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    Chapter 5



    The room lay in dead silence for a minute or two, and then I finally couldn't help it anymore, and suddenly said,

    "Maybe we should tell the po--"

    "No," Charles interrupted with a rush. He snapped out of his daze, and continued,

    "We'd best keep this to ourselves. I don't want cops flocking my house."

    "But we have to bur--"

    "No!" he suddenly exclaimed, now looking actually irritated. He realized this, and then calmed down a bit, saying, "What would people think if we were dragging a dead, 36 year old woman for a burial service?" I thought about it. It made sense...but what didn't make sense was why Charles was being so tense, and that he absolutely didn't want anyone to know about my dead wife in her closet. But I decided to let it go as I nodded, and announced,

    "I'm going to go now. I gotta....I gotta think this through for a minute. Alone." He nodded, and said,

    "See ya. And you promise to figure this whole mess out. All right?" I paused at the door, and replied,

    "That was the original plan."

    "And," he added quickly, before I was about to burst out the door. "I'm sorry about your wife." I nodded, but I wasn't sure if he saw me or not because I was facing away from him, and then walked outside.

    ---------------------------------------------

    I bumped on down the road, staring out the window aimlessly. And then something a little unexpected happened.

    As I looked out the window, I saw a shadowed figure walking down the road, right in front of my car. The tires squealed with resistance as I slammed down on the breaks. The figure stopped, and I stepped out of the car, ready to teach it a lesson or two.

    "What the heck is your problem?!" I cried out, flailing my arms. "I could've ki--" Suddenly, I stopped talking as I got close to the person whom I was rebuking. I took a step backward in my shock, because even though it was dark, I knew one thing:

    This person was my wife. Or at least, a clone of her. Her blonde hair stretched down over her shoulder, and she wore a disheveled skirt that barely went past her thighs. They looked tight, and I wondered how she ever took them off. If she ever took them off...I mean, wait, what am I saying?

    Her height was identical to my wife's, and though everything about her seemed much more dirty, there was no mistaking she was my wife. And I had been with my wife for 12 years, so I'd know.

    What's going on? I though, petrified in place, watching my unmoving wife stand there and gawk at me, seemingly just as confused as me. I know my wife's dead--I saw her body.

    "Who are you?" I then asked. It was dark, but I could swear I saw her give me a small grin and a playful wink before she ran off. I got back into my car, took a deep breath, and rested my head against the back of the seat.

    "Don't think about it," I assured myself. "Just coincidence...my wife is dead. So, that woman had nothing to do with this case at all." I grinned, and actually checkled a bit, as I continued to think outloud as I started the engine,

    "Elizabeth...ha. You've really gone crazy, old Chad. The darkness and shadow of the night were probably throwing you off. Yeah...all this detective and paranoid stuff is getting to your head." I shook my head, and then drove off, which was what I was doing already before I got incredibly side tracked.