The Conclusion Part 14

Part 14 The Conclusion

She turned and faced John with a look of complete surprise. “What are you doing here?” Elizabeth demanded to know. “Well, it is my family’s cottage, and I do come out here when I need to find the peace and quiet sorely missing in my life out there, but today I actually have no idea why I am here. To find some trace of you, to find some trace of me, maybe to end it all in the rocks below. I really don’t know,” John was heart broken, and seeing her here, now, had him even more conflicted.

“Maybe I should be asking you the same question. I mean you threw me out, we are no longer a couple, what made you think you could just head out to our cottage? Well?” Elizabeth had turned her back on him and was staring at the floor, one hand leaning on the oak table for balance. She turned around to face John. The look on her face was indescribable. “I might as well tell you,” she told him in a quiet voice.

“I probably should have told you from the start, but it was…too complicated, too…messy. I thought my past was just that. My past. But I guess it always has a way of catching up to you no matter how fast you run. The other night…that night when I left you. He came back.” “MALONEY!?” John shouted incredulously. “No….no…he’s still quite dead,” she intoned.

John was so intent on his conversation with Elizabeth, with watching her every movement, every twitch of her face, her eyes, her mouth, her hands, her feet, that he didn’t notice the headlights of a car winding its way up the dirt road to the cottage.

“No, Maloney was dead and buried five years ago. My other guy, my boyfriend at the time, the man who killed Maloney. He came back. That’s why I had to leave you. I was afraid he would do something horrible to you, I couldn’t take a chance. He just wouldn’t let me go. I thought he would, but….”

The car had killed its headlights as it neared the cottage and pulled off the side of the road. Whoever was behind the wheel was now walking up the drive to the cottage. He had a gun at the ready.

“You need to go, you need to go NOW!” Elizabeth was obviously upset. “No,” John insisted, we’re gonna fix this thing now, we’re going to take care of this bastard once and for all.” “John, you don’t understand, he’s supposed to meet me here tonight, I was going to tell him it was over, that I was going back to you, he might even be on his way, you need to go, he’s dangerous, you don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“Look,” John told her, “ I have protected you all this while, I am not about to stop just because some asshole is stalking you. Besides I have friends on the police force, as you know, Andrew would just love to get the guy who killed Maloney.

The door flew open. John turned to face the intruder. “Andrew!? What are you doing here?”