Chapter 8
Jeff walked down the hall past the empty apartment to his own and wondered when he would be getting new neighbors. The apartment had been vacant for about a month now, and usually they were rented pretty quickly because of the location.
Living in the heart of Litchfield Park, Arizona, was highly sought-after real estate. The streets were lined with palm trees and orange trees, and there were really good restaurants, as well as the four-star resort, The Wigwam. It also provided easy access to the freeway leading into Phoenix, as well as the surrounding cities. It was out of the way and quiet, yet in the center of everything. An empty apartment in this complex for more than a couple of weeks was an oddity.
He pulled his keys from his pocket and unlocked the door.
“Hi, Jeff!” his neighbor from across the hall said. “How was work?”
Jeff smiled. Like him, Missy was thirty years old, her curvy figure stood at about five foot two, her happy face framed with blonde curls. Her blue eyes glittered as if she was about to laugh, and her smile was the brightest and friendliest he had ever seen. She always seemed like life had just handed her a glass of champagne and a bowl of caviar.
“It was steady, but good. It’s always good when no one gets shot at.”
Missy threw her head back and laughed. “Well, I’m glad you came home without any holes in you. I’m off to a late dinner with a girlfriend, so I’ll see you later!”
He watched her walk down the hall. They had been neighbors for the past two years, and his wife, Sara, had once been good friends with Missy.
With a sigh, he pushed open the door and felt the same loneliness that greeted him every day.
He missed his wife.
The living room was tidy, with its dark blue sofa and loveseat, the flat-screen TV perched up on the wall, and two stacks of magazines piled on the coffee table. He immediately went to his bedroom and unbuckled his belt, removing the gun. Going to the closet, he bent down and put in the combination to the gun safe, then carefully laid his gun inside. Why he bothered, he didn’t know. He lived alone.
He took off his uniform and caught his reflection in the mirror. His hair was worn in a military buzz-cut; his tattooed arms and chest were thick with muscle. The bags under his eyes made him look older than his thirty years.
Sighing, he slipped on some sweats and a T-shirt. He looked at the queen-size bed that hadn’t been slept in since Sara left four months ago. He had tried to sleep in the bed, but it had been an exercise in futility. The sheets smelled like his wife, and he would torture himself with visions of them making love. He couldn’t bring himself to change the sheets or get rid of the bed.
No, he was better off on the couch, even if he now had to see a chiropractor twice a week.
He walked out to the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the fridge. Popping the top, he went back into the living room, sat down on the couch, and turned on the stereo. Elvis crooned, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.”
How fitting.
With his love of diners, Elvis, leather biker jackets, and just about anything having to do with the fifties and sixties, Jeff wondered if he had been born in the wrong era. He sometimes felt he belonged in a time where life just seemed simpler.
He had grown up in an upper-middle-class traditional home. His father had been a lawyer, his mother a homemaker. As an only child, Jeff never wanted for anything, whether it was food, shelter, or attention from his parents. He rarely had the normal fights most kids had with their parents while growing up, and they always stood by his desire to become a police officer. Now they were retired and spent a lot of time traveling and sending him postcards. They had been devastated when Sara left, as they loved her like one of their own.
Jeff picked up a picture from the side table. Even though he had seen the image thousands of times, he still grinned when he looked at it. He and Sara were at the Arizona State Fair on that beautiful fall day. The heat of summer had finally vacated the valley and the temperatures hung in the mid-eighties. They were strapped into a rollercoaster, waiting for takeoff. Sara’s brown hair hung to her chin, her straight white teeth gleaming in the sunlight. Jeff had pulled her close and snapped the picture with his phone. He wished they had taken off their sunglasses so he could see her pretty sky-blue eyes.
Scrubbing his face, he stood from the couch and got a glass of water from the kitchen. His life had been empty and incomplete since Sara left four months ago, and he hadn’t had the energy to try to move on. The ache in his chest was something he was almost used to, but the memories of Sara didn’t seem to want to fade.
But lately there was more to the ache. It was as if darkness was invading his soul. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it felt like a black cloud was following him around, sucking the very life out of him, an entity all into itself.
He sighed and stretched out on the couch, ready for another night of sleeplessness.