The Envelope from California

I’m running. I’m running as fast as I can. Daring to look back just once knowing deep inside I won’t find him there. And with relief, I don’t see him. I hear something drop, but I can’t look back. Not ever, not now.

Amelia Torres walks drowsily along the sidewalk of the dark, spare street. Today has been an unpleasant and difficult day and her manager had done nothing except add onto the distress. She had already decided she would walk into her little home, get herself some champagne, and put on her favorite show.

At last, she stood in the lobby, hurriedly pressing the buttons holding the numbers to her pin code. A bit of a struggle later, Amelia stood awkwardly inside the lobby of her apartment as she waited for the elevator. The waiting finally ended as she let out a sigh of tiredness. She threw off her coat, hung her purse on the hook beside her door, and flopped down on the couch.

“Why, why does everything have to be so difficult as an adult?” Amelia said out loud, not quite sure who she was talking to. 

A while later when she felt more relaxed and could trust her feet, she slowly walked to her tiny yet clean kitchen and poured herself a glass of champagne. Taking a lengthy and assuring sip, Amelia noticed a tiny envelope sitting below her doorstep, a little to the side. Strange, how she had ignored such detail but came up with the conclusion that she was most likely too tired to notice it.

She assumed the piece of paper was just junk mail but grew curious enough to at least check it out. Her tense fingers touched the sleek paper as her sharp, dark eyes examined it closely.

“To Amelia Torres, 32 Mainstreet, Gaville Apartments

From: Fremont, California”

Her heart skipped reading the name of that place. She was hesitant but the peculiarity got the most of her. Amelia found her way around the envelope and slowly opened it, only to reveal what she dreaded deep inside when she had first read; “Fremont, California”. 

A loud thud invades the vacant silence of her apartment after she feels the object inside the envelope. Her breath quickened and she could hear her heart, almost louder than the sound of her breathing. Amelia looked around her as if she could find a human standing there, slowly watching her as she panicked over the envelope. 

A thought came to her mind.

“Do I burn it? Do I throw it out again?” she thought to herself, but slowly retreated to a smarter choice.

Her hand, as if automatically, reached out to her keys and her coat, which had laid lifelessly on the ground as everything had happened. The other hand furiously reached out to the knob on her front door and out she went into the gloomy, cold night. 

-12:13 A.M.-

Amelia Torres comes home once again that night, thinking of herself as a normal woman trying to work out her life. Immediately, she walks over to the bathroom and takes a subtle, extensive bath and washes off her heavy makeup. Her hands shake but she tries to force in sleep, not wanting to face reality a second more. 

She can’t bring herself to close her eyes. She turns to glance at the alarm clock which sits there quietly as the time glows softly in a gentle and nightly light. 1:00 AM. Amelia has planned everything she will say tomorrow morning and nothing will go wrong. Nothing. 

The following morning, she gets up bright and early. 7:00 A.M. She had had a restless sleep the previous night, twisting and turning trying to work out things among her messy and scattered thoughts. Now, she could not afford anything to go out of plan.

After taking a short, quick shower, she walks over to her vanity and slides a crisp and bold shade of lipstick across her thin lips and highlights her lashes with some mascara. As she turns to leave, she instantly remembers to conceal her dark circles and does so. Stupid Amelia. Finally, she glances at her reflection and flashes a fake smile which she had been practicing since morning.

“Perfect. A casual woman trying to keep a roof over her head,” said Amelia to her reflection. 

She pulls up to the Police Station, clutching the sanitized envelope while she flushes out the remaining memories of last night. She had expected the navy and white, modern interior. A tall, built-up man in a police uniform approaches her as she tries to put on her best “worried” look.

“Officer Williams. How may we help you today?” 

“Hi, I’m Amelia Torres. I’m not sure how to explain this.”

“Why don’t you come and have a seat, Ms. Torres?”

Amelia anxiously sits on the fancy, blue leather of the expensive armchair across from the officer. He has piercing blue eyes with matching golden hair that flawlessly sits over his tan, reddish skin. Quite attractive he is, thinks Amelia. 

“So, I was checking my mail today, as usual of course, and I received this odd envelope and when I opened it, I found a letter. I brought the letter with me.” Amelia says to the officer as she retreats the envelope with the single letter in it and hands it to him. 

“Amelia,

I want you to meet me near Hutchinson lake at 9:00 pm sharp, today. Don’t be late.” 

“And do you know this man, Ms. Torres?” replies the officer calmly.

“No, never heard of him. I just received this today and had no idea how to handle this situation, so I came here right away.”

“Did you find anything else in this envelope?”

Amelia hesitates slightly before she replies. She tries to cover her slight mistake of hesitation by pretending to think about his question. “No.”

The officer thinks about the situation for a while and says that his team would like to search her house for precaution. Amelia didn’t think they would go this far. Has she made a mistake? She’d look suspicious if she says no, so she agrees. 

11:13 A.M.

Amelia is back inside her safe apartment but she doesn’t feel so safe right now. Instead of being alone, she’s surrounded by investigators. They all crawl over her house obediently and without any trace of guilt. They have to do this. But she knows that they won’t find anything. She knows because she’s wiped out anything that’d be useful to their investigation. That phone in the envelope, she threw that out too out on her way last night.

Amelia had no choice, but to kill Tom Collins. He was a witness to the murder of their baby, and she was that murderer. Why? She doesn’t know. It’s not like she didn’t love him or their baby, but she doesn’t know why she killed their sweet daughter. It was a horrifying, terrible night and she has promised herself to move on from that, to start a new life. 

She’d hurt Tom badly before she ran away from him that day, scared he would turn her in. She’d hit and hit and hit him, thinking he’d be dead. She ran as fast as she could, but it wasn’t enough. That phone was her old phone, with all their memories, pictures of their baby and their texts. Amelia knew the police could recover everything, so she was going to throw it out onto the lake back in Fremont, California as she was running.

But then at the time, she couldn’t find it. That must have been what dropped. Scared to her guts, she had to start running again and never, ever come back. Yesterday night, she had received that horrible letter which had invaded her new life and she would not let any man ruin it again. And there she was. In front of the man she loved, the man who was the father of their dead daughter. He had chosen a well-hidden spot where she was sure nobody would see. Maybe he had planned to kill her as well. Which was only better for her. 

Oh, how scared he’d looked right before she drowned the poor man. She looked around and made sure nobody had seen, even in this secluded area. Now nobody knew. She was finally free. 

Her thoughts are interrupted by a phone call, but not hers. Officer Williams, currently leading the investigating team, answers his call.

After the brief call, Officer Williams turns to Amelia and says, “I’m sorry Mrs. Torres, a man has claimed to have found a body beneath the water near his neighborhood. I’m afraid this will have to wait.”

And Amelia froze dead.