful faces, all expressing grief and sympathy, but whose families were still intact. She saw it in the way a husband and wife would catch each other’s gaze and link fingers, reassuring each other that they were still together. They were still alive. They still had a future together.
Kristi hated them for their normalcy. For their safety. For their feelings of relief that the tragedy that had befallen her hadn’t befallen them. She blinked back tears of sorrow, yes, of anguish, but they were also tears of repressed fury.
Why Jay?
Why me?
Why us?
Dear God, why, why, why?
Closing her eyes for a second, grounding herself, she heard the priest’s intoned prayers droning over the rush of the wind rattling through the branches of the live oaks lining the cemetery walls, felt the breeze against her skin and wished this had all never ever happened.
It was her fault Jay was dead.
She should be lying in the casket right now, not he.
