“I love you so much,” he croaked, turning in his seat to look at me as he unclipped his seatbelt and scooted closer to me.
My eyes filled with tears as everything flashed up in my mind, the notes, how scared I’d been, how he’d held me and told me that he would never let anyone hurt me. When my thoughts turned to Chester I felt my heart break even more. He couldn’t have done that, surely. He knew how much I loved my dog; he wouldn’t have hurt him, would he?
A strangled noise came out of my mouth as I struggled to comprehend everything. All of it, everything that had happened in the last few weeks, it had all been the love of my life? “No,” I groaned, shaking my head, begging him with my eyes for some other explanation, that he’d found the phone somewhere, that he was holding it for someone else, anything.
He nodded sadly, resting his head back against the seat. “I did it because I love you. I never meant for it to go this far. I just meant to show you that you needed me, I didn’t mean to take it this far,” he whispered, fisting his hands in his hair.
I whimpered, my mouth agape, just staring at him, waiting for him to tell me this was some sick joke. I paid no attention to the cars that were struggling to drive around us, blasting their horns and shouting abuse out of their windows.
Luke turned to me then, his eyes so sorrowful that it made my stomach ache. “I was desperate. I could see I’d lost you after what I did with Sandy at the party, and I just needed to get you back. I need you, Maisie; I need you in my life. I have nothing without you. You’re the only one that ever really saw me for me, and I couldn’t lose you over a stupid mistake.” He gulped, running a hand through his hair. I noticed with some level of gratitude that he hadn’t moved to touch me at all; he was just begging me with his eyes to understand and listen.
“So you decided the best way to win me back was to send me death threats? Poison my dog?” A sob rose in my throat as he winced when I said about Chester. “Please tell me you didn’t do that, that someone else did that, please tell me that,” I begged.
He shook his head slowly. “I didn’t mean to make him that sick,” he croaked. “I gave him the meat, and I thought he’d be sick a few times. I know you can’t deal well with sick, so I figured you’d call me up to help you. I didn’t realise it’d be that bad, I never meant for that to happen.”
Anger took over then. Looking at him as he apologised just drove me to the edge. I twisted in my seat and slapped his shoulder and chest as hard as I could, over and over. “You sick, sick bastard! How could you do that? He didn’t deserve to go through that! You’re demented, Luke. What kind of sicko does that to a dog just to get some attention from his girlfriend?” I screamed, slapping him again for emphasis.
He grabbed my wrists, clenching his jaw tightly as he restrained me, pinning my hands down into my lap effortlessly. “Maisie, please. I did it all because I love you.”
I glared at him, struggling against his hold. “You can’t love me! That’s not love, that’s obsession!” I scoffed.
He scowled at me and let go of my hands, moving back into his chair again. “Don’t ever think that I don’t love you,” he snapped. I opened my mouth to make another angry retort, but he carried on speaking, cutting me off. “I got the idea that day at school when you saw that frog and you jumped on me. I knew then that you needed me, you just didn’t realise it.”
The frog. When I’d screamed and jumped on him. He somehow connected me being scared with me needing him? That’s where he came up with this twisted idea? I pressed back into the door, wanting to get as far away from him as possible. “So you just decided that frightening me would be okay, did you?” I spat angrily.
He shrugged and nodded. “I didn’t mean to take it this far. I just meant to send you a few notes, the flowers and stuff. But the more frightened you got, the more you came to me. The further I pushed it, the closer I got to getting you back,” he explained casually, as if this was the most normal conversation in the world.
“And that makes it okay? The fact that you didn’t mean any harm by it makes it okay in your head does it?” How could he be so casual? How could he think his actions were justified just because it showed me that I needed him by frightening the life out of me and poisoning my dog.
He shook his head quickly, his eyes meeting mine as his shoulders slumped. “No, it’s not okay, I know that. I didn’t mean to hurt you; I just meant to frighten you a little.”
“So you could swoop in like a knight in shining armour?” I snapped, glaring at him.
He nodded. “Kinda, yeah.” He gulped, nodded down at the cell phone in my hand that had finally stopped ringing because it had been trying to connect for so long. “I bought that and just meant to call you a couple of times, but things got out of hand, I lost the plot a little, I know that.”
Lost the plot a little? Try a lot! Suddenly Sandy crossed my mind and my eyes widened as another thought occurred to me. The police said that there was a possibility that whoever was harassing me was the same person that had killed her. Oh God. “Sandy,” I croaked. He wouldn’t have gone that far, surely.
His teeth snapped together with an audible click as he wrinkled his nose distastefully. “She f**king deserved it. All of this was her fault in the first place. The little dirty whore was going to ruin everything!” he growled. His hands clenched into fists as he ground his teeth.
Horror settled in the pit of my stomach. He’d killed someone. Luke was a murderer. I was sitting in the car with a murderer. The guy I was hopelessly in love with was a cold blooded killer.
He shook his head as if thinking about something that made him angry. “The little tramp was blackmailing me, trying to get me to date her. She saw me buying the meat and put two and two together. She guessed that it was me that poisoned Chester. She threatened to tell you if I didn’t do as she said.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and swiped at the tears that now spilled over and fell down my face. “So you killed her?” I squeaked, praying he would say no. I almost wanted him to be angry with me for even suggesting something so absurd.
“Yeah.” He nodded, closing his eyes in obvious remorse. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t plan it or anything, it just happened. I called her to meet up and just went to talk to her, to tell her to back off and that I wasn’t going to go along with her plans. I only had the knife to threaten her, nothing else. But she just kept going on and on about you. The things she was saying,” he gulped, “she’s nasty piece of work. I just lost it, I grabbed the knife and… and…” He looked down at his hands as if expecting the knife to still be there or something.
My heart was slamming in my chest. I didn’t know what to say.
He looked up at me then with wide eyes, his chin trembled. “Please don’t hate me,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I just wanted you back, and then things got out of control. I’m so sorry. I never would have hurt you; I just wanted you to think that someone wanted you hurt so that I could protect you.”
I looked at him, completely and utterly shell shocked. I didn’t know what to do or say. In the deep recesses of my mind I could actually understand why he had done it. Luke had never really had anyone else in his life, his family all but abandoned him all the time, and his friends were more like leeches just after his popularity or talent. No one really understood Luke like I did, we had a special connection, I knew that. I knew that he loved me. I’d just never realised how distorted his idea of love was, or how far he would take things to hold on to me. But I could kind of understand it all because I loved him probably just as much - though I would never resort to drastic measures like he had.
“There’s something really wrong with you, Luke,” I muttered, shaking my head, pulling again at my seatbelt. I needed to get out of the car. The air seemed to be getting thicker, making it harder to breathe. I needed to get away from him so that I could think clearly.
His hand reached out, stroking the side of my face with one finger. I cringed away from his hand, instantly thinking of him holding a knife and plunging it into Sandy’s body. He was a killer. Even though I still loved him, I now viewed him differently. He wasn’t the person that I thought he was, he wasn’t sweet, loving Luke that would do anything for me. He was sick, twisted Luke that would do anything to keep me. He scared me as he looked at me so pleadingly.
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed, pushing his hand away from my face.
He groaned. Tears glistened in his eyes as his shoulders slumped in defeat. “Please forgive me, Maisie. I’m nothing without you,” he rasped.
“Forgive you? What… how… Luke, I can’t even look at you right now!” I gasped, shaking my head as I fumbled with my seatbelt again, but my hands were shaking too badly so I couldn’t depress the button properly.
He made a strangled gargle and shook his head. “Don’t say that. I love you; I did all of this because I love you! Everything was for you. All of it.”
I gulped as my mind raced and whirled with thoughts. He’s going to be in so much trouble. The police will arrest him and he’ll be charged with murder, he’ll go to jail for years. I hated the fact that the thought of him being punished for his crimes actually made my heart ache. He was sick in the head, but I still loved him, even after all he’d done to me this last couple of weeks.
“Luke, we need to go to the police. You need to tell them what you did,” I whispered.
He shook his head adamantly, his eyes widening in apparent horror. “No. Maisie, no, please?” he begged. “Can’t we just forget this happened? I promise I’ll stop now; I won’t ever do anything like this again, please?” His eyes were going to be my undoing, so frightened looking, so pleading and desperate. I turned away from his expression. It wasn’t just about what he’d done to me; it was about the fact that he’d killed someone. We couldn’t just pretend like that didn’t happen, he needed to be held accountable and get the help that he clearly needed.