Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 87913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
It’s a great night, and I know as we walk Franny’s parents out to their car and they hug us goodbye that they feel the same.
“Are you okay?” I look down at Franny when her parents pull away and she tips her head back and smiles while leaning deeper into my side.
“Yeah, I’m glad everyone got along.”
“Me too.” I kiss the top of her head then lead her inside and take her upstairs with PJ following behind us.
As we go through our regular nightly routine and start getting ready for bed, it hits me that I almost missed out on this.
If she hadn’t ended up pregnant and been willing to accept my half-assed proposition of taking this slow, I would never have gotten to experience this type of intimacy with her. The moments I’m sure some people take for granted because they are so routine they seem inconsequential. Like standing next to your person brushing your teeth or having a cup of coffee in the morning talking about your plans for the day. Moments that I look forward to every day because they are filled with her presence and the peace that she brought into my life.
CHAPTER 24
Dayton
I always thought that I had a monster that lived within me just under the surface of my skin, but as I listen to Charles Feller tell the story of the day he murdered Alice in cold blood, I know I was wrong. I did what I had to in order to survive. He killed because he had seen Alice and had become obsessed with the idea of having her, and since he knew that she would want nothing to do with him, he decided to take what he wanted.
The morning of her murder, he watched Greg leave for work, and then, not long after that, he saw Greg’s mother pull up, only to leave a few minutes later with her grandson. It was the first time in all the months that he had been watching Alice that he knew for certain that she was alone. Realizing that it might be his only opportunity, he went over to her apartment, knocked, and when she opened the door, he asked if he could borrow a couple of eggs or something else; with the years that passed, he doesn’t remember the details.
Being Alice, she said yes and left him at the door, but he followed her inside. He could tell that she was nervous having him in the house with her, so he played it cool at first in an attempt to get her to let her guard down, but she was so freaked that she asked him to leave. It was then that the switch was flipped. He knew that if he left, he’d never have her, so he grabbed the closest thing he could use as a weapon, which was one of the knives from the butcher block on the counter, and used it in an attempt to get her to agree to have sex with him. Instead of being compliant, she tried to get away, and that was when he attacked. He stabbed her one time in the back, which slowed her down, allowing him to get on top of her and undo the button of her jeans. And realizing his intent, she fought harder against him. At that point, he claims he blacked out, and when he came to, he was on top of her, the knife was broken, and it was obvious that she was dead.
Covered in blood, he got undressed, showered, and took clothes from the back of a closet, shoving his bloody clothes into a trash bag. He snuck out a back window, tossed his stuff in a dumpster a few blocks over, and then went back to his brother’s house only to tell him that he was leaving town. And that is exactly what he did. He left and never looked back. It wasn’t until years later when he was sitting in a police station, that he even thought about Alice again. When the police made it obvious that they were going to do everything in their power to dismiss his confession, he decided that he wouldn’t bother trying to convince them.
At the age of seventy-six, it’s hard to believe that the old man with silver hair and drawn features sitting across the courtroom would be capable of the crime he committed, but when he finishes talking, there is no denying that he is a true monster or that he deserves to be locked away for the rest of his life.
I don’t know if his plea for forgiveness will ease his guilt or have any kind of effect on what happens to him when he dies, but I do know that it offers no comfort to Greg, his son, Nicole, or Heather. There isn’t a dry eye in the courtroom, as Judge Brown adds to his life sentence. And with so much animosity still swirling around Alice’s family and Greg, no one is brave enough to extend an olive branch before they leave the courthouse. I can only hope that, eventually, they will be able to sit down and talk. After weeks of getting to know Alice through her friends and family, I know she would have wanted that. She would have wanted them to forgive each other but I’m not sure that will ever happen.