The Missing Days

It’s a strange feeling to know that days have been lost from your life. Not in a where did the time go kind of way, but in a very real way. My name is Katrina Hodges and there are 10 days missing from my life. During that period of time, several things happened that can be traced back to me. One of those things is the murder of my husband and my sister, who were having a torrid affair.

It wasn’t as if they ever tried to hide their fling, they flaunted it in my face. Always kissing and holding hands, while walking through Central Park. Sometimes while looking at our marriage certificate, a desire to burn it would fire up within me. People often asked me about my relationship with Patrick but there are no words to describe the love that we shared. At its best it was a passionate affair that burned brightly and at its worse, well that remained to be seen. Was it possible that the one who murdered the two people who loved and tormented me the most, was me?

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the murderer coming back to the scene of the crime…” The voice sent my nerves into a frenzy. It belonged to Detective John Simpson, the man who was supposed to be solving Patrick and Cindy’s murder. Thus far he had only targeted me, he kept harping on my memory loss. “If you want to confess, we can go to the station.”

My eyes narrowed at him, nothing would feel better than to beat him with the broken umbrella that sat next to the door. The wheels in my mind began to turn as a memory surfaced. Patrick and Cindy were sitting in the living room, kissing and groping one another as the door flung open. Shots were fired and then nothing but red filled my head. “They weren’t shot though, they were stabbed.”

“Are we stating the obvious now? The knife that was used to kill them was already found with your fingerprints all over it,” Simpson looked at me expectantly. As if anyone had ever just confessed to murder because the cop looked at them. “For that alone you should be hauled into the station for questioning, unless you just want to confess now.”

“Really? You think that a murderer would just confess to their crime?” It was incomprehensible what was happening to me.

“Plus why would an accused person just say that they committed the crime without an attorney present?”
Detective Simpson said something but it was lost by the sound of a thunderstorm in the distance. The breath got caught in my throat as the rumble from the thunder rolled across the sky. My legs weakened, it was only a matter of time before they no longer supported me. The Detective seemed to notice to, and put his arm around me. “Are you alright? Something seems to have spooked you.”

He wasn’t wrong. Like a movie playing before my eyes, there was a shadowy figure lowering knife into Patrick. His body was on top of another one. The blood from both bodies made a river that raced to the fireplace. A maniacal laugh overrode the sounds of the storm raging outside. Then an outraged voice “You got what was coming to you.”

As the movie faded away, the realization of what had just been revealed from the flashback. The person who had killed Patrick and Cindy was me. Tears fell from my eyes as the rest of the puzzle began to piece together in my head. There was no doubt about who killed them, and the way that it had been covered up. It was so clear and yet no one ever wants to think of themselves as a murderer. Especially one who killed her only family and burned down the only home that she had ever known.
Another voice shook me out of the memory fog. It was Doctor Martin, my psychiatrist, but there was no reason for him to be at the remains of the old house. We hadn’t had an appointment or anything, so why was he here? The answer came in the form of the Detective, “Dr. Martin here says that he is your Doctor and is willing to divulge some secret but only with your permission.”

“That’s fine. Yes, please share.”

“Well Miss Connor here has multiple personalities. One of her personalities is an exact replica of her sister Katrina Hodges. There is no explanation right now as to why Cindy here has split off into Katrina or why she has this need to insinuate that her husband was sleeping with her sister.”

“So what you’re saying is that Miss Connor believes that she is her sister?”

“No, this personality IS her sister. It’s a very difficult subject matter to explain.”

“There is no truth to what this quack is saying. There is no way that there are multiple people living in my head,” Something had to clear my name of this craziness. From being a murder to having different personalities, how could any of this be true? After thrusting my hands into the pockets of my jacket, something crinkled. The men seemed to stare at me as a store receipt came out of the pockets. “This has to be evidence that clears me.”

“Kill me? No, poor little Cindy could never kill me. She is just a pawn in my game. When her husband rejected my advances, there was some anger. Everyone knew that he wasn’t the faithful husband that he presented to her and the world. One night the thought occurred to me that catching him and photographing him with his mistress would give me leverage against him,” For a second my thought was that it was one of the voices in my head. But the men turned and parted, revealing the real Katrina. “Of course the plan was to frame my sister but that clearly didn’t work out.”