At Rope's End (A Dr. James Verraday Mystery #1)(11)

Verraday raised an eyebrow. “Did that seem a little fast to you?”

Kyle reflexively rubbed his chin like he was pulling something out of his memory. “Dating Rachel was like being hit by a hurricane. She liked to have sex twice a day. She was just so intense, totally present. At first. I felt like maybe she was the one, you know? One night, I was watching her light some candles for a dinner we made together. And I could picture spending the rest of my life with her. Having kids. Grandkids. Having this amazing life together. I would never have imagined it would end like this.”

“Did you ever ask her to marry you?”

“It was weird. The same week that I was planning to propose to her, she started to change. She began to have these mood swings for what seemed to be no reason. Started complaining about her job situation, how she wasn’t getting paid enough. She’d criticize me for my work, said I was a pawn of the system. She began to ask questions about how much I earned with my projects, which isn’t all that much really, but it was more than what she made at the store. She’d get angry and say it was so unfair that she was paid so much less than everybody else and that her life was degrading.”

“Did she want expensive things?” asked Maclean.

“No. It wasn’t that she wanted to live like the Housewives of Beverly Hills. Her anger seemed to be more about having low social status. I think if she’d even earned enough to put a decent roof over her head and not be dependent on other people financially, that would’ve been enough for her. But she had this rage that just kept growing.”

“Did you ever fight about it?” asked Verraday.

“Not at first. She had been so upbeat when we first met that I thought it must be something temporary getting her down. She didn’t have her career sorted out, but I mean, who does nowadays? You get your degree and all it guarantees you is that you’ll be paying down your student loan for the next ten years. I thought she’d work her way through it. So I tried to be patient with her. But over the next few weeks it escalated more and more, blaming me for her problems, blaming me for everything. She was constantly picking fights.”

“Was Rachel living at your apartment when she was murdered?” asked Maclean.

“No. Around the same time she began to get angry, she started spending less time here.”

“Whose idea was that?”

“Hers. I hoped it was something we could work through and that I would get the old Rachel back. She was worth it. But it became impossible. She stopped wanting to have sex. Like not just ‘not in the mood,’ but getting upset when I even touched her. Saying I was oppressive, boring. I was still in love with her but I just couldn’t figure out what to do to make things work.”

“How did it end between you two?” asked Verraday.

“She called me up one night and asked me to meet her in a bar. She sounded happy, like her old self. I was hoping that, you know, maybe Rachel had worked through her feelings and things would be the way they used to be. So even though I was on a deadline, I agreed to go out. But when I got to the bar, she was sitting there at a table with some guy, looking drunk, flirting with him.”

“That sounds awkward,” said Verraday.

Kyle blew a breath out through his teeth. “Awkward isn’t the word for it. I’ve never had anybody pull anything like that on me before.”

“Was there any kind of a confrontation?” asked Maclean.

“With the guy? No. He was as surprised to see me as I was to see him. As soon as he realized I was ‘the boyfriend,’ he found the first excuse he could and got up and left.”

“What did Rachel have to say about it?”

“She told me she’d just started talking to the guy in the bar while she was waiting for me. Said he was gay and was having problems with his boyfriend that she was helping him work through. It was a total bullshit story. She just wanted the attention. So I called her on it.”

“And what happened?”

“She laughed at me and started shouting in the middle of the bar that I was a pathetic asshole.”

Kyle ran a hand through his hair and tugged on a lock of it. “Everybody in the place was looking around to see what the commotion was. I’d finally had enough. Of all of it, I mean. Her rejections, her insults, her moods. So I got up and walked out. I could still hear her laughing this crazy, maniacal sort of laugh as I left the bar. That was the last time I ever saw her in person.”

Verraday leaned forward toward Kyle. “How’d you take it? I know I’d be furious.”

“It was degrading. But when I saw that look on her face, heard her screaming, I finally saw past my own shit and realized that this wasn’t about me, that whatever was bothering her had to be some kind of psychological issue. So I called her the next day to tell her so. Before I could say anything, she apologized. Profusely. I accepted her apology. But I also told her I would only see her from now on if she got professional counseling and that I’d help her get it.”

“And?”

“She went totally ballistic. Screamed at me that I was just like her parents and that I was even more of an asshole than she had thought. Then she hung up.”

“What day was that?” asked Maclean.

“It was a Sunday, second week of August, I think.”

“But you didn’t file the missing persons report until September thirtieth. What happened in between?”